رفتارهای رهبری و خلاقیت گروهی در سازمان چینی : نقش فرایندهای گروهی

In seeking to understand the factors contributing to work group creativity in Chinese organizations, we explored the roles of two different leadership styles (transformational and authoritarian) that Chinese leaders play in group creativity through influencing internal group processes, i.e., collective efficacy and knowledge sharing among group members. We tested our hypotheses with a sample of 163 work groups involving 973 employees in twelve Chinese companies. We found transformational leadership to relate positively but authoritarian leadership to relate negatively to group creativity, mediated by both collective efficacy and knowledge sharing among members within the group. We discuss the implications of these findings for research on group leadership, group creativity and cross-cultural management.

To maintain or enhance effectiveness within rapidly changing and extremely competitive environments, organizations have to be creative at the individual, group, and organizational levels (Drazin et al., 1999 and Mumford et al., 2002). The challenge for organizational researchers is to identify the factors that contribute to creativity at these different levels within the firm. The majority of the research on creativity has focused on individual traits, abilities and cognitive styles (Shalley, Zhou, & Oldman, 2004). At the group level, the tendency for individual members to conform and align with the views of the majority of the members in the group (De Dreu & West, 2001) may discourage the creative thinking that is necessary for innovation. In this context, group leaders play a critical role in counteracting this tendency toward conformity and in releasing group members' creative potential. Empirical research has reported that leaders can enhance subordinate creativity by showing technical and creative problem-solving skills (Mumford et al., 2002); providing support (Madjar et al., 2002 and Oldham and Cummings, 1996), building intrinsic motivation (Shin & Zhou, 2003), or creating a positive mood (Madjar et al., 2002). This stream of research has focused primarily on leaders' influence on individual team members. However, the role of leadership in stimulating the entire group's creativity remains underexplored (Zhou & Shalley, 2008). The current study extends our understanding of how leaders influence group creativity through creativity-enabling group processes. The specific research question that the current study seeks to answer is: What behaviors of the leader are conducive to group creativity and what are the group processes that serve to bridge leader behaviors and group creativity? To address the above questions, we conducted a field study involving 163 work groups and 973 group members in 12 Chinese companies. We propose that collective efficacy and within-group knowledge sharing among members are two important group processes that account for the influence of leadership behaviors on group creativity. The changing nature of management practices in China due to economic reforms and globalization provides an interesting setting to test our hypotheses on the comparative role of modern leadership theory (transformational) with traditional Chinese leadership (authoritarian). Our study can contribute not only to knowledge about team leadership and group creativity, but also to management practices within a cross-cultural context, such as leading multi-cultural teams. The results should be both locally relevant and globally meaningful.

As simple as this study may seem, the implications of the findings for both practice and research are non-trivial. China's economic growth through imitation and exploitation of learning has led to incredible results. China recognizes that its future growth will require creative employees and innovative firms. We hope that this study has made a small contribution by identifying how group leaders promote or thwart group creativity and by filling a gap in the group leadership literature.