Why Visionary Leadership May Limit Employees’ Contribution to Ideation Contests

Abstract

Academy of Management Annual Meeting Proceedings includes abstracts of all papers and symposia presented at the annual conference, plus 6-page abridged versions of the “Best Papers” accepted for inclusion in the program (approximately 10%). Papers published in the Proceedings are abridged because presenting papers at their full length could preclude subsequent journal publication. Please contact the author(s) directly for the full papers. Why Visionary Leadership May Limit Employees’ Contribution to Ideation ContestsChristopher Garrelfs, Julia Kroh, Carsten Schultz and Claudia BuengelerChristopher GarrelfsKiel U., Julia KrohKiel U., Carsten SchultzKiel U. and Claudia BuengelerKiel U.Published Online:6 Jul 2022https://doi.org/10.5465/AMBPP.2022.164AboutSectionsPDF/EPUB ToolsDownload CitationsAdd to favoritesTrack Citations ShareShare onFacebookTwitterLinkedInRedditEmail AbstractTo promote innovation in the turbulent era of digital transformation, visionary leaders can provide attractive visions of the future. However, recent empirical findings also reveal a ""dark side” of visionary leadership. We investigate the effect of visionary leadership in ideation contests as one of the most popular innovation management instruments. Arguing that visionary leadership may have positive or negative impacts on employees’ contribution to ideation contests, we test competing hypotheses. As research highlights vision communication as a core determinant of effective visionary leadership, we further investigate how the organizational vision communication (promotion vs. prevention-oriented) influences this relationship. Additionally, we argue that employees’ competences may help to cope with the challenges of a prevention-oriented vision communication. By combining objective data from four real world ideation contests and survey data from a vignette study of 184 employees as participants, this article provides empirical evidence that (i) visionary leadership has a negative effect on employees’ number and quality of ideas; (ii) the negative effect of visionary leadership gets more negative when vision communication is prevention-oriented and more positive when it is promotion-oriented; and (iii) this two-way interaction has a greater impact on the number and quality of ideas for employees with lower competence.FiguresReferencesRelatedDetails Vol. 2022, No. 1 Permissions Metrics in the past 12 months History Published online 6 July 2022 Published in print 1 August 2022 InformationCopyright of Academy of Management Journal is the property of Academy of Management and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder’s express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use.KeywordsAOM Annual Meeting Proceedings 2022AOM Seattle 2022Best PaperDownload PDF