Shared leadership and employee creative deviance: psychological contract and felt obligation

Purpose The purpose of this study is to explore the relationships between shared leadership, psychological contract, felt obligation and employees’ creative deviance as well as to investigate the mediating role of psychological contract and the moderating role of felt obligation in these relationships. Design/methodology/approach This study used convenience sampling to obtain longitudinal data collected (interval of one week) from 348 frontline hotel employees. The SPSS Process Model 5 was used to test the moderated mediation model. Findings The results indicated that shared leadership has a significant positive impact on both employee creative deviance and psychological contract and psychological contract positively influences creative deviance. The results confirmed that the psychological contract mediated the relationship between shared leadership and employee creative deviance. The study also highlighted the moderating role of felt obligation on the relationship between shared leadership and employee creative deviance. Originality/value This study contributes to the literature on shared leadership, psychological contract, felt obligation and creative deviance by providing empirical evidence of the mediating and moderating effects of psychological contract and felt obligation on the relationship between shared leadership and employee creative deviance. The findings offer practical insights into how organizations can leverage shared leadership to enhance employee creative deviance through psychological contract and felt obligation.