Paradoxical Leadership Behavior and Employee Creative Deviance: The Role of Paradox Mindset and Leader–Member Exchange

• Published in: Journal of business and psychology 2024-06, Vol.39 (3), p.697-713
• Main Authors: Yang, Ning, Chen, Hui, (Frank) Wang, Xiao-Hua
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Subjects: Behavioral Science and Psychology; Business and Management; Community and Environmental Psychology; Deviance; Employee behavior; Industrial and Organizational Psychology; Leader-member exchange; Occupational psychology; Original Paper; Personality and Social Psychology; Psychology; Social & emotional learning; Social Sciences
• ISSN: 0889-3268; 1573-353X
• DOI: 10.1007/s10869-023-09902-x

Creative deviance is a creative activity that an individual privately engages in that has the contradictory characteristics of high risk and high reward. Drawing on social learning theory, the authors examine the impact of paradoxical leadership behavior (PLB) on employee creative deviance through two studies. Study 1 was a preliminary test of the hypotheses. Study 2 repeated the findings of Study 1 to verify the reliability of the findings. The results showed that PLB was positively related to employee creative deviance and that employee paradox mindset mediated the positive relationship between PLB and creative deviance. Furthermore, leader–member exchange (LMX) moderated the effect of PLB on a paradox mindset and the mediation effect of a paradox mindset, such that the two effects were stronger when LMX was high. The implications and limitations of our research are discussed.