The Effects Of Transformational Leadership On Team Creativity In Team Competitive Climate

Prior studies have demonstrated the positive effects of transformationalleadership on empoylee creativity. However, little of them has explicitly tested theeffects of the leadership on team creativity. This article introduces intrinsicmotivation theory, social exchange theory and derives Pygmalion effect to explorehow transformational leadership affects team creativity. In the present study, teamcompetitive climate(including inter-group competitive climate and intra-groupcompetitive climate)was tested as a moderator between transformational leadershipand team creativity based on leadership alternative theory.A structured questionnaire was employed as the research instrument for thisstudy. All multi-item scales were measured on a Likert scale (1=“strongly disagree,”7=“strongly agree”) and all materials were presented in Chinese; the scales weretranslated into Chinese from English. The valid sample consisted of93team leadersand365employees in10IT companies from ShenZhen. SPSS18.0and AMOS6.0were used for data analysis，and we tested the effects of transformational leadershipon team creativity and the moderating role of team competitive climate based onregression analysis.And the results showed that:(1) Transformational leadership is positivelyrelated to team creativity;(2) Inter-group competitive climate moderates therelationship between transformational leadership and team creativity:relative to thehigh-level inter-group competitive climate, the positive relationship betweentransformational leadership and team creativity in the low-level inter-groupcompetitive climate would be stronger;(3) Intra-group competitive climatemoderates the relationship between transformational leadership and team creativity:in the medium-level intra-group competitive clime, the positive relationshipbetween transformational leadership and team creativity is strongest; however, inthe high-level and low-level intra-group competitive climate, the effects oftransformational leadership on team creativity would be both weakened. Finally,limitations and future research directions were discussed.