How does ethical leadership boost follower's creativity? Examining mediation and moderation mechanisms

Abstract

PurposeThe main purpose of this study is to investigate the mechanism through voice behavior mediates the relationship between ethical leadership and employees' creativity. This study also examines the moderating role of psychological empowerment and innovative climate between ethical leadership and employee creativity.Design/methodology/approachWe used a survey questionnaire to collect multi-wave data from 295 employees working in the IT sector to test the proposed hypotheses of this study.FindingsThe findings revealed that ethical leadership boosts employee creativity, and voice behavior mediates the positive relationship between ethical leadership and employee creativity. Moreover, the results confirm the significant moderating role of psychological empowerment on the relationship between ethical leadership and voice behavior. A positive moderation of innovative climate was also confirmed in the association between voice behavior and creativity. Employees with supportive innovative climate adopt creative behavior when they can voice their concerns freely.Practical implicationsEthical leadership is a vital tool for fostering employee's creativity by providing autonomy to raise their voice at the workplace in the emerging markets.Originality/valueThis is one of the leading researches to emphasize the role of ethical leadership for employee creativity, and the key contribution is to discover voice as a potential mediator for ethical leadership and an innovative climate as a potential moderator in the relationship between voice behavior and employee creativity.