Within-Team Individual Power and Creativity: Moderating Effects of Democratic Team Leadership and Collectivistic Value

Abstract

ABSTRACT Though prior research suggests that high individual power can increase individual creativity, relatively few studies have examined conditions when this positive relationship is more likely to hold. Drawing from a cognitive resource perspective and a perspective of socialized power motivation, in this study we theorize and test democratic team leadership and an individual’s collectivistic value as two moderating conditions on the relationship between an individual’s within-team individual power and his or her creativity. Using multi-source data from team members and team leaders from thirty-nine work teams, we predicted and found that within-team individual power is more positively related to individual creativity when democratic team leadership is higher. Moreover, the hypothesized positive moderating effect of democratic team leadership is stronger and more significant for individual team members with high collectivistic values. Our findings provide implications for managing employee creativity and for the responsible use of individual power in teams.