The Effects And Mechanisms Of Social Exchange Relationships In Team On Employee And Team Creativity

Fast-paced technological advances and ever-changing customer demands have rendered team and employee creativity crucial to organizational survival and sustainability.Given the importance of team and employee creativity,individual and contextual factors that may facilitate creativity have received much attention from researchers.Researcher have attempted taking different theoretical perspectives to identify contextual factors that may promote team and employee creativity,such as psychological safety perspective,knowledge sharing perspective,and social exchange perspective.Social exchange model argues that leaders and coworker's encouragement and support may evoke feelings of responsibilities,which cause team and its members to work harder,and show creativity in return for leaders and coworker's favorable treatment.However,previous studies have indicated that the associations between social exchange relationships in teams and creativity are complex and inconsistent,including horizontal team-member exchange(TMX)and vertical leader-member exchange(LMX).To account for the complex phenomenon,the extant literature has mainly taken intrinsic motivation perspective to explore the mediating mechanisms linking social exchange relationships and creativity.The single theoretical perspective inhibits our further understanding of the influential process of social exchange relationships on creativity,bacuese the literature has indicated that work behaviors are based not only on intrinsic motivation related with interests and self-challenge,but also on self-expressive motivation.Additionally,there may be interaction between LMX and TMX,because their developments are related to interpersonal interaction among team leader,coworkers and members.However,little research has taken interaction perspective to explore their effects on team and individual outcomes.Therefore,this paper will draw on self-concept theory,equity theory and social comparison theory to investigate the relationships between exchange relationships(i.e.,TMX and LMX)in team and creativity.This paper conducts three sub-studies:(1)the first sub-study is based on team level,uses self-concept theory and equity theory and examines whether team creative efficacy mediates the relationship between TMX and team creativity,and whether LMX differentiation and task interdependence moderate the effect of TMX.(2)the second sub-study is based on individual level,uses self-concept theory and equity theory and examines whether team creative efficacy and creative role identity mediate the relationships between TMX and employee creativity,and whether LMX differentiation and task interdependence moderate the effects of TMX.(3)the third sub-study is based on cross-level,uses self-concept theory,equity theory and social comparison theory and examines whether team creative efficacy and creative role identity mediate the relationships between exchange relationships in teams(i.e.,TMX and LMX)and team/employee creativity,and whether LMX differentiation and task interdependence moderate the effects of TMX and LMX.This paper used multi-wave and multi-source research design to collect 524 matched data,including 72 team leaders and their 524 immediate followers.And then this paper conducts reliability analysis,confirmatory factor analysis,correlation analysis,path analysis,bootstrapping analysis and Monte Carlo simulation with SPSS 22.0,Mplus 7.40,R 3.3.3 to examine the three sub-study models mentioned above.The results show that:(1)Team creative efficacy mediates the relationship between TMX and team creativity;LMX differentiation respectively moderates the direct effect of TMX on team creative efficacy and indirect effect of TMX on team creativity via team creative efficacy;there is three-way interaction between TMX,LMX differentiation and task interdependence on team creative efficacy.Additionally,the above three-way interaction on the mediating role of team creative efficacy in the relationship between TMX and team creativity is significant.(2)Team creative efficacy and creative role identity mediate the relationship between TMX and employee creativity;LMX differentiation respectively moderates the direct effect of TMX on creative role identity and indirect effects of TMX on employee creativity via team creative efficacy and creative role identity;there is three-way interaction between TMX,LMX differentiation and task interdependence on team creative efficacy and creative role identity.Additionally,the above three-way interaction on the mediating roles of team creative efficacy and creative role identity in the relationship between TMX and employee creativity are significant.(3)Creative role identity mediates the relationship LMX and employee creativity;LMX differentiation respectively moderates the direct effect of LMX on creative role identity and indirect effect of LMX on employee creativity via creative role identity;there is not three-way interaction between LMX,LMX differentiation and task interdependence on creative role identity.The main theoretical contributions in this paper include:(1)Based on self-concept theory,this paper examines and demonstrates the mediating roles of two kinds of creative self-concept(i.e.,team creative efficacy and creative role identity)in the relationships between TMX/LMX and team/employee creativity,thereby further uncovering the underlying mechanisms involved,that is,TMX and LMX facilitate the development of team and employees' creative self-concept,thereby evoking their self-expressive motivation,and finally influence team and employee creativity.(2)Based on equity theory,this paper examines and demonstrates the moderating role of LMX differentiation in the relationships between TMX and team creative efficacy/creative role identity,thereby further advancing our better understanding of the relationship between TMX and LMX,that is,LMX differentiation violates the equality principle of fairness,evokes interpersonal conflict,and damages mutual trust,thereby weakening the effects of TMX on team creative efficacy and creative role identity.(3)This paper examines and demonstrates that task interdependence weakens the negative moderating role of LMX differentiation,thereby further extending the extant research on LMX differentiation and contributing to the development of social exchange theory,that is,under the conditions of high task interdependence,LMX differentiation is considered as an effective leadership style that could help achieving high-standard performance.Thus,employees may consider that LMX differentiation results from work factors,rather than leaders' individual preference,thus,is acceptable,even expected.