Does benevolent leadership always spark creative behavior? The interaction between benevolent leadership and managerial openness

Purpose Drawing on role identity theory, this study identifies managerial openness as a moderator and employee creative role identity as a mediator to investigate when and how benevolent leadership influences employee creativity. Design/methodology/approach Data for this study were collected from 202 employee–supervisor dyads in China. The proposed models were tested using path analysis and Monte Carlo simulation. Findings The data supported our mediated moderation model and revealed that creative role identity mediates the joint effect of benevolent leadership and managerial openness on employee creative behavior. Specifically, our results showed that benevolent leadership had a positive indirect effect on employee creativity via creative role identity when managerial openness was high. However, this indirect effect was not significant when managerial openness was low. Originality/value Previous research has attempted to explain the relationship between benevolent leadership and subordinate creative behavior from the perspective of reciprocity. However, this view makes it difficult to articulate why employees would choose to engage in behaviors that are not expected by benevolent leaders. Drawing on role identity theory, the present study offers an alternative theoretical perspective on when and how benevolent leaders promote their subordinates’ creativity.