Leadership, Creative Problem‐Solving Capacity, and Creative Performance: The Importance of Knowledge Sharing

Abstract

This article presents two studies that examine whether leader supportive behaviors facilitate knowledge sharing and employee creative problem‐solving capacity, thereby enhancing creative performance. The findings from both studies indicate that leader supportive behaviors are directly and indirectly related, through both internal and external knowledge sharing, to employee creative problem‐solving capacity. In addition, creative problem solving was related to the two dimensions of creative performance—fluency and originality. However, a test of the mediation model indicated that creative problem solving only mediated the relationship between internal knowledge sharing creative performance and originality. These findings highlight the complex process by which leaders facilitate both internal and external knowledge sharing and employee creative problem‐solving capacity, thereby improving employee creative performance.

Knowledge sharing between different generations of employees: an example from Slovenia

“…The effectiveness of this process is greatly influenced by the actions of senior management and leader supportive behaviours. According to Carmeli, Gelbard, and Palmon (2013) supportive leadership behaviour is directly and indirectly related to knowledge sharing. Nevertheless, organisations need to have a good understanding of who holds key knowledge and strive to create conditions that would enable employees to share knowledge (Kovačić, Bosilj Vukšić, & Lončar, 2006).…”

Transformational leadership, social capital and organizational innovation

“…Social capital and organizational innovation Second, transformational leaders usually inspire their TMTs to share a great deal of information sharing (Carmeli et al, 2013). Transformational leaders are usually charismatic and tend to occupy central positions in internal advice and influence networks (Bono and Anderson, 2005;Balkundi et al, 2011) so that they are directly connected with almost all team members for transmitting goals, anticipating problems, soliciting advice, and managing the flow of resources (Sauer and Kauffeld, 2015).…”

A conceptual framework on the role of creativity in sustaining continuous innovation in new product development

“…Lastly, the manager is described as having a similar profile as an entrepreneur, as he or she encourages the emergence of a collective authority fostering creativity in the development process by incubating ideas and projecting them into the innovation process, while maintaining concerns for relationships by assuming various roles, such as coach, teacher and leader (Carmeli et al, 2013;Mumford, 2012). Stenmark et al, (2011: 78) stated that: "[...] in order for leaders to effectively and efficiently manage innovation, they must be able to recognize and adapt to the varying requirements.…”