Bright and dark side of a promotion focused leader

Bright and dark side of a promotion focused leader

leader with employee creativity and pro organizational unethical behavior

University of Groningen Faculty of Economics and Business

Master thesis

MSc Human Resource Management

Abstract

Previous research on regulatory focus theory, and then for this study especially promotion focus, has mainly focused attention on employees’ own promotion focus. However, little is known about how employees perceive their supervisors’ promotion focus and the effects this has on employees’ motivations and behaviors. Addressing this research gap, this study investigated the bright and dark side of leader promotion focus, which are the employee’s creativity on the bright side and pro organizational unethical behavior on the dark side. This study further sets out to enhance the bright and dark side of leader promotion focus by examining one moderator: willingness to take risks. Based on previous research, we argue that leader promotion focus positively relates to employee creativity and pro organizational unethical behavior. In addition, the moderator willingness to take risks make these direct relationships stronger. Using a sample of 366 employees and 53 supervisors from different companies, the hypothesized relationships were tested empirically. The data did not provide evidence for the relation between leader promotion focus and employee creativity and the relation between leader promotion focus and pro organizational unethical behavior, nor did it support the moderation effect of willingness to take risks. This study elaborates further on these, somewhat suprising, results and includes some interesting suggestions for future research.

Introduction

The role of leadership in preventing bad and promoting good behavior at work is concisely expressed in the practitioner assertion that in the minds of most employees, “What is right is what the guy above you wants” (Jackall, 1988, p.109). This implies that leadership has bright- and dark sides, depending on the behavior of the leader. At the bright side, leadership can lead to positive employee behaviors such as creativity. Employee creativity can be defined as the ability to think divergently, combine different resources into something new and better and see things from different perspectives (Amabile, 1996). Creativity is critical for organizational performance and is important to survive in rapidly changing environments (Lopez Cabrales, Pérez-Luno & Cabrera, 2009). Furthermore, individual creativity of employees could be the key for generating a competitive advantage (Shalley, Zhou & Oldham, 2004) and will contribute to creativity processes of the organization (Sripirabaa & Maheswari, 2015).

A dark side of the role of leadership on an employee can be pro organizational unethical behavior (UPB). Leadership has often been seen as something that has a positive effect, the reality is that it also can backfire sometimes. Employees may engage in unethical actions, such as lying. The potential motivations for unethical behaviors are about reasons to benefit the organization or its agents, a construct we call “pro organizational unethical behavior”. Existing research acknowledges that employees may conduct unethical behaviors on behalf of the organization (Ashforth & Anand 2003; Brief et al. 2001; Pinto et al. 2008).

In Higgins’ (1997) regulatory focus theory, there are two fundamental motivational systems that regulate people’s goals, emotions and behavior: promotion focus and prevention focus. In this study, we will focus on leader promotion focus because the purpose of the promotion focus is to pursue development and change to explore the advantages of creative and novel behavior (Kark & Van Dijk, 2007). Therefore, employees who experience leader promotion focus will earlier show creative behavior.

Higgins (1997) suggests that concern with employees’ needs and attainment of ideals characterizes a promotion-focused leader. Leader promotion focus tends to ensure that employees show “exploratory” behaviors, such as creativity and innovation (Forster, Friedman, & Liberman, 2004). Friedman and Forster (2001) state that people with a promotion focus elicit a risky, explorative processing style that can result in creative behavior. While Wu et al. (2008) argue that leaders who model promotion-focused behavior evoke a congruent psychological state in employees. This promotion-focused state of eagerness then increases the likelihood of creative behavior.

Leaders are central in shaping followers’ unethical behavior (Brown and Trevin ̃o, 2006). Employees who experience promotion-focused leadership feel stimulated to achieve gains (Crowe & Higgins, 1997) and one way of doing so is by showing unethical behavior, which can be beneficial for the organization. Employees can do this by destroying harmful information or providing customers with misleading information in order to favor their organization and to achieve their gains.

creativity and the relationship between leader promotion focus and UPB. Researchers have used regulatory focus theory to study goal attainment (e.g., Förster, Higgins, & Idson, 1998), decision making (e.g., Crowe & Higgins, 1997), creativity (Friedman & Förster, 2001) and feedback and motivation (Förster et al., 2001; Van Dijk & Kluger, 2004). However, previous research has mainly focused on the employees’ own promotion focus and now we will look at how employees perceive their leaders’ promotion focus.

necessary. An employee who experiences leader promotion focus wants to attain his or her ideals, even if this results in bad behavior, such as UPB. Employees will show, with a promotion focused leader, earlier UPB if they want to take risks. Which stems from the intrinsic motivation and the encouragement of the promotion focused leader to take these risks (Dewett, 2007). So, willingness to take risks makes the relationship between leader promotion focus and UPB stronger. Therefore, we expect that willingness to take risks will be a viable moderator.

This study has multiple contributions to research and practice. Where existing research did focus on employees’ own promotion focus (Higgins, 1997), research on how employees perceive their leaders’ promotion focus is lacking. More research is needed that explain the way in which employees perceive their promotion focused leader. This study answers to this need for research.

First, it provides a deeper understanding of how organizations could improve employee creativity by the presence of a promotion focused leader. On the other hand, it provides a deeper understanding of how a promotion focused leader stimulates UPB.

Second, by using willingness to take risks as a moderator we extend the literature by investigating a relatively unstudied topic related to the direct relationship between leader promotion focus and employee creativity and the direct relationship between leader promotion focus and UPB.

Employee  creativity  

Willingness  to  take   risks  

Pro  organizational   unethical  behavior  

organization (Shalley, Zhou & Oldham, 2004). But also how they can identify and prevent the dark side of leader promotion focus, which is UPB. This is also important information for a manager because UPB can be considered as a concern for many organizations. UPB can lead to reputation-damage and to a loss in organizational revenues (Vadera & Pratt, 2013). Therefore, knowledge about UPB is very important to counteract this behavior and the outcomes.

The remainder of this thesis unfolds as follows. First, the theory section, which elaborates on the existing research of the topics leader promotion focus, employee creativity, UPB and willingness to take risks. Furthermore, the methods and results will be discussed. To test our hypotheses, we collected field data among employees and supervisors from various companies in the Netherlands. The last section provides the discussion and conclusion. The relationships proposed in this study will be tested by the following conceptual model. + + + Leader promotion focus + +

Figure 1: conceptual model Leader  promotion  

Theory

Leader promotion focus refers to the understanding of people’s motivations toward reaching their goals. Previous research on leader promotion focus has shown that it is associated with eagerness (Higgins, 1997). It is also concerned with gains, ideals, accomplishments and it is driven by a need for growth and development and characterized by setting ideal and hoped-for goals (Carver & Scheier, 2002). A promotion focused leader allocates attention primarily to the benefits of success and the costs of failing to succeed (Crowe and Higgins, 1997). Employees who experience leader promotion focus see opportunities in their environment and are eager to pursue many means to generate new ideas and develop new ways of doing things in order to insure gains (Crowe & Higgins, 1997; Zhou, Hirst & Shipton, 2011). Leader promotion focus is also generally regarded as a construct that can potentially increase employee creativity. As been said before, employee creativity refers to “the ability to think divergently, combine different resources into something new and better and see things from different perspectives” (Amabile, 1996).

The findings of Wu et al. (2008) suggest that increases in the promotion focus of leaders' behavior elicit promotion focus in employees, which leads to increases in employees' creative behavior. Employees with leaders whose behavior manifests a promotion- focused philosophy, such as “better to ask for forgiveness than permission,” are likely to behave creative. Because the attention of the promotion focused leader is aimed at the maximizing of goals and he or she pays little attention to compliance with organizational routines or avoidance of mistakes. This pattern of behavior emerges that others begin to attribute to promotion focus. Consequently, attaining a successful outcome, by which they need to take risks, is perceived to be the emphasis of these employees who experience promotion-focused leaders which can lead to the fact that they make mistakes and need to ask for forgiveness. These findings are consistent with the intrinsic motivation approach of creativity (e.g., Amabile, 1996; Shalley, Zhou & Oldham, 2004), which contends that individuals demonstrate high levels of creativity when they are cognitively flexible, curious, playful, and willing to take risks.

Therefore, this participants combine different resources from the original task into something new.

Lastly, Brockner et al. (2004) argues that the leader’s pattern of behavior is seen as directed towards promotion focus or towards prevention focus. The creative behavior of employees is more likely when they experience a promotion focused leader that induces the employees eagerness. The eagerness of the employees changes their preferences by which the employees are more creative, willing to consider new ideas and to “think outside the box” (Förster, Friedman & Liberman, 2004). So, we argue that leader promotion focus is positively related to employee creativity.

Hypothesis 1: Promotion focused leadership is positively related to employee creativity.

Leader promotion focus and pro organizational unethical behavior

While promotion-focused leadership has advantages as it can lead to creativity, which explained above, it also has its potential downsides. Indeed, as we will explain next, this can be pro organizational unethical behavior. Pro organizational unethical behavior (UPB) is defined as ‘‘actions that are intended to promote the effective functioning of the organization or its members and leaders and violate core societal values, mores, laws, or standards of proper conduct’’ (Umphress and Bingham, 2011). Unethical behavior, more broadly defined, goes beyond organizational norms and concerns committing an action which is incompatible

We expect that leader promotion focus will be positively related to UPB. Several reasons support the expectation that promotion focused leadership increases UPB. First, Umphress et al. (2010) argued that employees who strongly identify with their organization would be more inclined to engage in UPB as compared to employees low in organizational identification. Promotion focus is associated with more internal motives like development and growth. Employees seek to do things because they want to (Van Dijk & Kluger, 2004). So, the employees enhance organizational identification because they do things that they want to. Therefore, employees who experience leader promotion may run the risk of engaging in UPB through their identification with the organization. High levels of organizational identification may cause employees to conduct unethical acts such as lying to protect the organization or covering up evidence that could harm the organization (Dukerich et al. 1998).

So, employees who experience their leader as promotion-focused show behavior whereby they grab all opportunities to achieve a goal and help increase the welfare of the organization. The employees are eager to improve the situation and achieve successes, by which they can be “good soldiers”. To become these “good soldiers” they will probably do anything to reach those successes. This implies that they are probably also going to show unethical behaviors that benefits the organization. Because this will bring them closer to being a “good soldier”. So, we argue that leader promotion focus is positively related to pro organizational unethical behavior.

Hypothesis 2: Promotion focus leadership is positively related to pro organizational unethical behavior.

Willingness to take risks as a moderator

willingness to engage in potential risks at work in an effort to produce positive organizationally relevant outcomes. This definition shows the employee’s willingness to “go the extra mile” in their effort to complete their work or reach their goals in an improved manner.

First about the moderating effect of willingness to take risks on the relationship between leader promotion focus and employee creativity. We expect that high levels of willingness to take risk strengthen the relationship between leader promotion focus and employee creativity. An explanation for this statement is that promotion focus is elicited by eagerness to attain advancement and gains even if this may result in a loss of accomplishment (Crowe & Higgins, 1997). Whereas creative ideas are both novel and valuable. So, employees who experience leaders with promotion focus want to be eager by which they are stimulated to show creativity. And this relation will be stronger when there is a willingness to take risks because creative activities are mostly risky, and someone needs to take that risk to be as creative as possible. He or she is then more likely to consider nontraditional ways to approach a situation or problem (Andrews & Smith, 1996).

This is what they do when they are creative because they are doing something completely different than what has been done before, which often leads to failures or mistakes (Dewett, 2007).

The relationship between promotion focused leaders and employee creativity will be weaker when someone does not want to take risks. Kahneman & Lovallo (1993) argue that the standard interpretation of risk aversion is that it decreases the utility of gains. This is not in line with the philosophy of employees who experience a promotion focused leader. Those employees want to maximize the utility of gains by being eager, which will lead to employee creativity. So, we argue that willingness to take risk moderates the relationship between promotion focus leadership and employee creativity.

Hypothesis 3: The willingness to take risks moderates the relationship between promotion focus leadership and employee creativity, such that this relationship will be stronger under levels of high willingness to take risks, and weaker under levels of low willingness to take risks.

Umphress & Bingham (2011) state that employees are motivated to engage in UPB based on situational and individual factors. Therefore, employees are influenced by their promotion focused leader to engage in UPB, which is a situational factor. While they are also influenced by individual characteristics to engage in UPB. The employees’ willingness to take risks can be argued as an individual characteristic that moderates the relationship between leader promotion focus and UPB.

Promotion focus influences the strength of the employees awareness to preferred manners of goal achievement (Liberman et al., 1999), this means also that promotion focus will lead to taking on all possible opportunities an employee can get. This implies that employees probably are going to show unethical behaviors that benefit the organization, if this is one of the possible opportunities they need to grab for the achievement of goals. This relation will be stronger when an employee wants to take risks because the employee has to ignore unethical consequences attached to UPB when they want to achieve all goals (Turnipseed, 2002). This means that they violate core societal values, morals, laws or standards (Umphress & Bingham, 2011).

The relationship between promotion focused leaders and UPB will be weaker when someone does not want to take risks, because they cannot ignore the unethical consequences attached to UPB. They cannot ingnore the unethical consequences attachted to UPB because those people prefer a sure thing instead of a gamble (Kahneman & Lovallo, 1993) and ignoring unethical consequences is a gamble. So, we argue that willingness to take risk moderates the relationship between promotion focus leadership and UPB.

Hypothesis 4: The willingness to take risks moderates the relationship between promotion focus leadership and pro organizational unethical behavior, such that this relationship will be stronger under levels of high willingness to take risk, and weaker under levels of low willingness to take risks.

Methods

For collecting data, we contacted several companies and asked them to participate in the present study. Respondents were employees together with their direct supervisor. The respondents worked in different companies from different sectors, such as education and construction firms. The data were gathered through an online questionnaire. We approached the supervisors who were asked to give the work email addresses of the employees and their own work email address, so we could send the questionnaires to each of them individually. The supervisors received in the first place a cover letter with information about the study’s objectives and the supervisors were promised in the cover letter that they will receive a report of the study’s main findings. We collected the data with two separate questionnaires, one of the questionnaires for the supervisor and one for the employees. Supervisors were asked to rate employees on creativity, whereas employees were asked to report the quality of leader promotion focus, how they would help their organization and if they want to take risks. The questionnaires were collected in Dutch and we used validated and reliable scales available in the literature.

The participants have worked within the same company between 0 and 39 years and the average number of years employees worked with the company was 11.43 (SD = 9.46). From the supervisors 30 were men and 23 were women. The mean age of the supervisors was 46.23 (SD = 10.30), ranging from 24 to 61. The education level ranged from primary school to university and the most common education level was HBO, with 30 supervisors who graduated HBO. The participants have worked within the same company between 0 and 39 years and the average number of years the supervisors worked with the company was 12.28 (SD = 10.76).

Measures

To measure the variables, we used a Likert-type scale anchored from 1 (“strongly disagree”) to 5 (“strongly agree”).

Leader promotion focus. We measured leader promotion focus based on the scale of

Wallace, Johnson & Frazier (2009). The leader promotion focus scale was composed of 4 items. Example item was “My supervisor motivates me to primarly focus on achieving successes at work” ( = .91).

Willingness to take risks. We measured willingness to take risks based on the scale of

Andrews & Smith (1996). The willingness to take risks scale was composed of 3 items. Example item was “I am a risk-taker when it comes to proposing ideas” ( = .73).

Tierney et al. (1999). Example item was “... generates novel, but operable ideas”

(

Pro organizational unethical behavior. UPB was one of the two dependent variables

in this study. We measured UPB based on the scale of Umphress & Bingham (2011). Example item was “If it would help my organization, I would… be able to mispresent the truth a bit to make my organization look better”

(

Analytic Approach

In order to analyze the data, we used the program SPSS for conducting several tests. The first step in the data analysis was the preparation of the data set. Because of the internal consistency of all items per variable (α > .70), we could combine the items into variables. After we computed these variables, we did a correlation test between all the variables and control variables. The correlation analysis was executed to examine how the separate variables are related.

After the preparation of the data set, we turned to testing the hypotheses of this study. To test the first two hypothesis, a regression analysis was performed to expose the relationship between promotion focused leadership and employee creativity and between promotion focused leadership and UPB. To examine the moderator effect, willingness to take risks, we standardized the independent variable and the moderator before the interaction term was formed (Aiken & West, 1991). The interaction variable was computed by multiplying the standardized independent variable with the standardized moderator.

Results

Appendix 3 shows the means and standard deviations of the variables, and the correlations among all the variables. We found that leader promotion focus was not significantly correlated with creativity (r = .04, p > .10). The results also showed that leader promotion focus was not significantly correlated with UPB (r = .00, p > .10). On the other hand, the results showed that willingness to take risks was positively and signficantly correlated with employee creativity (r = .24, p < .01). Besides that, the correlation between willingess to take risks and UPB was not significantly correlated (r = .06, p > .10). Also, no significant correlation was found for the relationship between willingness to take risks and leader promotion focus (r = -.01, p > .10). Our control variable age had a significant correlation with employee creativity, which implies that the older people are the less creative.

Regressions

To assess the hypothesized effects, we conducted hierarchical regression analyses. Appendix 4 and 5 show the hierarchical regression analyses. In every model, we controlled for gender and age. As can be seen in appendix 4, the first step showed a non-significant relationship between leader promotion focus and employee creativity (B = .02, SE = .04, p > .10). Therefore, we reject hypothesis 1. In the second step of the regression analyses we included willingness to take risks. Appendix 4 shows a positive significant effect of willingness to take risks on employee creativity (B = .19, SE = .04, p < .01).

These results showed that willingness to take risks did not moderate the relationship between leader promotion focus and employee creativity (B = -.00, SE = .03, p > .10). Therefore, we reject hypothesis 3.

As can be seen in appendix 5, the first step showed a non-significant relationship between leader promotion focus and UPB (B = -.00, SE = .03, p > .10). Therefore, we reject hypothesis 2. In the second step of the regression analyses we included willingness to take risks. Appendix 5 shows a non-significant effect of willingness to take risks on UPB (B = .04, SE = .03, p > .10). In the third and final step of the regression analysis we included the interaction between leader promotion focus and willingness to take risks. These results showed that willingness to take risks did not moderate the relationship between leader promotion focus and UPB (B = -.04, SE = .03, p > .10). Therefore, we reject hypothesis 4. As appendix 6 and 7 illustrates, results showed that willingness to take risks did not moderate the relationship between leader promotion focus and employee creativity and did also not moderate the relationship between leader promotion focus and UPB.

Discussion and conclusion

This study was conducted to examine whether and how leader promotion focus is related to employee creativity and UPB, and to investigate whether willingness to take risks moderates the relationship between leader promotion focus and employee creativity and also the relationship between leader promotion focus and UPB. For this study, we used a sample of 366 employees and 53 supervisors from different organizations. We did not find support for our hypotheses. The results showed a non-significant relationship between leader promotion focus and employee creativity. The results showed also a non-significant relationship between leader promotion focus and UPB. And willingness to take risks did not moderate the relationship between leader promotion focus and employee creativity and it did also not moderate the relationship between leader promotion focus and UPB.

Theoretical and managerial implications

Theoretical implications. Leader promotion focus was argued to be significantly

to see opportunities in the environment and being eager to make sure that the employee will generate new ideas (Crowe & Higgins, 1997). Amabile (1996) argues that employee creativity consists of novelty and usefulness. But Csikszentmihalyi (1988) argued that employee creativity is affected by three main shaping forces: the field, the domain, and the individual. The field is the set of social institutions that selects only those creative products worth preserving. The domain is the knowledge base and culture that will make sure that ideas must be accepted by a larger context before being considered creative. And the individual is the one who brings about some change in the domain that the field will consider to be creative. Therefore, it cannot be enough for an employee with a promotion focused leader to see opportunities in the environment and to be eager, because employees can only be creative if they have an external environment that supports them, which is called the field and the domain.

creativity. This makes the creativity of an employee less relevant, which results in the fact that, for an employee who experiences leader promotion focus, it is not a useful behavior to show.

Leader promotion focus was also argued to be significantly related to UPB. In the theory section we argued that, according to Dukerich et al. (1998) high levels of organizational identification may cause employees to conduct unethical acts such as lying to protect the organization or covering up evidence that could harm the organization. So, promotion focused leaders may run the risk of encouraging UPB by enhancing their employees’ identification with the company. Contrary to these expectations, also no significant relationship between leader promotion focus and UPB was found. A possible explanation for the non-significant effect of leader promotion focus on UPB could be explained by the construct of moral disengagement. According to Bandura (1999), moral disengagement frees the individual from guilt that would normally accompany violation of one’s ethical standards. So, even if promotion focused leaders run the risk of encouraging UPB by enhancing their employees’ identification with the organization, is it possible that this will not lead to UPB. The employee can have a strong identification with the organization and internalize his or her organizational’ goals, but will not engage in UPB when they are morally engaged.

knowledge of the outcome that will be obtained and that outcome can be positive or negative. That can be the reason why employees view creative behavior as inherently risky to some degree and why willingness to take risks is related to employee creativity.

A possible explanation for the non-significant effects of willingness to take risks as a moderator might be that employees who perceiving promotion-focused leadership already experience that risk-taking is allowed. Employees who experience leader promotion focus are already challenged to attain their ideals. This makes the employees’ willingness to take risks not so relevant anymore because it has become commonplace to go for the desired result. Therefore, UPB is not seen as a risky behavior but as behavior that they have to show with the purpose of advancing both organizational and personal interests to reach their ideals (Vadera & Pratt, 2013). On the other hand, also employee creativity is not seen as a risky behavior when the employee has a promotion focused leader because it is already stimulated to be eager and to attain advancement and gains (Higgins, 1997).

Since the relationship between leader promotion focus and employee creativity, the relationship between leader promotion focus and UPB and the moderator willingness to take risk on this relations was not extensively studied before, this study contributes to the literature by making first steps for further research by already explaining these relationships. Nonetheless, further exploration of these relationships might be needed.

Managerial implication. Even though leader promotion focus appeared not to relate

pro organizational unethical behavior by the way they present themselves and by the way they behave. By setting promotion goals, leaders induce a regulatory motivational state, such as eagerness, in employees that influence them in how they behave. So, managers are recommended to take these consequences into account when establishing an environment in which their employees can creatively thrive or behave unethical for the organization.

Besides that, also willingness to take risks appeared not to be a significant moderator for both relations. But we did find a significant relationship between willingness to take risks and employee creativity. So, managers could express their enthusiasm for the generation of new ideas by the employee. This encouragement may lead to the willingness to take risks and subsequently to creative ideas because the more employees were willing to take risks the more they were creative in their work (Dewett, 2007).

Limitations and future directions

Besides our contribution to the current literature, the present study also has some limitations. It has theoretical as well as methodical limitations. In order to overcome these limitations, suggestions for further research will be given.

employee creativity and the relationship between leader promotion focus and UPB.

Second, employee creativity was in this study measured using a single and subjective source, namely the supervisors of the employees. Therefore, the supervisors’ ratings of employee creativity may have been affected by some perceptual biases and it is possible that this have led to inflated ratings. Future research could limit this perceptual biases by using more objective measures of employee creativity. An example of a more objective measure is a combination of a self-report and an other-report. Therefore, it is important for future research to consider having a third party who rates the employees’ creativity rather than only the supervisor who rates the subordinate.

Lastly, this research is limited to only one moderator, since willingness to take risks has been shown to be relevant for the creativity of the employee (Andrews & Smith, 1996) and for UPB (Kahneman & Lovallo, 1993). However, future research could look at whether other moderators play a role in the relationship between leader promotion focus and employee creativity and leader promotion focus and UPB. An example could be situational characteristics such as type of work. It can be interesting for future research to identify such situational characteristics that determine the influences of leaders on employees during a creative process or with pro organizational unethical behavior.

Conclusion

Due to the speed of technological changes and turbulent work environments nowadays, it becomes more important for organizations to have employees who search for new opportunities and who support the organization to reach it goals. Therefore, employees need a promotion focused leader who encourage them to be as creative as possible and who stimulate them to be ‘good’ supportive soldiers. Unfortunately, the data did not provide the positive significant effects that was hoped for. However, it does provide a good foundation for further research on this subject.

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Appendices

Appendix 1: Descriptives data supervisors

N Minimum Maximum Mean Std.

Appendix 2: Descriptives data employees

N Minimum Maximum Mean Std.

Appendix 3: correlation table

M SD 1 2 3 4 5 6

1. Gender1 _{1.58 .49}

2. Age 42.93 11.81 -.07

3. Leader promotion focus 3.83 .76 .13* -.04 (.91)

4. Willingness to take risk 3.08 .78 -.09 -.05 -.01 (.73) 5. 6. Employee creativity UPB 3.62 2.70 .80 .69 .06 -.03 -.21*** -.05 .04 .00 .24*** .06 (.89) .07 (.74)

1 _{Dummy coded, 1 = male, 2 = female}

* p < .10 ** p < .05 *** p < .01

Note: Cronbach’s alpha is in parentheses along the diagonal

Appendix 4: Hierarchical regression table DV: Employee creativity Predictors 1 Control variables Gender1 _{H1: .06 (.08) .10 (.08) H2: .10 (.08)} Age H1: -.01 (.00)*** -.01 (.00)*** H2: -.01 (.00)*** 2 Main effects

Leader promotion focus

(Z-scored) H1: .02 (.04) .03 (.04) H2: .03 (.04) Willingness to take risks

(Z-scored) .19 (.04)*** H2: .19 (.04)***

3 Interaction

Leader promotion focus (Z-scored) * Willingness to take

risks (Z-scored) H3: -.00 (.03)

R2 _{.05 .10 .10}

1 _{Dummy coded, 1 = male, 2 = female}

* p < .10 ** p < .05 *** p < .01

Unstandardized B coefficients are reported with (Standard Errors)

Appendix 5: Hierarchical regression table DV: UPB Predictors 1 Control variables Gender1 _{H1: -.05 (.07) -.05 (.07) H2: -.05 (.07)} Age H1: -.00 (.00) -.00 (.00) H2: -.00 (.00) 2 Main effects

Leader promotion focus

(Z-scored) H1: -.00 (.03) -.00 (.03) H2: -.00 (.03) Willingness to take risks

(Z-scored) .04 (.03) H2: .04 (.03)

3 Interaction

Leader promotion focus (Z-scored) * Willingness to take

risks (Z-scored) H4: -.04 (.03)

R2 .00 .00 .01

1 _{Dummy coded, 1 = male, 2 = female}

* p < .10 ** p < .05 *** p < .01

Unstandardized B coefficients are reported with (Standard Errors)

Appendix 6: Visualized results of hypothesis 3                             1 1,5 2 2,5 3 3,5 4 4,5 5

Low leader promotion focus

Appendix 7: Visualized results of hypothesis 4   1 1,5 2 2,5 3 3,5 4 4,5 5

Low leader promotion focus