Presentation 1

Title

Leading for proactivity and wise proactivity: Some findings and new directions

Presenter

Sharon K. Parker

Abstract

This presentation will present an overview model linking leadership and both the level/frequency of proactive behaviour and the extent to which that proactivity is “wise.” Wise proactivity refers to proactive behaviour that considers the task and strategic context, the social and relational context, and one's own self-regulation. I argue that, although some aspects of leadership are expected to affect both aspects, there are also distinct leadership implications. The presentation will include some existing published studies by myself and colleagues, some new studies, and some suggested new directions for the field. I will also outline practical implications.

Presentation 2

Title

Some anger works, some anger hurts: Leader’s display of anger and employee proactive behaviour

Presenter

Wu Liu

Abstract

Leader’s anger may have complicated effects on employee proactive behaviours or behaviours that are self-initiated, future-oriented, and change-inducing. In this project, we differentiate two types of anger— integral anger (anger directly targeted at something in the tasks) and incidental anger (anger unrelated to and/or lacking a clear target). We discuss how these two types of anger may influence employee proactive behaviours differently. We collected experience sampling method (ESM) data of 799 matched daily surveys from 82 leader-member dyads to test our hypotheses.

Presentation 3

Title

A follower-centric perspective on empowering leadership: The role of employee voice

Presenter

Troy A. Smith

Abstract

Integrating role-based followership theory and the elaboration likelihood model of social persuasion, we analyse how two forms of follower voice impact the extent to which leaders empower the voicing follower. Rather than taking a traditional leader-centric approach to analysing how empowering leadership impacts followers’ motivation and performance, we use a follower-centric perspective to examine whether follower challenging and supportive voice indirectly impact a leader’s decision to empower his/her voicing follower through the leader’s perception of the follower’s organisational commitment. We also explore whether follower citizenship behaviours magnify or buffer the effects that challenging voice and supportive voice have on the leader’s perception of the follower’s organisational commitment. A multi-source and multi-time point research study conducted in the People’s Republic of China mostly supported our theoretical model. Specifically, we found that supportive voice had a positive indirect relationship with empowering leadership through the leader’s perception of the follower’s organisational commitment, especially when the follower engaged in higher levels of supervisor-focused citizenship behaviours. Inversely, we found that challenging voice had a conditional negative indirect relationship with empowering leadership through the leader’s perception of the follower’s organisational commitment, when the follower engaged in lower levels of supervisor-focused citizenship behaviours.

Presentation 4

Title

How should I sell ideas to my leader: Do framing tactics matter?

Presenter

Jian Liang

Abstract

The potential value of employee voice largely depends on whether they can draw the manager’s attention. However, it is not easy to persuade the leader to endorse a challenging idea. In this study, we emphasise the agency of employees and explore how and when the ways of providing voice are associated with leader endorsement. Drawn from the framing literature and cognition in persuasion theory, we theorise that both form of voice and frame valence interact with each other to facilitate leader endorsement through perceived voice attractiveness. Furthermore, we demonstrate when these tactics are more effective by examining the moderating role of employee organisational status. Two studies were conducted to test those ideas: results from a company’s archival data suggested that promotive voices were more likely to be endorsed by managers when they are loss-framed, while prohibitive voices were more likely to be endorsed by managers when they were gain-framed; results from an issue-based survey data found that voice attractiveness mediated the interactive effect of form of voice and frame valence on voice endorsement and this indirect relationship was contingent on the level of employee organisational status. The implications for future voice research will be discussed.

Presentation 5

Title

Narcissistic and humble leadership in team potency and creativity: A tale of two styles

Presenter

Yaping Gong

Abstract

Research has shown that narcissists are often creative individuals and rise to leadership positions. Departing from the positive relationship between narcissism and creativity at the individual level, we contend that narcissism as a leadership style harms team creativity because it reduces team potency. Grounded in paradox theory, we further bring in humble leadership as a contradictory style and boundary condition, theorising its co-existence and cross-section with narcissistic leadership. Our conceptual model predicts that humble leadership counter-balances the detrimental effects of narcissistic leadership on team potency and consequently team creativity via team potency. Using multi-source, two-wave data from 83 teams comprising 589 members and their team leaders, we found general support for the model. Our findings underscore the importance of incorporating both bright and dark leadership to understand team creativity, and offer implications for the multilevel generalisation of theory in creativity research.

Presentation 6

Title

Women in business: Gender-professional identity integration (G-PII) and creativity

Presenter

Chi-Ying Cheng

Abstract

While female leaders are becoming a growing trend in many professional domains including business, women encounter unique challenges associated with their gender identity at work. For example, Carly Fiorina, former CEO of Hewlett-Packard, attributed her fall to being a female leader working in a male-dominated industry. Gender is usually an easily observed and salient aspect of a person’s identity. This suggests that female leaders working in a male-dominated industry may experience conflict between their gender and professional identities because their dual identities give rise to different gender-related expectations. I argue that how female business leaders negotiate between their gender and business identities influences their creative performance. Creative cognition theory proposes that creativity requires novel combinations of existing requisite knowledge sets. These knowledge sets, in turn, are bundled with social identities. I hypothesise that identity integration—or individual differences in perceived compatibility between social identities—predicts creative idea generation and creative idea selection. Study 1 found that female businesspersons with high levels of gender-professional identity integration (G-PII)—or those who perceived their gender and professional identities as compatible—generated more creative ideas for identity-relevant tasks than those with low G-PII. However, the same effect was not evident for non-identity relevant tasks. Study 2 further supported the proposed proposition using a creative idea selection task. These findings show that the degree to which female business leaders integrate their female and business identities may be related to the extent to which multiple knowledge systems can be accessed simultaneously, which in turn facilitates both creative idea generation and selection. Theoretical and managerial implications are discussed.

Presentation 7

Title

Enhancing the creativity of employees’ ideas: A quasi-experimental investigation of rewards, choice, and personality

Presenter

Aichia Chuang

Abstract

We conducted a quasi-experimental field study of an organisation-wide suggestion programme to examine the effects of two general classes of rewards—those that benefited the idea generator (Self) and those that benefited charities (Other)—on the creativity of ideas employees submitted to the programme. We also examined whether having a choice of these rewards contributed to creativity and whether creative personality interacted with reward category (Self vs. Other) to affect creativity. Finally, we probed the effectiveness of intrinsic motivation (IM) and creative self-efficacy (CSE) as mediators of these effects. Results showed no main effects for reward category, yet having a choice produced more creative ideas, and creative personality interacted with reward category such that in the Other condition, employees with more creative personalities produced ideas of greater creativity than the employees with less creative personalities. CSE mediated the effects of both choice and the reward x personality interaction whereas IM mediated the effects of choice alone. The philosophical school of thought of Confucius inspired our identifying the Other reward type and investigating the interaction involving rewards and creative personality, paving a new way of seeing how rewards can boost creativity, particularly for employees having high levels of creative personality.