Empirical study on the relationship between effective following behavior and derived creative work behavior: A moderating role of perceived organizational support and sustainable leadership

Abstract

The leader of an organization and its members together constitute a binary structure of the main body of the organization and achievement of their goals. The existing literature mainly focuses on the characteristics and following behavior of members. Although the Leader-Member Exchange (LMX) theory uniquely explains the relationship between sustainable leaders and followers, it cannot as easily explain the creative work behavior of followers. This paper proposes that effective following behavior can stimulate the intrinsic motivation of followers and make this consistent with their work motivation, thereby producing creative work behavior and leading to the more effective achievement of organizational goals. Moreover, it demonstrates the internal relationships and mechanisms of action between effective following behavior and creative work behavior. Taking the two dimensions of effective following behavior as independent variables and the three dimensions of creative work behavior as dependent variables, a group of hypotheses were presented. The moderating role of the perceived organizational support and sustainable leadership in the relationship between effective following behavior and creative work behavior was demonstrated, and two groups of hypotheses were proposed. Data from 409 surveys, factor analysis, and multiple regression analysis were used to test the hypotheses. The empirical results show that in the organization the radical and incremental creative work behavior of the followers correlates positively with their active, participatory following behavior and the non-blind following behavior. The followers’ non-creative routine work behavior correlates negatively with their active participatory following behavior and has no significant correlation with the non-blind following behavior. In conclusion, sustainable leadership and perceived organizational support can therefore strengthen the relationship between actively participating in following behavior and creative work behavior and weaken the relationship between non-blind following behavior and creative work behavior.