Transformational leadership and creativity: A meta‐analytic review and identification of an integrated model

• Published date: 01 July 2019
• DOI: http://doi.org/10.1002/job.2355
• Date: 01 July 2019

RESEARCH ARTICLE

Transformational leadership and creativity: A meta‐analytic

review and identification of an integrated model

Dohyoung Koh

1

|Kyootai Lee

2

|Kailash Joshi

3

1

Research Institute for Management of

Technology, Sogang University, Seoul, South

Korea

2

Graduate School of Management of

Technology, Sogang University, Seoul, South

Korea

3

College of Business, University of Missouri‐

St. Louis, St. Louis, Missouri, U.S.A.

Correspondence

Kyootai Lee, Graduate School of Management

of Technology, Sogang University, Seoul,

South Korea.

Email: kyootai@sogang.ac.kr

Summary

We conduct a meta‐analytic review that yields important insights about the existing

research on transformational leadership and creativity. Additionally, we propose and

test an integrated model using meta‐analytic structural equation modeling (MASEM)

and full information MASEM (FIMASEM) techniques to better understand the inter-

vening mechanism through which transformational leadership acts on creativity. The

results of the meta‐analysis of 127 studies show that most of the bivariate relation-

ships among transformational leadership, employee creativity, and pre‐identified

mediators are significant; further, geographic base of studies significantly moderates

some of the relationships. The MASEM results indicate that several mediators inter-

vene in the relationship between transformational leadership and creativity. Although

the total effect of transformational leadership on creativity is positive, its direct effect

is negative when mediators are included. Additionally, there are significant relation-

ships among the mediators that can be theoretically supported, but have not been

investigated in prior transformational leadership and creativity studies. On the basis

of these findings, we provide conclusions and directions for future studies.

KEYWORDS

creativity, meta‐analytic structural equation modeling, transformational leadership

1|INTRODUCTION

Creativity in organizational contexts is generally defined as the gener-

ation of novel and useful products, ideas, and procedures for innova-

tion (Amabile, 1988; Shalley, Gilson, & Blum, 2000). Over the past

several decades, research on creativity has suggested that leadership

is one of the most important factors for employee creativity enhance-

ment (Mumford & Hunter, 2005; Woodman, Sawyer, & Griffin, 1993).

Our review of 10 major general management and applied psychology

journals

1

from 1991 to 2016 revealed that researchers have exten-

sively investigated the role of transformational leadership in enhancing

creativity as shown in Figure 1. This may be based on the belief that as

employees need to question routines, engage in unconventional

behaviors, and perceive autonomy in their creative pursuit, transfor-

mational leadership may provide favorable environments that would

lay an “emphasis on collective action, change, and innovation,”along

with “an exciting and dearly needed change of pace”(van Knippenberg

& Sitkin, 2013, pp. 3–4).

Transformational leadership refers to a leadership style that can

inspire protégés to rise above self‐interest by changing their ideals,

interests, spirit, and values to attain higher performance (Bass, 1985;

Yukl, 1999). Although researchers seem to have supported that trans-

formational leadership can enhance creativity (e.g., Gong, Huang, &

Farh, 2009; S. J. Shin & Zhou, 2003; P. Wang & Zhu, 2011), several

researchers have reported nonsignificant and even negative relation-

ships (e.g., Jaussi & Dionne, 2003; Q. Miao, Newman, & Lamb,

2012). That is, empirical research provides equivocal patterns in the

relationship (Qu, Janssen, & Shi, 2015; Vessey, Barrett, Mumford,

Johnson, & Litwiller, 2014). Therefore, the first objective of this

1

The journals that we reviewed include Academy of Management Journal, Journal

of Applied Psychology, Journal of Management, Personnel Psychology,Journal of

Organizational Behavior, Organizational Behavior and Human Decision Processes,

Human Relations, Group & Organization Management,Leadership Quarterly, and

Creativity Research Journal.

Received: 16 January 2018 Revised: 18 November 2018 Accepted: 4 December 2018

DOI: 10.1002/job.2355

J Organ Behav. 2019;40:625–650. © 2019 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.wileyonlinelibrary.com/journal/job 625

paper is to identify whether there is a positive effect of transforma-

tional leadership on creativity by conducting a meta‐analysis of the

relevant studies.

While expanding the nomological network, researchers have iden-

tified the role of various variables (cf., van Knippenberg & Sitkin, 2013)

that may be determined by transformational leadership and intervene

in its relationship with creativity, such as creative self‐efficacy

(e.g., Akinlade, 2014; Mittal & Dhar, 2015; C. J. Wang, Tsai, &

Tsai, 2014), identification with the leader (e.g., Sluss & Ashforth,

2007; P. Wang & Rode, 2010), intrinsic motivation for creativity

(e.g., Gumusluoglu & Ilsev, 2009; S. J. Shin & Zhou, 2003), and psycho-

logical empowerment (e.g., Kollmann, Stöckmann, Krell, Peschl, &

Buchwald, 2013; Sun, Zhang, Qi, & Chen, 2012). Although several

prior studies have examined the issue of mediators, they do not seem

to provide a cohesive, integrative view. Rather, most studies have

focused on a single theory‐based mediator without considering its

possible interrelations with other intervening variables. Additionally,

as van Knippenberg and Sitkin (2013) argued, because transforma-

tional leadership has four different components—idealized influence,

inspiration, intellectual stimulation, and individualized consideration,

each component may have different theoretical mechanisms through

which it can influence creativity. In affecting employee outcomes,

transformational leadership may increase psychological empowerment,

intrinsic motivation (Thomas & Velthouse, 1990), and feelings of self‐

efficacy (Conger & Kanungo, 1988), which have been reported to be

related. Thus, a single theory has limitations in providing a complete

understanding of the relationship between transformational leadership

and creativity. Consideration of interrelationships among intervening

variables would require researchers to develop a deeper understand-

ing of their multiple theoretical roots. Hence, the second purpose of

this study is to synthesize different intervening mechanisms, which

can help overarch the multiple theoretical underpinnings through

which transformational leadership influences creativity.

We should note that a few studies conducted meta‐analyses,

which in part included transformational leadership and/or creativity,

but these studies considered only a limited number of studies due to

their research focuses. For instance, Liu, Jiang, Shalley, Keem, and

Zhou (2016) focused on the motivational mechanisms of creativity,

but did not consider the role of transformational leadership. While

focusing on the role of various leadership styles in advancing innova-

tion, Rosing, Frese, and Bausch (2011) and G. Wang, Oh, Courtright,

and Colbert (2011) found a positive relationship between transforma-

tional leadership and creativity, based on nine and 14 studies, respec-

tively. Considering that some newer studies (e.g., Qu et al., 2015;

Vessey et al., 2014) reported mixed results in the relationship between

the two, researchers need to delve into the role of possible contextual

factors in the relationship (J. Zhou & Hoever, 2014, p. 354). Hence, we

explored whether the relationships among transformational leader-

ship, mediators, and creativity are influenced by the geographic base

of studies (Western vs. Asian) and the measures of creativity and

transformational leadership.

In the rest of the paper, first, we summarize major theories and

the key mediators that researchers have adopted. Second, we report

the results of a meta‐analysis to examine the relationships between

transformational leadership and creativity, along with the mediators.

We should note that we did not delve into the relationship between

transformational leadership and team‐level and/or group‐level creativ-

ity, though we explored it, as we do not have sufficient number of

studies for meta‐analysis at the group level (also see Directions for

Future Research).

2

Thus, we focused primarily on the relationships at

the individual level. Third, we report the results of meta‐analytic

structural equation modeling (MASEM) to consolidate mediators and

examine an integrated model. We believe this study can contribute

to advancing our understanding of the relationship between transfor-

mational leadership and creativity by incorporating mediating factors

and potential interplays between them. Some of these mediators have

been largely treated in isolation in the past. Thus, this study will help

uncover unexplored important issues for future research. This

research also contributes to clarifying the precise intervening

mechanisms through which transformational leadership impacts

2

We should note that nine studies consistently identified a positive relationship

between transformational leadership and team‐level creativity, and a few of

them commonly found a significant mediating variable, team self‐efficacy

(e.g., Y. Shin & Eom, 2014; S. J. Shin & Zhou, 2007). The results can be provided

upon request to the second author.

FIGURE 1 Summary of research on leadership and creativity from 1991 to 2016 [Colour figure can be viewed at wileyonlinelibrary.com]

626 KOH ET AL.