Previous research has shown that virtuous leader behavior in the form of benevolent leadership has considerable impact on employee creativity. However, little is known as to how and under what conditions these constructs are linked. In the current research, we proposed and tested a moderated mediation model positing leader–member exchange as a mediator, and employee power-distance orientation as a moderator of this relationship. Two studies were conducted to test our hypothesized model. In Study 1, repeated measured data collected from 284 (...) Chinese employees in an information technology company demonstrated that benevolent leadership had a lagged effect on LMX. In Study 2, analyses of multisource and lagged data from 391 Chinese employees in 42 research and development teams, and their direct supervisors indicated that benevolent leadership was positively related to supervisor-rated employee creativity via LMX. In addition, the relationship between benevolent leadership and LMX was stronger for employees high in power-distance orientation. Theoretical implications of benevolent leadership’s research and practical contributions concerning promoting creativity in organizations where benevolent leaders prevail are also discussed. (shrink)

Whether team task conflict is beneficial or harmful to team innovation has long been controversial, and empirical studies on the team task conflict–team innovation relationship were inconsistent. Drawing on the contingency model of team innovation, the current study examined how team task conflict interacts with two types of team supportive climates, namely team support for innovation (TSFI) and team psychological safety (TPS), in predicting team innovation via team information elaboration. We tested our hypotheses using multi-source and lagged data collected from (...) 361 employees working in 98 research and development teams. As expected, team information elaboration mediated the interaction effects between team task conflict and team supportive climates on team innovation. In particular, team task conflict had a positive indirect effect on team innovation via team information elaboration when TSFI or TPS was high. However, such indirect effect was negative when TSFI was low and was not significant when TPS was low. Residualized relative weight analysis comparing the moderation effects further suggests that TFSI and TPS are equally important team climates in activating the beneficial effect of team task conflict. Theoretical and practical implications are discussed. (shrink)