Abstract:

As a style with Chinese cultural characteristics, paternalistic leadership has significant influences on multi-level creativity. Based on the previous empirical research, the paper not only examines direct relationships between paternalistic leadership, its dimensions and multi-level creativity, but also expounds their interactive effects, moderating effects and internal mechanisms. The paper develops a model of “mechanisms of paternalistic leadership’s effects on both employee and team creativity”, and proposes that the effect of paternalistic leadership on employee creativity is moderated by workplace situational and individual difference, also mediated by psychological cognition and social relationships, while its influence on team creativity is mediated by team cognition and team interaction. Future research should strive to expand the levels of research, enrich research methods, and further explore the mechanisms of paternalistic leadership on multi-level creativity from a cross-cultural perspective.

Key words: paternalistic leadership, employee creativity, team creativity