During the COVID-19 pandemic, organizations need to effectively manage changes, and employees need to proactively adapt to these changes. The present research investigated when and how individual employees’ narcissism was related to their change-oriented organizational citizenship behavior. Specifically, based on a trait activation perspective, this research proposed the hypotheses that individual employees’ narcissism and environmental uncertainty would interactively influence employees’ change-oriented organizational citizenship behavior via felt responsibility for constructive change; furthermore, the effect of narcissism on change-oriented organizational citizenship behavior via felt responsibility for constructive change would be stronger when the environmental uncertainty prompted by the COVID-19 pandemic was high rather than low. Two studies were conducted to test these hypotheses: an online survey of 180 employees in mainland China (Study 1) and a field study of 167 leader–follower dyads at two Chinese companies (Study 2). The current research reveals a bright side of narcissism, which has typically been recognized as a dark personality trait, and enriches the understanding of the antecedents of change-oriented organizational citizenship behavior. This research can also guide organizations that wish to stimulate employee proactivity.
Previous research on the relationship between empowering leadership and employee creativity has found mixed results, calling for more research to explore alternative mechanism and boundary conditions in this relationship. In this research, drawing on regulatory focus theory and social role theory, we propose that empowering leadership has a positive relationship with employee creativity through employee promotion focus and that this relationship is stronger for male (vs. female) leaders and for female (vs. male) employees. We conducted a multi‐source survey study and a vignette experiment to test our theoretical model. Results across these two studies supported our hypotheses. Our findings offer implications for research and practice regarding empowering leadership and creativity.
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