Unravelling the role of organizational commitment and work engagement in the relationship between self-leadership and employee creativity
| DOI | https://doi.org/10.1108/EBHRM-08-2021-0164 |
| Published date | 09 August 2022 |
| Date | 09 August 2022 |
| Pages | 158-176 |
| Subject Matter | HR & organizational behaviour,Global HRM |
| Author | K. Jnaneswar,Gayathri Ranjit |
Unravelling the role of
organizational commitment
and work engagement in the
relationship between self-
leadership and employee creativity
K. Jnaneswar and Gayathri Ranjit
CET School of Management, College of Engineering Trivandrum,
Thiruvananthapuram, India
Abstract
Purpose –The purpose of this study is to examine the serial mediating mechanism between self-leadership
and employee creativity through organizational commitment and work engagement. Drawing on the self-
determination theory and broaden and build theory, this study investigates the indirect effect of self-leadership
on employee creativity through organizational commitment and work engagement.
Design/methodology/approach –The relationships were investigated using PROCESS macro for SPSS.
Data were collected from 324 employees working in the Indian automobile industry. Structural equation
modelling was used to evaluate the model fit of the measurement model.
Findings –The results of the study revealed that self-leadership impacts employee creativity. Further, the
findings showed that both organizational commitment and work engagement individually mediate the
relationship between self-leadership and employee creativity. The key finding of this research was the partial
serial mediation of organizatio nal commitment and work engagement in the relationship between
self-leadership and employee creativity.
Originality/value –This is one of the primary studies that examined the serial mediating effect of
organizational commitment and work engagement in the relationship between self-leadership and employee
creativity. This study contributes to the existing literature on self-leadership and employee creativity by
evincing the mediating mechanism of organizational commitment and work engagement.
Keywords Self-leadership, Organizational commitment, Work engagement, Employee creativity, Serial
mediation
Paper type Research paper
1. Introduction
Innovationplays a pivotal rolein the long term survivalof an organization, andthe foundation
of innovation is the creativity of employees in an organization, which is the main reason for the
heightenedinterestamong various stakeholdersto identifythe factors that encourageemployee
creativity (Zhu et al., 2018). Employeecreativity indicateshow adept employeesare in thinking
about practices, procedures, products and solutions in a novel way to address various
organizational problems (Amabile, 1996). It leads to innovative services and products, and
organizations value thoseemployees who possesscreativity. Creativeemployees challenge the
status quo andare ready to take risks as they are not afraidof failures and criticism.
Scholars are interested in identifying various antecedents of employee creativity
(Chaubey et al., 2019). Leadership is a pivotal factor that stimulates the process of
innovation in the organization (Gouda and Tiwari, 2022). The present study focuses on self-
leadership as a predictor of employee creativity. Self-leadership is one of the recent areas of
EBHRM
11,2
158
The authors acknowledge and sincerely thank the editors and anonymous reviewers for their highly
constructive and invaluable feedback.
The current issue and full text archive of this journal is available on Emerald Insight at:
https://www.emerald.com/insight/2049-3983.htm
Received 10 August 2021
Revised 24 March 2022
10 July 2022
Accepted 18 July 2022
Evidence-based HRM: a Global
Forum for Empirical Scholarship
Vol. 11 No. 2, 2023
pp. 158-176
© Emerald Publishing Limited
2049-3983
DOI10.1108/EBHRM-08-2021-0164
leadership research and is a self-influence process through which an individual attains the
self-motivation and self-direction required to perform (Megheirkouni, 2018). It is a significant
antecedent of employee creativity, as it is an internal influence process that fosters an
individual’s self-competence and self-determination (Neck et al., 2020). The relationship
between self-leadership and employee creativity is grounded on the self-determination theory
(Deci and Ryan, 1985). As per this theory, individuals are motivated to develop when they
fulfil their need for competence, autonomy and connection. Self-leadership plays a vital role in
developing self-motivation and self-navigation, which later will enhance creativity at the
workplace. Though theoretical arguments and empirical evidence about the influence of self-
leadership on employee creativity are presented in the literature (Ghosh, 2015;Lin, 2017), the
mechanism through which self-leadership impacts employee creativity is still in the nascent
stage. Researchers have not fully explored the relationship between self-leadership and
employee creativity. It requires further research to elucidate the relationship between the two
variables (Ghosh, 2015). Also, there is a lack of research concerning the employees’initiatives
to manage their work behaviour in the creative process and its resultant effect on the
outcomes of creative performance (Çekmecelioglu and
€
Ozbag, 2016). Thus, there is a need to
uncover the mediating variables that connect the two constructs.
Investigating the relationship between self-leadership and employee creativity without
examining the intermediating mechanisms may result in dubious outcomes. Therefore, we
introduced organizational commitment and work engagement as the intervening variables in the
self-leadership–-employee creativity link. The selection of organizational commitment and work
engagement as mediators is because of the following reasons. First, previous research has
established self-leadership as an antecedent to work engagement (Harunavamwe et al., 2020).
Work engagement is one of the desired positive work attitudes, and it continues to attract
attentionfrombothpractitionersandresearchers(Ghosh et al., 2020). Second, firms are
experiencing a work engagement crisis as recent global surveys reported a decline in employees’
work engagement (Basit, 2019). The global engagement scores were less than 30%, and in the
Asian countries, the percentage of engaged employees is only 60% (Aon Hewitt, 2017). Therefore,
there is a need to examine the factors that improve the employees’work engagement. Third,
extant literature also revealed that the conditions that enhance work engagement received less
research attention (Aslam et al.,2022). Thus, more focus should be on understanding the factors
that improve employees’work engagement. Fourth, even though prior research established the
relationship between self-leadership and work engagement (Gomes et al.,2015), it has not
attracted adequate research attention (Breevaart et al., 2016). Moreover, the literature examining
why and how self-leadership impacts work engagement is sparse, and there is a need to bridge
this research gap (Knotts and Houghton, 2021). Assessing the potential mediating mechanism in
the self-leadership–work engagement link helps answer the call for an in-depth and detailed self-
leadership model. While it is vital to understand the strength of the relationship between self-
leadership and work engagement, it is much more critical to gauge how this relationship
developed considering the challenges in today’s environment.
Similarly, previous studies have also established a positive relationship between self-
leadership and organizational commitment (Mustriwati et al., 2021;Park, 2016).
Organizational commitment denotes the psychological attachment of employees with the
organization (Allen and Meyer, 1996). Through organizational commitment, an organization
can enhance its performance and competitiveness. Despite the importance of organizational
commitment and self-leadership, the literature revealed that the relationship between these
variables is under-researched. A few studies highlighted the impact of self-leadership on
organizational commitment, but it is not adequate as majority of these studies concentrated
on affective commitment only (Andressen et al., 2012). Thus, there is a dearth of studies
linking the two variables (Knotts and Houghton, 2021). Organizations are exploring different
methods to enhance employees’organizational commitment and work engagement to achieve
Self-leadership
and employee
creativity
159
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