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Employees’
The influence of transformational creative
leadership on employees’ creative process
engagement
process engagement
A multi-level analysis 741

Monowar Mahmood Received 25 July 2017

Revised 13 November 2017
Bang College of Business, KIMEP University, Almaty, Kazakhstan 8 May 2018
16 July 2018
Md. Aftab Uddin Accepted 20 August 2018
Department of Human Resource Management, University of Chittagong,
Chittagong, Bangladesh, and
Luo Fan
School of Management, Wuhan University of Technology, Wuhan, China

Abstract
Purpose – Using a multi-level perspective, the purpose of this paper is to investigate impact of
transformational leadership on employees’ creative process engagement and mediating roles of intrinsic
motivation, task complexity and innovation support in the process of influence.
Design/methodology/approach – This study follows a quantitative method. Using a multi-item survey
instrument, a total of 400 questionnaires were distributed among employees of small and medium enterprises
registered with the Chittagong Chamber of Commerce and Industry in Bangladesh. Collected data were
analyzed using structural equation model as well as factor analysis and path analysis to test the hypotheses
and to assess the moderating and mediating effects of the variables.
Findings – The findings reveal that transformational leadership has a significant impact on employees’
creative process engagement. The study further shows that task complexity and support for innovation
moderate the relationship between transformational leadership and employees’ creative process engagement.
Research limitations/implications – Based on the premises of interactionist perspectives on creativity,
this study integrates multi-level variables to investigate leaders’ influences on followers’ creative process
engagement. This study contributes to the existing literature by providing empirical evidence on influence
of transformational leadership on employees’ creative process engagement as well as the impact of both
individual- and organizational-level variables.
Originality/value – The study adopts a distinct model comprising five different variables to investigate
creative process engagement from a multi-level perspective, i.e., creative process engagement and intrinsic
motivation at the individual level, task complexity at the unit level, and support for innovation and leadership
at the organizational level. This integrated model of using predictors from multiple levels supports the
theoretical assumptions that creative process engagement results from the interaction of individual-,
group- and organizational-level factors.
Keywords Task complexity, Transformational leadership, Intrinsic motivation, Creative process engagement,
Support for innovation
Paper type Research paper

Introduction
Global market competitiveness and rapid technological change have shortened product and
business life cycles, and consequently, creativity and innovation have become as a sine qua non
for the survival and success of modern business organizations (Golden and Shriner, 2017; Kark
et al., 2018). Both employees and managers play important roles in developing and sustaining
creative and innovative organizations (Carmeli et al., 2015; Gumusluoglu et al., 2017; Henker Management Decision
et al., 2015; Uhl-Bien and Arena, 2018). Therefore, by considering the role and importance of Vol. 57 No. 3, 2019
pp. 741-764
employees and managers in promoting creativity and innovation (Tse et al., 2018), this study © Emerald Publishing Limited
0025-1747
investigates the impact of managers’ transformational leadership on employees’ creative DOI 10.1108/MD-07-2017-0707
MD process engagement in the organizational context. It further examines the mediating role of
57,3 employees’ intrinsic motivation and the moderating effects of organizations’ task complexity
and innovation support in the process by which transformational leadership influences
employees’ creative process engagement.
Leaders influence different aspects of employees’ behavior, as is well documented in
research; for example, transformational leaders influence employees’ creative behavior and
742 performance (Golden and Shriner, 2017; Hughes et al., 2018; To et al., 2015). However, within
the domain of creativity research, most studies have focused on leader’s influence on
employees’ creative outcomes rather than on engagement in the creativity process, leaving
employees’ engagement in the creative process mostly unearthed and unexplored
(Henker et al., 2015; Hughes et al., 2018; Stenmark et al., 2011; Zhang and Bartol, 2010b).
However, between the two distinct forms of creativity in the organizational context, i.e.,
creativity as a process and creativity as an outcome (Gilson and Shalley, 2004; Shipman,
2011; Zhang and Bartol, 2010a, b), the creative process is as important as the creative
outcome (Caniëls, 2018; Yuan et al., 2018). Additionally, within the research on creative
process engagement, the reasons for employees’ relatively high or low involvement and
engagement in the process of organizational creative endeavors are not fully explored
(Carmeli et al., 2013; Hughes et al., 2018; Rodriguez-Sanchez et al., 2017). Therefore,
considering the dearth of research on the relationship between leadership and employees’
creative process engagement, the research questions in this study could be considered
timely and appropriate to improve organizational creativity by exploring transformational
leaders’ influence on employees’ creative process engagement and the aforementioned
multi-level mediating and moderating factors.
The reasons for selecting employees’ intrinsic motivation as a mediating factor and for
selecting organizations’ task complexity and innovation support as moderating factors lie
within the notion of the integration of multi-level factors (i.e. individual, unit and
organizational) for a holistic understanding of employees’ creative behavior (Braun et al.,
2013; Costa et al., 2013; Hughes et al., 2018). The selection of such multi-level variables is
based on the “interactionist perspective of creativity” (IPC) framework, which explains
individual differences in creativity in the organizational context. Based on this IPC, the
study assumes that leaders’ influence on followers’ engagement in creative behavior
depends on leaders’ interactions with followers as individuals, as well as other situational
and contextual factors (Gumusluoglu et al., 2017; Hughes et al., 2018; Koseoglu et al., 2017).
Employees’ engagement in organizational creative endeavors will vary depending on
managers’ influence on an individual employee, as well as on the interaction with his or her
level of intrinsic motivation, the nature of task complexity and the innovation support of the
organization. Additionally, as both employees’ creative process engagement and managers’
transformational leadership are multi-constructs and multi-level disperse phenomena
(Braun et al., 2013), and factors from multiple levels in the organizations would be
appropriate for investigating the influence of transformational leadership on employees’
creative process engagement, therefore, the present study selected employees’ intrinsic
motivation as an individual-level factor, task complexity as a unit- or group-level factor
and support for innovation as an organizational-level factor to investigate leaders’ influence
on employees’ creative process engagement and developed the conceptual framework for
the study.
The study aims to contribute in the following ways. First, although the literature on
creative outcomes is substantial, research on employee creative process engagement still
seems to be insufficient (Carmeli and Schaubroeck, 2007; Shipman, 2011; To et al., 2015;
Zhang and Bartol, 2010b). The study will advance the existing knowledge on creativity by
adding new evidence to the understanding of employees’ creative process engagement,
more specifically, on the dynamic interaction among different factors in organizational
contexts (Amabile and Pratt, 2016). Second, among different leadership styles, research on Employees’
the effectiveness of transformational leadership in Asian contexts is still very limited and creative
inconclusive (Ma and Jiang, 2018; Newman et al., 2017). Top-down leadership styles, such process
as paternalistic, benevolent and charismatic leadership, were more effective than
value-based leaderships such as transformational leadership (Gumusluoglu et al., 2017; engagement
Newman et al., 2017). The findings of this study will add new empirical evidence on the
effectiveness of transformational leadership in Asian hierarchical societies and, 743
subsequently, in the areas of cross-cultural management and leadership studies. Third,
research in the organizational behavior and human resource management domains has
been accused of not sufficiently focusing on multi-level analysis of the organizational
behavioral phenomenon (Hitt et al., 2007; Shen et al., 2017). Combining individual-, unit-
and organizational-level variables, this multi-level study assessed the applicability of the
IPC to improve employees’ creative process engagement behavior in empirical settings.
The findings of the study will help managers to understand employees’ creative behavior
from a holistic perspective (Amabile and Pratt, 2016). Fourth, previous studies of
creativity have used task complexity and innovation climates as moderators of creative
outcomes. The present study will unearth the potential impact of these moderators on the
relationship between transformational leadership and creative process engagement.
Finally, because research on employee creativity and innovation in developing and
emerging economies is scant, this study will add empirical evidence on employees’
creative behavior in developing countries context.

Theoretical background of the study

This study selected transformational leadership among various leadership styles to
investigate leaders’ influence on employees’ creative behavior, i.e., employees’ engagement
in the creative process, the mediating effects of employee intrinsic motivation and the
moderating effects of task complexity and support for innovation. Earlier research found
that transformational leadership is more effective than other leadership styles in
influencing employees’ behavior (Banks et al., 2016; Braun et al., 2013; Deinert et al., 2015;
Eberly et al., 2017; Hughes et al., 2018; Podsakoff et al., 1996; Stenmark et al., 2011).
Transformational leadership is described as the process in which leaders play an idealized
role model, stimulate and encourage creativity, provide inspirational motivation, and
engage in supporting and mentoring followers to achieve the organization’s shared vision
and goals (Bass, 1990; Bass and Avolio, 1994; Bednall et al., 2018; Suifan et al., 2018).
Transformational leaders’ personalized attention and support to followers’ needs and
requirements could increase their influence on followers’ engagement in creative activities.
By constantly questioning and challenging followers’ assumptions and thinking, these
leaders stimulate followers’ intellectual thinking, which ultimately encourages followers to
become involved in the creative process. Such leaders have the ability to articulate the
organizational vision with individual goals, increasing inspirational motivation
among followers (Bednall et al., 2018; Deinert et al., 2015; Henker et al., 2015; Podsakoff
et al., 1990). Therefore, it is assumed that transformational leaders will be able to inspire
individual employees by relating their future to the organization’s future and to encourage
them to engage in the creative process by developing a strong sense of shared vision and
belongingness with the organizations.
The notion of creative process engagement in this study refers to the behavioral,
cognitive and emotional states in which one attempts to identify a problem, search and
encode information, and generate ideas (Amabile, 1996; Drazin et al., 1999; Du et al., 2016).
To improve creativity in organizational contexts, employees need to define and structure the
problem correctly and search for information to find the solution to the problem (Mumford,
2000; Reiter-Palmon and Illies, 2004). The time and effort employees spend in problem
MD identification positively influence the originality and quality of the solutions and,
57,3 subsequently, the creative outcomes (Reiter-Palmon et al., 1997). After identifying the
problem, employees need to collect and process the information that is linked to the problem
and is relevant for the solution. Searching and coding require considerable time, energy and
patience from employees to accumulate information from both internal and external sources
(Illies and Reiter-Palmon, 2004; Zhang and Bartol, 2010b). Finally, based on analysis of the
744 information, employees need to generate new ideas to bring creativity to the organization
(Mumford, 2000; Zhang and Bartol, 2010b). Therefore, employees’ engagement in these
activities is considered the first step toward creativity and considered pivotal for creative
outcomes (Henker et al., 2015; Shalley, 1991). Researchers identified that creative outcomes
are contingent on those activities in creative processes (Gilson and Shalley, 2004; Henker
et al., 2015; Zhang and Bartol, 2010a) or creative actions (Ford, 1996), and without adequate
attention to creative processes, creative outcomes would not be possible. It is assumed that
when employees are effectively engaged in creative processes, such as identifying problems,
critically searching relevant information and generating probable alternative ideas to solve
problems, the outcomes are assumed to be new, unique and valuable (Carmeli et al., 2013;
Gilson and Shalley, 2004).
Because creativity is seen as a function and interaction of individual efforts and
characteristics of contextual factors, the study further investigated the mediating effects
of intrinsic motivation and the moderating effects of task complexity and innovation
support in the process of transformational leaders’ influence on employees’ creative
process engagement. The reasons for selecting those variables are derived from the “IPC”
(Woodman and Schoenfeldt, 1989, 1990). From the interactionist perspective, employees’
behavior is the outcome of a complex interaction of individual, situational and other
related contextual or contingency factors (Woodman and Schoenfeldt, 1990; Woodman
et al., 1993). Therefore, employees’ creative process engagement could be seen as complex
interactions and reciprocal causations of individual-, unit- and organizational-level
factors, which could either facilitate or inhibit their initiative in organizational contexts
(Yuan et al., 2018; Woodman and Schoenfeldt, 1990). While explaining the IPC, Woodman
et al. (1993, p. 309) identified individual-level factors as cognitive styles, personalities,
relevant knowledge and intrinsic motivation; unit- or group-level factors as norms,
cohesiveness, roles, tasks and problem-solving methods; and organizational-level factors
as culture, resources, rewards, strategy and structures that influence employees’ creative
behavior. They further argued that to investigate employees’ creative behavior,
researchers should focus not only on individual-level factors but also on the complex,
dynamic interactions of individual-, group- and organizational-level factors (Woodman
et al., 1993). It is suggested that to engage employees in the creative process, apart from
hiring a creative genius, organizations should stimulate employees’ intrinsic motivation,
redesign the nature of the job and provide necessary support to be involved in the creative
process (Amabile, 1996; Zhang and Bartol, 2010a, b). While many leadership styles focus
on leaders’ interactions with followers at the individual level, transformational leadership
integrates leaders’ interactions with followers at multiple levels, i.e., through
“individualized consideration” and “intellectual stimulation” at the individual level, and
“idealized influence” and “inspirational motivation” at the group and organizational levels
(Carmeli et al., 2013; To et al., 2015). Because of multi-level influence, transformational
leadership is assumed to be better for assessing the holistic view of leadership’s influence
on employees’ creative process engagement (Avolio et al., 2004; Hughes et al., 2018; Kark
et al., 2018). Therefore, from the IPC, the study investigates the influence of
transformational leadership on employees’ creative process engagement and the
possible meditating effects of intrinsic motivation, task complexity and organizational
support for innovation in the influence process (Figure 1).
Literature review and hypothesis development Employees’
Relationship between transformational leadership and employees’ creative process engagement creative
The influences of different leadership styles on employees’ creative outcomes are well process
documented in earlier research studies (Caniëls, 2018; Gumusluoğlu and Ilsev, 2009; Howell
and Avolio, 1993; Williams et al., 2017). The mutual exchange relationship between leaders
engagement
and followers contributes to employees’ problem identification and creative alternative
solutions (Suifan et al., 2018). The proponents of IPC have argued that employees’ creative 745
behavior, i.e., either creative performance or engagement in the creative process, is
influenced by contextual and social factors such as organizational climate, task constraints,
rewards or punishments, and managers and top executives as role models (Woodman and
Schoenfeldt, 1990, p. 86). Transformational leaders, through their visionary initiatives,
functional expertise, individualized mentoring, supportive culture and intellectual
stimulation abilities, could influence employees to engage in creative activities (To et al.,
2015; Woodman et al., 1993). Such leaders typically encourage employees to engage in
creative and innovative behaviors by providing a supportive environment (Bednall et al.,
2018; Howell and Avolio, 1993; Scott and Bruce, 1994). According to Burns (1978),
transformational leaders create a supportive workplace via inspirational, motivation and
individualized considerations. Such a supportive environment increases enjoyment and job
satisfaction, which effectively increase employees’ motivation to engage in complex work
and creative initiatives (Sattayaraksa and Boon-itt, 2018; Ma and Jiang, 2018). This
environment also provides support and feedback in the search for creative and optimal
solutions (Tse et al., 2018; Wang et al., 2014). Qu et al. (2015) revealed the influence of
transformational leadership on employees’ creativity outcomes. The leader shapes the
environment to nurture creative and innovative employees (Carmeli et al., 2013; To et al.,
2015). Du et al. (2016) noted that creativity is a time-consuming and risky effort and,
therefore, that leaders should know the right time and procedure to provide necessary
support to enhance followers’ creativity performance. Howell and Avolio (1993) suggested
that transformational leaders encourage employees’ openness, experimentation and
risk-taking behavior, which consequently promote creativity in organizational contexts.
Therefore, based on the theoretical premises and literature review above, the study proposes
the following hypothesis:
H1. Transformational leadership has a positive impact on employees’ creative process
engagement in organizational contexts.

Intrinsic motivation as a mediating factor of creative process engagement

Proponents of IPC identified intrinsic motivation as a key element of the interactional model
and argued that employees’ decision to engage or not to engage in creative action is influenced
by their intrinsic motivation to some extent (Woodman and Schoenfeldt, 1990; Woodman
et al., 1993). Additionally, transformational leaders, through their idealized influence and

Transformational Task Support for

Leadership Complexity Innovation

Team Level
Individual Level

Creative Process
Figure 1.
Intrinsic
Engagement
Research framework
Motivation
MD intellectual stimulation, could enhance followers’ intrinsic motivation and encourage them to
57,3 engage in creative actions (Braun et al., 2013; Kark et al., 2018). It is also assumed that
transformational leadership, by developing a fair climate, can increase employees’ intrinsic
motivation and ultimately foster creativity and innovativeness in organizational contexts.
Usually, transformational leadership creates an environment that inspires employees in
challenging and non-routinized tasks and makes employees’ jobs more interesting and
746 enjoyable (Golden and Shriner, 2017; Henker et al., 2015). Such a supportive environment leads
employees to involve themselves in the creative process and to seek innovative outcomes
(Ma and Jiang, 2018). Additionally, Zhang and Bartol (2010b) found that transformational
leaders improve employee creativity by providing psychological empowerment, which boosts
employees’ intrinsic motivation. Devloo et al. (2014) reported the finding that employees’
intrinsic motivation contributes to innovative work behaviors because they feel in control and
like the masters of their activities. It also enhances employees’ creative self-efficacy beliefs. It is
assumed that intrinsic motivation could play a mediating role in the process of
transformational leaders’ influences on employees’ engagement (Denti and Hemlin, 2012;
Kark et al., 2018). Therefore, based on the theoretical assumptions and earlier research
evidence, this study proposes the following hypothesis:
H2. Intrinsic motivation mediates the relationship between transformational leadership
and employees’ creative process engagement.

Task complexity as a moderating factor of creative process engagement

Proponents of the IPC model identified task complexity and time constraints as the major
contextual factors that can influence individuals’ creative behavior (Woodman and
Schoenfeldt, 1990; Woodman et al., 1993). In the organizational context, task complexity
refers to individuals’ perception of the challenging nature of the work (Valcour, 2007; Doci and
Hofmans, 2015). While the acquisition of creative genius may foster creativity and innovation
in organizational contexts (Cummings and Oldham, 1997), the nature of the task still plays a
critical role in employees’ creative performance (Denti and Hemlin, 2012; Doci and Hofmans,
2015; Hughes et al., 2018). The degree of employees’ intent toward creative activities depends
on complexity and the challenging nature of the tasks (Sia and Appu, 2015). Cummings and
Oldham (1997) noted that when the completion of complex tasks requires a variety of skills,
employees feel more motivated to engage in creative pursuit. It is less likely that employees
will look for creative and noble ideas when the task is ordinary and simple (Shalley et al., 2009;
Sia and Appu, 2015). From a leadership perspective, a complex task environment requires a
non-controlling and supportive leader, such as one who exhibits transformational leadership
qualities and generates self-determination, autonomy and feelings of achievement among
followers (Denti and Hemlin, 2012; Kopperud et al., 2014). A highly complex task coupled with
high intrinsic motivation could accelerate leaders’ influence on employees’ desire to become
involved in creative activities (Doci and Hofmans, 2015; Shalley et al., 2009; Willis et al., 2017).
It is assumed that task complexity, supported by substantial autonomy and skill variety, will
drive employees’ interest and motivation in the creative process collectively with other
contextual factors. Therefore, the study proposes the following hypotheses:
H3. Task complexity moderates the relationship between transformational leadership
and intrinsic motivation.
H4. Task complexity moderates the relationship between intrinsic motivation and
employees’ creative process engagement.
H5. Task complexity moderates the relationship between transformational leadership
and employees’ creative process engagement.
Support for innovation as a moderating variable Employees’
The IPC considers employees’ behavior as a complex interaction of individual attributes, creative
situations and contextual factors. In the organizational context, such contextual influences process
include the physical environment, culture, organizational climate, and task and time
constraints (Woodman and Schoenfeldt, 1990; Woodman et al., 1993). Therefore, this study engagement
assumed that organizational support for innovation could mediate transformational leaders’
influence on employees’ creative process engagement. Usually, the internal organizational 747
environment plays a significant role in employees’ innovative work behavior by inspiring
proactivity in employees’ creative engagement (Gumusluoğlu and Ilsev, 2009). Earlier
empirical research on organizational support, such as creative climate (Chen and Hou, 2016),
climate for innovation (Chen and Hou, 2016), support for innovation (Sarros et al., 2011) and
psychological empowerment for creativity and innovation (Si and Wei, 2012), indicated that
organizational support drives employees’ creative engagement and innovation behavior.
When the organization itself nurtures a climate for innovativeness and risk taking,
employees feel empowered and view their successes as the result of voluntary engagement
in creative actions (Gumusluoğlu and Ilsev, 2009; Jung et al., 2003). In some cases, contextual
factors, such as support for innovation, can act as a moderating variable and weaken
(negatively impact) the effects of transformational leadership on employees’ creative
engagement (Peng and Rode, 2010). In their study of 93 teams and their leaders in
multinational organizations, Si and Wei (2012) found that the effect of transformational
leadership on employees’ creative performance is relatively high when the employees’
empowerment climate is low, and vice versa. Therefore, based on theoretical grounds and
previous literature reviews, this study proposes the following hypothesis:
H6. Support for innovation mediates the relationship between transformational
leadership and employees’ creative process engagement.

Methodology of the study

Survey design
A multi-item survey instrument was used in the study. Following the forward–backward
translation method, the questionnaire was translated from the original English into the
native language (Bangla) and then back into English by a panel of experts until both
retranslated results showed no significant differences from their original versions.
The questionnaire was then refined through comments from interviews in the pilot test.

Data collection and respondent profiles

In total, 400 questionnaires were distributed in the Chittagong region of Bangladesh, with the
help of research associates. The questionnaires were addressed to the owners/managers/CEOs
of small and medium enterprises registered with the Chittagong Chamber of Commerce and
Industry. Of the 400 questionnaires, 243 were received, for a response rate of 60.75 percent,
which is a relatively high rate. Ultimately, 234 responses were used in the study after
excluding a further nine replies with missing or unmatched cases.

Survey instruments
The questionnaire had three sections. The first section explained the measures and how to
respond to the survey. The second section included the survey measures, along with their
indicator items, against which the informants were asked to tick (✓) the appropriate box.
In the third section, the respondents were invited to respond to control/demographic
variables, such as age, gender, experience in the organization and firm age, among other
variables. The questionnaire responses were measured using a five-point Likert scale
MD adapted from prior studies and ranging from strongly agree (1) to strongly disagree (5).
57,3 We used three different measurement instruments in conjunction with the five-point Likert
scale to administer the survey. These tools, listed in Table I, were transformational
leadership, as employed by Podsakoff et al. (1996) and creative process engagement, which
was used by Zhang and Bartol (2010b). The moderating variable questionnaires were
adopted from prior studies, such as intrinsic motivation, developed by Zhang and Bartol
748 (2010b), task complexity, developed by Maynard and Hakel (1997) and support for
innovation, developed by Kivimäki et al. (1997) (Table I).

Control variables
Employees’ gender, age, education and rank were modeled in the study as control variables.
The control variables were gender (1 ¼ male, 2 ¼ female), informants’ age (1 ¼ younger than
25 years old, 2 ¼ 25–35 years old, 3 ¼ 36–45 years old, 4 ¼ 46–55 years old and 5 ¼ older than
56 years old), education (1 ¼ high school or lower, 2 ¼ college, 3 ¼ bachelor’s and 4 ¼ master’s
or higher) and rank (1 ¼ manager/CEO/owner, 2 ¼ front-line employee). The variables
were found to be significantly related to employees’ creative outcomes in earlier research
(Du et al., 2016; Mittal and Dhar, 2015; Shalley and Gilson, 2004; Zhang and Bartol, 2010a).
Response bias. The study followed several steps to limit common method bias problems.
First, anonymity and confidentiality were assured to the respondents to limit their desire to
please and give wrong answers (Podsakoff et al., 2003, 2012). Second, Harman’s one-factor
test was conducted to check the variance. It reported that the first factor explains
39.79 percent of the variance, which is less than 50 percent of the total variance explained by
the set of factors of the study. Finally, as suggested by Pavlou et al. (2007), the correlations
matrix test was conducted among the constructs. The estimated results presented in
Table II show that not a single value exceeded 0.90, indicating that there is no common
method bias in the study.

Measurement model
This study employed both the criterion and cross-loading methods to estimate the measures’
discriminant validity. The results shown in Tables I and II indicate that the conditions of the
measures’ discriminant validity are also fulfilled. In agreement with previous studies, both
the convergent validity and discriminant validity were tested to estimate the model’s
validity. In addition to Cronbach’s α, we also estimated the composite reliability (CA) to
measure the suitability of all the items in the construct. The measurement model estimates
showed that the factor loadings (all W0.50), average variance extracted (AVE W0.50) and
CA (W0.934) were all greater than the minimum threshold limit (Hair et al., 2014; Urbach
and Ahlemann, 2010). Furthermore, we checked the measurement items’ loadings (Table III)
with the associated t-statistic (Table I), which showed that each of these items’ highest
loading was loaded on its own construct and was statistically significant at p o0.000.

Structural model
In addition to relying on a path coefficient ( β) and coefficient of determination (R2), the study
also employed other criteria for evaluating the structural model: the cross-validation (CV ),
communality (CVCM) and redundancy (CVRD) of the latent variables; the multicollinearity
test; and the goodness-of-fit (GoF) test. The CVCM focuses on the global quality of
the structural model, and the CVRD estimates the quality of each structural equation. The
calculated index value of the CVCM and CVRD of all endogenous constructs must be positive
in order to meet the criteria (Donate and Sánchez de Pablo, 2015; Tenenhaus et al., 2005).
The estimated results show that none of these CVCM and CVRD indices was negative
(Table I). The collinearity index was assessed using a variance inflation factor (VIF).
 CM, RD, Factor
Latent variable and sources Measure items AVE CR CA CVCM CVRD R2 loading t-Statistics Skewness Kurtosis

Transformational TF1 – the firm’s management is always on the lookout 0.788 0.949 0.933 0.793 0.000 na 0.896 19.12 0.71 0.24
leadership (Podsakoff et al., for new opportunities for the organization 0.670 0.670
1996) TF2 – the firm’s management has a clear view of its 0.879 17.32 0.73 0.59
final aims
TF3 – the firm’s management succeeds in motivating 0.879 20.31 0.88 0.92
the rest of the company
TF4 – the firm’s management always acts as the 0.903 19.60 0.88 0.69
organization’s leading force
TF5 – the organization has leaders who are capable of 0.881 20.66 1.10 1.46
motivating and guiding their colleagues on the job
Intrinsic motivation (Zhang IM1 – I enjoy finding solutions to complex problems 0.822 0.933 0.892 0.822 0.042 0.381 0.740 30.29 0.74 0.28
and Bartol, 2010b) IM2 – I enjoy creating new procedures for work tasks 0.606 0.295 0.690 30.46 0.69 0.21
IM3 – I enjoy improving existing processes or 0.651 30.46 0.65 −0.08
products
Task complexity (Maynard TC1 – I found my job as a complex task 0.780 0.934 0.906 0.791 0.000 na 0.839 12.85 0.88 0.71
and Hakel, 1997) TC2 – my task is mentally demanding 0.617 0.617 0.878 13.73 0.62 0.49
TC3 – my task required a lot of thought and problem 0.902 13.09 0.72 0.37
solving
TC4 – I found my job to be a challenging task 0.911 16.00 0.79 0.25
Support for innovation SI1 – the team is always moving toward the 0.711 0.945 0.932 0.711 0.000 na 0.843 6.50 0.68 0.73
(Kivimäki et al., 1997) development of new answers 0.611 0.611
SI2 – assistance in developing new ideas is available 0.850 7.44 0.66 0.37
SI3 – the team is open and responsive to change 0.853 6.38 0.71 0.17
SI4 – people in this team are always searching for 0.850 5.64 0.54 0.16
fresh, new ways of looking at problems
SI5 – in this team we take the time needed to develop 0.850 8.42 0.63 0.23
new ideas
SI6 – people in the team cooperate in order to help 0.853 7.83 0.69 0.38
develop and apply new ideas
SI7 – members of the team provide and share 0.804 6.29 0.66 0.03
resources to help in the application of new ideas

(continued )
engagement
creative

749
process
Employees’

Survey measures and

Table I.

their estimates
 MD
57,3

750

Table I.
CM, RD, Factor
Latent variable and sources Measure items AVE CR CA CVCM CVRD R2 loading t-Statistics Skewness Kurtosis

Creative process CPE2 – I think about the problem from multiple 0.627 0.938 0.925 0.627 0.188 0.467 0.739 11.73 0.92 0.90
engagement (Zhang and perspectives 0.525 0.277
Bartol, 2010b) CPE3 – I decompose a difficult problem/assignment 0.824 13.16 1.02 0.98
into parts to obtain a greater understanding
CPE4 – I consult a wide variety of information 0.789 12.18 0.92 1.02
CPE6 – I retain large amounts of detailed information 0.777 12.34 0.86 0.97
in my area of expertise for future use
CPE7 – I consider diverse sources of information in 0.817 12.43 0.95 1.13
generating new ideas
CPE8 – I look for connections with solutions used in 0.765 11.35 0.67 0.01
seeming diverse areas
CPE9 - I generate a significant number of alternatives 0.773 11.55 0.89 0.71
to the same problem before choosing the final solution
CPE10 – I try to devise potential solutions that move 0.805 13.51 0.87 1.00
away from established ways of doing things
CPE11 – I spend considerable time shifting through 0.831 15.12 0.87 0.82
information that helps to generate new ideas
Notes: AVE, average variance explained; CR, composite reliability; CA, Cronbach’s α; CM, communality; CV, Cross-validation; RD, redundancy
Variables 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10

Control variables
1. Age 1
2. Education 0.435** 1
3. Gender −0.280** −0.202** 1
4. Rank 0.415** 0.126 −0.174** 1
5. Firm’s age 0.209** 0.168** 0.052 0.079 1
Latent variables
6. Transformational leadership −0.016 −0.077 0.071 0.067 0.020 0.888
7. Intrinsic motivation −0.031 −0.141* 0.072 0.075 0.123 0.569** 0.907
8. Task complexity −0.041 −0.081 −0.052 0.160* −0.083 0.414** 0.436** 0.883
9. Support for innovation −0.158* −0.172** 0.139* 0.004 0.055 0.368** 0.310** 0.226** 0.843
10. Creative process engagement −0.083 −0.132* 0.022 −0.009 0.033 0.581** 0.602** 0.412** 0.334** 0.792
Mean 1.9 1.869 1.894 1.871 2.060
SD 0.727 0.716 0.691 0.634 0.705
Notes: Diagonal score marked in italic is the square root of the AVE for testing discriminant validity. *,**Correlations are significant at the 0.05 and 0.01 level
(two-tailed), respectively
engagement
creative

751
process
Employees’

Correlation matrix for

discriminant validity
Table II.
MD Indicators CPE IM SI TC TL
57,3
CPE2 0.739 0.524 0.249 0.318 0.375
CPE3 0.824 0.477 0.323 0.329 0.555
CPE4 0.789 0.456 0.254 0.274 0.421
CPE6 0.777 0.421 0.271 0.329 0.459
CPE7 0.817 0.436 0.257 0.307 0.456
752 CPE8 0.765 0.510 0.275 0.331 0.481
CPE9 0.773 0.442 0.242 0.323 0.473
CPE10 0.805 0.508 0.258 0.380 0.445
CPE11 0.831 0.514 0.269 0.347 0.472
IM1 0.560 0.897 0.249 0.450 0.508
IM2 0.550 0.906 0.314 0.376 0.515
IM3 0.531 0.917 0.282 0.362 0.525
SI1 0.289 0.258 0.843 0.176 0.274
SI2 0.300 0.260 0.850 0.200 0.317
SI3 0.267 0.252 0.853 0.169 0.298
SI4 0.272 0.246 0.850 0.169 0.323
SI5 0.306 0.292 0.850 0.224 0.321
SI6 0.321 0.263 0.853 0.202 0.334
SI7 0.225 0.261 0.804 0.196 0.304
TC1 0.376 0.352 0.252 0.839 0.382
TC2 0.378 0.363 0.233 0.878 0.332
TC3 0.347 0.387 0.125 0.902 0.350
TC4 0.360 0.439 0.194 0.911 0.396
TL1 0.525 0.511 0.297 0.367 0.896
TL2 0.476 0.478 0.337 0.279 0.879
TL3 0.498 0.467 0.329 0.358 0.879
TL4 0.540 0.541 0.325 0.437 0.903
TL5 0.542 0.524 0.347 0.385 0.881
Table III. Notes: CPE, creative process engagement; IM, intrinsic motivation; SI, support for innovation; TC, task
Cross-loading complexity; TL, transformational leadership

The presence of the multicollinearity states that regression weights between the variables
are not stable and are subject to high standard errors. In general, a VIF score greater
than 3.00 is considered problematic. Table IV exhibits the VIF values, and the score
of each construct was less than 1.704. Thus, the VIF value suggests that collinearity is not a
serious concern.
Figure 2 mirrors the R2 value, path coefficient and their associated significance levels
with respect to the p-value, with bootstrapping of 4,000 cases. The β value in a path
relationship exhibits the strength of the relationship between exogenous and endogenous
variables, and the R2 value indicates the overall predictive power of the structural model.
Figure 2 reveals that transformational leadership was a significant predictor
of both intrinsic motivation ( β ¼ 0.373, p o 0.000) and creative process engagement
( β ¼ 0.305, p o 0.000). Intrinsic motivation also had a significant effect ( β ¼ 0.3355,
p o 0.000) on creative process engagement. While task complexity had a significant effect

Transformational Task Support for Intrinsic Creative process

Constructs leadership complexity innovation motivation engagement
Table IV.
The collinearity VIF score 1.643 1.297 1.155 1.704 1.692
assessment Tolerance 0.609 0.771 0.866 0.587 0.591
 Task Support for Employees’
TL
Complexity Innovation creative
�=0.089 process
�=0.118 p<0.166
engagement
�=0.468
p<0.000

p<0.080 Team Level

�=0.244 �=0.305 Individual Level

p<0.000 p<0.000 753
Figure 2.
IM �=0.355 CPE Structural model with
R2 = 0.373 p<0.000 R2 = 0.476 path coefficients

( β ¼ 0.244, p o 0.000) on intrinsic motivation, task complexity ( β ¼ 0.118, p o 0.080) and

support for innovation ( β ¼ 0.089, p o 0.166) had no evident significant effect on creative
process engagement.
Regarding the coefficient of determination, the structural model estimates that task
complexity and transformational leadership explain 37.3 percent (R2) of the variance in
intrinsic motivation, whereas transformational leadership, task complexity and intrinsic
motivation explain 44.90 percent (R2) of the variance in creative process engagement
(excluding all the insignificant path relationships). Cohen (1977) defined three threshold
limits: R2 values less than 0.13 are not significant; R2 values less than 0.26 are not tangent;
and R2 values greater than 0.26 are significant. This study estimates the minimum R2 value
to be 0.373, which is statistically significant (Cohen, 1977). Rather than relying solely on R2,
we also measured the size of the effect of GoF, which equals the square root of the products
of the commonalities of all constructs and the R2 of the endogenous variables. The model’s
GoF is presented as follows:
qffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffi
GoF ¼ Average CM Average R2 ; (1)

GoF ¼ 0:554:

Analysis and findings

Mediation effect
The necessary condition of a mediation effect is for the independent variable (IV ) to have
significant effects on both the dependent variable (DV ) and the mediating variable (MV ).
Additionally, the meditating variables must significantly predict the DVs. The sufficient
condition is that the significant relationship between the IV and DV must disappear (full
mediation) or decrease (partial mediation) when the MV is added to the model. Figure 3
shows the unmediated model and the mediated model.

Unmediated result
Table V represents the path coefficients of transformational leadership to creative process
engagement, transformational leadership to intrinsic motivation and intrinsic motivation to
creative process engagement relationships. The estimated path coefficients ( βs) are
significant ( p o0.00) before running mediation: 0.585 (TL → CPE), 0.569 (TL → IM) and
0.606 (IM → CPE). The necessary condition is maintained for the running mediation effect.
The estimates of the effect of transformational leadership to creative process engagement
are significant at p o0.000. Therefore, H1 is supported.
MD Mediated result
57,3 Table VI represents the direct effects (c and c′), standard error, indirect effects and total
effects, along with their significance levels. The Sobel (1982) test is also performed to
measure the significance of the indirect effect. The table exhibits the direct effect (of TL),
indirect effects (TL to IM and IM to CPE) and total effect on creative process engagement
after the inclusion of the mediator (IM). Regression coefficients of c ¼ 0.585 ( p o0.000),
754 c′ ¼ 0.354 ( p o0.000), a ¼ 0.569 ( p o0.0.00) and b ¼ 0.402 ( p o0.000) represent TL → CPE
(both c and c′), TL → IM (a) and IM → CPE (b), respectively. The estimated results show that
the indirect effect remains significant. However, the regression coefficient decreases from
0.585 (for c) to 0.354 (for c′). Therefore, the results of the study indicate that partial mediation
occurs. To reaffirm the partial mediation, we also calculated the variance accounted for
(VAF ), which is 0.393 and within the range of 0.20 to 0.80. Further,
Sobel’s (1982) test results showed that the indirect effect is also significant at p o0.000.
We conclude that H2 is proven, given that intrinsic motivation partially mediates the
relationship between transformational leadership and creative process engagement.

Moderating effects
Table VII represents the interactive effects of task complexity and support for innovation.
First, we tested the intervening effects of task complexity on the relationship between
transformational leadership and intrinsic motivation. We found that the moderating effect

Unmediated c
TL CPE
Model Total Effect

IM
Indirect effect Indirect effect
Figure 3.
Total, direct and a b
indirect effects in
unmediated and Mediated c′
mediated model TL CPE
Model Direct Effect

Direct relations Path coefficient ( β) R2 t-Statistic p-Value

TL → CPE 0.585 0.343 10.103 0.000

TL → IM 0.569 0.324 9.657 0.000
IM → CPE 0.606 0.367 11.228 0.000
Table V. Notes: CPE, creative process engagement; IM, intrinsic motivation; SI, support for innovation; TC, task
Result of unmediation complexity; TL, transformational leadership

Direct relations β SE R2 Indirect effect Total effect VAF t-Statistic p-Value Sobel’s test

TL → CPE (c) 0.585 0.060 0.343 10.103 0.000 z ¼ 4.301

p o0.00
TL → CPE (c′) 0.354 0.082 0.449 0.583** 0.393PM 4.345 0.000
Table VI. TL → IM (a) 0.569 0.058 9.771 0.000
Result of mediation IM → CPE (b) 0.402 0.084 0.229* 4.759 0.000
(IM as a mediating Notes: PM, partial mediation; TL, transformational leadership; CPE, creative process engagement; IM,
variable) intrinsic motivation. *Indirect effect ¼ coefficient (a×b); **total effect ¼ c′+indirect effect
 Intrinsic motivation Creative process engagement
Employees’
Model 1 Model 2 Model 1 Model 2 Model 3 creative
process
Intercept 0.52 1.148
Transformational leadership (TL) 0.46** 0.157 engagement
Task complexity (TC) 0.25** −0.064
TL×TC 0.143*
Intercept 2.289 0.868 2.403 755
Age −0.053 −0.023 −0.019
Education −0.108 −0.023 0.006
Rank 0.025 −0.084 −0.077
Gender −0.028 −0.086 −0.052
Firm’s age 0.056 0.005 0.002
Transformational leadership 0.296** 0.070
Intrinsic motivation (IM) 0.349** −0.206
Task complexity 0.121* −0.373*
Support for innovation (SI) 0.094 −0.240
TL×TC −0.034
TL×SI 0.140*
IM×TC 0.257** Table VII.
R2 37.20 38.50 2.30 47.30 51.80 Hierarchical
ΔR2 1.30 45.00 4.50 regression analysis for
Notes: *p o0.05; **p o 0.01 the interaction effects

of task complexity on the relationship between transformational leadership and intrinsic

motivation was significant ( β ¼ 0.143, p o0.05). This result confirmed H3. Figure 4(a)
reveals that the relationship between transformational leadership and intrinsic motivation is
stronger when the task complexity is high rather than low.
(a) (b)
Moderator Moderator
Low TC High TC Low TC High TC
CPE
IM

Low TL High TL Low TL High TL

(c) (d)
Moderator Moderator
Low SI High SI Low TC High TC
CPE
CPE

Figure 4.
Moderating effects of
Low TL High TL Low IM High IM the variables
MD Second, task complexity was also used as a moderating variable in the relationships between
57,3 transformational leadership and creative process engagement and between intrinsic
motivation and creative process engagement. We tested the impacts of the control
variables on creative process engagement in Model 1, where no specific influence was found to
be significant. Model 2 measured the effects of IVs, such as transformational leadership and
intrinsic motivation, on creative process engagement. The interaction effects of task
756 complexity and transformational leadership on creative process engagement were
insignificant ( β ¼ −0.034, ns) in the first test of H5, whereas the interaction effects of task
complexity and intrinsic motivation on creative process engagement were significant
( β ¼ 0.257, po0.00) in the second test of H4. Figure 4(b) demonstrates that the relationship
between transformational leadership and creative process engagement is not affected by the
presence of a high or low level of task complexity. However, Figure 4(c) shows that a positive
relationship between transformational leadership and creative process engagement is fostered
when support for innovation is high rather than low. Third, the moderating effect of support
for innovation on the relationship between transformational leadership and creative process
engagement is also found to be significant, just as with H6 ( β ¼ 0.257, po0.05). Finally,
regarding H6, Figure 4(d) also shows that the negative association between intrinsic
motivation and creative process engagement disappears with higher levels of task complexity.
The analysis revealed several effects of the control variables on employees’ creative
process engagement. However, unlike most leadership research, this study follows a
non-experimental research design without any control group in order to investigate the
relationship between transformational leadership and employees’ creative behavioral
phenomenon. Therefore, the effects of control variables on employee behavior cannot
be seen as distortions of observed, hypothesized relationships. These control variables are
extraneous variables and were not used as proxy or dummy variables in the study, and the
inclusion of the variables could be seen as a “purification principle,” yielding better
estimates of the predictor–criterion relationship and purifying the results from alternative
explanations (Bernerth et al., 2017, p. 3). As suggested by researchers (Atinc et al., 2012;
Spector and Brannick, 2011), this study justifies the inclusion of those variables, as their
effects on employees’ creative behavior were reported in earlier research.

Discussion
This study examined the influence of transformational leadership on employees’ creative
process engagement, the mediating effects of intrinsic motivation, the moderating effects of
task complexity and support for innovation from a multi-level interactionist perspective.
The results summarized in Table VI demonstrate that transformational leadership
substantially influences employees’ engagement in the creative process. Consistent with the
assumptions of the IPC, the findings further revealed the mediating effects on intrinsic
motivation and the moderating effects of task complexity and innovation support on the
relationship between transformational leadership and creative process engagement. This
result reinforces the notion that transformational leadership has a stronger influence on
creative process engagement when the mediator of intrinsic motivation is used alone to
predict the latter (Uddin et al., 2018). The use of intrinsic motivation as the mediator
strengthens the predictability of transformational leadership to explain creative process
engagement from 0.343 (R2) to 0.449 (R2). From the tenets of transformational leadership, it
seems that leaders boost followers’ intrinsic motivation to enjoy and engage in
organizational creative efforts (Sattayaraksa and Boon-itt, 2018; Ma and Jiang, 2018).
Individualized considerations of transformational leadership focus on guidance, feedback
and the mental support of followers, which consequently increase levels of intrinsic
motivation to engage in unconventional work, risk taking and creative activities (Bednall
et al., 2018; Ng, 2017; Uddin, 2015; Uddin et al., 2017).
 Aligned with the assumptions of the interactionism perspective of creativity, this finding Employees’
further revealed the moderating effect of task complexity and support for innovation in creative
transformational leadership and creative process engagement. The structural model in process
Figure 2 shows the influence of task complexity and support for innovation on influencing
creative process engagement. The result of their interaction effects in a bivariate regression engagement
is presented in Tables V and VII, which showed that task complexity and support for
innovation have a positive moderating effect on creative process engagement. Following the 757
rationale of the task characteristics model, the employees feel a stronger identity with the
work when task seems complex and challenging. Thus, their intrinsic motivation increases
creative engagement when employees perceive the challenging and complex nature of the
job (Doci and Hofmans, 2015; Uddin et al., 2018). Similarly, support for innovation also
impacts creative process engagement when it is tied with transformational leadership rather
than when it is separated.
The estimated result further shows that task complexity moderates the relationships
between transformational leadership and intrinsic motivation and between intrinsic motivation
and creative process engagement. These results are consistent with the essence of the IPC.
First, the practice of transformational leadership makes jobs interesting and enjoyable for
employees, who tend to experience increased intrinsic motivation (Wang et al., 2014). According
to the IPC, task complexity increases employees’ intrinsic motivation and inspires them to
become more involved and engaged (Shalley et al., 2009). When task complexity is high,
employees need a non-controlling leader, such as a transformational leader, to boost their
intrinsic motivation and make their jobs more interesting and enjoyable (Burns, 1978;
Denti and Hemlin, 2012). Second, the relationship between intrinsic motivation and creative
process engagement becomes negative when task complexity is used as a predictive variable in
the structured model because a complex task is self-motivating. However, the interactive
effect that accompanies it tends to neutralize the negative relationship between intrinsic
motivation and creative process engagement when the task seems more complex because task
complexity contributes to improving intrinsic motivation and involvement and engagement in
creativity-related tasks.
We tested the moderating effects of support for innovation, and the results showed that
high support for innovation at the team level tends to escalate the positive relationship
between transformational leadership and creative process engagement. This result contrasts
with the findings of Si and Wei (2012) and Peng and Rode (2010), in which support for
innovation further strengthened positive relationships between transformational leadership
and creative process engagement. Therefore, from the IPC perspective, the findings ensured
that creative behavior generates creative results, but the final outcome should be considered
as the interactions of individual-, unit- and organizational-level contextual factors rather than
a simple bi-polar outcome (Du et al., 2016; Woodman et al., 1993).

Theoretical contribution
The findings of study contribute to the existing literature in the following ways. First, despite
the growing research on creative outcomes and innovation, few studies have focused on creative
processes or creative process engagement (Du et al., 2016; Henker et al., 2015; Xie et al., 2016).
The findings of the study could help advance the knowledge of the interaction effects of creative
behavior from a multi-level perspective rather considering creative outcomes alone through the
exploration of the impact of transformational leadership on employees’ creative process
engagement. While earlier research has justified using the interactionist perspective to improve
creative outcomes, the present study validates the applicability of interactionist approach to
increase employees’ creative process engagement in the organizational context, as it found
that employees’ creative process engagement is influenced by transformational leadership
and enhanced by employees’ intrinsic motivation, as well as the task complexity of the job.
MD Second, as mentioned earlier, the effectiveness of transformational leadership in Asian contexts
57,3 has not been equivocally documented. The findings of this study will add new research evidence
on the effectiveness of transformational leadership in Asian hierarchical contexts. Third, the
study considers both transformational leadership and employees’ creative process engagement
as multi-dimensional behavioral phenomena and investigates the impact of transformational
leadership on creative processes, incorporating multi-level contextual factors. The findings
758 justified the relevance of multi-level analysis for investigating employees’ behaviors
from a holistic perspective, and we found that employees’ creative engagement was the
outcome of the interaction of individual-, unit- and organizational-level factors (Ng, 2017).
Therefore, employees’ creative behavior may be considered not only an individual’s intention
but also the interaction among leaders’ influence, the nature of the work and a supportive
organizational environment.

Managerial implications
In addition to the theoretical contributions, the study offers practical implications for
managers, individuals and academics. First, the findings demonstrate that transformational
leadership positively impacts employees’ creative process engagement. Therefore,
managers could use the essence of transformational leadership to improve employees’
creative engagement in the organizational context. Second, the results revealed the
mediating effects of intrinsic motivation on leadership and creative process engagement
relationships. Managers should provide autonomy, growth opportunities and skill variety in
the workplace to motivate employees intrinsically, which will increase their engagement in
creative and innovative pursuits. Similarly to Woodman and Schoenfeldt (1990), this study
suggests that managers should not only focus on hiring creative geniuses but also consider
synergies of multi-level interactions among individual, unit and organizational factors.

Limitations and future research

Despite this study’s theoretical and practical significance, it also has underlying limitations,
which show avenues for further research in similar and different contexts. The present study
used cross-sectional data to investigate causal inferences (Henker et al., 2015). Future
researchers are urged to employ a longitudinal or experimental research design to overcome
the concern for causality relationships (Wang et al., 2014). Gumusluoğlu and Ilsev (2009) and
Shin and Zhou (2003) showed the mediating role of intrinsic motivation on the relationship
between transformational leadership and creativity. However, the impacts of intrinsic
motivation on transformational leadership and creative process engagement have not been
studied elsewhere. Studies could be undertaken using intrinsic motivation as a moderating
variable in similar contexts to evaluate the generalizability of the findings. There might be
concerns of response bias in the results because we studied predictive, dependent and mediator
variables from the same source simultaneously. This potential problem might be avoided if
future researchers conduct their surveys at different time periods (Henker et al., 2015). The use
of self-reported questionnaires might raise another concern because informants are more likely
to provide socially desirable answers than the most accurate responses. In our study,
we developed the research model using prior constructs developed in western contexts.
As emphasized by Zhang and Bartol (2010b), we tested the model and found empirical support
in an Asian context. Future studies in similar/dissimilar contexts in other parts of the world will
increase the generalizability of these findings.

Conclusion
The present study demonstrates the effectiveness of transformational leadership as well as its
impact on employees’ creative process engagement in the Asian context. This study further
reveals that intrinsic motivation, task complexity and support for innovation mediate the Employees’
relationship between transformational leadership and creative process engagement. creative
Transformational leaders contribute to boosting employees’ creative process engagement process
by designing a conductive task environment and by providing the necessary autonomy and
flexibility to engage in creative efforts. This study contributes to the abundant research on the engagement
role of transformational leadership and identifies creativity as a process that precedes creative
outcomes. The use of the moderating variables of task complexity and support for innovation 759
will increase the focus on transformational leadership to interactions among task design,
contextual factors and the creative climate for engaging employees in creative processes.
Despite some limitations, the study contributes to the existing literature by providing
empirical evidence of the impacts of individual-, unit- and organizational-level variables to
understand employees’ creative process engagement.

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time”, Journal of Applied Psychology, Vol. 90 No. 2, pp. 277-293.

About the authors

Dr Monowar Mahmood, PhD is Professor of Management, Bang College of Business, KIMEP
University, Almaty, Kazakhstan. He received an MBA Degree from Saint Mary’s University, Canada;
an MA Degree from the University of Leeds, UK; and a PhD Degree from the University of Manchester,
UK. Dr Mahmood published on corporate governance, corporate social responsibility, human resource
management and gender and equal employment policies. Dr Monowar Mahmood is the corresponding
author and can be contacted at: monowar@kimep.kz
Dr Md. Aftab Uddin, PhD is Associate Professor of Human Resource Management at the University
of Chittagong, Bangladesh. He has completed BBA (Major in Management) and MBA (Major in
International Management) degrees both from the University of Chittagong, Bangladesh.
Dr Uddin has also completed second MBA Degree (Major in Human Resource Management) and
PhD Degree from the Wuhan University of Technology, China. He has more than 20 publications in
local and international peer-reviewed journals and conference proceedings on leadership, intelligence,
innovative behavior, digitization and corporate social responsibility.
Dr Luo Fan, PhD is Professor of Management at the School of Management, Wuhan University of
Technology, China. She completed the BSc Degree in Engineering from Beihang University, Master
and a PhD Degree from the Wuhan University of Technology, China. Dr Fan has more than 140
publications in local and international peer-reviewed journals and conference proceedings including
Human Resource Development and Management, Risk Early Warning Management, Organizational
Behavior, and conducted many projects including National Natural Science Foundation China. Luo was
also Visiting Professor at the University of Minnesota, USA.

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