JOURNAL OF CONTEMPORARY FINANCE AND ECONOMICS ›› 2023, Vol. 0 ›› Issue (1): 91-105.

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How Does Paradoxical Leadership Affect Employee Creativity?

CAI Wenzhu1, ZHOU Nan1,2   

  1. 1. Jiangxi University of Finance and Economics, Nanchang 330032;
    2. Jiangxi Institute of Economic Administrators, Nanchang 330088, China
  • Online:2023-01-15 Published:2023-12-13
  • Contact: ZHOU Nan, Ph.D. candidate at Jiangxi University of Finance and Economics, associate professor at Jiangxi Institute of Economic Administrators, mainly engaged in research on corporate organization and human resources, Email: 185698223@qq.com.
  • About author:CAI Wenzhu, professor at Jiangxi University of Finance and Economics, Ph.D. supervisor, Ph.D., mainly engaged in research on organizational behavior and human resources and marketing management.

Abstract: The innovation and development of enterprises is inseparable from employee creativity. However, the current environment in which enterprises are located is changing from a single, stable and competitive model to a diversified, complex and cooperation-competition model, and contradictions are becoming increasingly prominent. Paradoxical leadership, as a new leadership behavior with both contradiction and integrated thinking, has positive effects on employee creativity, but its underlying mechanism needs to be further explored. This paper conducts an empirical test of 314 survey data collected at different time periods, so as to explore the relationship between paradoxical leadership and employee creativity; and it examines the mediating and moderating effects of job remodeling and adjusting focus from the perspective of employee active behavior and individual traits. The findings show that paradoxical leadership can positively promote employee creativity, and that job remolding plays a partial mediating role in the relationship between paradoxical leadership and employee creativity. Employee adjusting focus can play an adjusting role in the relationship between paradoxical leadership and job remodeling and in the indirect relationship between paradoxical leadership and employee creativity through job remolding, in other words, when employees have higher promotion adjusting focus or lower prevention adjusting focus, their job remolding behavior will be more likely promoted by paradoxical leadership, thus their creativity level will also be promoted.

Key words: paradoxical leadership, job remodeling, adjusting focuses, employee creativity