Leaders’ Personality and Endorsement of Creative Ideas: Will
Perfectionistic Leaders Endorse Subordinate’s Creative Ideas?
Master Thesis, MSc Human Resource Management University of Groningen, Faculty of Economics and Business
February 4, 2018 A. KAROLINE MACKEBEN Student number: 2499282 Tuinbouwstraat 114b 9717JP Groningen tel.: +31 6 1125 7788 e-mail: a.k.mackeben@student.rug.nl Supervisor Prof. Dr. O. Janssen Second assessor: Dr. T. Vriend
Acknowledgements: I would like to express my thankfulness to my supervisor Prof. Dr.
ABSTRACT
This paper aimed at broadening the findings regarding leaders’ endorsement of subordinates’ creative ideas by looking at the relationship between type of idea (radical vs. incremental) and leader endorsement and how this relationship is moderated by self- and other-oriented perfectionism.
Data (N = 94) was collected with a scenario based questionnaire. We found significant results that radical creative ideas can result in lower leader endorsement. We did not find significant support for other-oriented perfectionism moderating this relationship. However, we found results for self-oriented perfectionism to significantly positively moderate the effect between type of idea and leader endorsement.
Keywords. Leader endorsement, radical creative ideas, incremental creative ideas,
LEADERS’ PERSONALITY AND ENDORSEMENT OF CREATIVE IDEAS: WILL PERFECTIONISTIC LEADERS ENDORSE SUBORDINATE’S CREATIVE IDEAS?
INTRODUCTION
In today’s uncertain and changing world, staying competitive through innovation is becoming increasingly important (Tushman & O'Reilly, 2013). Employee creativity is an important component of innovation within organizations as creativity stemming from individuals and teams is usually the starting point for such innovative processes (Amabile, Schatzel, Moneta, & Kramer, 2004). Creativity has been defined as the development of useful and novel ideas (Amabile, Conti, Coon, Lazenby, & Herron, 1996), while innovation encompasses the implementation of these ideas.
While a large portion of research is looking at how leader behavior can support creativity among employees (Amabile et al., 2004; Mumford, Scott, Gaddis, & Strange, 2002; Shin & Zhou, 2003), there is little literature on how leaders react to creative ideas (for exceptions see Burris, 2012; Sijbom Roy, Janssen, & van Yperen, 2015). This is unfortunate because leaders are largely involved in decisions regarding the implementation of creative changes to the business model (McManus et al., 2008). Moreover, they have the authority to support or not support their subordinate’s creative output (Amabile et al., 2004). Additionally, the degree of leader endorsement for employees’ creative ideas, which is characterized by leaders allocating additional attention and resources to these creative ideas, is an essential antecedent of making changes to organizational processes and routines (Dutton & Ashford, 1993). Thus, examining how leaders react to creative ideas can be an important step towards gaining a better understanding of the evaluation and implementation of creative ideas within organizations.
Yperen, 2015), which might affect the leader’s decision to endorse an idea. Existing literature categorizes creativity into radical and incremental creative ideas (Madjar, Greenberg, & Chen, 2011; Sijbom Roy, Janssen, & Van Yperen, 2016). While incremental creative ideas include small changes in frameworks or existing practices and products (Madjar et al., 2011), radical creativity comprises ideas that differ considerably from existing frameworks or practices (Dewar & Dutton, 1986; Ettlie, Bridges, & O'Keefe, 1984). Based on these definitions, it can be inferred that radical and incremental creative ideas differ in novelty, uncertainty, and the degree to which they challenge the status quo. Individuals, on the other hand, differ in the degree to which they tolerate and enjoy novelty, uncertainty and challenges of the status quo. This leaves room to argue that the level of leader endorsement of employee creativity also differs between incremental and radical creativity, depending on the leader’s level of tolerance for these different concepts.
Past research has established that personality does influence creative behavior. Feist (2010) generated a model in which personality variability (social, cognitive, motivational-affective, and clinical traits) affects creative behavior and thought. Consequently, personality may have an effect on how leaders react to creativity, and, in turn, whether leaders endorse creative ideas. Personality differs largely among individuals and can consist of many components. Accordingly, looking at specific personality traits and determining if and how they affect a leader’s decision to endorse an incremental or radical creative idea would be interesting.
Taris, & Van Rhenen, 2008; Suddarth & Slaney, 2001), there is less literature on the relation between perfectionism and creativity as well as leadership (for exceptions see Arkowitz, 1995; Gallucci, Middleton, & Kline, 2000). It has been established that perfectionists are driven to strive for goals by fear of failure (Hamachek, 1978), have a fear of mistakes (Pacht, 1984), emphasize on order, precision and organization (Frost et al., 1990), and find it difficult to tolerate ambiguity (Gallucci et al., 2000). Creative tasks, on the other hand, are characterized by being ill defined and unstructured. Moreover, individuals that show creative behavior usually seek, enjoy and tolerate ambiguity (Rietzschel, Slijkhuis, & Van Yperen, 2014). The contrast in these two concepts gives room for the notion that perfectionists will have issues with engaging in creative thoughts and behavior. Consequently, perfectionism is also likely to influence a leader’s reaction to creativity.
While self-focus makes up a large portion of perfectionism, it also has interpersonal facets (Hewitt & Flett, 1991). It has been described to be made up of three forms, namely self-oriented perfectionism, other-self-oriented perfectionism, and socially-prescribed perfectionism (Hewitt & Flett, 1991). Individuals who score high on self-oriented perfectionism have very high personal standards and strive for perfection. They have the expectation to be perfect and are very self-critical. Other-oriented perfectionism focuses on the need for others to be perfect. Individuals that score high on other-oriented perfectionism see it as important that others strive for perfection. Moreover, they are very critical of others when those fail to meet these expectations of being perfect. Lastly, socially prescribed perfectionism comprises the belief that others expect one to be perfect. Socially prescribed perfectionistic individuals believe that others want them to be perfect and have very high expectations of them. Hence, they will be highly critical of their own performance (Hewitt & Flett, 1991).
performances and results in individuals being extremely critical, it is likely that it does have an effect on a leader’s reaction towards creative ideas raised by subordinates. On the other hand, self-oriented perfectionists’ reactions to different kinds of creative ideas have also not been researched yet. In addition, it is a part of perfectionism that is focused on the performance of oneself. Since a substantial part of leaders’ roles and tasks are focused on evaluating and making decisions about employees’ functioning and performance, self-oriented perfectionism is also likely to have an effect on the leader’s decision to endorse creative ideas voiced by employees.
In sum, while there is considerable research looking at the creation of creativity and how leader behavior can support that, there is little research on how leaders themselves react to creativity and how that is influenced by their individual differences. In addition, there is very little literature looking at how perfectionism influences the evaluation of creativity and even less that differentiates between the different dimensions of perfectionism when looking at it. Thus, by combining the research gap of leaders’ reaction to creative ideas with lack of studies investigating how perfectionism will influence this process, this research aimed at determining how leaders’ endorsement of incremental and radical creative ideas is moderated by self- and other-oriented perfectionism.
THEORETICAL FRAMEWORK Creative Ideas and Leader Endorsement
As an idea becomes more novel, it also increases the uncertainty of it being useful, error free, and reliable (Amabile, 1996). At the same time, when people endorse a novel idea, they can experience perceptions of risk (Rubenson & Runco, 1995) and experience failure (Simonton, 1984). Thus, individuals are less likely to choose very novel ideas.
Lim, D'Innocenzo, & Moye, 2012). Further, because radical creative ideas demand more depth of resources and require more risk taking, there is the need for additional resources to make up for these risks and in turn facilitate an individual to engage in radical creative
behavior (Madjar et al., 2011). Consequently, radical creative ideas need a considerable initial investment (Sternberg, Kaufman, & Pretz, 2003). In line with that, radical ideas also require more significant changes in current roles, status, and behavior of an organization’s members than incremental creative ideas do. This is likely to create conflict and therefore makes radical ideas harder to implement (Damanpour, 1988). Combining these findings, it is likely that individuals prefer incremental creative ideas over radical ideas. This is, because incremental ideas are not as novel as radical ideas and will lead to less uncertainty. Moreover, incremental ideas usually are new uses for present processes, products or methods. In other words, they are more of an adaptation of the current norms (Gilson et al., 2012). Also, since they are based on existing frameworks and procedures they are more feasible.
may identify with the present frameworks and procedures and will sense ownership for them, because of which they might perceive ideas that criticize these present frameworks and procedures, namely the status quo, as personal criticism. Subsequently, they may be less likely to endorse ideas that largely challenge the status quo, like radical ideas, compared to ideas that challenge the status quo less, like incremental ideas.
Based on the provided reasoning, it can be hypothesized that:
Hypothesis 1. The type of employees’ creative ideas (incremental vs. radical) has a negative effect on the leader endorsement of these ideas such that radical creative ideas result in lower leader endorsement than incremental creative ideas.
Employees’ Creative Ideas and Leaders’ Other-Oriented Perfectionism
Literature has shown that perfectionistic individuals possess traits which might inhibit creativity (Gallucci et al., 2000). Perfectionists have shown to have trouble with accepting ambiguity and the chance of incorrect responses (Frost et al., 1990). Yet, there is a correlation between accepting ambiguity and the enjoyment of new ideas and procedures with creativity (Sternberg & Lubart, 1991). Consequently, perfectionistic individuals are also likely to have trouble accepting creative input voiced by the employee. Moreover, perfectionists’ motivation is based on their fear of failure and fear of mistakes (Gallucci et al., 2000; Pacht, 1984). Perfectionists’ fear of failure may also impede other traits that are important for creativity, such as risk-taking, novelty seeking, or openness to experience (Eysenck, 1993; McCrae, 1987). This might restrain perfectionists from seeking and applying novel ideas as their outcome is not clear and might also result in failure.
deviate principally from known frameworks they are likely to lead to strong ambiguity. Moreover, as they differ largely from known procedures, they are likely to lead to the perception that they can easily fail. Lastly, implementing ideas that differ largely from known procedures and frameworks also implies a higher need for risk taking, compared to implementing ideas that only differ slightly.
Besides perfectionism in general, other-oriented perfectionism individually has shown to have a negative relationship with tolerance for ambiguity (Buhr & Dugas, 2006; Furnham & Marks, 2013). Consequently, low tolerance for ambiguity, fear of failure, and preference for less risk-taking and novelty seeking are traits present in other-oriented perfectionist individuals. Hence, it can be assumed that other-oriented perfectionists are less open to radical creative ideas which are very novel, more likely to fail than less novel ideas, and difficult to implement. On top of that, other-oriented perfectionists are extremely critical of others’ performances which is likely to result in a negative reaction towards the raised radical creative idea.
on other-oriented perfectionism show lower interest in others and less supportive behaviors (Stoeber, 2015). These findings give room for the assumption that leaders scoring relatively high on other-oriented perfectionism will show less care and support for their subordinates in general. Subsequently, they will also have no interest in supporting subordinates’ ideas and allocating resources to it, which makes it unlikely that they will endorse incremental creative ideas raised by employees. Thus, other-oriented perfectionistic leaders’ harsh judgements and lack of support and care for their subordinates’ incremental creative ideas, will make the endorsement of these ideas less likely.
Summarized, other-oriented perfectionistic leaders’ level of endorsement will not differ between radical and incremental creative ideas. In both cases, they will be unlikely to endorse the idea given that they will not tolerate the ambiguity of raised ideas and have an anti-social side which makes it unlikely that they will support their subordinates. It can be hypothesized that:
Hypothesis 2. Leaders’ other-oriented perfectionism moderates the negative effect of type of employees’ creative ideas (incremental vs. radical) on leader endorsement of these ideas such that this negative effect is more pronounced for leaders low (rather than high) on other-oriented perfectionism.
Employees’ Creative Ideas and Leaders’ Self-Oriented Perfectionism
Additionally, literature has shown that self-oriented perfectionists are intrinsically encouraged to continue and improve their work (Klibert, Langhinrichsen-Rohling, & Saito, 2005). Self-oriented perfectionism is made up of two components, namely perfectionistic strivings and importance of being perfect. Perfectionistic strivings are the perception that one personally strives for perfection, while importance of being perfect is the conviction of an individual that it is important to be perfect (Campbell & Di Paula, 2002). Taken together, self-oriented perfectionists have the expectation to be perfect. In the case of leaders, this would translate into the expectation of making perfect decisions and improving one’s own work by being a leader who makes decisions that are error free, useful, and successful in implementation. Radical ideas, being novel in their nature, ambiguous, and different of the status quo, increase uncertainty. Hence, there is a higher chance that a radical creative idea ends up being useless, unsuccessful or faulty. Appropriately, in the case of radical creative ideas self-oriented perfectionists’ dread of risk, failure and ambiguity is likely to predominate, thereby reducing the willingness of the leader to endorse the idea.
In contrast to radical creative ideas, incremental creative ideas do not differ much from the status quo. They are less ambiguous and might be perceived as less likely to fail, because they are based on already existing, and therefore known, processes and frameworks. Accordingly, it is likely that incremental ideas are more within the mindset of perfectionistic leaders and hence less likely to lead to a negative reaction.
people, compared to individuals scoring lower on self-oriented perfectionism. Furthermore, self-oriented perfectionists show more care and kindness for others.
This may translate in self-oriented perfectionistic leaders being more supportive of their subordinates due to their increased revelation of care and kindness. Moreover, as self-oriented perfectionists try to get a better understanding of other people, leaders who score higher on self-oriented perfectionism may try to get a better understanding of their subordinate’s incremental creative ideas. Consequently, they might be more likely to endorse them, compared to radical creative ideas. Concluding the above-mentioned findings, it can be hypothesized that:
METHODOLOGY Participants and Design
Ninety-four participants with previous leadership experience (53.2 % female, 46.8 % male) working in a range of different companies completed this study voluntarily. The participants were of ages ranging from 17 years to 63 years (M = 32.24, SD = 11.25) and had an average leadership experience of 41.2 months (3.4 years). The main portion of the participants worked in the IT sector (29.7%), followed by Education (7.4%) and Marketing (4.3%) and was German (29.8%) or Dutch (28.7%). Further, the majority of the participants had a Bachelor (34%) or Master degree (33%). We approached the participants by personal email, LinkedIn, and snowballing, as well as the survey sharing portals PollPool, SurveyCircle and SurveyTandem. Further, we shared the questionnaire in Facebook Survey sharing groups. To ensure a relevant sample, we explicitly mentioned certain qualification criteria. Specifically, participants had to have minimal one year of experience in leading five people or more. This experience could come from past and current positions and include all roles which include a leadership aspect.
Procedure
meeting, which had the goal of involving the participants in their leadership role, the participants were confronted with a scenario describing a creative idea (radical or incremental) voiced by an employee. The idea was presented in form of a voice message as well as a follow up email. The participant then had to answer questions checking whether the manipulation was successful and assessing the participant’s willingness to endorse the idea. Further, participants were asked questions to measure self-oriented and other-oriented perfectionism as well as PNS and cognitive evaluation. Lastly, the survey included some demographics as well as control variables. PNS and cognitive evaluation were included for the purpose of another paper and will not be further mentioned in this paper.
Measures
Incremental and radical creative ideas. Incremental and radical creative ideas were shown to the participants in the form of a scenario. These were standardized informative sentences which were partly changed to include incremental or radical creative ideas. The scenario was presented to the participants in the form of an audio message and text, which was visualized as an email. In order to make the scenario relatable, we chose to introduce a change to the performance appraisal of the fictitious company in the scenario. We chose this as performance appraisals are a regular component in many organizations as well as
leadership functions (Waldman, Bass, & Einstein, 1987).
In the scenario, an employee (Monique) approached the leader presenting an idea to improve the current performance appraisal process implemented at the company described in the scenario. Participants, in their leader role, were randomly presented with one of the two scenarios (incremental and radical creative idea).
a scenario in which Monique voiced the idea for a completely new performance appraisal system which was very different from the established one. Particularly, Monique raised the idea to not follow the old process anymore, in which managers nominate employees for promotion and evaluate them based on a number of fixed items. Instead, she proposed to have components such as employees setting development goals for themselves which are discussed with their managers in quarterly meetings. Further, employees would get feedback from their colleagues and could nominate themselves for promotion. This was the radical manipulation (for a detailed outline of the manipulations see Appendix A).
In addition to the scenarios, the participants were shown questions that functioned as manipulation checks to ensure that the manipulation succeeded. Participant were presented with a total of five questions to check for a successful manipulation, including items like “To what extent does the voiced idea differ from what we use to do in our company DEAL?” (for a detailed list of questions see Appendix B). All questions were measured with a seven-point Likert scale ranging from 1 (not at all/extremely difficult) to 7 (to a great extent/extremely easy). The Cronbach’s alpha for the summative scale that served as the manipulation check was 0.78 (M = 4.38, SD = 1.14).
Perfectionism. We measured leaders’ self-oriented and other-oriented perfectionism with the Hewitt and Flett (1991) Multidimensional Perfectionism Scale (MPS). This scale includes 45 items in three dimensions, namely other-oriented, self-oriented and socially prescribed perfectionism (Frost et al., 1990). In this study, we only included items that measured self- and other-oriented perfectionism.
All items were measured on a seven-point Likert scale ranging from 1 (strongly
for other-oriented perfectionism (a = .80, M = 4.07, SD = .75) included “Everything that others do must be top-notch quality”.
Leader endorsement. Leader endorsement (a = .90, M = 5.62, SD = .99) was measured using a five-item scale presented by Burris (2012). In order for the scale to fit better into the overall questionnaire we adapted the scale from a five-point Likert to a seven-point Likert scale. A sample items of the scale was “How likely is it that you will take this person’s comments to your supervisors?”, 1 (extremely unlikely) to 7 (extremely likely) and “I think this person’s comments should be implemented”, 1 (strongly disagree) to 7 (strongly agree).
Control variables. The survey also included items to determine control variables like gender (1 = male, 2 = female), tenure in current position (in months), type of contract (1 = permanent, 2 = temporary), tenure as a leader (in months), and creativity of the leader. Tenure in current position and tenure as a leader could have had an effect on the process of bringing the voiced creative ideas into use (Baer, 2012; Mumford & Gustafson, 1988). Further, the type of contract might have affected the decision to endorse ideas, as individuals with a temporary contract might make less risky decisions. Creativity of the leader certainly could have affected the likeliness to endorse an idea, as it influences the tolerance for creativity. We measured the level of the leader’s creativity using a thirteen-item measurement scale from Zhou and George (2001) scoring from 1 (very characteristic) to 5 (not at all characteristic) (a = .92, M = 3.81,
SD = .66).
Data Analysis
consistently replying with the same item on all measures. At the end, this left us with ninety-four participants from the original 225 responses.
Next, we identified missing values. In total, we could identify three missing values, which all appeared on different measures. Due to the low amount of missing values we concluded that the data set is unlikely to be biased. This is in line with Bennett (2001) who states that only with missing values taking more than 10% of the data set bias is likely to be present. Moreover, due to the small amount of missing values, we decided to replace them with the series mean.
After recoding reversed measures, we formed variables by taking the mean of the measures. Prior, we checked the internal reliability of the measures in order to ensure it is sufficient to form variables. For each of the formed variables we checked for outliers. While there were several ‘out values’, there was only one ‘extreme value’ in the “Creativity of Leader” variable. Given that it was a control variable and therefore not critical for hypothesis testing, we decided not to take any action on the identified outlier.
To test for multivariate normality, we generated qq-plots for the dependent, moderator, and control variables. On the qq-plots it was visible that all variables were approximately normally distributed. Further, we generated scatterplots for all variables and concluded that the assumption of homoscedasticity was met.
Next, we looked at the correlations between the main variables and control variables (see Table 2). Looking at the correlations, it is already visible that there was a significant negative correlation between type of idea and leader endorsement (rs = -.32, p < .05) as
previously expected. This was further inspected in the hypothesis testing. Looking further at correlations of other variables with the dependent variable leader endorsement only tenure in a leading position (rs = -.22, p < .001) has a significant correlation. However, the correlations
In order to fully ensure that the control variables did not have a relationship with the variable leader endorsement, we further examined possible effects. We used linear regression for the variables tenure in a leading position, tenure in current position, and creativity of leader and independent samples t-tests for the variables type of contract and gender. We found that tenure in a leading position (b = -.00, p = .06, t(92) = -1.93), tenure in current position (b = -.00, p = .42, t(92) = -.80), creativity of leader (b = .24, p = .13, t(92) = 1.54, type of contract (p = .42, t(90) = .815) and gender (p = .24, t(92) = -1.18) did not significantly influence leader endorsement (see Table 1 for details). Consequently, we did not include these variables in further hypothesis testing.
As a last step to prepare the data, all variables important for hypothesis testing were centralized to ensure there is no multicollinearity.
TABLE 1
Linear Regression and Independent Samples t-tests of Control Variables with Leader Endorsement Leader Endorsement
Predictor B SE t p R2
Tenure in a Leading Position -.003 .002 -1.929 .057 .040
Tenure in Current Position -.002 .003 -.803 .424 .007
Creativity of Leader .239 .155 1.543 .126 .025
Gender Female Male
M SD M SD t-test
Leader Endorsement .1129 .9095 -.1282 1.0761 -1,177
Type of Contract Temporary Contract Permanent Contract
M SD M SD t-test
TABLE 2
Univariate Statistics and Spearman Correlations among the Variables N=94
Variables Mean SD 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8
1. Leader Endorsement 5.62 .99 (.902)
2. Self-Oriented Perfectionism 4.79 .89 .117 (.873)
3. Other-Oriented Perfectionism 4.07 .75 .100 .400** (.804)
4. Type of Idea 1.53 .50 -.315* -.042 -.071 (n/a)
5. Creativity of Leader 3.81 .66 .190 .000 .102 -.020 (.919)
6. Tenure in a Leading Position 41.19 64.68 -.217** -.162 -.008 .049 .050 (n/a)
7. Tenure in Current Position 28.54 34.88 -.080 -.144 -.131 -.073 -.025 .537** (n/a)
8. Gender 1.53 .50 .109 -.016 -.218* .017 -.031 -.321** -.008 (n/a)
9. Type of Contract 1.30 .46 -.072 .167 -.141 .288** -.034 -.426** -.390** .113
*p< .05, **p< .01,
RESULTS Manipulation Check
To test whether the manipulation was successful, we performed an independent samples t-test. Equal variances could be assumed based on the results of the Levene’s test (F(1,92) = 4.34, p = .07). There was a significant difference in the means of the radical idea group (N = 50) and incremental idea group (N = 40). Participants who were shown the radical idea scenario judged the idea to be more different from the current procedures and more difficult to implement (M = 4.88, SD = .94) than the participants who were presented with the incremental idea group (M = 3.82, SD = 1.10; t(92) = -5.01, p = .000, two-tailed, 95% CI [-1.47, -.64], d = 1.03). Hence, it can be concluded that the manipulation check was successful. Table 3 is a summary of the results for the manipulation check.
TABLE 3
Independent Sample t-test between Manipulation Check and Type of Idea
Radical Idea (N = 50) Incremental Idea (N = 44)
M SD M SD t-test Cohen’s d
Manipulation
check 4.8760 .9389 3.8216 1.0995 -5.015*** 1.03
***p < .001
M=Mean, SD=Standard Deviation.
Hypothesis Testing
In order to test the moderation hypotheses, we used the PROCESS macro with 5000 bootstrapping estimates (Model 2; Hayes, 2013). The overall model was significant and 19.4% of the variance in leader endorsement was explained (F(5,88) = 4,23, p < .017, R2 = .194).
Hypothesis 2 stated that the leaders’ other-oriented perfectionism moderates the negative effect of employees’ creative ideas on leader endorsement such that this negative effect is more pronounced for leaders low (rather than high) on other-oriented perfectionism. The moderation analysis showed that that the interaction effect of type of idea and other-oriented perfectionism was not significant (b = -.36, t(88) = -1.28, p = .20). Consequently, Hypothesis 2 was not supported by the data.
self-
oriented perfectionism was significant, however in a different direction than expected (b = .48, t(88) = 2,09, p = .02). In other words, when holding other-oriented perfectionism constant, changes in self-oriented perfectionism did have a positive significant influence on the negative relationship between type of idea and leader endorsement. Consequently, hypothesis 3 could also not be supported by the data.
Looking at the conditional effects, it became clear for which levels of self-oriented perfectionism there were significant results. For relatively low and average levels of self-oriented perfectionism there were significant results, while they were not significant for relatively high levels of self-oriented perfectionism (e.g., if OtherPer =.00: SelfPer = -.89, b = -1.01, t(88) = -3.63, p = .0005; SelfPer = .00, b = -.59, t(88) = -3.09, p = .0027; SelfPer = .89,
b = -.16, t(88) = -.59, p = .56); for a summary of all regression results see Table 4). Figure 3 is
a visualization of the interaction effect between self-oriented perfectionism and type of idea. What can be seen is that with increasing levels of self-oriented perfectionism the radical idea resulted in relatively higher leader endorsement. For incremental creative ideas, there was no considerable change in leader endorsement for different levels of self-oriented perfectionism. The data points from Figure 3 correspond to the B values under conditional effects in Table 4. To further visualize the difference in leader endorsement of the type of idea at different levels of self-oriented perfectionism, we generated the graph in Figure 4.
For explorative reasons, we also checked whether the variables (type of idea, leader endorsement, self-oriented perfectionism, and other-oriented perfectionism) might interact in a three-way interaction. For that we used PROCESS macro (Model 3, Hayes 2013) with 5000 bootstrapping estimates. The results showed that there were no significant interactions
between the two-way interaction of self-oriented perfectionism and other-oriented
TABLE 4
Results of Moderation Analysis in PROCESS Macro
Leader Endorsement a Predictor B SE t R2 change 95% CI p Step 1 Type of Idea -.613 .196 -3.127 -1.003, -.224 .002** Self-Oriented Perfectionism .2380 .1152 2.0660 .0091, .4669 .0418* Other-Oriented Perfectionism .0539 .1397 0.3857 -.2238, .3316 .7007 Step 2 Type of Idea Self-Oriented Perfectionism
Type of Idea x Self-Oriented Perfectionism .4812 .2307 2.0859 .0399* .0228, .9397 .0399*
Type of Idea x Other-Oriented Perfectionism -.3551 .2767 -1.2834 .0151 -.9049, .1948 .2017
Conditional Effects Other-Oriented Perfectionism = -.7456 Self-Oriented Perfectionism = -.8853 -.7483 .3004 -2.4911 1.3453, -.1513 .0149* Self-Oriented Perfectionism = .000 -.3223 .2794 -1.1533 -.8775, .2330 .2519 Self-Oriented Perfectionism = .8853 .1038 .3864 .2686 -.6642, .8718 .7889 Other-Oriented Perfectionism = .0000 Self-Oriented Perfectionism = -.8853 -1.0131 .2794 -3.6263 -1.5683, -.4579 .0005*** Self-Oriented Perfectionism =.000 -.5870 .1899 -3.0914 -.9644, -.2097 .002** Self-Oriented Perfectionism = .8853 -.1610 .2784 -.5782 -.7143, .3923 .5646 Other-Oriented Perfectionism = .7457 Self-Oriented Perfectionism = -.8853 -1.2779 .3886 -3.2886 -2.0501, -.5056 .0014** Self-Oriented Perfectionism = .000 -.8518 .2814 -3.0272 -1.4110, -.2926 .0032** Self-Oriented Perfectionism = .8853 -.4258 .3013 -1.4129 -1.0246, .1731 .1612
Values for Self- and other-oriented perfectionism in conditional effects represent the mean and plus/minus one standard deviation.
a dependent variable: Leader Endorsement
*p < .05 **p < .01 ***p < .001(two tailed)
DISCUSSION
In the current study, we investigated the relationship between type of idea
(incremental vs. radical) and leader endorsement and how that relationship is moderated by self-oriented perfectionism or other-oriented perfectionism.
The first hypothesis stated that the type of idea has a negative effect on leader endorsement such that radical creative ideas of employees result in a lower leader
status quo more, and are more risk-taking than incremental creative ideas. Consequently, they also are characterized by a larger degree of uncertainty. Mueller, Melwani and Goncalo (2012) noted that individuals tend to have a negative bias towards creativity, especially when experiencing uncertainty. Generally, it was shown that individuals have the motivation to avoid uncertainty and will try to return to a more predicable state (Whitson & Galinsky, 2008). Consequently, when trying to lessen uncertainty it is likely that negative associations with creativity will arise (Mueller et al., 2012). When leaders are confronted with a radical creative idea by a subordinate, the idea’s novelty might result in relatively higher uncertainly for the leader than an incremental creative idea would. Consequently, trying to reduce
uncertainty the leader might develop negative associations with the radical creative idea, resulting in the decision to not endorse it. Moreover, literature has stated that individuals prefer to maintain the status quo and stick to their habits and routines and therefore tend to resist change (Ford, Ford, & D'Amelio, 2008; Oreg, 2003). Consequently, it is not surprising that the leaders in this research were less likely to endorse the radical creative idea which was going to introduce a considerable change and thus also substantially change the current habits and routines.
Looking at hypotheses 2 and 3, we proposed a moderating effect of self-oriented perfectionism as well as other-oriented perfectionism on the negative relationship between type of ideas and leader endorsement. Specifically, we hypothesized that the negative effect of type of ideas on leader endorsement will me more pronounced for leaders high (rather than low) on self-oriented perfectionism and leaders low (rather than high) on other-oriented perfectionism. For both hypotheses we did not find significant support.
the opposite of what we expected, which was that individuals scoring high on self-oriented perfectionism will still reject radical creative ideas but positively evaluate incremental ones. Additionally, we found in the conditional effects that the effect was significant for low or average levels of oriented perfectionism. Hence, with relatively high levels of self-oriented perfectionism the influence on a leader’s decision to endorse radical creative ideas is not significant anymore.
This is in line with literature that has found that adaptive perfectionism is positively related with creativity while maladaptive perfectionism is unrelated to creativity (Wigert, Reiter-Palmon, Kaufman, & Silvia, 2012). Hill et al. (1997) stated that self-oriented
perfectionism is a more adaptive form of perfectionism. Other-oriented perfectionism, on the other hand, has been associated with more ‘dark’ personality traits such as being narcissistic or aggressive (Hewitt & Flett, 1991; Hill, Zrull, & Turlington, 1997; Sherry, Hewitt, Flett, Lee-Baggley, & Hall, 2007). Consequently, other-oriented perfectionism can be argued to be more maladaptive.Wigert and colleagues (2012) also found that the relationship between creativity and adaptive perfectionism is curvilinear. Thus, they found that very high levels of adaptive perfectionism would be likely to inhibit creativity. While we did not find a
curvilinear relationship per se, results did become non-significant at higher levels of self-oriented perfectionism. Thus, it can be derived that high levels of self-self-oriented perfectionism are not positively related to creativity and also do not influence a leader’s decision to endorse a creative idea.
Hewitt et al. (2003) might provide another explanation for the unexpected interaction effect between self-oriented perfectionism and type of idea in the present study. The authors noted that the relationship of other-oriented perfectionism and self-oriented perfectionism to fear of failure has not been significant in previous studies. Actually, only socially prescribed perfectionism was found to be significantly related to fear of failure. Thus, while
1984), it seems not be possible to generalize that effect on the different perfectionism
dimensions individually. It could be that when presented with a radical creative idea by their subordinates, leaders who score low to average on self-oriented perfectionism actually do not face fear for the idea to fail. Instead, their pro social side might be triggered in which they show more care and support for the subordinate and want to gain better understanding of the idea. Subsequently, they evaluate the idea leading to the decision to endorse the idea.
Additionally, we reasoned that leaders who score high on self-oriented perfectionism might have the expectation to make perfect decisions and to perfect their own work by being a leader who makes decisions that are error free, useful, and successful in implementation. Consequently, we assumed that they will reject radical creative ideas because of their risk to fail, to be unsuccessful in implementation or to be useless. However, it might also be that leaders see the raised idea as an indication that the current status quo is not perfect. Hence, as they aim at perfecting the situation, they might decide to endorse the radical creative idea. In line with that reasoning, radical creative ideas might be a larger indicator for imperfection of the status quo due to their large difference to the current situation and therefore, also lead to a larger effect of self-oriented perfectionism than incremental creative ideas do. While there is, to our knowledge, no literature looking directly at the receptiveness to feedback for
individuals scoring relatively high on self-oriented perfectionism, there is literature looking at it for individuals with different achievement goal orientations. Specifically, it was found that individuals with mastery and performance approach goals can have positive reactions towards task-referenced feedback (Anseel, Van Yperen, Janssen, & Duyck, 2011). At the same time, self-oriented perfectionism has been shown to be positively related to mastery and
performance approach goals (Neumeister & Finch, 2006). The radical creative idea which was raised in the present study did not raise any comparison to other people’s performance.
self-oriented perfectionistic leaders might not feel threatened or see the idea as personal criticism and therefore, have a more positive connotation with the raised radical idea.
Theoretical Implications
The support we found for leaders being less likely to endorse radical creative ideas than incremental creative ideas has some important theoretical implications for creativity research. While research looking at how leaders react to creative ideas and voice of their subordinates is already relatively rare (for exceptions see Burris, 2012; Sijbom Roy et al., 2016), there is even less research looking at the level of novelty in the idea. Mostly, existing research focused on creativity or employee voice as a general construct (e.g., Burris, 2012; Mueller et al., 2012) but did not differentiate between radical and incremental creative ideas. Gilson and Madja (2011) already noted the importance of looking at creativity as a two-dimensional construct of radical or incremental before. The current research is another verification of their findings and demonstrated that creativity research should consider to individually look at the two concepts and not generalizing creative ideas as one concept. Further, the present study showed that there is a difference in the likeliness for leader
endorsement between radical creative ideas and incremental creative ideas. This indicates that keeping a two-dimensional model of creativity is important on all levels of creativity research. Thus, not only when looking at creativity in general, but also in research looking at the
creation or evaluation of creative ideas.
Additionally, the current study provided a contribution to the little existing research regarding the reaction of leaders to their subordinates raised ideas. In line with that, the
present study could also have some implications for research looking at the implementation of creative ideas and the development of innovation. While literature has recognized that
of the individual engaging in creativity (e.g.; Unsworth, Brown, & McGuire, 2000) or
organizational side (e.g., Martins & Terblanche, 2003; McLean, 2005). This study showed the importance to look at creativity and idea implementation from the leader’s perspective as well. While the development of creativity and the environment it happens in are certainly important, research should acknowledge the importance of leaders’ evaluation in the process of implementing creative ideas. Their evaluation of creativity is an important step in the overall process of innovation implementation. Hence, it is important to ensure that key leaders and decision makers perceive the innovation as beneficial and needed (Meyers, Durlak, & Wandersman, 2012). Showing that the presented idea indeed resulted in differences for leaders to endorse it, it is important to further gain understanding of the underlying reasons of when leaders perceive innovation and creativity as beneficial and needed.
This study also added to present literature by showing that self-oriented perfectionism can have an effect on a leader’s decision to endorse or not endorse a creative idea. This is important for perfectionism but also leadership literature. It is one of the first studies which specifically looked at the effect of separate perfectionism dimensions on leader endorsement of creative ideas. Also, literature looking at perfectionism in general in relation to creativity is relatively rare. Consequently, the present research made an important contribution by
showing that self-oriented perfectionism has an effect on how leaders endorse creative ideas. Moreover, our findings showed that perfectionism does not only have negative impacts but can also lead to positive outcomes.
By finding that self-oriented perfectionism can have an influence on leaders’ decisions to endorse a radical idea, the present study also established that personality attributes of a leader do affect the leader’s decision to endorse ideas and therefore can play an important role in the process of evaluating creative ideas and the implementation of those. This is an
raised by others. By showing that it is not just the type of idea raised that makes the difference, but also characteristics within the leader, it suggests that it is also important to look at how leaders’ attitudes towards creativity can differ. As already mentioned, a large portion of present literature looked at what leaders can do to facilitate creative thought within their employees (Shalley & Gilson, 2004; Zhou & George, 2003), however, it also seems to be important to look at leaders’ acceptance of creative ideas.
Practical Implications
Noting that radical creative ideas are likely to lead to lower leader endorsement than incremental creative ideas, does result in some practical implications. For employees, it might be relevant to think about how to present an idea to their supervisor. Specifically, it might be more effective to raise ideas in a more incremental way. Thus, when having the idea for a large change, it might be more effective to divide the radical creative idea in many smaller changes and presenting them to the supervisor individual in the form of incremental creative ideas. This might lead to more likeliness for the idea to be endorsed than raising one radical creative idea.
For businesses in general this study’s findings also result in some implications. Past research has shown that there are indeed much more creative ideas developed than actual innovations implemented (Baer, 2012; Levitt, 1963; West, 2002). Consequently,
Additionally, we found that self-oriented perfectionism can have a positive effect on the endorsement of radical creative ideas, however, only for relatively low and average levels of self-oriented perfectionism. Organizations might take this as an inspiration for which personality traits they are looking for in their leaders. Accordingly, in organizations where radical innovation is essential it might be of advantage to fill positions that are critical for innovation implementation with leaders who rather score relatively low to average on self-oriented perfectionism. This might reduce the likeliness that radical creative ideas are rejected more than incremental creative ideas.
Strengths and Limitations
This study has some limitations which are important to note. First of all, this study had a relatively small sample size with 94 participants. Thus, in order to improve this study, approaching a larger number of participants would be beneficial.
Secondly, as it was a quasi-experimental study the generalizability of the results is questionable. There might be many other factors influencing the results of this study. Also, since the study was not run in a lab under controlled conditions but because participants filled in a questionnaire on their computer, there might be lurking variables influencing the results. Thus, replicating this study under more controlled conditions might be valuable.
Furthermore, this study is an important addition to the little present literature that focuses on how leaders react to creativity and creative ideas raised by their subordinates. It is the first study to our knowledge that differentiates between radical and incremental creative ideas and looks at whether there is a difference in the likeliness for leaders to endorse them.
Moreover, this study was one of the first to put light on the possible influence of perfectionism on the decision to endorse a creative idea as well as doing this while looking at different perfectionism dimensions individually. We found that self-oriented perfectionism can have a positive effect on the leader’s decision to endorse radical creative ideas. This finding clearly adds to the present literature looking at perfectionism in relation to creativity as well as how leaders react to raised ideas and their personality traits influencing that. In conclusion, this study certainly shined some light on two large research gaps which require further research in the future.
Future Research
After this study has laid a basis for research on how leaders react to creativity raised by their subordinates, it would be interesting for future research to look further at the underlying factors. Specifically, looking at other factors which might influence the decision process of a leader to endorse a raised creative idea. Beside including personality attributes like perfectionism, it is also possible to include factors like the relationship and trust towards the employee. Research has shown that trust is an essential antecedent for leaders to empower their employees (Mayer, Davis, & Schoorman, 1995; Mishra & Spreitzer, 1994).
Subsequently, it might also be an important aspect in leaders’ decision making of whether to endorse a voiced creative idea.
However, future research could look whether the level of leader endorsement also depends on the kind of company or country the research was conducted in. Leaders in companies that promote a certain position towards creativity might feel inclined to react different to radical or incremental creative ideas raised by their subordinates than the leaders in the present study. This might especially be the case as innovative companies often implement human resource systems which reward creative behaviours (Gupta & Singhal, 1993).
Further, differences in culture of the country the research was conducted in could also result in a difference in the relationship between type of idea and leader endorsement.
Hofstede (1984) proposed that there are several dimensions in which countries differ.
Consequently, conducting research in a country which scores higher on collectivism or lower on uncertainty avoidance might lead to leaders being more likely to endorse a radical creative idea. The dimension uncertainly avoidance would be especially interesting to look at since it is assumed to be the reason not to endorse a raised creative idea (Mueller et al., 2012). Lastly, it might be interesting whether the third perfectionism dimension, socially prescribed perfectionism, influences the likeliness of leaders to endorse radical or incremental creative ideas. This form of perfectionism has a significant relationship with fear of failure (Hewitt et al., 2003). Accordingly, it is also likely to affect whether leaders will endorse a radical or incremental creative idea. In addition, it might also be interesting to look at other
perfectionism scales. We stated that past research has shown that adaptive perfectionism is related to creativity (Wigert et al., 2012). Accordingly, it might be that the effect of adaptive perfectionism on the negative relationship between type of idea and leader endorsement is unique from that of self-oriented perfectionism. Besides the perfectionism dimensions self- and other-oriented, socially prescribed and adaptive perfectionism, literature has also
might be interesting to look at how maladaptive, positive, and negative perfectionism influence the negative relationship between leader endorsement and type of idea. Further, it could be interesting to combine this with having another look at the perfectionism dimensions used in the present study, in order to compare the influence the different dimensions might have on leader endorsement of creative ideas.
CONCLUSION
The present study looked at the difference in leader endorsement of radical creative ideas versus incremental creative ideas and whether this is moderated by self-oriented perfectionism as well as other-oriented perfectionism.
Our results showed that as expected leaders are less likely to endorse radical creative ideas in comparison to incremental creative ideas. While, we did not find any support for other-oriented perfectionism having a moderating effect on this negative relationship, we found significant results for self-oriented perfectionism to positively influence the decision to endorse radical creative ideas. Consequently, this study considerably added to the present literature by underlining the importance of having a two-dimensional construct of creativity as well as shedding light on the importance of leaders’ evaluation of creative ideas and their personality aspects influencing that process.
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APPENDIX A
Scenarios for Radical and Incremental Creative Idea Manipulation Current status-quo described in video
Imagine you are working for a midsize production company called “DEAL” involving around 200 employees. You are a manager of a work group consisting of 15 group members who are working in the client relations department. The department is responsible for helping clients with questions of any kind, but also for arranging new orders from current clients as well as for new clients.
As the manager of the work group, one of your key tasks entails handing in performance appraisals for each of these 15 employees. Currently, the performance appraisal procedure looks as follows:
• Suitability for promotion to a higher pay level is based upon a set of categories and criteria that are set by the company.
• Currently, the categories and criteria include:
o Response time to client questions
o Revenue created of new orders arranged o Client satisfaction
• In case managers feel that a certain employee meets the criteria for the mentioned categories, they will nominate the respective employee as a promotion candidate.
• Consideration for promotion is only initiated after a manager nominated an employee.
Incremental idea
Hi,
However, given our company’s large client focus, I think it might also be important to include an additional point, namely:
● Include employee’s individual improvements on soft skills. With soft skills I mean skills including time management, teamwork, and problem solving.
I will also send you an email with my idea.
Radical idea
Hi,
It’s Monique. Over the last few weeks, I have come to the conclusion that our promotion procedure here at DEAL could be improved. At the moment, we only include the response time to client questions, the revenue created of new orders arranged, and client satisfaction. However, given our company’s large client focus, I think it might be important to approach performance appraisals in our company in an entirely different way.
In particular, I came up with the following ideas:
● Per quarter, employees set individual short- and long-term development goals in collaboration with their manager. Those goals are based on the different promotion categories.
● Employees and their manager have quarterly meetings to discuss the progress on these goals.
● For promotion, the progress toward achieving the goals set for the individual is
important, not the reaching of company set quotas.
● Progress discussions also consider feedback from colleagues. ● Every employee has the chance for promotion at least once a year.
● Employees can apply for promotion themselves, but can also be suggested by the management.
APPENDIX B Manipulation Check Items
1 (Not at all), 7 (To a great extent)
• To what extent does the voiced idea differ from what we use to do in our company DEAL?
• To what extent is the voiced idea in line with the current strategies in our company DEAL?
• To what extent does the voiced idea require major changes in existing practices at DEAL?
• To what extent does the voiced idea differ from the established status quo at DEAL?
1 (Extremely Difficult), 7 (Extremely Easy)
