پیوند رهبری تحول گرا و خلاقیت کارکنان در صنعت مهمان نوازی: تاثیر هویت نقش خلاق، اعتماد به نفس خلاق و پیچیدگی کار

Integrating transformational leadership, creativity and social cognitive theories, we explore the relationships among transformational leadership, creative role identity, creative self-efficacy, job complexity and creativity. Structural equation modeling (SEM) with bootstrapping estimation was conducted using data from 395 supervisor–employee dyads from international tourist hotels in Taiwan. The results show that supervisors' transformational leadership positively influenced employee creative self-efficacy and creativity. Moreover, creative role identity was found to mediate the relationship between transformational leadership and employee creative self-efficacy, while both creative role identity and creative self-efficacy were found to mediate the relationship between transformational leadership and employee creativity. Specifically, job complexity was found to moderate the relationship between transformational leadership and employee creative role identity, the relationship between employee creative role identity and creative self-efficacy, and the relationship between employee creative self-efficacy and creativity. We discuss the implications of these results for research and practice in hospitality context.

As people spend more time to improve their leisure lives, firms in the hospitality industry are now immersed in a highly competitive environment and need a more creative work-force to provide high quality services (Claver-Cortes, Molina-Azorin, & Pereira-Moliner, 2006). Therefore, an increasing amount of attention has been paid to exploring the antecedents of employee creativity, which is required to generate novel ideas for new products, services and process, especially in the field of hospitality research (Amabile, Barsade, Mueller, & Staw, 2005; Horng & Lee, 2009; Robinson & Beesley, 2010; Wong & Ladkin, 2008; Wong & Pang, 2003). For example, leadership behavior, such as that highlighted in transformational leadership theory, has been examined for its links with employee creativity (Shin & Zhou, 2003). Transformational supervisors motivate employees to achieve goals by higher-level self-reinforcement, instead of by developing reciprocal exchange relationships with them (Bass, Avolio, & Goodheim, 1987; Bass & Steidlmeier, 1999). In contrast to a focus on external rewards, transformational leadership adopts approaches consistent with social cognitive theory (Bandura, 1986), and supports the view that self-regulation is the main motivator to foster specific employee behaviors. As a result, the first objective of this study was to integrate the theories of transformational leadership and creativity in the context of the hospitality industry. In addition to investigating the contribution of transformational leadership to employee creativity, a review of the literature shows that few recent studies have emphasized the importance of the critical mediators between these two variables. Using a social cognitive theory perspective (Bandura, 1986; Bandura & Locke, 2003), Tierney and Farmer (2011) demonstrated that creative role identity and creative self-efficacy are positively related to employee creativity. Creative role identity reflects whether an individual views himself/herself as a creative person (Farmer, Tierney, & Kung-McIntyre, 2003), and creative self-efficacy reflects to what degree an individual believe he/she has the ability to produce creative outcomes (Tierney & Farmer, 2002). Based on these earlier works, we adopted creative role identity and creative self-efficacy as two mediators between transformational leadership and individual creativity in a three-path mediation model. Meanwhile, we also further developed an integrated theory by testing this long mediating chain. According to the results based on data from 395 supervisor–employee dyads from international tourist hotels in Taiwan, transformational leadership has significant direct influences on employee creative self-efficacy and creativity, and at the same time, has a significant indirect influence on employee creative self-efficacy via the mediator of creative role identity, as well as has a significant indirect influence on employee creativity via the mediators of both creative role identity and creative self-efficacy. Moreover, as job complexity is an important contextual factor that influences employee creativity (Oldham & Cummings, 1996), employees in complex jobs tend to express greater intrinsic motivation to foster creativity than those in routine and simple jobs (Amabile, 1988; Oldham & Cummings, 1996; Shalley, Zhou, & Oldham, 2004). The results of our empirical study indicate that there are stronger relationships between transformational leadership and creative role identity for front line group than for back office group, as well as between creative role identity and creative self-efficacy, and between creative self-efficacy and creativity. In other words, employees in complex jobs, such as front line work, can have more recognition of their creative role identity, more confidence in their creative self-efficacy, and a better focus on creative ideas, while those in routine jobs, such as back office work, may have less recognition of their creative role identity, less confidence in their creative self-efficacy, and have more constraints with regard to the development of creativity. Overall, this study contributes to the literature by conceptually and empirically linking transformational leadership, creativity and social cognitive theories using the variables of transformational leadership, creative role identity, creative self-efficacy, creativity, and job complexity in an integrated model. The results of this research also add to a more comprehensive understanding of transformational leadership as it relates to employee creative outcomes in the context of hospitality.

This study makes four contributions to the hospitality literature. First of all, we developed and examined a model that integrates the theories of transformational leadership and creativity. Although a number of past studies have reviewed the relationship between transformational leadership and creativity (Gong et al., 2009; Gumusluoglu & Ilsev, 2009; Shin & Zhou, 2003), this is the first to investigate the direct and indirect effects of supervisors' transformational leadership on individual creativity in a hospitality context. Since organizations in the field of hospitality require creative employees to deliver high quality services and maintain profitability (Lin & Wu, 2008; Robinson & Beesley, 2010; Wong & Pang, 2003), the main contribution of this work is thus this model, which has a strong theoretical foundation and can be used to assess the influences of transformational leadership on a number of fundamental creative outcomes based on hotel industry data in Taiwan. Meanwhile, the results of this empirical study support the conclusion of prior creativity scholars that transformational leadership has significant effects with regard to fostering the creativity of individual employees. Second, our results show that increases in employee creative role identity and creative self-efficacy are both related to increases in their performance of creativity. As predicted, our findings reveal that strengthening employees' sense of role identity for creative work can enhance their self-efficacy with regard to creative tasks. Our findings also show that if employees can be made to feel that they are capable of successfully engaging in creative work, then both their self-efficacy and actual attainment with regard to creativity can be enhanced due to this causal chain mechanism, especially in the field of hospitality research (Bandura & Locke, 2003; Karatepe et al., 2006; Ogaard et al., 2008). Third, our conclusions extend Tierney and Farmer's (2011) work by examining employee creative role identity as a mediator of the impact of transformational leadership on employees' creative self-efficacy, and also expand the work of Shin and Zhou (2003) by investigating employee creative self-efficacy and creative self-efficacy as mediators between supervisors with transformational leadership and employee creativity. More specifically, this is the first work that examines the mediating roles of both employee role identity and self-efficacy in the relationship between leadership style and employee behavior in the hotel industry. Our results are consistent with social cognitive theory (Bandura, 1986), which suggests that individuals' beliefs in their capabilities to produce creative outcomes, and the strength of their self identification as creative people at work, both have critical influences in the causal chain mechanism between transformational leadership and employees' creative performance. Most important of all, the results of our study contribute to the literature by treating employee creative role identity and creative self-efficacy as variables that connect transformational leadership, social cognitive theory and creativity theories in the hospitality context. Finally, as the hotel industry has many very different jobs (e.g., front line and back office ones) which are characterized by different levels of job complexity, our empirical results revealed a stronger relationships between transformational leadership and employee creative role identity for front line employees than for back office ones, as well as between employee creative role identity and creative self-efficacy, and between employee creative self-efficacy and creativity. These conclusions also support previous arguments that employees in more complex jobs, like front line work, are likely to have a higher level of recognition of their creative role identity, have more confidence in their creative self-efficacy, and a better focus on creativity, while those in more routine jobs, like back office work, may have lower levels of recognition of their creative role identity, less confidence in their creative self-efficacy, and more inhibitions about their creativity (Amabile, 1988; Oldham & Cummings, 1996; Shalley et al., 2004). 5.1. Practical implications All innovations begin with creative ideas, and the successful implementation of creativity depends on developing these beyond their original state (Amabile et al., 1996, 2005). Since creativity is one way for organizations to obtain and maintain competitive advantages (Amabile et al., 1996), and work environment factors, such as styles of leadership, are regarded as antecedents of employees' creative behavior (Amabile et al., 2004; Shalley & Gilson, 2004), it is important for practitioners to learn more about any causal chain relationships that may exist between leadership and employee creative performance. We thus suggest that hotel companies should make more efforts to train their supervisors and encourage them to improve their reciprocal relationships with their employees. With a greater awareness of this, supervisors should be better able to detect the direct and indirect influences of transformational leadership in the psychological processes that relate to creativity. In addition, by training supervisors to utilize transformational leadership, companies in the hospitality industry could help their employees to obtain the creative skills required by increasing their experiences of engaging in creative activities, as well as their confidence to successfully achieve creative tasks. Since the hotel industry is labor intensive, greater employee confidence and performance of creativity can not only improve customer satisfaction, but also promote customer loyalty with repeat patronage. In addition, as the business world of hotel industry is facing with more competitions, employees who have abilities and experience gained from various jobs are valuable assets that companies need to nurture and retain. For example, employees with the experience of front line work can better understand the expectations of customers, while those with the experience of back office work can better understand the administration processes that support the operations of hotels. Most important of all, both kinds of experience are vital for the smooth running and profitability of hotels, as well as the gaining and maintaining of competition advantages. Therefore, supervisors or HR managers should provide employees with more opportunities for job rotation so that they can obtain a richer variety of work experiences. Employees with many different experiences and capabilities are expected to have greater motivation and self-efficacy to satisfy customers, as well as improve the service processes of hotels (Mohsin & Lockyer, 2010; Robinson & Beesley, 2010; Wong & Pang, 2003). 5.2. Limitations and directions for future research This study has a number of limitations as follows. First, most of our data were collected from employees' self-reports, raising the possibility of CMV (Podsakoff et al., 2003). However, because the variables examined in this work, i.e., creative role identity and creative self-efficacy, reveal individuals' psychological states, it is proposed that there is a sound theoretical basis for collecting this data from the employees themselves (Bandura & Cervone, 1983). In addition, we also collected data about employee creativity from the related supervisors, and this is one factor that may reduce or prevent CMV biases. Most important of all, the results of the 4-factor measurement model reveal better fit indices compared the 3-factor model, the 2-factor model, and 1-factor model, while the differences in χ2 between the all models were significant (all p < .05), providing evidence that this may have lowered the potential effects of CMV ( Podsakoff et al., 2003; Podsakoff & Organ, 1986). Second, our proposed model was derived from theories proposed in a Western context, and we collected data and examined the model based on hotel industry data obtained in Taiwan. Although prior studies have shown support for the relationships between transformational leadership and employee creativity across cultures ( Gong et al., 2009; Gumusluoglu & Ilsev, 2009; Shin & Zhou, 2003), there have been no previous studies utilizing employee creative role identity and creative self-efficacy as mediators to integrate these two theories in a Chinese society. Therefore, our research results should be applied to other cultural contexts with some caution, and future works to replicate these findings in other cultures could help to prove their validity ( Zhou & Su, 2010). Third, we did not consider the effects of transactional leadership ( Bass et al., 2003), such as when supervisors provide rewards and recognition based on whether employees successfully carry out their roles and assignments. Previous studies have claimed that transformational leadership has a greater influence than transactional leadership, and thus controlled for the effects of the latter when investigating transformational leadership ( Bass & Steidlmeier, 1999; Jung & Avolio, 1999; Sosik et al., 1997). Future research could consider transformational leadership together with transactional leadership and investigate their combined effects on employee creativity. Finally, our study could be repeated under different industry contexts to examine the interacting causal relationships between transformational leadership and employee creativity in other businesses. Although we used structural equation modeling to carry out a simultaneous examination of our entire proposed model in the hospitality sector, the results still need to be taken cautiously. We suggest that future research could address this issue by obtaining data from experimental and longitudinal research in different industries to strengthen causal interpretation of the interacting relationship between transformational leadership and employee creativity.