Abstract
Purpose The current study, which is based on social learning theory and social cognitive theory, intends to investigate the impact of entrepreneurial leadership on employee creativity at both the individual and team levels. In particular, the authors predict a mediating mechanism at both levels: employees’ entrepreneurial self-efficacy. Further, the authors consider whether the climate of support for innovation is a contextual element affecting the relationship between employees’ perceptions of entrepreneurial leadership and their own entrepreneurial self-efficacy.Design/methodology/approach The research hypotheses were tested using multilevel structural equation modeling on 191 employees nested in 49 entrepreneurial ventures in China.Findings The results indicated that entrepreneurial leadership positively correlates with employee creativity at individual level. Moreover, this study found that individual followers’ entrepreneurial self-efficacy partially mediates the association between individual perceptions of entrepreneurial leadership and employee creativity, whereas team members’ entrepreneurial self-efficacy fully mediates the association between team members’ perceptions of supervisors’ entrepreneurial leadership and employee creativity. Further, this research demonstrates the role of team-level climate of support for innovation as a boundary condition that strengthens the effect of entrepreneurial leadership on individual entrepreneurial self-efficacy.Originality/value Considering entrepreneurial self-efficacy to be a type of entrepreneurial context-specific self-efficacy, this study presents one of the first empirical examples of the mediating function of entrepreneurial self-efficacy in the association between entrepreneurial leadership and employee creativity. Additionally, this research demonstrates the role of team-level climate of support for innovation as a boundary condition that strengthens the effect of entrepreneurial leadership on individual entrepreneurial self-efficacy. Further, this study provides a methodological contribution by simultaneously assessing all three variables of the mediation process at the individual and team levels: entrepreneurial leadership, entrepreneurial self-efficacy and employee creativity.
Subject
Management Science and Operations Research,General Business, Management and Accounting
Reference101 articles.
1. Gender in the boss-subordinate relationship: a Nigerian study;Journal of Organizational Behavior,2004
2. The impact of perceived supervisor support on employees' turnover intention and task performance: mediation of self-efficacy;Journal of Management Development,2019
3. Does entrepreneurial leadership encourage innovation work behavior? The mediating role of creativity self-efficacy and support for innovation;European Journal of Innovation Management,2020
4. Narcissism and entrepreneurial intentions: the roles of entrepreneurial self-efficacy and environmental complexity;The Journal of High Technology Management Research,2021