The Effect And Influence Mechanism Of Leader Narcissism On Team Radical Creativity

As radical creativity will largely increase the organization's competitive advantage,recently,how to promote and cultivate radical creativity in organizations has become a hot and important topic in the field of creativity research.As leader characteristics are found to be vital to affect team processes and outcomes and teamwork is an essential work pattern in organizations,exploring the relationship between leadership characteristics and team radical creativity has important theoretical and practical implications.Given individuals with high status in organizations are more likely to have high levels of narcissism,this study foucs on the relationship between leader narcissism and team creativity with its underlying mechanism and boundary conditions.This study proposes “double-edged sword” effects of leader narcissism on team radical creativity and examines its underlying theoretical mechanisms and boundary conditions.In particular,by combining the social information processing approach,social learning theory and narcissism-related research,this research firstly posits that:(a)on the one hand,leader narcissism will hinder team members' deep processing of task information,thereby impeding the team's radical creativity;(b)on the other hand,leader narcissism will enhance the team's novel information searching behavior,and further increase the team's radical creativity.Secondly,this study proposes that leader narcissism will indirectly influence team information elaboration and team novel information searching behavior via leader information closing behavior and leader novel information searching behavior,which in turn influence team radical creativity.Finally,based on the trait activation theory and related narcissism research,it proposes that organizational valuing of creativity and the strength of interteam competition will inhibit the negative effect of narcissism on team radical creativity and strengthen the positive effect of narcissism on team radical creativity.To test the above theoretical hypothesis,this study conducted three empirical studies based on survey method,and used SPSS 23.0 and Mplus 8.3 software to conduct a series of statistical analyses.Based on a two-wave survey from 86 team leaders and 409 team members,data analyses results in Study 1 suggested that team leaders' narcissism would reduce the team members' information elaboration,thereby reducing team radical creativity.The strength of interteam competition moderated the relationship between leader narcissism and team members' information elaboration.Compared with teams under high interteam competition,teams with low interteam competition would have lower levels of information elaboration under leader narcissism.Based on a two-stage survey from 84 team leaders and 409 team members,Study 2 suggested that team leaders' narcissism would improve the team members' novel information searching behavior,which is beneficial to the team's radical creativity.In Study 3,a four-wave survey from 94 team leaders and 540 team members revealed that: Team leaders' narcissism was positively related to leaders' information closing behavior,and leaders' information closing behavior negatively affected team information elaboration,which further negatively influenced team radical creativity.Team leaders' narcissism was positively related to leaders' novel information searching behavior,and leaders' novel information searching behavior positively affected team members' novel information searching behavior,which further positively influenced team radical creativity.Leader perceived organizational valuing of creaativity weakened the positive relationship between leader narcissism and leaders' information closing behavior and it also can strengthen the positive relationship between leader narcissism and leaders' novel information searching.Through exploring the relationship between leader narcissism and team radical creativity,its influencing mechanisms and boundary conditions,this research expands our understanding about the antecedents of radical creativity in organizations.Moreover,this research proposed a theoretical model of the influence of leadership factors,organizational factors and team factors on team radical creativity.This enriches current understanding and theoretical construction work about the impact of leader narcissism in organizational settings and its interaction with situations.Finally,this research provides some practical guidance and enlightenments for organizational learning,internal training,selection of R&D team leaders,the formation of R&D team members and the cultivation of organizational culture.