Does transformational, ambidextrous, transactional leadership promote employee creativity? Mediating effects of empowerment and promotion focus

Purpose The purpose of this paper is to investigate transformational, ambidextrous, and transactional leadership and their relationship to employee creativity and the extent to which psychological empowerment and promotion focus are consistent with previous studies that identify their significant impact on employee creativity. In addition, employee psychological empowerment and promotion focus are used as mediators in the research model to ascertain whether or not there is a significant mediating effect between transformational leadership, ambidextrous leadership, transactional leadership and employee creativity. Design/methodology/approach In the study, 500 questionnaires were mailed to 50 electronics companies in China; 427 valid questionnaires were eventually collected. A structural equation model was then used for data analysis to study the causalities between all the parameters. Findings The research findings indicate that transformational and ambidextrous leadership styles have a significant effect on employee creativity. In addition, the study found that employee psychological empowerment and promotion focus has a significant mediating effect for transformational leadership, ambidextrous leadership, transactional leadership and employee creativity. Originality/value Executives who adopt a transformational or ambidextrous leadership style tend to have employees with greater psychological empowerment, while transformational or ambidextrous leaders tend to have employees with a stronger promotion focus. Further, the study discovered that when executives adopt a transformational or ambidextrous leadership style, they can use their employees’ psychological empowerment and promotion focus to improve employee creativity.