Research Article
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A social identity perspective on leadership and employee creativity
Giles Hirst,
Rolf van Dick,
Daan van Knippenberg,
Corresponding Author
Giles Hirst
Monash University—Management, 6th Floor Building, N Caulfield Campus, Melbourne, Australia
Management, 6th Floor Building, N Caulfield Campus, Monash University, Melbourne 3145, Australia.Search for more papers by this authorRolf van Dick
Goethe University—Institute of Psychology, Frankfurt, Germany
Search for more papers by this authorDaan van Knippenberg
Erasmus University, Rotterdam, Netherlands
Search for more papers by this authorGiles Hirst,
Rolf van Dick,
Daan van Knippenberg,
Corresponding Author
Giles Hirst
Monash University—Management, 6th Floor Building, N Caulfield Campus, Melbourne, Australia
Management, 6th Floor Building, N Caulfield Campus, Monash University, Melbourne 3145, Australia.Search for more papers by this authorRolf van Dick
Goethe University—Institute of Psychology, Frankfurt, Germany
Search for more papers by this authorDaan van Knippenberg
Erasmus University, Rotterdam, Netherlands
Search for more papers by this authorAbstract
This research uses a social identity analysis to predict employee creativity. We hypothesized that team identification leads to greater employee creative performance, mediated by the individual's creative effort. We hypothesized that leader inspirational motivation as well as leader team prototypicality would moderate the relationship between identification and creative effort. Consistent with these predictions, data based on 115 matched pairs of employee-leader ratings in a research and development context showed an indirect relationship between team identification and creative performance mediated by creative effort. The analyses also confirmed the expected moderated relationships. Leader inspirational motivation enhanced the positive association between identification and creative effort, especially when leader prototypicality was high. We discuss the value of social identity analyses of employee creativity and of the integration of social identity and transformational leadership analyses. Copyright © 2009 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.
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