THE CASE FOR HUMBLE AND NARCISSISTIC LEADERSHIP: CREATIVE SELF-EFFICACY
AND IDEA GENERATION IN ENTREPRENEURIAL SETTINGS
A DISSERTATION IN
Entrepreneurship and Innovation
Presented to the Faculty of the University of Missouri-Kansas City in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree
DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY
by XIAODAN ZENG
B.A., Sichuan Normal University M.A., Southwest Jiaotong University M.B.A., Oklahoma State University
Kansas City, Missouri
2020
© 2020
XIAODAN ZENG
ALL RIGHTS RESERVED
ii
THE CASE FOR HUMBLE AND NARCISSISTIC LEADERSHIP: CREATIVE SELF-
EFFICACY AND IDEA GENERATION IN ENTREPRENEURIAL SETTINGS
Xiaodan Zeng, Candidate for the Doctor of Philosophy Degree
University of Missouri-Kansas City, 2020
ABSTRACT
Based on social-cognitive theory and a paradox perspective, this dissertation explores how leader narcissism and leader humility together moderate the influence of domain- specific self-efficacy on the type-specific innovative work behavior in entrepreneurial settings. This multilevel framework answers the repeated calls for theorizing and examining the joint effects of multiple leader traits. It offers novel insights to understand the interaction effects of leader humility and narcissism in the entrepreneurial context. By focusing on idea generation, this dissertation also clarifies areas of the ambiguity in prior research on innovative work behavior. I use a three-phase design for this study. First, I assess the psychometric properties of the focal constructs with a sample of 98 students. I further refine the measures and check their consistency with 380 participants from Amazon M-Turk.
Consistent results from Phase 1 and Phase 2 show the scales are reliable and valid. I conclude by testing the hypothesis with a matched sample of 60 leaders and their 137 followers from new ventures in China and Ghana, using multilevel modeling. Insights from this dissertation have important implications for both theory and practice in the field of entrepreneurship, leadership, and innovative work behavior.
iii APPROVAL PAGE
The faculty listed below, appointed by the Dean of the Henry W. Bloch School of
Management, have examined a dissertation titled “The Case for Humble and Narcissistic
Leadership: Creative Self-efficacy and Idea Generation in Entrepreneurial Settings,” presented by Xiaodan Zeng, candidate for the Doctor of Philosophy degree, and certify that in their opinion it is worthy of acceptance.
Supervisory Committee
Brian S. Anderson, Ph.D., Committee Chair
Department of Global Entrepreneurship and Innovation
Jeffrey S. Hornsby, Ph.D.
Department of Global Entrepreneurship and Innovation
Mark E. Parry, Ph.D.
Department of Global Entrepreneurship and Innovation
Ishrat Ali, Ph.D.
Department of Global Entrepreneurship and Innovation
iv CONTENTS ABSTRACT ...... iii
ILLUSTRATIONS…………………………………………………………………………...... vii
TABLES………………………………………………………………………………………….viii
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS………………………………………………………………………. ix
CHAPTER
1. INTRODUCTION ...... 1
2. LITERATURE REVIEW AND HYPOTHESIS ...... 13
2.1. Creative Self-efficacy...... 13
2.2. Idea Generation ...... 15
2.3. The Impact of Creative Self-efficacy on Idea generation… ...... 17
2.4. Leader Narcissism and Leader Humility ...... 18
2.4.1. The Concepts of Narcissism and Humility ...... 19
2.4.2. A Paradox Perspective on Narcissism and Humility……………………….…….20
2.4.3. The Distinctiveness and Coexistence of Leader Narcissism and Humility ...... 22
2.4.4. Previous Research on the Impacts of Leader Narcissism and Humility ………….26
2.5. Leadership in Entrepreneurial Settings ...... 29
2.6. Leader Narcissism and Leader Humility as Joint Moderators ...... 31
3. METHODS ...... 36
3.1. Phase 1 Assessing the Psychometric Properties of Measures ...... 36
3.1.1. The Sample...... 38
3.1.2. Scales and Measures ...... 38
3.1.3. Measurement Model Evaluation ...... 40
3.2. Phase 2 Assessing the Psychometric Properties of Refined Measures ...... 43
v 3.2.1. The Sample...... 43
3.2.2. Scales and Measures ...... 43
3.2.3. Measurement Model Evaluation……………………………………………….44
3.2.4. Comparison of Results between Phase 1 and Phase 2………………………….45
3.3. Phase 3 The Main Study and Hypothesis Testing ...... 46
3.3.1. The Sample ...... 46
3.3.2. Variables and Measures…………………………………………………….….47
3.3.3. Analysis...... 50
4. RESULTS…………………………………………………………………………….….…...52
4.1. Descriptive Statistics…………………………………………………………………….52
4.2. Hypothesis Tests…………………………………………………………………………53
5. DISCUSSION AND CONCLUSION………………………………………………...………65
5.1. Theoretical Implications………………………………………………………………….65
5.2. Practical Implications…………………………………………………………………….69
5.3. Limitations and Future Research Directions………………………………………….….71
5.4. Conclusion……………………………………………………………………………….75
APPENDICES ...... 76
Appendix A: Sample Measures for Phase 1 ...... 76
Appendix B: Sample Measures for Phase 2 ...... 78
Appendix C: Sample Surveys for the Main Study… ...... 79
REFERENCES……………………………………………………………………………………81
VITA…………………………………………………………………………………………...….98
vi
ILLUSTRATIONS Figure Page
1. Research model……………………………………………………………………………9
2. Effect of creative self-efficacy on idea generation…………………………………….....57
3. Effect of creative self-efficacy on idea generation moderated by humility and narcissism……………………………………………………………………………………62
4. Johnson-Neyman regions of significance and confidence intervals for interactions……..63
vii TABLES
Table Page
1. Examples of relevant paradoxes in the literature……………………………….…21
2. The distinctiveness and coexistence of humility and narcissism………………….23
3. Review of common measurement models for the focal constructs…………….….37
4. Summary of analysis results for Phase 1……………………………………….….41
5. Summary of analysis results for Phase 2……………………………….………….45
6. Comparison of results between Phase 1 and Phase 2……………………………...46
7. Summary statistics and correlation matrix…….……………….………………….52
8. Multilevel Model-fixed effects……………...…………………….………………54
Multilevel Model-fixed effects (continued)……………………………..……...…58
9. Multilevel Model-random effects……………………………………….……...…59
10. Conditional effects of creative self-efficacy on idea generation……………….….61
viii
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
My four-year Ph.D. journey is completed. Looking back, I have to say I am very fortunate to have the guidance and support of my advisors, friends, and family. Even though I am the one who is going to get the Ph.D., it is actually the achievement of many who elevated me and helped me.
I am very grateful to my dissertation chair and advisor, Dr. Brian Anderson, for his tremendous support and guidance that helped me to complete my doctoral study. Dr.
Anderson has challenged me to get better since day one of this dissertation process. He set a great role model for me with his high academic rigor and strong conscientiousness. I hope I can be a brilliant professor like him in the future. I am also lucky enough to have Dr. Jeff
Hornsby, Dr. Mark Parry, and Dr. Ishrat Ali as my dissertation committee, who gave me their insightful comments and suggestions during my Ph.D. study.
I am so thankful to Chad, Griffin, and Cheng, for their unwavering encouragement and support in my study and life. They have lightened up my days and brought me so many laughs. My special thanks go to Chad, for his extraordinary efforts in helping me collect dissertation data from Ghana and to my friends in China who helped my data collection despite their busy schedules.
I would also like to express my sincere gratitude to Dr. Sunny Li Sun. Thank you for being one of my greatest advocates and for all the opportunities you have provided that have aided me in preparing publications. Thank you for your unwavering encouragement and guidance. I am truly grateful for all your personal and academic support.
My deepest gratitude goes to my parents, my husband and relatives for their
ix everlasting love. I love you all. Thank you, mom and dad, your perseverance and optimism were passed on to me. Thank you, my dear husband, best friend, and soulmate, Xiaowei. You have been there every step of the way to support my life and career. I cannot express how much I love you and how much you mean to me. Your unwavering love and trust helped me overcome so many roadblocks and get where I am today. I am thrilled to start the next chapter of our life.
Throughout my Ph.D., I have learned that the specific things that made me feel frustrated were actually the biggest contributors to my success. This journey has offered me the opportunity to grow as an independent scholar and discover more and more what I am capable of. To the challenging but rewarding journey! To myself!
x
CHAPTER 1. INTRODUCTION
The study of idea generation in the workplace is part of a growing literature on innovative work behavior. Innovative work behavior refers to the intentional efforts of employees to generate, promote, and realize new ideas to benefit work performance, the group, and the organization (Janssen, 2000, 2001). By definition, innovative work behavior is a multifaceted concept consisting of three distinctive, but temporally linked, behavioral tasks of idea generation, idea promotion, and idea implementation. Idea generation, defined as the intentional efforts of employees to generate novel and useful ideas for work improvement, is a fundamental component of innovative work behavior
(Janssen, 2000; Ng & Lucianetti, 2016). As the foundation for organizations to gain competitive advantages (Getz & Robinson, 2003; Pieterse, van Knippenberg, Schippers,
& Stam, 2009; Scott & Bruce, 1994), the idea generation behavior of employees has garnered increasing attention from scholars in different fields (Lukoschek, Gerlach,
Stock, & Xin, 2018; Ng & Lucianetti, 2016; Weinberger, Wach, Stephan, & Wegge,
2018).
Over the past decades, scholars have associated different antecedents with innovative work behavior, which inherently relates to idea generation (Nisula & Kianto,
2016; Scott & Bruce, 1994). Of all the factors that drive employees’ innovative work behavior, creative self-efficacy, the belief that one has the ability to produce creative outcomes (Tierney & Farmer, 2002), has been found to be a key driver. However, Ng and
Lucianetti (2016) indicate that creative self-efficacy has a much stronger influence on idea generation than the other two types of innovative work behaviors. Because
1 innovative work behavior includes three different types, each should have its own antecedents (Anderson, Potočnik, & Zhou, 2014). Without considering the differences, researchers (Javed, Khan, Arjoon, Mashkoor, & Haque, 2018; Tu & Lu, 2013) were assuming the three types of behaviors all share a common theme and are interchangeable.
However, by definition, these behaviors manifest differently. Failing to account for the differences obscures the theoretical contributions to innovative work behavior.
Despite the valuable and insightful findings of Ng and Lucianetti (2016), an understanding of the boundary conditions of the creative self-efficacy and idea generation relationship remains underdeveloped. The incomplete picture of the relationship between creative self-efficacy and idea generation is likely resulting from the overlook of the person-context interface—the contextual moderators that affect how employees believe in themselves and act accordingly, because researchers have long suggested that personal and contextual factors interact to affect idea generation (Amabile, 1993; Woodman,
Sawyer, & Griffin, 1993). In particular, there is a dearth of knowledge of whether contextual factors at work such as leadership that may accentuate or attenuate the relationship between followers’ creative self-efficacy and their idea generation (Tierney
& Farmer, 2011). However, to this point, most research focused on the independent contributions of personal characteristics to innovative work behavior (Nisula & Kianto,
2016). This limitation is problematic, because, like other employee outcomes, the extent to which employees will engage in idea generation for work improvement depends on not only their characteristics but also the work environment that they perceive around them.
Thus, an examination of the interaction between personal characteristics of employees
2 and contextual factors may continue to advance the understanding of idea generation behavior.
Of all the forces that impinge on employees’ daily experience of the work environment, one of the most immediate and potent forces is likely to be their leaders.
Leaders direct and evaluate employees’ work, facilitate or impede their access to resources and information, and in many other ways touch their engagement with tasks and other people (Amabile, Schatzel, Moneta, & Kramer, 2004). Previous research shows that personal and supervisory variables combine to influence employees work responses
(Oldham & Cummings, 1996) and present some intriguing evidence that employees’ perceptions of the work environment created by their leaders, in particular, the support from leaders, related to employees’ innovative work behavior (Oldham & Cummings,
1996; Scott & Bruce, 1994). Social cognitive theory also suggests that individuals derive information and cues from their interpersonal environment to form efficacy judgments
(Bandura, 1997; Gist & Mitchell, 1992). Thus, it is possible that there is an interaction effect between followers’ self-efficacy and their leaders.
However, despite growing research highlighting the importance of leadership as a key contextual factor driving innovative behavior (Newman, Tse, Schwarz, & Nielsen,
2018), the role that leader traits play in maximizing the beneficial effects of employees’ creative self-efficacy on their idea generation has yet to be investigated in detail. Little is known about how the traits of leaders shape the relationship between followers’ creative self-efficacy and their idea generation. In particular, we have little understanding of whether the strength of the relationship between creative self-efficacy and idea
3 generation differs in the presence of leaders with different traits. This is important because a salient characteristic of work context that is often considered a potent determinant of employee creativity at work is leader trait (Oldham & Cummings, 1996), and the trait, effecting individual behavior, is ubiquitous in organizations (Smith, Hill,
Wallace, Recendes, & Judge, 2018).
Over the past fifty years, scholars have shown a growing interest in how leaders’ personality traits may shape a variety of outcomes, in line with the increasing influence of leaders on their firms and performance (Chatterjee & Pollock, 2017). Two personality traits in particular—narcissism and humility—have received significant attention
(Chatterjee & Pollock, 2017; Owens, Johnson, & Mitchell, 2013; Smith et al., 2018).
Previous studies show that each plays a significant role in employees’ behaviors and performance (Strobl, Niedermair, Matzler, & Mussner, 2018; Nevicka, Ten Velden, De
Hoogh, & Van Vianen, 2011). For example, Strobl et al. (2018) found that humility is positively related to individual innovation behavior of subordinates. Nevicka et al. (2011) showed that narcissistic leaders negatively impact group performance. While these studies provided valuable insights into the impacts of leader traits on followers’ behaviors and performance, they focused on the direct effect of either the positive side or negative side of a distinct trait on the outcome of followers.
Although prior research consistent with the notion that positive traits are generally beneficial and negative traits are primarily detrimental, emerging evidence suggests that the effects of personal traits in organizations are far more complex than previously observed (Smith et al., 2018), and scholars have repeatedly called for more studies on the
4 effect of multiple leader traits (Owens, Wallace, & Waldman, 2015; Zhang, Ou, Tsui, &
Wang, 2017). In this dissertation, I opt to focus on two paradoxical leader traits– narcissism and humility.
Out of many positive and negative traits a leader may have (Judge, Piccolo, &
Kosalka, 2009), I focus on narcissism and humility for three reasons. First, both theory and research suggest the two traits are closely related to follower outcomes
(Bharanitharan, Chen, Bahmannia, & Lowe, 2018; Owens et al., 2015; Owens &
Hekman, 2012; Strobl et al., 2018; Wang, Liu, & Zhu, 2018). Social cognitive theory suggests that an individual’s self-efficacy judgment is contingent upon social context
(Bandura, 1977, 2012). Both humility and narcissism were originally conceptualized as interpersonal characteristics that emerge in social contexts and are catalyzed and reinforced through interpersonal interactions. Narcissism and humility, compared with other traits such as openness, conscientiousness, and neuroticism, are two traits emphasizing much stronger interpersonal interactions enacted in the social context
(Tangney, 2000, 2015). Followers pick up the information cue directly linked to their interpersonal interaction with the leader (Owens et al., 2013), which aligns with social cognitive theory and the conceptualizations of humility and narcissism as interpersonal constructs. Furthermore, prior research shows that humility and narcissism are closely related to followers’ innovative work behavior (Strobl et al., 2018; Wang et al., 2018).
Therefore, humility and narcissism, relative to other personality variables, may be particularly pertinent to shape the relationship between creative self-efficacy and idea generation.
5 Second, narcissism and humility pose a paradox (Zhang et al., 2017) that allows us to jointly examine both positive and negative leader traits, which help us better explain the complex effects of leader traits and see a fuller picture of the relationship between creative self-efficacy and idea generation. My theorization is based on the coexistence of paradoxical traits. Although other paradoxes exist in the literature, paradoxical traits, such as humility and narcissism, are very few. Other traits may help to capture either the positive or negative leader impact on the relationship, humility and narcissism stand out to capture both simultaneously.
Third, narcissism and humility, by their very nature and compared with other personal traits, are less transient and more aligned with the general timeframe of studying leader impact (Owens et al., 2016). On the contrary, other traits such as passion or affect, more often than not, are more transient (Wang, Owens, Li, & Shi, 2018). Therefore, theorizing on the interactions of leader narcissism and humility and their joint moderating effects on followers’ creative self-efficacy and idea generation addresses a gap in the literature and could pose very interesting implications for both theory and practice. In particular, findings concerning the effects in new ventures may stimulate fresh theoretical development on leadership in entrepreneurial contexts.
Recent studies show the lack of research examining leadership in entrepreneurial contexts (Kang, Matusik, Kim, & Phillips, 2016; Kang, Solomon, & Choi, 2015).
However, I argue that understanding the impact of paradoxical leader traits of narcissism and humility is particularly meaningful for the entrepreneurship literature on leadership and entrepreneurs in three ways. First, the ongoing entrepreneurship literature discussing
6 leadership has generally been one-sided, predominantly focusing on positive leadership behaviors (Murnieks, Cardon, Sudek, White, & Brooks, 2016; Zaech & Baldegger,
2017), while generally failing to acknowledge conditions in which paradoxical behaviors such as narcissistic and humble behaviors of leaders may also be advantageous. Without considering the full complexity of leader traits in the new venture context, our theoretical development in entrepreneurship on leaders is limited.
Second, the distinctiveness of the paradoxical leader traits in an entrepreneurial setting derives from the nature of new ventures. In new ventures, there are few standard operating procedures or organizational structures for leaders to fall back on when running a new venture. This distinction differentiates leaders in new ventures from corporate managers who have better-defined goals, structures, and work processes to guide them
(Hmieleski & Ensley, 2007). Thus, whereas there may be substitutes and blockers of leadership in larger and more established organizations, there are, by definition, far fewer alternatives or impediments to leadership in new ventures (Hmieleski & Ensley, 2007).
Due to the limited resources and threats to survival and growth in an increasingly complex and dynamic environment, leaders in new ventures need to demonstrate their paradoxical traits to lead effectively, because the paradoxes, such as enforcing rules to establish legitimacy while allowing flexibility, are often more challenging for them than managers in established firms. Understanding the influence of paradoxical leader traits such as narcissism and humility in entrepreneurial settings could put them in better shape.
Third, the specialty of paradoxical leader traits in new ventures stems from the inherent conflict between the need for innovation and the demand from the organization.
7 Engaging in innovative work behavior is inherently risky and expensive (Kang et al.,
2016; Yuan & Woodman, 2010). New ventures, however, with limited capital and human resources, depend considerably on employees’ innovative efforts (Ensley, Hmieleski, &
Pearce, 2006a; Ensley, Pearce, & Hmieleski, 2006b). The conflict between need and demand results in a tension. New venture leaders need to show some paradoxical traits to manage the tension in such a way as to promote idea generation. On the contrary, leaders within established firms are less likely to have such concerns.
All told, research has still fallen short in providing a complete picture of the relationship between creative self-efficacy and idea generation. In particular, we know little about how leader narcissism and humility might engender a context that strengthens or weakens the effect of followers’ creative self-efficacy on their idea generation in entrepreneurial settings.
Based on social cognitive theory and paradoxical perspective, I develop a multilevel model to explore the relationship between domain-specific self-efficacy and type-specific innovative work behavior that is contingent on paradoxical leader traits and assume that the interaction effects are particularly salient in entrepreneurial settings.
Specifically, I propose that leader narcissism and humility together impose a context that may either strengthen or weaken the impact of followers’ creative self-efficacy on their idea generation. Figure 1 illustrates my research model.
8
Leader Leader Narcissism Humility
Follower Creative Follower Idea Self-efficacy Generation
Level 1 Level 2
FIGURE 1 Research Model
I used a three-phase design to test my hypothesis. I began by assessing the psychometric properties of the measures using a student sample with 98 participants.
Then, I gathered data from a second sample with 380 participants through Amazon
MTurk and reexamined the scale properties. Finally, I collected data and tested the hypothesis with a matched sample of 60 leaders and 137 followers in new ventures. I followed the three-phase design because my review of the common measures for creative self-efficacy, innovative work behavior, leader humility, and leader narcissism show disappointing results. Although most measures show high reliability, few of them provide results on confirmatory factor analysis. Thus, we had little information on whether the measures of the construct were consistent with the researcher’s understanding of the nature of the construct. I also found that the average inter-item correlation for narcissism was very low, which raised concerns about the internal consistency reliability of the
9 construct. Therefore, I used the three-phase design to ensure the reliability and validity of the instrument.
In addressing this research model, this dissertation makes four specific contributions to the literature. First, as a major theoretical contribution, this dissertation advances research on the creative self-efficacy and idea generation relationship by identifying leader humility and narcissism as joint moderators. From the within- individual perspective, Ng and Lucianetti (2016) have investigated the relationship between creative self-efficacy and idea generation and explored the contingent effect of psychological collectivism on the relationship. Although they did not find a significant interaction effect between creative self-efficacy and psychological collectivism on idea generation, their research provided important insights for the current study. The present research assumes that paradoxical leader traits such as narcissism and humility can be important contingent factors for the creative self-efficacy and idea generation relationship because a salient characteristic of work context that is often considered a potent determinant of employee creativity at work is leader trait (Oldham & Cummings, 1996).
Leader narcissism and humility, by their very nature and compared with other personal traits, could especially drive followers to either actively engage in or avoid innovative work behavior such as idea generation. Different from Ng and Lucianetti’s (2016) research, this dissertation pioneers an inquiry into the role of leadership boundaries in shaping the creative self-efficacy and idea generation relationship and clarifies how leader narcissism and humility together can act as cross-level moderators invoking a beneficial or detrimental context that may strengthen or weaken the effect of creative
10 self-efficacy on idea generation. The comprehensive model offers a fuller picture of the relationship between creative self-efficacy and idea generation and advances our understanding of the often-neglected contingent effects on idea generation.
Second, the model presented in this dissertation integrates the positive and negative traits of a leader to advance our understanding of the complexity of personality for leadership study. The trait approach has a rich history within management research
(Smith et al., 2018). Despite considerable research on the impact of the positive side of leader traits (Bharanitharan et al., 2018; Ou, Seo, Choi, & Hom, 2017; Ou, Waldman, &
Peterson, 2018; Owens & Hekman, 2012, 2016) and the negative side of leader traits
(Braun, Aydin, Frey, & Peus, 2018; Chatterjee & Pollock, 2017; Liu, Li, Hao, & Zhang,
2019; Rosenthal & Pittinsky, 2006) on different outcomes, little attention has been given to their interaction effects. This is problematic because focusing on one side of a particular trait limits our understanding of the complexity and influences of multiple personality traits. Research shows that the effects of personal traits in organizations are far more complex than previously observed (Shao, Nijstad, & Täuber, 2019; Smith et al.,
2018), and multiple traits coexist to influence individual behaviors and performance
(Owens et al., 2015; Shao et al., 2019; Smith et al., 2018; Zhang, Waldman, Han, & Li,
2015). Investigating how narcissism and humility work together to generate synergy, this dissertation answered the repeated calls for theorizing and testing the joint effects of multiple leader traits (Owens et al., 2015; Zhang et al., 2017).
Third, this dissertation delves into the moderating effects of leader narcissism and humility in entrepreneurial contexts to deepen our understanding of effective leadership
11 for idea generation by focusing on new ventures instead of established firms. Although previous research shows that creative self-efficacy has a positive impact on idea generation, social cognitive theory suggests that creative self-efficacy may be more effective in situations in which creative self-efficacy is much needed and valued (Tierney
& Farmer, 2002). Due to limited resources and threats to survival and growth, new ventures have a high demand for employees’ innovative behavior and hold high of individuals’ creative self-efficacy. Therefore, new ventures, compared with established organizations, provide a more suitable context for the current study. Exploring the research model with new ventures enriches the underdeveloped literature on innovative work behavior and leadership within the entrepreneurship context (Kang et al., 2015;
Kang et al., 2016). It also adds new insights into the current discussion on the context specificity of innovative work behavior (Hughes, Lee, Tian, Newman, & Legood, 2018).
Finally, I develop and test a fine-grained conceptual model linking creative self- efficacy to idea generation. It represents a much-needed progression toward theoretical clarity in the innovative work behavior literature (Anderson et al., 2014). The current dissertation highlights the relationship between follower's domain-specific self-efficacy and type-specific innovative behavior. Doing so clarifies the ambiguity of past research that combined findings on innovative work behavior at the cost of clarity (Afsar &
Masood, 2018; Michael, Hou, & Fan, 2011; Newman et al., 2018) and offers an in-depth insight into innovative work behavior by parsing out the unique effect of creative self- efficacy on idea generation. In sum, the more nuanced research model provides an insight mostly missing from prior research.
12
CHAPTER 2. LITERATURE REVIEW AND HYPOTHESIS
2.1. Creative Self-Efficacy
Creative self-efficacy refers to the belief that one has the ability to produce creative outcomes (Tierney & Farmer, 2002). It is conceptually related to but distinct from several constructs concerning one’s positive self-regard, most notably self-esteem and confidence. Self-esteem refers to individual’s overall self-acceptance, self-liking and self-respect (Baumeister, Smart, & Boden, 1996). Confidence refers to the conviction in the accuracy of one’s beliefs (Moore & Healy, 2008). Self-esteem and confidence imply more broad and generalized feelings, while creative self-efficacy is a capacity judgment made in a narrower domain (Bandura, 1995; Tierney & Farmer, 2002). Creative self- efficacy also differs from general self-efficacy, which refers to the belief in one’s capability across domains (Chen, Gully, & Eden, 2001). Creative self-efficacy is, as its name implies, creativity-specific (Tierney & Farmer, 2002).
Evidence from prior research suggests that self-efficacy specific to a given domain is most instrumental in predicting performance in that domain (Bandura, 1986;
Tierney & Farmer, 2011). A case in point is creative self-efficacy. Many previous studies show that creative self-efficacy is strongly associated with creative performance among individuals and teams across large and established organizations (Chong & Ma, 2010;
Huang, Krasikova, & Liu, 2016; Kong, Chiu, & Leung, 2018; Liu, Jiang, Shalley, Keem,
& Zhou, 2016; Richter, Hirst, van Knippenberg, & Baer, 2012; Tierney & Farmer, 2002,
2011). For example, Tierney and Farmer (2002) found that creative self-efficacy has a positive relationship with creativity. Richter et al. (2012) investigated the relationship
13 between creative self-efficacy and individual creativity in team contexts. They found that the positive relationship between creative self-efficacy and individual creativity was more positive when the team shares greater informational resources. Huang et al. (2016) explored the impact of leader creative self-efficacy on followers’ creativity. They found that leader creative self-efficacy has a stronger positive impact on employee creativity through leader encouragement of creativity when the leader-member exchange is high.
Prior research also suggests that creative self-efficacy serves as an important mediator between individual or contextual factors and employee creative performance
(Gong, Huang, & Farh, 2009; Li, Liu, Liu, & Wang, 2017; Mittal & Dhar, 2015; Royston
& Reiter-Palmon, 2017; Tierney & Farmer, 2004; Wang et al., 2018). For example,
Tierney and Farmer (2004) investigated the indirect effects of supervisor expectations on creative performance through creative self-efficacy. They found that creative self- efficacy significantly mediates the relationship between supervisor creativity-supportive behaviors and employee creative performance. Gong et al. (2009) found that creative self-efficacy mediates the relationship between transformational leadership and employee creativity. Wang et al. (2018) found that creative self-efficacy mediates the relationship between flexibility idiosyncratic deals and creativity, and the relationship between developmental idiosyncratic deals and creativity. These studies highlight the mediating role of creative self-efficacy and show that creative self-efficacy relates to creative performance.
Recent studies show that creative self-efficacy is also a vital precursor to innovative work behavior (Afsar & Masood, 2018; Newman et al., 2018; Ng &
14 Lucianetti, 2016; Nisula & Kianto, 2016) . For example, Ng and Lucianetti (2016) found that individuals' creative self-efficacy is positively associated with idea generation. Afsar and Masood (2018) examined the three-way interaction between transformational leadership, trust in supervisor, and uncertainty avoidance on employees’ innovative work behavior through creative self-efficacy. They found a positive relationship between creative self-efficacy and innovative behavior. In short, these studies show that creative self-efficacy is an important predictor of innovative work behavior.
In the field of entrepreneurship, most self-efficacy studies are found in the entrepreneurial intentions literature (Boyd & Vozikis, 1994; Krueger, Reilly, & Carsrud,
2000; Zhao, Seibert, & Hills, 2005). Entrepreneurship scholars focus less on the relationship between self-efficacy and innovative work behavior. Still, prior research on self-efficacy in entrepreneurship converges in concluding that higher self-efficacy relates to more intense entrepreneurial behaviors.
In sum, prior studies offer valuable insights on creative self-efficacy and its impact on creative performance. Still, they did not provide direct empirical evidence on how creative self-efficacy influences idea generation in entrepreneurial settings, a gap that this dissertation seeks to fill.
2.2. Idea Generation
Idea generation, the production of novel and useful ideas (Amabile, Conti, Coon,
Lazenby, & Herron, 1996; Janssen, 2000; Kanter, 1988; Woodman et al., 1993), is at the intersection of the creative process and the innovative process. Creativity usually refers to the generation of novel and useful ideas while innovation relates to the production and
15 implementation of creative ideas (Amabile et al., 1996; Oldham & Cummings, 1996;
West & Farr, 1992; Zhou & Shalley, 2007). In line with past definitions (Janssen, 2000;
Ng & Lucianetti, 2016), I view idea generation as the intentional efforts of employees to generate novel and useful ideas for work improvement. I highlight the benefits of new ideas to work performance. Idea generation here indicates neither the quality nor the quantity of ideas generated. Instead, it is conceptualized as one type of innovative work behavior.
Previous studies have explored idea generation from quantity and capability perspectives (Gist, 1989; Gurtner & Reinhardt, 2016; Salter, Ter Wal, Criscuolo, &
Alexy, 2015). For example, Gist (1989) examined the influence of two training methods on self-efficacy and idea generation through field experiments. Their findings show that participants in modeling training outperformed those in the lecture condition for quantity and diversity of ideas generated. Drawing on theories of combinational search, Salter et al. (2015) explored how individual-level openness impacts their ideation performance, the ability to develop new and innovative ideas for their organizations. They found that one’s openness to external sources of knowledge has a curvilinear relationship to ideation. Taking a capability perspective, Gurtner and Reinhardt (2016) investigated which antecedents foster ambidextrous idea generation—the capability with specific purpose and necessary activities to actively generate both incremental and radical ideas in a reliable and repeatable way. They found that customer orientation and openness were potential antecedents.
In sum, early studies on idea generation focus on the quantity of idea generation
16 or take idea generation as ability or capability of individuals. Researchers paid less attention to idea generation that related to work behavior. Still, the significant role idea generation plays in the innovative process merits further consideration. In the following section, I introduce the starting perspective of this research—there is a positive relationship between creative self-efficacy and idea generation.
2.3. The Impact of Creative Self-efficacy on Idea Generation
Based on social cognitive theory and prior literature, I propose that followers’ creative self-efficacy is positively associated with followers’ idea generation in entrepreneurial settings. First, social cognitive theory holds that self-efficacy beliefs determine the intensity of a person’s behavior, especially when the domains of those beliefs and the type of behavior in question are in accordance (Bandura, 2012).
Individuals with stronger self-efficacy beliefs related to their domain-specific innovative capacity are more likely to engage in innovative behavior that complements those beliefs
(Ng & Lucianetti, 2016). In other words, individuals are more likely to engage in creative activities if they believe in their creative ability.
Second, prior research shows a positive association between creative self-efficacy and idea generation (Ng & Lucianetti, 2016). Previous findings show that individuals with high creative self-efficacy can mobilize their motivation, cognitive resources and courses of action needed to meet the demands of innovative work behavior (Baer, 2012;
Baer, Oldham, Racobsohn, & Hollingshead, 2008; Liao, Liu, & Loi, 2010; Michael et al.,
2011). They are likely to spend more time on creative cognitive processes in problem recognition and the generation of ideas or solutions (Ng & Lucianetti, 2016). Support for
17 the positive association between creative self-efficacy and innovative work behavior
(Afsar & Masood, 2018; Li et al., 2017; Liu et al., 2016; Newman et al., 2018; Tierney &
Farmer, 2002, 2011) also indicates that creative self-efficacy may have a positive relation to idea generation. However, previous studies haven’t examined the relation in entrepreneurial settings.
I argue that higher creative self-efficacy increases idea generation for followers in new ventures. In other words, followers with high creative self-efficacy are more likely to engage in innovative behavior such as idea generation in entrepreneurial settings, because there are more opportunities for them to be innovative. New ventures are still in the early stage of their life cycle, and they depend heavily on employee’s innovative efforts
(Ensley et al., 2006a, 2006b). Thus, followers with high creative self-efficacy are more likely to take the opportunity to come up with novel and useful ideas for their work. So, I expect that followers with a stronger belief in their creative self-efficacy will be more likely to generate new ideas in such a context. In short, this research starts from the perspective that there is a positive relationship between followers’ creative self-efficacy and their idea generation behavior in entrepreneurial settings.
2.4. Leader Narcissism and Leader Humility
In this section, I discuss the concepts of narcissism and humility, the paradoxical perspective on narcissism and humility, the distinctiveness and coexistence of leader narcissism and leader humility, and previous research on leader narcissism and leader humility.
18 2.4.1. The Concepts of Narcissism and Humility
Narcissism refers to “the complex of personality traits and processes that involve a grandiose yet fragile sense of self as well as a preoccupation with success and demands for admiration” (Ames, Rose, & Anderson, 2006, p. 440-441). The origin of narcissism dates back from a Greek mythological character: a handsome young man called Narcissus who was so obsessed with his own reflection in the water that he rejected others in his environment (Fatfouta, 2018). The preoccupation with oneself illustrates a defining characteristic of narcissism. With the exception of high levels of self-love, narcissism tends to be associated with negative traits like arrogance, self-absorption, entitlement, and hostility (Judge et al., 2009).
Scholars generally conceptualize narcissism in two ways: a personality trait or a personality disorder (Fatfouta, 2018). Taking social and personality approaches, some researchers (Campbell & Foster, 2007; Morf & Rhodewalt, 2001) conceive narcissism as part of the ‘Dark Triad’ of personality and take it as a continuous variable (Fatfouta,
2018). According to this view, individual narcissism can vary along a continuum from low to high. However, other researchers, taking a clinical or psychiatric approach, conceive narcissism as a categorical diagnosis (Cain, Pincus, & Ansell, 2008; Fatfouta,
2018). They classify individuals as either having a narcissistic personality disorder or not having it. In this dissertation, I follow the social approach and take narcissism as a personal trait. The social view matches my purpose to understand how leader narcissism plays out in organizational contexts.
Similar to narcissism, humility is an interpersonal characteristic enacted in a
19 social context (Morris, Brotheridge, & Urbanski, 2005; Owens et al., 2013). According to
Morris et al. (2005, p. 1331), humility refers to “a personal orientation founded on a willingness to see the self accurately and a propensity to put oneself in perspective.”
Some manifestations of humility include admitting mistakes and limitations, spotlighting the strengths and contributions of others, and modeling teachability (Tangney, 2015).
Based on the theological, philosophical and psychological literature, Tangney (2015) posits that a person with humility may exhibit an ability to acknowledge his or her mistakes, imperfections, and limitations. The individual may also be open to new ideas, have a low self-focus, and appreciate the value of others (Tangney, 2000, 2015).
Scholars generally conceptualize humility in two ways: disposition or state
(Tangney, 2015). A dispositional perspective views humility as a component of one’s personality, a relatively enduring disposition that one brings to many different situations
(Tangney, 2015). A state perspective focuses on feelings or experiences of humility at the moment (Tangney, 2015). In this dissertation, I take the dispositional perspective.
2.4.2. A Paradox Perspective on Narcissism and Humility
Paradox theory provides a theoretical lens for understanding how narcissism and humility may coexist. One defining characteristic of the paradox perspective is the simultaneous presence of contradictory, even exclusive elements (Cameron & Quinn,
1990; Smith & Lewis, 2011). Paradoxical thinking follows from the yin-yang philosophy, which emphasizes the harmonious integration of opposite elements of a paradox that may even negate each other (Chen, 2002; Chen, Xie, & Chang, 2011; Fang, 2012; Hollander,
1973; Kaiser & Overfield, 2010).
20 Different paradoxes are abundant in the literature. In particular, the paradoxical perspective has gained popularity among creativity and leadership researchers in recent years. For example, previous studies show that to be creative, individuals need to both break assumptions and rules and to adhere to boundaries and constraints (Guilford, 1957), to make use of both divergent and convergent thinking (Miron-Spektor, Gino, & Argote,
2011), to work with both passion and discipline (Andriopoulos & Lewis, 2009), and to be both cognitively flexible and cognitively persistent (Nijstad, De Dreu, Rietzschel, &
Baas, 2010). In terms of leadership research, Zhang and colleagues (Zhang et al.,
2015) found five different paradoxes among leader behaviors: (1) combining self- centeredness with other-centeredness, (2) maintaining both distance and closeness, (3) maintaining decision control, while allowing autonomy, (4) enforcing work requirements, while allowing flexibility, and (5) treating subordinates uniformly, while allowing individualization. Table 1 shows a summary of relevant paradoxes in the literature.
TABLE 1 Examples of relevant paradoxes in the literature Paradoxes in creativity literature Break assumption and rules & adhere to boundaries and rules Guilford, 1957 Divergent & convergent thinking Miron-Spektor, et al., 2011 Work with passion & discipline Andriopoulos et al., 2009 Cognitively flexible & cognitively persistent Nijstad et al., 2010 Paradoxes in leadership literature Self-centeredness & other-centeredness Distance & closeness Decision control & autonomy Zhang et al., 2015 Enforcing work requirements & allow flexibility Uniform & individualization
21 Prior research shows that paradoxes are relevant to personal traits (Owens et al.,
2015). Narcissism and humility are two inherently paradoxical yet potentially coexisting traits (Zhang et al., 2017). They differ in definitions and appear opposite, yet they could exist simultaneously (Owens et al., 2015; Tangney, 2015; Zhang et al., 2017). While narcissism and humility are both personal traits that enacted in social contexts, they are conceptually different. In contrast with narcissism, which is often described as entailing volatile swings from grandiose to self-abasing self-views, humility has been labeled as a temperance virtue that has a stabilizing or grounding influence on self-perceptions
(Tangney, 2015). Although humility and narcissism are likely to be negatively related
(Zhang et al., 2017), a humble leader is not merely the opposite of a narcissistic one.
Narcissistic individuals clearly lack many of the essential components of humility. It is not clear, however, that an absence of narcissism can be equaled with the presence of humility. For example, low self-esteem individuals are neither narcissistic nor humble.
Similarly, individuals without narcissistic tendencies may or may not have a deep appreciation for the unique talents of others (Tangney, 2015). Taking a paradoxical perspective, Zhang et al. (2017) found that CEOs can be both narcissistic and humble at the same time. When combining narcissism with humility, the CEOs are excellent leaders for inspiring innovation (Zhang et al., 2017). In essence, the paradox perspective and literature suggest that narcissism and humility are two distinctive traits that can coexist.
2.4.3. The Distinctiveness and Coexistence of Leader Narcissism and Humility
Taking both narcissism and humility as personality traits and the paradoxical perspective, I further discuss the distinctiveness and coexistence of leader narcissism and
22 humility from the following three aspects: cognitive, motivational and behavioral (see
Table 2) for a comprehensive theoretical understanding of the humility-narcissism
paradox (Zhang et al., 2017).
TABLE 2 The distinctiveness and coexistence of humility and narcissism
Distinct Humility Narcissism Coexist Cognitive • Transcendent self- • Inflated self-view Research on mixed view (Morris et al., (Morf & Rhodewalt, self-concepts indicates 2005) 2001) that multidimensional, • A belief in a power • A belief in self (e.g., multifaceted, greater than the they are superior and dynamic, and context- self (e.g., moral incomparable) dependent self- laws, ultimate concepts can coexist, truth, superior and environmental power, larger inputs may activate collective) such concepts (Markus & Wurf, 1987; McConnell, 2011) Motivational • Ecosystem • Ego-system Research shows that motivation motivation (Crocker while most people (Crocker, Garcia, et al., 2008) may be stronger in one & Nuer, 2008) • Driven by personal orientation than the • Driven by goals recognition and other, they are actually that are larger or glory, power and driven by a blend of more important prestige, continuous both ecosystem and than the ego reaffirmation of ego-system superiority motivations (Crocker et al., 2008) Behavioral • Acknowledge their • Reject negative Behavioral complexity mistakes, seek feedback (Maccoby, theory suggests that feedback and 2004) leaders can engage in advice to correct • Prefer bold and diverse or even errors (Vera & dramatic behaviors contradictory Rodriguez-Lopez, (Chatterjee & behaviors (Denison,
23 2004; Owens et al., Hambrick, 2007) Hooijberg, & Quinn, 2013) • Attribute favorable 1995). • Prefer calmness outcomes to and quietness themselves and (Tangney, 2000) unfavorable • Appreciate others’ outcomes to others contributions, share (O’Reilly, Doerr, honors and Caldwell, & recognition Chatman, 2014) (Tangney, 2000)
First, I begin with the cognitive self-views that are the internal cores driving motivations and behaviors (Zhang et al., 2017). Narcissism indicates an inflated self-view
(Morf & Rhodewalt, 2001). Narcissistic leaders tend to believe they are superior to others
(O’Reilly et al., 2014), whereas humble leaders usually have a transcendent self-view
(Morris et al., 2005) and recognize their insignificance compared to superior power and the larger collective (Tangney, 2000). Although narcissism and humility imply opposite self-views, research on self-concepts shows that multidimensional, context-dependent self-concepts can coexist. Environmental inputs may activate such opposite self-views
(Fazio, Effrein, & Falender, 1981; Markus & Wurf, 1987; McConnell, 2011; Zhang et al.,
2017). For example, Fazio et al. (1981) found that subjects appear to view themselves as more extroverted after responding to questions about extroversion than do subjects who have responded to questions about introversion. The reason is that most individuals can be assumed to have conceptions of themselves as both introverts and extroverts.
Similarly, I suggest that leaders who are both humble and narcissistic may have humble self-views when they need to show appreciation for others (e.g., when they need to reach
24 consensus with top management team) and assume narcissistic self-views when they need to draw attention to themselves (e.g., when they need to attract investors or customers)
(Zhang et al., 2017).
Second, different self-views may lead to different motivations. Self-focused narcissists tend to strive for personal recognition, glory, power, prestige, and reaffirmation of superiority (Maccoby, 2000, 2004; Raskin & Hall, 1981; Rosenthal &
Pittinsky, 2006). In contrast, transcendent self-viewed humble leaders tend to strive for goals that are larger or more important than self-focused pursuits (Tangney, 2000). While most people may be stronger in one orientation than the other, some are driven by a blend of personal and larger goals (Crocker et al., 2008). For example, Elon Musk may be driven by both his personal goal of establishing a colony on Mars for his SpaceX venture, and the collective goal of humanity’s benefit. Similarly, leaders who are both narcissistic and humble may be motivated to pursue both personal recognition and collective goals.
Third, the differences in self-view and motivation manifest in different behaviors.
Humble leaders tend to acknowledge their limits (Tangney, 2015). They are open to new ideas, information and perspectives (Owens et al., 2013). They appreciate others’ contributions and share honors and recognition (Owens et al., 2013; Owens & Hekman,
2016; Tangney, 2000). Narcissistic leaders, in contrast, are likely to reject negative feedback and prefer taking credit themselves for favorable outcomes while attributing unfavorable outcomes to others (Chatterjee & Pollock, 2017; Maccoby, 2004; Martin,
Côté, & Woodruff, 2016; O’Reilly et al., 2014). Behavioral complexity theory suggests that those who possess paradoxical traits may engage in contradictory behaviors when
25 different contexts activate different self-concepts or motivational systems (Denison et al.,
1995; Minbashian, Wood, & Beckmann, 2010).
Anecdotal examples of many leaders show that narcissistic and humble characteristics can coexist. For example, Apple’s late CEO Steve Jobs was able to temper his narcissism with humility during his later stage of management and led the history- making innovation of the iPhone (Owens et al., 2015). Jack Ma, the founder of Alibaba, revolutionized the e-commerce in China, demonstrated humility by allowing his customers to ring the opening bell for Alibaba’s historic initial public offering
(Bloomberg, 2014). On the other hand, he is also known for entertaining his employees at the Alibaba Annual Party by doing a stage dance–an attention-grabbing behavior often associated with narcissism. Another case would be Virgin’s Richard Branson, who is humble yet very narcissistic; according to Bariso (2015), Branson laughs and touches others a lot, which makes him down to earth and relatable, yet he was on the list of the top 40 celebrity narcissists.
In essence, paradox theory offers a novel perspective to understand the coexistence of narcissism and humility. Prior research provides empirical and theoretical evidence. Anecdotal examples also highlight that narcissism and humility can coexist.
2.4.4. Previous Research on The Impacts of Leader Narcissism and Humility
Considerable evidence suggests that leader narcissism and leader humility are critical to the performance of followers, teams and organizations (Fatfouta, 2018;
Grijalva, Harms, Newman, Gaddis, & Fraley, 2015a; Grijalva et al., 2015b; Nevicka, Van
Vianen, De Hoogh, & Voorn, 2018; Rego et al., 2017; Wang et al., 2018). However, with
26 a few notable exceptions (Owens et al., 2015; Zhang et al., 2017), prior research on narcissism and humility has evolved on independent paths.
Prior research on leader narcissism focuses on three major aspects. First is the relations between leader narcissism and organizational outcomes (Buyl, Boone, & Wade,
2017; Chatterjee & Pollock, 2017; Gerstner, König, Enders, & Hambrick, 2013;
Ingersoll, Glass, Cook, & Olsen, 2017; Kashmiri, Nicol, & Arora, 2017; Rijsenbilt &
Commandeur, 2013). For example, Gerstner et al. (2013) found that narcissistic CEO of established firms were more aggressive in their adoption of technological discontinuities.
Buyl et al. (2017) investigated how CEO narcissism, in combination with corporate governance practices, impacts organizational risk-taking. They found that CEO narcissism positively affected the riskiness of banks’ policies, especially when compensation policies that encourage risk-taking. Kashmiri et al. (2017) examined the relationship between narcissistic personality characteristics in CEOs and firm’s innovation outcomes. They found that the impact of CEO narcissism on innovation outcomes is partially mediated by firms’ higher competitive aggressiveness.
Second, the focus is on the positive and negative sides of narcissism (Brunell et al., 2008; Fatfouta, 2018; Kausel, Culbertson, Leiva, Slaughter, & Jackson, 2015;
Maccoby, 2000; Watts et al., 2013). For instance, Fatfouta (2018) reviewed the literature on narcissistic leaders and their behaviors in the workplace, and found that narcissists’ positive qualities (e.g., charisma) relate to positive outcomes at different levels of analysis from subordinates, to peers, to the organization as a whole. However, narcissists’ negative qualities (e.g., entitlement) related to counterproductive work behaviors which
27 led organizations to falter. Kausel et al. (2015) showed that narcissists dismiss advice, not because of greater confidence, but because they think others are incompetent and have a self-enhanced view of their own competence.
Third, prior research mainly focused on the relationship between narcissism and leader effectiveness (Grijalva et al., 2015a; Nevicka et al., 2018; Ong, Roberts, Arthur,
Woodman, & Akehurst, 2016). For example, Nevicka et al. (2018) showed that when followers had fewer opportunities to observe their leader, leader narcissism is positively associated with perceived leadership effectiveness and job attitudes. Only a few studies focus on the impact of leader narcissism on employees at the individual level (Carnevale,
Huang, & Harms, 2018) and group level (O’Boyle, Forsyth, Banks, & McDaniel, 2012;
Nevicka et al., 2011). For example, Carnevale et al. (2018) found that leader narcissism threatens employees’ organization-based self-esteem and further exerts negative indirect effects on their promotive voice and helping behaviors. However, these negative effects became trivial in the presence of high leader consultation. In general, the impact of leader narcissism at the individual level receives much less attention.
Similarly, prior studies on leader humility focus on its impact at the organization and team levels of analysis. For example, many studies examined the impact of leader humility on team performance (Chiu, Owens, & Tesluk, 2016; Owens et al., 2013; Owens
& Hekman, 2016; Rego, Cunha, & Simpson, 2018; Rego et al., 2017), the bright and dark side of leader humility (Bharanitharan et al., 2018; Smith et al., 2018), the antecedents and consequences of leader humility (Morris et al., 2005; Tangney, 2000; Wang et al.,
2018). Only a few studies investigated the influence of leader humility on employees (Ou
28 et al., 2014, 2017) and humble leader behaviors (Owens, Rowatt, & Wilkins, 2011;
Owens & Hekman, 2012). For example, Owens and Hekman (2012) uncovered in their findings that leader humility produces positive organizational outcomes by leading followers to believe that their developmental journeys and feelings of uncertainty are legitimate in the workplace, which increases followers’ intrinsic motivation to engage in their jobs.
In sum, previous research on leader narcissism and leader humility have considered the two separately. We have a limited understanding of how the two may impact individual innovative performance together. In particular, we know little about how leader narcissism and humility may jointly shape the relationship between followers’ creative self-efficacy and their idea generation in entrepreneurial contexts.
2.5. Leadership in Entrepreneurial Settings
Although leadership appears to be a core component of the entrepreneurial process from the onset of a new venture, leadership research within the entrepreneurial setting is scant (Ensley et al., 2006a, 2006b; Kang et al., 2016). I suggest that new ventures provide a favorable context for this research in three ways. First, compared with established corporations, new ventures often consist of little, if any, organizational structure (Vinnell & Hamilton, 1999). Unlike new ventures, established firms often have well-structured work processes (Kerr & Jermier, 1978). Thus, managers may follow daily routines to lead, and followers follow the pre-existing operational methods to work.
While some managers may wish to lead differently, the constraints associated with corporate structure may limit their ability to do so (Finkelstein & Hambrick, 1996; Sathe,
29 2007). Therefore, leaders in new ventures are likely to have a higher and more direct impact on their followers (Ensley et al., 2006a, 2006b).
Second, new ventures usually lack normative expectations from employees
(Ensley et al., 2006a, 2006b). They may have no clear incentives or support for what looks like appropriate behaviors (Ensley et al., 2006a, 2006b). Thus, employees are more likely to engage in innovative behaviors without clearly-defined expectations. In other words, employees may complete the work in "freestyle" ways. Such a flexible environment may enable them to generate more and better ideas for their work. Thus, new ventures can be particularly rich contexts for research on idea generation.
Third, most new ventures are at the stage of implementing new ideas for products or services. They depend a lot on the innovative efforts of employees (Ensley et al.,
2006a, 2006b). However, being innovative is inherently risky and expensive (Kang et al.,
2016). Given the limited capital and human resources, leaders in most new ventures may be more in need of paradoxical traits to manage the tension and motivate the innovative efforts of their followers. However, leaders in established firms, are less likely to have such paradoxical challenge.
In sum, the direct and close relationships between leaders and followers, coupled with a favorable environment and intensive need for innovative behaviors, make new ventures a promising context for this research (Bygrave & Minniti, 2000; McKelvey,
2004; Ward, 2004). It has great potential to enrich our knowledge of idea generation in new ventures and extend our understanding of effective leadership in the entrepreneurial setting.
30 2.6. Leader Humility and Leader Narcissism as Joint Moderators
Despite the growing number of studies linking employees’ creative self-efficacy to their innovative behavior (Afsar & Masood, 2018; Li et al., 2017; Michael et al., 2011;
Newman et al., 2018; Ng & Lucianetti, 2016; Nisula & Kianto, 2016), research on contextual factors that may strengthen or weaken the relationship is scant. Bandura
(2012) highlights the variation that self-efficacy beliefs vary across activity domains and situational conditions. In other words, one’s self-efficacy beliefs do not manifest in a consistent way across contexts. Some studies also show that self-based internal determinants and external contextual determinants are two categories of factors linked to employees’ innovative behavior (De Clercq, Dimov, & Belausteguigoitia, 2016; Javed et al., 2018; Tierney & Farmer, 2002, 2011). One such external contextual determinant is leadership. Previous research suggests that leadership is a critical determinant of followers’ innovative behavior (Hughes et al., 2018). However, they have not examined the extent to which creative self-efficacy predicts idea generation, contingent upon paradoxical leader traits.
Conventional wisdom suggests that narcissistic leaders are insensitive and dismissive. Their behaviors are likely to frustrate and demotivate those they lead
(Carnevale et al., 2018). However, empirical evidence shows that narcissistic leaders may also sometimes display humility and their humble side can help counterbalance the detrimental impact of their narcissistic side on employees (Owens et al., 2015). Still, it is not clear how these paradoxical traits may work together as moderating factors. Unlike prior studies focusing on either the positive or negative side of leader traits
31 (Bharanitharan et al., 2018; Fatfouta, 2018), this research highlights the joint effects of leader humility and narcissism. Thus, it may provide novel insights into the long-standing debate over whether and when narcissism or humility is good for effective leadership
(Campbell, Hoffman, Campbell, & Marchisio, 2011; Owens & Hekman, 2012).
I expect to have four types of leaders with the paradoxical traits of narcissism and humility. They are 1) leaders who have high narcissism and high humility, 2) low narcissism and low humility 3) high narcissism but low humility, and 4) low narcissism but high humility. Prior studies indicate that there may exist an optimal midrange for both leader narcissism and leader humility. For example, a prior meta-analytical review suggests that there is no linear relationship between narcissism and leadership effectiveness (Grijalva et al., 2015b). Bharanitharan et al. (2018) found that a leader’s humble behavior can have contradictory outcomes in followers’ voice behavior, challenging a consensus view that humility in a leader is largely beneficial to his or her followers. In addition, considering that the first two extreme cases are rare, I focus on the latter two types of leaders.
The leadership style tailored to foster idea generation may require more humility and less narcissism (Amabile et al., 1996; Byrne, Mumford, Barrett, & Vessey, 2009;
Shalley, Zhou, & Oldham, 2004). In other words, we may need narcissistic leaders with high humility instead of narcissistic leaders with low humility to motivate follower's idea generation behavior. I do not deny highly narcissistic leaders, either through speeches, emails or letters can shape the influence of follower’s self-efficacy (Gerstner et al., 2013;
Rosenthal & Pittinsky, 2006). However, these leaders tend to have a self-centered view
32 (Rosenthal & Pittinsky, 2006). Their sense of superiority may make them overestimate their contributions and take others' credit (Chatterjee & Hambrick, 2007). They may feel threatened by talented innovators and be reluctant to reward and promote them
(Chatterjee & Hambrick, 2007). Such behaviors demotivate followers for generating novel ideas (Horowitz & Arthur, 1988; Owens et al., 2015). Even followers with high creative self-efficacy may be unwilling to give it a try. Moreover, this type of leaders may prefer radical exploration to meet their needs for attention (Emmons, 1987) instead of promoting idea generation for daily routines.
Furthermore, leaders with high narcissism but low humility are more controlling than leaders with low narcissism but high humility. For example, the former tends to monitor employee behavior, make decisions without employee involvement, and pressure employees to think, feel or behave in certain ways (Oldham & Cummings, 1996). Such narcissistic behaviors may shift a follower’s attention away from his or her own ideas and toward external concerns. Because followers with high creative self-efficacy are self- confident, intuitive and tend to solve problems by thinking outside of established paradigms (Cummings & Oldham, 1997), leaders with high narcissism but low humility tend to thwart their creative potential. In particular, there are many opportunities for direct interpersonal contact between leaders and followers in new ventures. Leaders have greater latitude in disciplining or dismissing their followers because the requests for transfers or appeal procedures often do not exist in new ventures (Vecchio, 2003). Thus, followers in a new venture depend more on their leaders than their counterparts in established firms (Vecchio, 2003). Presumably, followers are less likely to generate new
33 ideas if they have a leader with high narcissism but low humility in the new venture.
In contrast, leaders with low narcissism but high humility are less self-centered
(Owens et al., 2015). They tend to know their constraints better and value others’ contributions more. They are more likely to establish platforms that allow others to excel
(Owens & Hekman, 2012). They tend to take supportive actions for idea generation instead of focusing on radical innovations to attract attention (Emmons, 1987). Their constant efforts to improve and refine current practices are positive signals for followers who believe in their ability to generate new ideas (Vera & Rodriguez-Lopez, 2004). Prior research suggests that such behaviors foster idea generation among followers (Zhang et al., 2017). Arguably, followers of new ventures are more likely to generate new ideas if their immediate leaders have low narcissism but high humility.
Moreover, leaders with low narcissism but high humility are more likely to seek feedback or advice from followers (Owens et al., 2013). They may solve some complex business problems in tandem with their followers. Such behavior promotes followers’ feelings of self-determination and personal initiative at work (Bharanitharan et al., 2018).
Likewise, they are more likely to recruit and promote capable innovators, empower them, and reward innovative contributions (Morris et al., 2005; Zhang et al., 2017). Prior research suggests that employees were most active in generating ideas when supervisors built a supportive context by providing developmental feedback, being trustworthy, or providing interactional justice (George & Zhou, 2007). Followers with both high and low creative self-efficacy may engage in idea generation more often, given leaders with low narcissism but high humility. In particular, new ventures depend strongly on employees’
34 innovative behaviors to survive and compete. However, engaging in innovative work behavior such as idea generation is inherently risky and expensive. It requires employees to challenge the status quo and to spend time and resources on it (Schuh, Zhang,
Morgeson, Tian, & van Dick, 2018). With limited human and capital resources, a new venture leader with low narcissism and high humility are more likely to provide more resources and greater support to allow employees to excel (Owens & Hekman, 2012;
Morris et al., 2005), which increases the odds that innovative behavior will be successful.
All told, I propose that leader humility and leader narcissism will have a joint moderating effect on the relationship between followers’ creative self-efficacy and their idea generation. Compared with leaders with low humility but high narcissism, leaders with high humility but low narcissism will have a higher impact on the relationship in entrepreneurial settings.
Hypothesis. The positive relationship between followers’ creative self-efficacy and their idea generation will be stronger under leaders with high humility but low narcissism than under leaders with low humility but high narcissism.
35 CHAPTER 3. METHOD
This research used a three-phase design. First, I assessed the psychometric properties of the scales for creative self-efficacy, idea generation, leader humility and leader narcissism with a sample of 98 students and refined the scales based on the results.
To check the consistency of the scales, I reexamined the psychometric properties of the scales with 380 participants from Amazon Mechanical Turk (MTurk). Then, I integrated and compared the results from Phase 1 and Phase 2 to design a validated survey instrument for the main study. I tested the hypothesis with a matched sample of 60 leaders and 137 followers from new ventures.
3.1. Phase 1 Assessing the Psychometric Properties of Measures
Before designing the initial survey, I reviewed the established measures for the four focal constructs: creative self-efficacy, innovative work behavior, leader narcissism and leader humility. I checked their Cronbach’s alpha, number of items, analysis methods, and the average inter-item correlations. The average inter-item correlation reflects the degree to which responses to all of the items are generally consistent with each other (Furr & Bacharach, 2013). Prior research suggests that the higher the inter- item correlations, the better the scale (Furr & Bacharach, 2013). Table 3 presents a review of the popular measurements for the four focal constructs.
36 TABLE 3 Review of common measurement models for the focal construct
Constructs Authors # of Cronbach’s Average CFA Chi- indicators Alpha inter-item square correlation
Creative Tierney & Farmer 3 .83 .62 Yes 41.69*** Self- (2002) efficacy Tierney & Farmer 3 .87 .69 Yes 12.04 (2002) Gong et al. (2009) 4 .91 .72 Yes 6.92
Innovative Scott & Bruce (1994) 6 .89 .57 N/A N/A Behavior Janssen (2000) 9 .95 .68 N/A N/A
Janssen (2000) 9 .96 .73 N/A N/A
Janssen (2001) 9 .96 .73 N/A N/A
Humility Owens et al. (2013) 9 .95 .68 Yes 213.98***
Ou et al. (2014) 18 .75 .14 Yes 194.74*
Narcissism Raskin & Terry (1988) 40 .83 .11 N/A N/A
Ames et al. (2006) 16 .72 .14 N/A N/A
Jones & Paulhus 9 .74 .24 N/A N/A (2014)
The results for creative self-efficacy by Gong et al. (2009) showed a high
Cronbach alpha of .91 with an average inter-item correlation of .72, suggesting high
internal response consistency. The non-significant Chi-square test of their model showed
no statistical evidence of misspecification. The results for innovative behavior by Janssen
(2001) were satisfactory with high Cronbach alpha and high average inter-item
37 correlation. However, there was no evidence that the researcher conducted confirmatory factor analysis (CFA) for this construct, which raises concern about how the model and the data were fit. Furthermore, I need the subscale of innovative work behavior for idea generation. Validation of related indicators for idea generation would allow me to better assess the reliability of the construct. The results for the measurement of leader humility by Owens et al. (2013) showed a high Cronbach alpha of .95 and an average inter-item correlation of .68, suggesting high internal response consistency. However, the significant Chi-square statistic suggests substantial misspecification of their measurement model. My primary concern was with the results for leader narcissism. In particular, the scales by Raskin and Terry (1988) and Ames et al. (2006) showed prohibitively low internal consistency with low inter-item correlations. There was also no evidence of measurement model fit. In general, the results indicate that validation studies are much- needed.
3.1.1. The Sample
I invited students participating in the Research Engagement Program of a mid- western university to take my initial survey. In total, 98 students took the survey on
Qualtrics during lab sessions in exchange for course credit from February to April 2019.
Of the 98 students, 54% were male, and the average age range was 18-24 years. Their average range of work experience was 3-5 years, and 61 % of them worked part-time.
3.1.2. Scales and Measures
I used 7-point Likert scales for all four measures at this stage. The full measures are available in Appendix A. The scales for creative self-efficacy, leader narcissism, and
38 leader humility ranged from 1 = strongly disagree to 7 = strongly agree. The scales for idea generation ranged from 1 = never to 7 = always.
I used established measures for idea generation, creative self-efficacy, and leader humility. To measure idea generation, I used the four-item scale adapted from the innovative work behavior sub-dimension scale on idea generation by Janssen (2001).
Participants rated how often they generate ideas to improve their work. I used the four- item scale by Gong et al. (2009) to measure creative self-efficacy. Participants show how they felt about their creative ability by rating related statements. I adapted the nine-item scale developed and validated by Owens et al. (2013) to measure leader humility.
Participants answered questions about their current supervisor. If they were not currently working, I asked them to think back to their most recent supervisor.
I developed a nine-item scale for leader narcissism as the popular measurement of the construct was not feasible for this study. I first compared several measurement models from previous studies, including NPI-16 (Ames et al., 2006), the short dark triad
(Jones & Paulhus, 2014), and unobtrusive measures for narcissism (Chatterjee &
Hambrick, 2007; Ingersoll et al., 2017; Olsen, Dworkis, & Young, 2014; Rijsenbilt &
Commandeur, 2013). The unobtrusive measures are for CEO narcissism, specifically.
Prior research measured CEO narcissism via a composite score based on the prominence of the CEO photograph in the annual report, CEO’s relative cash pay to the next highest paid executive, and CEO’s relative non-cash pay to the next highest paid executive
(O’Reilly et al., 2014). It is not realistic for me to follow this measure as I focus on supervisors in new ventures, I decided to develop my own items to capture leader
39 narcissism in the new venture context. After discussing the items with subject matter experts and careful consideration based on prior research (Ames et al., 2006; Zhang et al.,
2017), I identified nine potential items for leader narcissism.
3.1.3. Measurement Model Evaluation
I examined psychometric properties of the scales using the lavaan package in R
(Rosseel, 2012). I conducted CFA to assess the model fit. Although different fit indices are available, I preferred the Chi-square statistic because it is a relatively objective criterion to evaluate model fit, and it follows a similar distributional assumption for that of most subjective fit indices. Further, failing to reject the null of the Chi-square statistic typically yields subjective measures well within “recommended” cutoffs (Anderson,
Eshima, & Hornsby, 2018; Antonakis, Bendahan, Jacquart, & Lalive, 2010; Cortina,
Green, Keeler, & Vandenberg, 2017).
Table 4 shows the initial results. With nine indicators, the Cronbach’s alpha for leader narcissism was .7. The average inter-item correlation was .21, which is well below the threshold of .5. The other three variables showed much better results. The Cronbach’s alpha for creative self-efficacy with four indicators was .77, and the average inter-item correlation was .46. The Cronbach’s alpha for idea generation with four indicators was
.83, and the average inter-item correlation was .55. The Cronbach’s alpha for leader humility with nine indicators was .93, and the average inter-item correlation was .58.
40 TABLE 4 Summary of Analysis Results for Phase 1
Creative Leader Leader Idea Leader Leader Self- Humility Narcissism Generation Humility Narcissism efficacy (Refined) (Refined) Number of 4 4 9 4 9 4 Indicators Cronbach's .77 .83 .93 .86 .7 .78 alpha Average Inter- .46 .55 .58 .60 .21 .47 item Correlation CFA χ2 6.363 2.975 140.688 3.296 82.041 0.753 p-value .042 .226 < .01 .192 < .01 .686 df 2 2 27 2 27 2
I specified each variable as a latent construct represented by its corresponding
scale items and assessed the model fit. I evaluated the models using the Chi-square
statistic. Table 4 presents the results. For creative self-efficacy, the results show some
statistical evidence of misspecification (χ2 = 6.363; p = .042; df = 2). With a non-
statistically significant Chi-square statistic, the results for idea generation show little
statistical evidence of misspecification (χ2 = 2.975; p = .226; df = 2). However, I
observed substantial measurement model misspecification for both leader humility (χ2 =
140.688; p < .001; df = 27) and leader narcissism (χ2 = 82.041; p < .001; df = 27).
To improve model fit, I empirically trimmed the measurement models for leader
narcissism and leader humility. I retained four indicators to just over-identify a model
with a single latent construct and retain the ability to estimate the Chi-square statistic to
evaluate the global fit of the model (Cortina et al., 2017). Additionally, following
Anderson et al. (2018), I used three decision rules for this process, on the assumption that
41 the initial set of indicators were reasonably content-valid. First, there should be no evidence of model misspecification. In other words, the Chi-square needs to be non- statistically significant. Second, there should be no statistically significant measurement error covariances. Third, maximize the explained variance of each indicator. Based on these three rules, I systematically eliminated unsatisfactory indicators.
As shown in Table 4, I retained four indicators in my final measurement models for leader humility (H3, H6, H7, and H9) and leader narcissism (N2, N4, N5, and N6) respectively. Theoretically, the retained indicators captured the humility construct and narcissism construct quite well. In general, the items retained were consistent with the core personal characteristics described as humility and narcissism. Also, the refined models showed substantial improvement from the original ones in terms of Cronbach’s alpha and average inter-item correlations. In particular, the average inter-item correlation for leader narcissism improved from .21 to .47. The measurement models also showed a much better fit than the previous ones. For leader humility, the Chi-square value went down from 140.68 to 3.29 and the p-value went from significant to nonsignificant (χ2 =
140.68 vs. χ2 = 3.29; p < .001 vs. p = .192). I also observed a substantial improvement in the measurement of leader narcissism. The Chi-square value went down from 82.04 to
.75 and the p-value went from significant to nonsignificant (χ2 = 82.04 vs. χ2 = .75; p <
.01 vs. p = .686).
Given the well-specified measurement models for all four constructs, I further conducted a joint CFA. The results showed a χ2 of 133.27 with 98 degrees of freedom and a p-value less than .001, indicating that the proposed model did not fit the data well.
42 This misspecification might stem from poorly loading indicators and several measurement error covariances. Although I observed what I expected–a positive correlation between creative self-efficacy and idea generation (r = .623, p < .001) and a negative correlation between leader narcissism and leader humility (r = -.294, p < .05)–I was cautious about the results given the measurement model misspecification.
3.2. Phase 2 Assessing the Psychometric Properties of Refined Measures
3.2.1. The Sample
After I added, dropped, and reworded some items in Phase 1, the next step is to re-estimate the measurement model using a new sample of data. Therefore, I reexamined the properties of the scales with a different sample from MTurk. MTurk is a crowdsourcing marketplace for individuals or businesses to outsource their processes and jobs to a distributed workforce who can perform these tasks virtually. It enables individuals or companies to gain insights from a global workforce to augment data collection and analysis. Before launching my study on MTurk, I set the qualification to include participants from the United States only. The reason is that it enables me to check the consistency and reduces cultural effects. Prior research shows that participants from different cultures may have different perceptions of narcissistic or humble leadership
(Den Hartog et al., 1999). I recruited 380 participants in total for the validation. Of the
380 participants, 56% were male, and the average age range was 25-34 years. Their average range of work experience was 6-10 years, and 73% of them worked full-time.
3.2.2. Scales and Measures
I used 5-point Likert scales for all four measures at this stage. The scales for
43 creative self-efficacy, leader narcissism, and leader humility ranged from 1 = strongly disagree to 5 = strongly agree. The scales for idea generation ranged from 1 = never to 5
= always.
I refined the measures based on the results from Phase 1. I added, dropped, and reworded some items to make them better reflect the construct. For example, I deleted some indicators that exhibited poor reliability for leader narcissism. I also reworded the indicators for creative self-efficacy and added indicators to idea generation. The full measures are available in Appendix B.
3.2.3. Measurement Model Evaluation
I replicated the Phase 1 process to examine the psychometric properties of the scales. Table 5 presents the results. In general, I observed consistent results for creative self-efficacy, idea generation, and leader humility. The results for leader narcissism improved substantially. In particular, the results of four-item models for leader narcissism were superior to the original nine-item models with both samples. Compared with the results from Phase 1, the overall Cronbach’s alpha for nine-item leader narcissism increased from .7 to .85, and the average inter-item correlation increased from .21 to .42.
The four-item scale for leader narcissism showed an increased Cronbach’s alpha of .8, up from .78, and an improved average inter-item correlation of .5, up from .47. Details of other measures and the measurement models are available in Table 5.
44 TABLE 5 Summary of Analysis Results for Phase 2
Creative Idea Leader Leader Idea Leader Leader Self- Generation Humility Narcissism Generation Humility Narcissism efficacy (refined) (refined) (refined) Number of Indicators 4 6 4 9 4 8 4 Cronbach’s .71 .84 .80 .92 .87 .85 .80 alpha Average Inter-item .38 .47 .50 .57 .62 .42 .50 Correlation CFA c2 0.344 4.332 0.007 166.035 3.309 341.980 6.273 p-value .842 .889 .996 < .01 .191 < .01 .043 df 2 9 2 27 2 20 2
Given the properly specified measurement models for all four constructs, I further conducted the joint CFA. The joint CFA provides a very rough understanding of the extent to which the variables correlate with each other. The results showed a χ2 of
164.749 with 98 degrees of freedom and a p-value less than .001, indicating that the proposed model did not fit the data well. The misspecification might stem from the poorly loading indicators and several measurement error covariances. Although I observed what I expected—a positive correlation between creative self-efficacy and idea generation (r = .182, p < .001) and a negative correlation between leader narcissism and leader humility (r = -.152, p < .001)—I was cautious about the results given the measurement model misspecification.
3.2.4. Comparison of Results between Phase 1 and Phase 2
To check the consistency of measures, I compared their reliability and
45 measurement models. Table 6 presents a summary of the results. In general, the results
showed some consistency of the measures with different samples.
TABLE 6 Comparison of Results between Phase 1 and Phase 2
Creative Self- Idea Generation Leader Humility Leader efficacy Narcissism Phase1 Phase 2 Phase 1 Phase 2 Phase 1 Phase 2 Phase 1 Phase 2 Number of 4 4 4 4 4 4 4 4 Indicators Cronbach's .77 .71 .83 .80 .86 .87 .78 .80 alpha Average Inter- .46 .38 .55 .50 .60 .62 .47 .50 item Correlation CFA χ2 6.363 0.344 2.975 0.007 3.296 3.309 0.753 1.491 p-value .042 .842 .226 .996 .192 .191 .686 .222 df 2 2 2 2 2 2 2 2
The results showed that the Cronbach’s alpha was over .7 for all four focal
constructs. Their average inter-item correlations were meeting or above the threshold of
.5 for idea generation, leader humility, and leader narcissism. The average inter-item
correlations for creative self-efficacy went down from .46 to .38. The reason might be
that the revised items did not adequately capture the meaning of the construct as well as
the indicators used in Phase 1. However, in general, I had confidence in the validated
survey instrument and proceeded to the main study.
3.3. Phase 3 The Main Study and Hypothesis Testing
3.3.1. The Sample
To test the hypothesis, I had two specific requirements for the valid sample: 1)
participants must be working at a new venture; 2) the entrepreneur or leader and at least
46 two or more of his or her immediate employees must complete their individual surveys.
In other words, I need triad samples from new ventures. By new ventures, I mean those firms that are six years of age or less (Zahra, Ireland, & Hitt, 2000). In total, I had 152 leaders and their 261 followers in China participated in my online survey via wjx.cn from
December 2019 to January 2020. Separately, I approached 50 leaders and their 116 followers in Ghana to take a paper-pencil survey in January/February 2020. Leaders were asked to evaluate their followers’ idea generation behaviors. Followers were asked to rate their creative self-efficacy and their immediate leaders’ humility and narcissism. The surveys were provided in Chinese and English. The original English surveys were translated and back-translated following Brislin’s (1970) procedure. I was able to match
80 follower responses with their 32 leader responses for samples from new ventures in
China, and 57 followers’ responses with their 28 leader responses for samples from new ventures in Ghana. In total, my final valid sample included 137 followers under 60 leaders.
3.3.2. Variables and Measures
After pretesting the measures with a pilot sample of 98 students at Phase 1 and conducting a confirmation study with a sample of 380 MTurk participants in Phase 2, I deleted and reworded items to compile the surveys for the main study. The main study uses two surveys (see Appendix C).
The first survey covered questions about followers’ perceptions of their creative self-efficacy, their supervisor’s humility, and narcissism and followers’ demographic information. The second invited supervisors to rate followers’ idea generation behavior
47 and provide their demographic information. Both surveys included an introduction section to emphasize the nature of full confidentiality and voluntary participation. I used an identification code for each survey to match followers’ responses with leaders’ evaluations. Below are the variables I used for the main study.
Dependent Variable—Idea Generation
I measured idea generation using a 5-point Likert scale, ranging from 1 = never to 5
= always. Leaders rated the idea generation behavior of their followers. A sample item was, “He/she comes up with original solutions for problems at work” (a = .89, average inter-item correlation = .73).
Independent Variable—Creative Self-efficacy
I measured creative self-efficacy using a 5-point Likert scale, ranging from 1 = strongly disagree, to 5 = strongly agree. Followers indicated the extent to which they agreed with each statement about how they felt about their creative ability. Sample items included, “I am good at generating novel ideas” (a = .77, average inter-item correlation =
.63).
Moderator—Leader Humility
I measured leader humility using a 5-point Likert scale, ranging from 1 = strongly disagree, to 5 = strongly agree. I asked followers to show the degree to which the statements described their immediate supervisor. Sample items included, “My supervisor is open to advice” and “My supervisor is willing to learn from others” (a = .96, average inter-item correlation = .93).
48 Moderator—Leader Narcissism
I developed a three-item scale to measure leader narcissism using a 5-point Likert scale, ranging from 1 = strongly disagree, to 5 = strongly agree. I asked followers to show the degree to which the statements described their immediate supervisor. Sample items included, “My supervisor likes to be in charge of other people” and “My supervisor likes to be complimented” (a = .79, average inter-item correlation = .55).
Controls
In testing the hypothesis, I controlled leaders’ age, education level (1, “high school or less” to 7, “doctoral degree”), and their leadership experience. I also controlled job requirements for creativity (Rego & Cunha, 2008; Shalley, Gilson, & Blum, 2000). I measured the job creativity requirement with a single item, “to what extent does your current job require you to be creative” (1, “not at all” to 4, “to a great extent.”). In addition, I controlled for leader-member exchange. Previous research showed that leader- member exchange was related to supervisors’ rating of their subordinates’ performance and creativity (Gerstner & Day, 1997; Tierney, Farmer, & Graen, 1999). In particular, I focused on two aspects of the leader-member relationship. One item addressed follower understandings of leader satisfaction with their performance and measured with, “Do you know how satisfied your current immediate supervisor is with what you do?” (1, “never know” to 4, “always know”). The other is to what extent the leader recognized the potential of the follower. I measured it one item, “How well do you feel that your current immediate supervisor recognizes your potential?” (1, “not at all” to 4, “fully”).
49 3.3.3. Analysis
I began the analysis by estimating the discriminant validity of the measurement model for creative self-efficacy and general self-efficacy using the heterotrait-monotrait ratio (HTMT) method. The HTMT of the correlation is the average of the heterotrait- heteromethod correlations relative to the geometric mean of the average monotrait- heteromethod correlation of construct x! and the average monotrait-hetermethod correlation of construct x" (Henseler, Ringle, & Sarstedt, 2015). The formula is as follows:
The intention of evaluating discriminant validity here was to check whether the creative self-efficacy scale was substantially different from the general self-efficacy scale. Prior research (Henseler et al., 2015) recommended that an HTMT value below .85 suggests evidence of discriminant validity. I calculated the value by the R htmt () function in the semTools package (Jorgensen, Pornprasertmanit, Schoemann, & Rosseel,
2020) and the result shows an HTMT value of .80, which was below the threshold and suggests adequate discriminant validity.
50 I also estimated the correlation between creative self-efficacy and general self- efficacy. The result shows a correlation of .801, which indicates a strong and positive association between creative self-efficacy and general self-efficacy. That said, the result implies that differences exist between creative self-efficacy and general self-efficacy.
Next, I conducted a joint CFA for focal variables. I estimated the models using the R lavaan package (Rosseel, 2012). The initial joint CFA revealed a poor fit for the measurement model (χ2 = 236.80, p < .001, df = 98). As I mentioned earlier, I opted to use the Chi-square statistic to evaluate the CFA model following the growing consensus that Chi-squared statistic is as effective as other fit indices to determine acceptance or rejection of a specified model (Anderson et al., 2018; Antonakis et al., 2010). Following
Anderson et al. (2018), I respecified the joint CFA. Specifically, after examining the modification indices, I dropped CSE2 and CSE4 for creative self-efficacy, H1 and H2 for humility, IG4 for idea generation, and N4 for narcissism. This was a reasonable approach given that the measures are all indicators of the same latent construct (Anderson, Kreiser,
Kuratko, Hornsby, & Eshima, 2015; Bollen, 1989). The revised joint CFA model fit the data well (χ2 = 33.12, p = .273, df = 29).
I then turned to estimate the cross-level interaction effects using multilevel modeling by the R lme4 package (Bates, Mächler, Bolker, & Walker, 2015). Multilevel modeling allows us to understand whether relationships between lower-level variables change as a function of higher-order moderator variables (Aguinis, Gottfredson, &
Culpepper, 2013).
51
CHAPTER 4. RESULTS 4.1. Descriptive Statistics
Table 7 displays the summary statistics and the correlations among variables. The results showed that followers’ idea
generation positively correlated with followers’ creative self-efficacy, leader humility, and leader narcissism.
TABLE 7 Summary Statistics and Correlation Matrix Mean SD 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 1. Idea Generation 3.34 0.89 1 2. Creative Self-efficacy 3.79 0.78 0.09 1 3. Leader Humility 3.72 1.15 0.45 -0.27 1 5
2 4. Leader Narcissism 3.57 0.93 0.47 0.02 0.36 1
5. Leader Age 2.27 0.68 -0.05 -0.18 0.18 -0.13 1 6. Leader Education 2.54 1.35 0.19 -0.02 0.31 0.39 0.17 1 7. LE 2.99 1.39 0.05 -0.19 0.18 0.04 0.64 -0.04 1 8. PR 2.99 0.93 0.35 -0.18 0.51 0.41 -0.11 0.17 0.01 1 9. RS 2.36 0.85 0.14 0.21 -0.09 0.28 -0.41 -0.07 -0.22 0.08 1 10. JCR 2.88 0.86 0.36 -0.01 0.43 0.48 0.03 0.47 0.04 0.46 0.07 1 11.Country Flaga 0.58 0.49 -0.05 -0.33 0.42 -0.04 0.69 0.24 0.47 0.01 -0.63 0.14 1 Note. N = 137; Leaders = 60. LE = leadership experience, PR = potential recognition, RS = relationship satisfaction, JCR = job creativity requirement, aCountry Flag: 0 = China, 1 = Ghana.
4.2. Hypothesis Tests
I followed Aguinis et al. (2013) to estimate the cross-level interaction effects of the research model through four steps by using multilevel modeling. Specifically, I estimated a null model in which only covariates were included. Second, I estimated a random intercept and fixed slope model in which I included the effects of creative self-efficacy, humility, and narcissism on idea generation without interaction terms. This model helps to understand the within leader variance and the intercept variance. Third, I estimated a random intercept and random slope model to understand if the variance of slopes across leaders is different from zero; that is, whether the effect of creative self-efficacy on idea generation varies across leaders. Lastly, I estimated a full model by adding the cross-level interaction terms. Due to the nested nature of the data, I also included an additional model to show the cross-level interaction effects grouped by both Leader and Country.
I group-mean centered all interaction variables (creative self-efficacy, leader humility, leader narcissism) and included the group-mean of the variables as additional variables in the models to address a significant endogeneity concern and enhance the interpretability of the within-between effects (Aguinis et al., 2013; Kreiser, Anderson,
Kuratko, & Marino, 2019). The mean-centered predictor is exogenous to the group/leader- level disturbance term, and the group mean of the predictor is included to recover a consistent parameter estimate (Kreiser et al., 2019; McNeish & Kelley, 2019). The parameter of the group mean-centered predictor, creative self-efficacy represents the estimated within- leader effect and could be taken as the traditional fixed effect specification for creative self- efficacy. The parameter of the group-mean of creative self-efficacy represents the estimated between-leader effect (Certo et al., 2017; Kreiser et al., 2019).
53 TABLE 8 Multilevel Model—Fixed Effects (DV: Idea Generation) Model 1 Model 2 Model 3 Predictor Est(s.e.) 95% C.I. Est(s.e.) 95% C.I. Est(s.e.) 95% C.I. Intercept 1.28** 0.46 – 2.10 0.27 -0.98 – 1.52 0.34 -1.03 – 1.70 (-0.42) (0.64) (0.70) Leader Age -0.37 * -0.66 – -0.07 -0.36 * -0.65 – -0.06 -0.37 * -0.69 – -0.04 (0.15) (0.15) (0.17) Leader Education 0.21 *** 0.10 – 0.32 0.19 *** 0.08 – 0.30 0.20 *** 0.08 – 0.32 (0.05) (0.05) (0.06) LE 0.15 * 0.03 – 0.27 0.14 * 0.01 – 0.26 0.14 * 0.01 – 0.28 (0.06) (0.06) (0.07) JCR 0.19 * 0.01 – 0.36 0.11 -0.06 – 0.28 0.10 -0.08 – 0.29 (0.09) (0.09) (0.09) PR 0.20 ** 0.06 – 0.34 0.12 -0.03 – 0.27 0.11 -0.05 – 0.27 (0.07) (0.08) (0.08) RS 0.28 ** 0.10 – 0.46 0.24 ** 0.07 – 0.42 0.23 * 0.05 – 0.42 (0.09) (0.09) (0.10) Country Flag 0.18 -0.23 – 0.59 0.19 -0.29 – 0.68 0.16 -0.36 – 0.69 (0.21) (0.25) (0.27) GMCCSE 0.30 ** 0.09 – 0.51 0.29 ** 0.07 – 0.51 (0.11) (0.11) GMCSE 0.31 * 0.03 – 0.58 0.31 * 0.01 – 0.62 (0.14) (0.15) GMCLH -0.01 -0.20 – 0.19 0 -0.20 – 0.19 (0.10) (0.10) GMLH 0.06 -0.15 – 0.27 0.06 -0.17 – 0.28 (0.11) (0.12) GMCLN -0.07 -0.25 – 0.12 -0.07 -0.26 – 0.12 (0.09) (0.10) GMLN 0.07 -0.13 – 0.27 0.06 -0.16 – 0.27 (0.10) (0.11) (Continued) Note. N = 137; Leaders = 60. LE = leadership experience, JCR = job creativity requirement, PR = potential recognition, RS = relationship satisfaction, GMCCSE = group-mean centered creative self-efficacy, GMCSE = group mean of creative self-efficacy, GMCLH = group-mean centered leader humility, GMLH = group mean of leader humility, GMCLN = group-mean centered leader narcissism, GMLN = group mean of leader narcissism. *p < .05. **p < .01. ***p < .001.
54 I reported the fixed effects of the five models in Table 8 and random effect parameters for each in Table 9. I interpreted the results by focusing on the strength of estimated parameters, standard errors, and 95% confidence interval around the parameters
(Anderson et al., 2018; Kreiser et al., 2019). I took this approach in recognition of the limitations inherent to relying on p-values for statistical inference (Anderson et al., 2018;
Wasserstein, Schirm, & Lazar, 2019). Model 1 shows the results of the first step in the modeling building process. Results for Model 1 in Table 9 show that the across-leader variance in follower’s idea generation is τ00 = 0.06, and the within-leader variance is 0.4. The intraclass correlation (ICC) equals .13, which indicates that differences across leaders account for about 13% of the variability in followers idea generation behavior. In other words, 13 percent of the variance reside between leaders and needs to be explained by level 2 variables. In this case, ICC quantifies the proportion of total variance in follower’s idea generation accounted for by leader differences. ICC values range from 0 to 1 (Aguinis et al.,
2013). A value close to zero indicates that a model including level 1 variables only may be appropriate, and it may not be necessary to use multilevel modeling (Aguinis et al., 2013).
On the other hand, if the value is larger than zero, even as small as .13 in this case, suggests that there may be level 2 variables, for example, leader humility and leader narcissism in this case, that explains the heterogeneity of followers’ idea generation behavior across different leaders. In short, the results from the null model provided evidence for a nested data structure that requires multilevel modeling.
Model 2 shows the results of the second step in the modeling building process.
Results include the direct effect of creative self-efficacy on idea generation. While I recognized that it is advisable to not interpret the direct effect of a predictor in a moderating
55 model absent of interaction term itself (Aguinis, Edwards, & Bradley, 2017), I opted to evaluate the estimates with caution. As mentioned earlier, I included in the model both the group-mean centered predictor and the group-mean of the predictor. The reason being is that the group-mean centered predictor is exogenous to the group-level disturbance term and including the group-mean variable allows us to recover a consistent parameter estimate
(Kreiser et al., 2019; McNeish & Kelley, 2019). The parameter of the group-mean centered variable represents the estimated within-group effect, while the parameter of the group mean predictor represents the estimated between-group effect (Certo, Withers, & Semadeni, 2017;
Kreiser et al., 2019). Results for Model 2 show that, for the within-group/leader effect, a one-unit increase in follower’s creative self-efficacy associated with a 0.3 increase in followers’ idea generation behavior (β = 0.3; SE = 0.11). For the between-group/leader effect, the results indicate that a one-unit increase for the average creative self-efficacy of a group of followers associated with a 0.31 increase in the average idea generation score for a group of followers (β = 0.31; SE = 0.14). I plotted the effects for the within and between estimates of creative self-efficacy across the range of observed values of creative self- efficacy in Figure 2, with the 95% confidence intervals in grey. Consistent with the model results, I observed a trivial difference between the within-leader effect and the between- leader effect of average creative self-efficacy on idea generation.
56 Within-leader effect Between-leader effect
idea idea generation Predicted value idea of generation Predicted value of
Group-mean centered creative self-efficacy Group-mean of creative self-efficacy
FIGURE 2 Effect of creative self-efficacy on idea generation
Model 3 shows the results of the third step in the modeling building process. The random intercept and random slope model allows us to account for how the relationship between creative self-efficacy and idea generation varies across leaders. The only difference between Model 2 and Model 3 is that I allowed the slope of idea generation on creative self- efficacy to vary across leaders. More precisely, the results in Table 9 showed that the variance in slopes across leaders is τ11 = .01. Although τ11 is different from zero, the difference is quite narrow. Given that the tests regarding τ11 rely on degrees of freedom determined by the number of level 2 units (e.g., leaders), which is usually much smaller than the total sample size regarding lower-level units (e.g., followers) (Aguinis et al., 2013), I recognize that my test regarding τ11 may be underpowered. In other words, the narrow difference maybe because of insufficient statistical power. Although τ11 is close to zero in this case, it provided evidence supporting the leader-level differences in the nature of the
57 relationship between creative self-efficacy and idea generation. It suggests the need to understand what may be the variable(s) that explain such variability, which I address in
Model 4.
TABLE 8 Multilevel Model—Fixed Effects (DV: Idea Generation)-Continued Model 4 Model 5 Predictor Est(s.e.) 95% C.I. Est(s.e.) 95% C.I. Intercept 0.35 -1.10 – 1.80 0.35 -1.49 – 2.19 (0.74) (0.94) Leader Age -0.41 * -0.74 – -0.08 -0.41 * -0.74 – -0.08 (0.17) (0.17) Leader Education 0.20 ** 0.08 – 0.32 0.20 ** 0.08 – 0.32 (0.06) (0.06) LE 0.16 * 0.02 – 0.30 0.16 * 0.02 – 0.30 (0.07) (0.07) JCR 0.15 -0.04 – 0.33 0.15 -0.04 – 0.33 (0.10) (0.10) PR 0.12 -0.05 – 0.29 0.12 -0.05 – 0.29 (0.09) (0.09) RS 0.21 * 0.02 – 0.40 0.21 * 0.02 – 0.40 (0.10) (0.10) Country Flag 0.18 -0.35 – 0.72 0.18 -1.49 – 1.86 (0.27) (0.86) GMCCSE 0.29 * 0.07 – 0.51 0.29 * 0.07 – 0.51 (0.11) (0.11) GMCSE 0.26 -0.06 – 0.57 0.26 -0.06 – 0.57 (0.16) (0.16) GMCLH -0.01 -0.24 – 0.21 -0.01 -0.24 – 0.21 (0.12) (0.12) GMLH 0.07 -0.18 – 0.31 0.07 -0.18 – 0.31 (0.12) (0.12) GMCLN -0.11 -0.33 – 0.10 -0.11 -0.33 – 0.10 (0.11) (0.11) GMLN 0.09 -0.13 – 0.32 0.09 -0.13 – 0.32 (0.12) (0.12) GMCCSE x GMCLN -0.36 -0.97 – 0.26 -0.36 -0.97 – 0.26 (0.31) (0.31) GMCCSE x GMCLH 0.13 -0.17 – 0.44 0.13 -0.17 – 0.44 (0.16) (0.16)
58 GMCLH x GMCLN -0.07 -0.51 – 0.37 -0.07 -0.51 – 0.37 (0.23) (0.23) GMCCSE x GMCLH x GMCLN 0.10 -0.20 – 0.40 0.10 -0.20 – 0.40 (0.15) (0.15) Note. N = 137; Leaders = 60. LE = leadership experience, JCR = job creativity requirement, PR = potential recognition, RS = relationship satisfaction, GMCCSE = group-mean centered creative self-efficacy, GMCSE = group mean of creative self-efficacy, GMCLH = group- mean centered leader humility, GMLH = group mean of leader humility, GMCLN = group- mean centered leader narcissism, GMLN = group mean of leader narcissism. *p < .05. **p < .01. ***p < .001.
TABLE 9 Multilevel Model—Random Effects (DV: Idea Generation) Parameter Model 1 Model 2 Model 3 Model 4 Model 5 σ2 0.4 0.34 0.35 0.34 0.34 τ 0.06 0.08 0.11 0.13 0.13 00 LeaderID LeaderID LeaderID LeaderID LeaderID 0.33 Country τ 0.01 0.01 0.01 11 LeaderID.CSE LeaderID.CSE LeaderID.CSE 0.00 Country.CSE ρ 1 1 1 01 LeaderID LeaderID LeaderID 1 Country ICC .13 .18 N/A .27 N/A N 60 LeaderID 60 LeaderID 60 LeaderID 60 LeaderID 60 LeaderID
2 Country 2 σ , within-group variance; τ00, between-group variance; τ11, random-slope variance; ρ01, random-intercept/ random slope correlation; ICC, intraclass correlation. N, number of leaders.
Model 4 and Model 5 are the cross-level interaction models. They show the results of the fourth and final step in the modeling building process. The only difference between two models is that Model 5 considered a potential country effect from the two different samples.
From the results in Tables 8 and 9, I observed trivial differences between the two. So, I opted to focus on Model 4. Model 4 examined whether leader humility and leader narcissism at level 2 could explain at least part of the variance in slopes across leaders. In other words,
Model 4 allows us to know whether leader humility and leader narcissism moderate the
59 relationship between followers’ creative self-efficacy and their idea generation. The coefficient estimates for Model 4 in Table 8 showed that the effect of creative self-efficacy on idea generation was 0.29 (β = 0.29; SE = 0.11) with average leader narcissism and average leader humility. The relationship between creative self-efficacy and idea generation becomes stronger, by 0.1 unit, as the leaders' humility and narcissism increase by one unit (β = 0.1; SE
= 0.15). The ICC value for Model 4 in Table 9 shows that about 27% of the variance in idea generation attributable to the leader level. The within-group/leader variance was 0.34, and the between-group/leader variance was 0.13. The findings support my anticipation that followers’ idea generation behavior is contingent upon the leader effect.
Given the current results, however, it is difficult to understand the exact interactions.
Previous research (Aiken, West, & Reno, 1991; Bauer & Curran, 2005; Lam, Chuang, Wong,
& Zhu, 2019) suggested that the Johnson-Neyman technique could be adopted to evaluate the range of the value of moderator(s) in which the simple slopes are significant and whether the region of significance is consistent with researchers’ expectation, given that the moderator is continuous.
The main hypothesis predicted that the positive relationship between followers’ creative self-efficacy and their idea generation will be stronger under leaders with high humility but low narcissism than under leaders with low humility but high narcissism. To look at the cross-level interaction in context, I tested for the effects of creative self-efficacy on idea generation at both high (+1 SD) and low (-1SD) levels of leader humility and leader narcissism. The results in Table 10 showed that creative self-efficacy had a significant positive effect on idea generation in the presence of a leader with high humility but low narcissism (β = 0.53; SE = 0.23). In contrast, I observed a negative effect of creative self-
60 efficacy on idea generation in the presence of a leader with low humility but high narcissism
(β = -0.02; SE = 0.24). Given that the negative effect is so small as to be trivial and the margin of error around this estimate is substantial, I do not have confidence in drawing meaningful conclusions about the effect of creative self-efficacy on idea generation in the presence of a leader with low humility but high narcissism. Yet, consistent with social cognitive theory, these results indicate that individuals’ efficacy judgment is conditioned upon their interpersonal environment and the effects of creative self-efficacy on idea generation differs given leaders with different levels of humility and narcissism. In particular, the effect of creative self-efficacy on idea generation was significant and higher, given a leader with high humility but low narcissism. However, given a leader with low humility but high narcissism, the nature of the relationship between creative self-efficacy and idea generation might change. The effect of creative self-efficacy on idea generation may become negative. Taken together, these findings generally support my conclusion that the positive relationship between creative self-efficacy and idea generation is stronger under leaders with high humility but low narcissism than under leaders with low humility but high narcissism.
TABLE 10 Conditional effects of creative self-efficacy on idea generation
Pairs of comparison Slope Est. S.E. t val. 1 (High H, low N) 0.53* 0.23 2.34
2 (Low H, high N) -0.02 0.24 -0.10
3 (High H, high N) 0.20 0.25 0.81
4 (Low H, low N) 0.44* 0.21 2.09 Note. N = 137; Leaders = 60. H stands for leader humility. N stands for leader narcissism. S.E. stands for standard error. I computed the simple slopes with the values of the moderator(s) at one standard deviation above and below the mean. *p < .05.
61 To facilitate understanding of the interaction effects, I also plotted the interaction
among creative self-efficacy, leader humility, and leader narcissism at three different levels
(M, M + 1SD, M-1SD). As Figure 3 shows that creative self-efficacy had a positive effect on
idea generation when leader humility and leader narcissism were both high or both low.
Moreover, the relationship between creative self-efficacy and idea generation becomes the
strongest when leader humility is high, and leader narcissism is low (the upward line gets
steeper). Figure 4 provides additional insights into the interaction effects. It shows the
regions of significance and confidence intervals for the conditional relationships between
creative self-efficacy and idea generation in the presence of leader narcissism and leader
humility. Note that regions of significance were observed across all three conditions.
Low Humility Mean Humility High Humility
Predicted Values Predicted Idea ofGeneration Values Mean Centered Values of Creative Self-efficacy
Low Narcissism Mean Narcissism High Narcissism
FIGURE 3 Effect of creative self-efficacy on idea generation moderated by humility and narcissism Note. Regression of idea generation on creative self-efficacy is shown at low, mean, and high values of humility and narcissism. Low, mean, and high values of humility and narcissism are defined as plus and minus 1 standard deviation about the mean.
62
Low Humility Mean Humility High Humility
efficacy - Conditional Conditional Effect of Creative Self
Narcissism
Range of observed data Regions of non-significance Regions of significance
FIGURE 4 Johnson-Neyman regions of significance and confidence intervals for the interactions Note. It shows the conditional effect of creative self-efficacy at low, mean, and high value of mean-centered narcissism and mean-centered humility. Dashed vertical lines reflect regions of significance.
These complementary results suggest that consistent with social cognitive theory,
followers’ creative self-efficacy had positive effects on their idea generation behavior, and
this relationship differs in the presence of leaders with paradoxical traits such as humility and
narcissism at different levels. Specifically, the positive relationship between followers’
creative self-efficacy and their idea generation is stronger under leaders with high humility
but low narcissism than under leaders with low humility but high narcissism. Interestingly,
the results also suggest that there is a substantial positive change in the relationship between
creative self-efficacy and idea generation, given a leader with low humility and low
narcissism. One reason is that humility and narcissism might exist in a counterbalancing way
in this scenario, that is, being low in humility and narcissism simultaneously mitigates the
negative effects of each other. Such buffering is likely to be beneficial for the creative self-
efficacy and idea generation relationship. The other reason is that humility and narcissism
63 may not be strong characteristics for such leaders and highlighting neither humility nor narcissism might have a surprisingly positive impact on the creative self-efficacy and idea generation relationship. In other words, when leaders demonstrate a low level in both humility and narcissism, employees’ self-efficacy in their interaction with the leader might be influenced less by leader’s humility and narcissism and more by other salient characteristics of the leader.
64 CHAPTER 5. DISCUSSION AND CONCLUSION
Integrating social cognitive theory and paradox theory, I addressed the issue of fostering employees’ idea generation behavior in entrepreneurial settings, focusing on the joint moderating role of leader humility and leader narcissism. Specifically, I investigated the complex interaction effects among followers’ creative self-efficacy, leader narcissism, and leader humility have on followers’ idea generation. Looking at the interaction effects across a range of values (e.g., in specific scenarios), I found a positive and significant relationship between creative self-efficacy and idea generation, given a leader with high humility but low narcissism. In particular, the results show that employees who have a leader with high humility but low narcissism are more likely to engage in idea generation behavior than those who have a leader with low humility but high narcissism.
5.1. Theoretical Implications
The current study has implications for research on multiple leader traits, paradoxical leadership, innovative work behavior, and leadership in entrepreneurship settings. First, it was the first study to identify leader humility and narcissism as joint moderators that shape the relationship between creative self-efficacy and idea generation. Previous research has suggested that leadership plays an important role in employees’ creative self-efficacy (Shao et al., 2019) and creativity (Mumford, Scott, Gaddis, & Strange, 2002; Reiter-Palmon &
Illies, 2004). However, most studies focused on the direct effect of leadership. Few have investigated the moderating effects of leader personality traits.
Different from prior research (Ng & Lucianetti, 2016), this research suggests multiple leader traits as boundary conditions in shaping the relationship between creative self-efficacy and idea generation. It clarifies the moderating role of leader humility and narcissism in
65 invoking either a beneficial or detrimental context that may strengthen or weaken the effect of creative self-efficacy on idea generation. Although previous research (Ng & Lucianetti,
2016) has investigated the moderating effect of psychological collectivism at the individual level on the relationship between creative self-efficacy and idea generation, no statistically significant results have been identified. However, as expected, I found that leader humility and narcissism together have a significant impact on the relationship between followers’ creative self-efficacy and their idea generation when a leader is high in humility but low in narcissism.
The results add new insights to a growing body of research examining multiple leader traits. This research answered the recent calls to examine the effect of multiple leader traits
(Owens et al., 2015; Zhang et al., 2017) by integrating the positive and negative traits of a leader and exploring their joint effects. My emphasis on the moderating role of the joint effects of leader humility and narcissism departs from the current literature on leader trait study, which tends to focus on either the positive or negative trait of a leader. My findings suggest that the extent to which a leader shows narcissism and humility may have different impacts on the relationship between creative self-efficacy and idea generation. When looking into complex relations, in particular, the interaction effects among multiple factors, we need to explore the relationships under specific contexts. Thus, I believe the study advances our understanding of the complexity of personality for leadership study.
Second, linking of leader narcissism and humility to explore the relationship between creative self-efficacy and idea generation extends the growing body of research that applies a paradox lens to innovative work behavior and creativity (Gong, Li, & Chen, 2018; Miron-
Spektor & Erez, 2019; Shao et al., 2019). Most existing studies in this research stream have
66 investigated how individuals handle tensions internally, for instance, adopting a paradoxical mindset or having multiple motivations. Little attention has, however, been paid to the external conditions that individuals need to manage. Individual differences and the work context were likely to be neglected (Schad, Lewis, Raisch, & Smith, 2016). Addressing this issue, this research considered simultaneously the external conditions posed by leader behaviors and follower's inherent characteristics to show their interactive effects on followers' idea generation. The findings suggest that research in paradoxical leadership should investigate how and when the leader effects might be most effective for improving employee's specific work performance.
Adopting a paradox perspective, I focused on the joint moderating effect of leader narcissism and humility. I found that leader narcissism and humility together had the strongest significant positive effect on the relationship between creative self-efficacy and idea generation when a leader was high in humility but low in narcissism. Unexpectedly, given a leader with low humility and low narcissism, the relationship between creative self- efficacy and idea generation also results in a significant positive change. Interestingly, I observed a positive change in the relationship between creative self-efficacy and idea generation, given a leader with high humility and high narcissism as well. However, I did not observe a similar positive effect of creative self-efficacy on idea generation, given a leader with low humility but high narcissism. In short, the results indicate that my findings are consistent with my hypothesis. It suggests that by showing opposite yet interrelated behaviors, leaders help build followers’ creative self-efficacy and promote followers to engage in idea generation behavior more actively. This research is among the first few studies to bridge paradox leadership research and innovative work behavior research.
67 Third, this research also contributes to the growing stream of literature on innovative work behavior (Afsar & Masood, 2018; Michael et al., 2011; Newman et al., 2018).
Although prior research has examined the effect of different leadership approaches on employees’ innovative behavior (Afsar & Masood, 2018; De Jong & Den Hartog, 2010;
Newman et al., 2018), I took a step further to examine the importance of paradoxical leader traits in enhancing the relationship between domain-specific self-efficacy and type-specific innovative work behavior. Different from prior research focusing on innovative work behavior as a whole (Newman et al., 2018), I pinpointed idea generation as the first step of the three steps for innovative work behavior. As such, this research is unique in considering innovative work behavior in a rigorous way and addressing the ambiguity issue of not knowing whether creative self-efficacy is strongly related to idea generation, idea promotion or idea implementation, two of them or all of them (Anderson et al., 2014). Notably, this fine-grained approach provided a tentative way to improve the theoretical clarity in the innovative work behavior literature.
Finally, this study is the first to test the joint effects of leader narcissism and humility in the entrepreneurial context. The results illuminate a potent boundary condition to further our understanding of how entrepreneurs or leaders’ personal traits may shape the relationship between followers’ creative self-efficacy and their idea generation behavior. Current findings show that creative self-efficacy had the strongest effect on idea generation when followers in new ventures had a leader with high humility but low narcissism. However, when in the presence of a leader or entrepreneur who was high in narcissism but low in humility, follower's creative self-efficacy might negatively affect follower's idea generation behavior.
As such, this research provides insights on effective and efficient ways to enhance followers’
68 idea generation behavior in entrepreneurship contexts.
My findings also indicate that followers’ idea generation behavior correlates with not only followers’ creative self-efficacy, but also followers’ perceptions of their immediate supervisors’ humility and narcissism. The results reinforce the need to consider combinations of both contextual and personal variables to understand idea generation behavior in entrepreneurial settings. Unlike prior studies that focused on established firms to explore the independent effect of creative self-efficacy, leader humility, or leader narcissism (Goncalo,
Flynn, & Kim, 2010; Wang et al., 2018; Zhang & Zhou, 2014), the present study focused on new ventures to highlight that person-context interaction may include multiple factors simultaneously and certain combinations of these factors may work best for specific situations.
5.2. Practical Implications
Unlocking employees’ potential can be challenging, especially for entrepreneurs without much leadership experience. Findings in this study provide practical insights for leaders, especially entrepreneurs, looking to enhance the idea generation behavior of their employees.
Entrepreneurs may find it helpful to know that their traits, such as narcissism and humility, can indeed impact their employees’ intentional efforts in generating ideas.
Leadership behaviors demonstrating more humility and less narcissism might form a highly effective leadership approach to foster followers’ idea generation behavior. Therefore, the findings suggest entrepreneurs should develop a clear understanding of the roles and effectiveness of different leadership styles and use them appropriately based on their followers’ individual characteristics such as their creative self-efficacy and needs.
69 Great ideas seldom pop up. It often takes time for employees to generate new ideas that are potentially feasible and valuable to their organization. Creative self-efficacy, as a psychological state, usually precedes the behavior one might take (Tierney & Farmer, 2002).
My findings suggest that one way for entrepreneurs to monitor whether their paradoxical leadership ultimately enhances employees’ idea generation behavior is to keep an eye on their employees’ creative self-efficacy. If entrepreneurs observe increased creative self- efficacy in their employees, entrepreneurs should be reasonably confident that there is a good chance that actual idea generation behavior may follow.
My findings suggest that taking initiatives in generating new ideas is not only about fostering creative self-efficacy but also about having a supervisor who understands the challenges and appreciates the efforts employees put into idea generation. To effectively encourage idea generation behavior, supervisors need to be aware that their leadership behaviors play a critical role in eliciting the innovative behaviors from employees with different characteristics. Supervisors need to demonstrate more humility and less narcissism accordingly.
My findings also indicate that entrepreneurs could benefit from an understanding of one possible important outcome of leader humility and narcissism: an innovative work environment. Demonstrating humility and narcissism accordingly, entrepreneurs may build a work environment that is both autonomous and bounded so that employees have both direction and autonomy to engage in innovative work behavior, enhancing employees' creative self-efficacy and idea generation behaviors. Moreover, entrepreneurs may help alleviate fear and stress among employees when they encounter paradoxical tensions in idea generation through role modeling and building a supportive environment for managing
70 tensions.
5.3. Limitations and Future Research Directions
This study has several limitations, each of which opens up possibilities for future research. First, although I collected data from China and Ghana, the total sample size was relatively small at both the leader level (a total of 60 leaders) and the follower level (a total of
137 follower responses), the interaction test may be underpowered. However, it is not uncommon in entrepreneurship studies to have such a sample size (Ensley et al., 2006a,
2006b; Matzler, Schwarz, Deutinger, & Harms, 2008) for testing conceptual relationships.
Future researchers may collect a larger sample from American or European countries to replicate the results obtained and improve the generalizability.
Second, although I collected data from both employees and their immediate supervisors for the main study, there could still be common method biases. This is problematic because method biases are one of the main sources of measurement error
(Podsakoff, MacKenzie, Lee, & Podsakoff, 2003). Measurement error, which has a random and systematic component, threatens the validity of the conclusions about the relationships between measures (Podsakoff et al., 2003). In particular, systematic measurement errors are of serious concern because the systematic error variance may have a serious confounding effect on empirical results, which may lead to misleading conclusions. In other words, it may provide an alternative explanation for the observed relationships between measures of different constructs that is independent of the one hypothesized (Podsakoff et al., 2003). The method biases, in this case, may include the content of specific items, the general context, halo effects, social desirability, or yes and no sayings. To reduce the possible biases, I validated the measures for the focal constructs by Studies 1 and 2 and used the validated
71 measures for Study 3. I also controlled for factors that closely related to idea generation behavior, such as job requirements for creativity and the satisfaction of the leader-follower relationship in statistical analysis. These steps and the consistency of the results with theoretical prediction should reduce, though may not eliminate, some concerns about common method biases (Podsakoff et al., 2003).
Third, my cross-sectional research design makes it difficult to establish causal relationships between variables. Future research should investigate the internal validity of the model by manipulating the levels of humility and narcissism of a leader in a controlled laboratory setting or by applying longitudinal designs. For example, it may be interesting to give different combinations of narcissism and humility to the same group of participants repeatedly and measure how their idea generation behaviors might differ. Future research may also explore the effects of the interactions examined in this study on the change of idea generation behavior over time.
Fourth, I measured followers’ idea generation behavior using leaders’ subjective ratings instead of objective criteria. Considering that I was interested in understanding idea generation behaviors for work improvement, and physical products are not necessarily the ultimate goal of those innovative work behaviors, supervisor ratings tend to be very useful.
Prior research (Elsbach & Kramer, 2003) shows that both subjective and objective measures have advantages, depending on the context. Nevertheless, supervisor ratings of idea generation behavior are subjective. Given that ratings may be influenced by other factors in addition to the idea generation behavior perceived by the supervisor, an objective measure would be ideal if researchers were able to gain access to organizations where such measures exist. Therefore, I encourage future research to measure idea generation with objective data
72 and test the hypothesis using a different scale.
Fifth, another limitation comes in the form of endogeneity concerns. I identified leader humility and narcissism as the joint moderator for the relationship between creative self-efficacy and idea generation. However, other moderators are possible. Future research may explore alternative moderators for the creative self-efficacy and idea generation link.
For instance, leader-member exchange (LMX) may be a potential moderator that could shape the relationship between creative self-efficacy and idea generation. Because the quality of
LMX is closely related to one’s self-efficacy (Liao et al., 2010; van Dam, Oreg, & Schyns,
2008), the interaction between creative self-efficacy and LMX might have a meaningful impact on one’s idea generation behavior.
Moreover, future research on creative self-efficacy and idea generation relationship might benefit from considering other personal and contextual factors that are relevant for handling paradoxical tensions. For instance, at the individual level, the paradox mindset, which refers to “the extent to which one is accepting of and energized by tensions"(Miron-
Spektor, Ingram, Keller, Smith, & Lewis, 2018), might be associated with positive psychological states when faced with tension at work. Social cognitive theory (Bandura,
1977) suggests that these positive psychological states may drive the formation of creative self-efficacy. Similarly, at the dyadic level, leaders’ expression of emotional complexity, may also enhance followers’ creative self-efficacy and idea generation by signaling to employees that the situation invites creative responses to tensions and contradictions
(Rothman & Melwani, 2017). This could offer the opportunity to make use of creativity- related cognitive or emotional processes, thereby enhancing the link between creative self- efficacy and idea generation (Tierney & Farmer, 2002).
73 Furthermore, at the leader level, future research may consider investigating the moderating role of leader self-monitoring. Previous research shows that individuals high in self-monitoring, compared to those low in self-monitoring, regulate their attitudes and behaviors to facilitate successful interactions with diverse groups (Oh & Kilduff, 2008).
Leaders, especially entrepreneurs, are likely to be compelled by environmental pressures
(e.g., establish strong relationships with insiders, make acquaintances with outside others, have limited access to resources, etc.) to behave in different ways at the early stage of the entrepreneurial process. Self-monitoring theory, focusing on the monitoring and control of expressive behavior (Snyder, 1974), is particularly appropriate to help us understand how individuals effectuate environments and then constrain or enable their actions. A self- monitoring perspective will provide new insights into our understanding of the interactions between followers and leaders, especially in terms of idea generation.
Sixth, I focused on the relationship between supervisors and their immediate followers in this study. However, there are relationship hierarchies in organizations. It would be interesting to investigate how the level of managers, for example, middle managers and top executives, without direct interaction with followers, may change the influence of humility and narcissism on the creative self-efficacy and idea generation relationship.
Finally, future research might examine how followers’ idea generation behavior affects venture performance over time. Because the current sample included only new ventures less than six years of establishment, they may not have had enough time to generate meaningful performance. Therefore, I did not examine the relationship between the research variables with an actual performance measure. However, given that there is limited empirical research on the relationship between innovative work behavior and actual venture
74 performance, it would be meaningful for future researchers to investigate when and how innovative behavior such as idea generation influences actual venture performance.
5.4. Conclusion
This research makes important contributions to the literature on leadership, entrepreneurship, and innovative work behavior by applying social-cognitive theory and paradoxical perspective. It extended the very limited research on multiple leader traits and one type-specific innovative work behavior in entrepreneurial contexts. Findings from this research suggest that followers’ creative self-efficacy has the highest positive impact on their idea generation, given an immediate leader with high humility but low narcissism. New insights were obtained through the use of multilevel modeling and the Johnson-Neyman technique, which should encourage future empirical studies investigating the cross-level interaction effects.
75 APPENDICES Appendix A Sample Measures for Phase 1
Creative Self-efficacy Please indicate how much you agree with each of the following statement. For these questions, please answer the questions as they relate to you. CSE1 - I feel that I am good at generating novel ideas. CSE2 - I have confidence in my ability to solve problems creatively. CSE3 - I have a knack to further developing the idea of others. CSE4 - I am good at finding creative ways to solve problems.
Idea Generation Please indicate how much you agree with each of the following statements. For these questions, please answer the questions as they relate to you in your current job, or if you are not currently working, please think back to your most recent job. IG1 - I come up with new ideas for improvement. IG2 - I search out improved ways to do work. IG3 - I generate original solutions for problems. IG4 - I create better processes for work routines.
Leader Humility Please indicate how much you agree with each of the following statements. For these questions, please answer the questions as they relate to your current supervisor, or if you are not currently working, think back to your most recent supervisor. H1 - My supervisor actively seeks feedback, even if it is critical. H2 - My supervisor admits it when he or she does not know how to do something. H3 - My supervisor acknowledges when others have more knowledge than he or she about their work. H4 - My supervisor takes notices of others' strengths. H5 - My supervisor often compliments others on their strengths. H6 - My supervisor shows appreciation for the unique contributions of others. H7 - My supervisor is willing to learn from others. H8 - My supervisor is open to the ideas of others. H9 - My supervisor is open to advice.
Leader Narcissism Please indicate how much you agree with each of the following statements. For these questions, please answer the questions as they relate to your current supervisor, or if you are not currently working, think back to your most recent supervisor. N1 - My supervisor has a natural talent for influencing people. N2 - My supervisor likes to have authority over other people. N3 - My supervisor likes to take responsibility for making decisions. N4 - My supervisor likes to be complimented.
76 N5 - My supervisor is apt to show off if he/she gets the chance. N6 - My supervisor really likes to be the center of attention. N7 - My supervisor can usually talk his/her way out of anything. N8 - My supervisor expects a great deal from other people. N9 - My supervisor insists upon getting the respect that is due to him/her.
77
Appendix B Sample Measures for Phase 2
Creative Self-efficacy CSE1 - I am good at generating novel ideas. /reworded CSE2 - I have confidence in my ability to solve problems creatively. CSE3 - I am good at further developing the idea of others. /reworded CSE4 - I am good at finding creative ways to solve problems. Idea Generation IG1 - I am good at coming up with new ideas to improve my work. /reworded IG2 - I search out ways to improve my work. /reworded IG3 - I come up with original solutions for problems at work. /reworded IG4 - I create better processes for accomplishing my work. /reworded IG5 - I suggest new ways of performing my work tasks. /added IG6 - I often have a fresh approach to my work problems. /added Leader Humility H1 - My supervisor actively seeks feedback, even if it is critical. H2 - My supervisor admits it when he or she does not know how to do something. H3 - My supervisor acknowledges when others have more knowledge than he or she about their work. H4 - My supervisor takes notices of others' strengths. H5 - My supervisor often compliments others on their strengths. H6 - My supervisor shows appreciation for the unique contributions of others. H7 - My supervisor is willing to learn from others. H8 - My supervisor is open to the ideas of others. H9 - My supervisor is open to advice. Leader Narcissism N2 - My supervisor likes to be in charge of other people. /reworded N4 - My supervisor likes to be complimented. N5 - My supervisor is apt to show off if he or she gets the chance. N6 - My supervisor likes to be the center of attention. /reworded N7a - My supervisor can usually talk his or her way out of anything. N7b - My supervisor is good at talking his or her way out of a problem. /added N9a - My supervisor insists upon getting the respect that is due to him or her. N9b - My supervisor insists on me respecting his or her authority. /added
Notes: we used “/reworded” and “/added” to indicate the changes from Phase 1. The missing indicators such as N1, N3, N8 indicate these items were dropped.
78
Appendix C Sample Surveys for the Main Study
The Survey for Followers
Following survey was based on 5-point Likert scale with 1 = Strongly disagree, 2 = Disagree, 3 = Neutral, 4 = Agree, 5 = Strongly agree.
Creative Self-efficacy (Follower rated) Please indicate how much you agree with each of the following statements. For these questions, please answer the questions as they relate to you. 1. I am good at generating novel ideas. 2. I have confidence in my ability to solve problems. 3. I am good at further developing the ideas of others. 4. I am good at finding creative ways to solve problems.
Leader Humility (Follower Rated) Please indicate how much you agree with each of the following statements. For these questions, please answer the questions as they relate to your current supervisor. 5. My supervisor acknowledges when others have more knowledge than he or she about their work. 6. My supervisor shows appreciation for the unique contributions of others. 7. My supervisor is willing to learn from others. 8. My supervisor is open to advice.
Leader Narcissism (Follower Rated) Please indicate how much you agree with each of the following statements. For these questions, please answer the questions as they relate to your current supervisor.
9. My supervisor likes to be in charge of other people. 10. My supervisor likes to be complimented. 11. My supervisor likes to show off if he or she gets the chance. 12. My supervisor likes to be the center of attention.
79 The Survey for Supervisors
Following survey was based on 5-point Likert scale with 1 = Never, 2 = Rarely, 3 = Sometimes, 4 = Very often, 5 = Always.
Idea Generation (Supervisor rated)
Please indicate how much you agree with each of the following statements. For these questions, please answer the questions as they relate to your current followers.
1. He or she comes up with new ideas for accomplishing his or her work. 2. He or she comes up with original solutions for problems at work. 3. He or she creates better processes for accomplishing his or her work. 4. He or she often has a fresh approach to his or her work problems.
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97 VITA
Xiaodan Zeng was born in Chengdu, China. She received her B.A. in English from Sichuan Normal University, M.A. in Applied Linguistics and Foreign Linguistics from Southwest Jiaotong University, and an MBA from Oklahoma State University. She started her Ph.D. in Entrepreneurship and Innovation in the Henry W. Bloch School of Management at the University of Missouri-Kansas City in 2016. Her current research interests are in the areas of entrepreneurship, leadership, creativity, and innovation. Her research has been published in Tsinghua Business Review and Quarterly Journal of Management. She will join Southeastern Louisiana University as an Assistant Professor in August 2020.
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