Linking leader–follower proactive personality congruence to creativity
| DOI | https://doi.org/10.1108/PR-11-2017-0332 |
| Pages | 454-470 |
| Date | 04 March 2019 |
| Published date | 04 March 2019 |
| Author | Kumar Roopak,Sushanta Kumar Mishra,Ekta Sikarwar |
| Subject Matter | HR & organizational behaviour,Global HRM |
Linking leader–follower proactive
personality congruence
to creativity
Kumar Roopak
Department of Human Resource Management, T A Pai Management Institute,
Manipal, India
Sushanta Kumar Mishra
Indian Institute of Management Indore, Indore, India, and
Ekta Sikarwar
T A Pai Management Institute, Manipal, India
Abstract
Purpose –Drawing from the literature on person–environment fit and proactive personality, the purpose of
this paper is to empirically examine whether congruence between the proactive personality of a leader and
his/her follower is facilitative/inhibitive of creativity of the follower.
Design/methodology/approach –Data were collected in two waves from 355 followers and 36
corresponding leaders working in a large manufacturing company in India. Hypotheses were tested using
polynomial regression analysis and response surface method.
Findings –The results indicate that leader–follower congruence in proactive personality is more likely to
encourage followers’creativity. Moreover, leader–follower congruence at higher levels of proactive
personality showed higher levels of followers’creativity than when dyads are congruent at lower levels.
Practical implications –Findings suggest that human resource management in organizations should
consider matching leaders’proactive personality with that of followers’to foster employee creativity. This is
critical from the perspective of recruitment and dyad formulation for jobs that demand creativity.
Originality/value –Research examining why and how congruence in personal characteristics between a
leader and his/her follower foster followers’creativity is at best scant. The study is a novel attempt to examine
the effect of congruence in leader–follower proactive personalities on workplace creativity of the follower.
Keywords Quantitative, Creativity, Personality, Person–environment fit (P–E fit)
Paper type Research paper
Introduction
In a highly changeable global marketplace, innovation is widely accepted as an important
determinant for organizations competitiveness and growth (Baer, 2012; Huang et al., 2016;
Shalley et al., 2004). In particular, employee creativity which refers to the generation of novel
and useful ideas about products, services or procedures, provides the raw material needed
for innovation leading to firm’s competitive advantage (Amabile et al., 1996; Anderson et al.,
2014; Shalley et al., 2009). As organization’s innovativeness is hinged on employees’
creativity (Tang, Yu et al., 2017; Seeck and Diehl, 2017), human resource management (HRM)
plays a significant role in facilitating creativity of employees for achieving innovation
(Bos-Nehles et al., 2017; Cerne et al., 2017; Mumford et al., 2002).
Although a fair amount of empirical work has been done to understand individual and
contextual factors which shape employee’s creativity (see Shalley et al., 2004 for a recent
review), the “understanding of the link between HRM and employee creativity”is in its early
stages (Bamber et al., 2017, p. 1217). There is a felt need to conduct more studies to
understand the role of HRM in employee creativity (see the special issue of Personnel Review,
2017). Conceptual discussions on HRM capabilities have been initiated to understand how
immediate leaders support the creativity of their followers (Anderson et al., 2014; Bos-Nehles
et al., 2017; Garavan et al., 2015; Lepak and Snell, 1999). This is so because the dyadic
Personnel Review
Vol. 48 No. 2, 2019
pp. 454-470
© Emerald PublishingLimited
0048-3486
DOI 10.1108/PR-11-2017-0332
Received 5 November 2017
Revised 12 February 2018
17 May 2018
Accepted 4 June 2018
The current issue and full text archive of this journal is available on Emerald Insight at:
www.emeraldinsight.com/0048-3486.htm
454
PR
48,2
interaction with the immediate leader provides contextual cues about the relevance of
creative ideas and their acceptance in organizations. Considering the devolution-to-the-line
perspective in HRM, in which immediate leaders are increasingly considered to shape the
work context (Cerne et al., 2017), there is a merit to understand how the personal
characteristics of a leader interact with the similar characteristics of a follower to shape
employees’creativity. This knowledge could help HRM to incorporate practices that support
employee level creativity (Bos-Nehles et al., 2017).
Specifically, the present study seeks to examine an important yet neglected contextual
factor, i.e., congruence in proactive personality between a leader and his/her follower in
relation to follower’s creativity. Proactive personality is referred to as an enduring
behavioral tendency through which employees actively improve their work environment,
and persevere until meaningful changes take place (Bateman and Crant, 1993; Seibert et al.,
2001). In the present study, we focus on proactive personality for two reasons. First,
individuals, having proactive personalities exhibit high levels of openness to new ideas
(Fuller and Marler, 2009), engage in problem-solving and improvement-oriented ideas for
work-related outcomes (Seibert et al., 2001). Second, it has been found to outperform the Big
Five traits in predicting numerous workplace phenomena (Fuller and Marler, 2009;
Marinova et al., 2015).
Proactive employees are embedded in a social-political context where leader controls
job-resources and evaluates performance outcomes (Anderson et al., 2014; Zhou and Hoever,
2014). Given their status, leaders serve as potential contextual facilitators or inhibitors of
followers’creativity (Koseoglu et al., 2017; Shalley and Gilson, 2004). Studies have argued
that immediate leaders may impact the creativity of their followers (Koseoglu et al., 2017;
Zhang et al., 2012). Thus, managing creativity involves not only identification of creative
employees but also awareness about how the immediate leaders influence their creativity.
In this regard, previous studies have indicated three facets of leadership, namely, leader’s
relationship with followers, leader behavior and leader’s personal characteristics (Tierney,
2008), that could impact employee level creativity (Huang et al., 2016; Shalley and Gilson,
2004). However, past research predominantly focused on the first two facets (Zhou and
Hoever, 2014), ignoring the third, i.e. how leader’s personal characteristics influence
proactive followers’creativity ( for exceptions, see Koseoglu et al., 2017; Tierney, 2008).
As creative ideas challenge the existing processes and, thus, require flexibility, contextual
support and resources (Parker et al., 2010), we argue that proactive personality of a leader is
critical in planning and managing the creativity of a proactive follower.
To understand this contextual support, we draw from the study of Kamdar and
Van Dyne (2007) who demonstrated that leaders act as a critical force in shaping how
follower’s personality influences work outcomes. In fact, followers are more successful in
creativity when there is a similarity in goals and interests between the leader and his/her
followers (Shalley and Gilson, 2004; Zhang et al., 2012). Zhang et al. (2012) argued that
congruence in proactive personalities between leader and follower can potentially
influence several workplace outcomes. Hence, it is critical to investigate whether
congruence in proactive personality between the followers and their immediate leader
predicts follower creativity over and above the mere influence of individual-level proactive
personality. To unravel this, we draw from the literature on person–environment(P–E) fit
and proactive per sonality (Seibert et al., 2001). The degree of match between a person and
some aspect/s of his/her work environment is referred to as P–E fit (Edwards and Cable,
2009; Kristof-Brown et al., 2005).
In P–E fit literature, one relevant conceptualization is that of person–supervisor (P–S) fit,
which is definedas the dyadic relationshipbetween individuals and theirsupervisors (Kristof-
Brown et al., 2005, p. 287). Supervisor’s personal characteristics represent the environment to
the follower. The P–S fit was conceptualized in the current study as proactive personality
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Proactive
personality
congruence
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