Purpose The purpose of this paper is to explore the effect of creative process engagement on employees’ in-role performance, and does so by considering the support that employees received from and given to their supervisors. Design/methodology/approach Using data from 540 questionnaires collected in China, this paper conducts a hierarchical regression analysis to test the proposed model. Findings Creative process engagement positively affects employees’ in-role performance. However, the moderating effect of receiving support on the above relationship is not significant. Instead, it is the interaction of receiving support from and giving it to supervisors that moderates the relationship between creative process engagement and in-role performance. Research limitations/implications The study has some contributions to the conservation of resource (COR) theory. The authors find that acquiring new resources such as receiving support from supervisors is not always effective. The acquisition process of resources should be considered with the investment process of resources. According to the COR theory, people invest resources to gain resources and protect themselves from losing resources or to recover from resource loss (Halbesleben et al., 2014). The findings of the study show that employees investing resources is not just for gaining resources. Sometimes, they invest resources such as giving support to supervisors to remain a relatively balanced relationship. Practical implications Companies can encourage employees to place more attention on creative process engagement to improve in-role performance. In addition, when offering support to employees, managers should consider whether the employees are able to give it back in response to the received support, and distribute their support to employees accordingly. Originality/value This paper explored employee’s engagement at creative process in a more novel way and clarified the relative effect of creative process engagement on in-role performance. Also, this paper was the first to pay attention to the bidirectional nature of supervisor support.

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PurposeThis paper aims to explore the mechanism and boundary conditions of authoritarian leadership that influence employee innovation behavior (EIB) in Chinese culture based on the leader–member exchange theory and state–trait theory.Design/methodology/approachThe authors used Mplus and SPSS to test the proposed model with data from 286 leader–employee dyads in Chinese companies. In this study, questionnaires were collected through commission and field investigation.FindingsThe results indicate that authoritarian leadership can positively influence perceived insider status and EIB within a certain range in Chinese organizational culture, although this is counterintuitive. In addition, perceived insider status has a high level of explanatory power on EIB and can mediate the relationship between authoritarian leadership and EIB. Furthermore, proactive personality can moderate the positive influence of authoritarian leadership on perceived insider status.Originality/valueInnovation management is inseparable from the specific organizational cultural context. This paper argues that the relationship between authoritarian leadership and EIB in the context of organizational culture in China may differ from that in the west. This study constructs a unique research model and offers new insights into when and how EIB can be influenced by authoritarian leadership.