RT Article
T1 Supporting creativity or creative unethicality?: empowering leadership and the role of performance pressure
JF Journal of business ethics
VO 179
IS 1
SP 111
OP 131
A1 Mai, Ke Michael
A2 Welsh, David
A2 Wang, Fuxi
A2 Bush, John
A2 Jiang, Kaifeng
LA English
YR 2022
UL https://ixtheo.de/Record/1811497675
AB Organizational leaders are eager to unlock the creative potential of followers. Yet, there is growing evidence that creativity can also have a dark side within organizations. Building on research linking creativity and unethical behavior, we develop the construct of creative unethicality—behavior that is both unethical and novel. We draw on social exchange theory to develop a model that identifies both why and when creative unethicality emerges within organizations. Specifically, we investigate the exchange dynamics through which creative support provided by empowering leaders facilitates creative unethicality under conditions of high performance pressure. Across two multi-wave, multi-source field studies with employee-coworker and leader-subordinate dyads and an experimental study with a novel unethicality measure in a business simulation, we find convergent support for our theoretical model. These findings have important theoretical and practical implications for fostering creativity in organizations without simultaneously facilitating creative unethicality.
K1 Behavioral ethics
K1 Creative unethicality
K1 Creativity
K1 Empowering leadership
K1 Performance pressure
K1 Unethical Behavior
K1 Aufsatz in Zeitschrift
DO 10.1007/s10551-021-04784-6