Research On The Influence Mechanism Of Benevolent Leadership On Employee Creativity From The Perspective Of Fit

Employee creativity,as the cornerstone of creativity at all levels of the company,is the foundation of the company in today's fiercely competitive environment,and it is also the driving force behind the organization's continuous competitive advantage.How to improve the creativity of employees has attracted much attention in academic circles or in management practice.Previous research has pointed out that among the many factors that affect employee creativity,leadership is considered one of the most important factors.The benevolent leadership in the triadic model of paternalistic leadership,which rooted in China,reflects the leader providing a comprehensive and long-term concern in working and living to the employee.Existing research has proven that benevolent leadership is positively affecting employee creativity.However,the "black box" mechanism between benevolent leadership and employee creativity is in urgent need of further disclosure.Based on this,the study believes that the impact of benevolent leadership on employee creativity and its intrinsic mechanism of action have important practical and theoretical significance.Firstly,based on the previous related literature,this paper takes the conservation of resources theory(COR)as the theoretical basis,and proposes the research hypothesis from the perspective of perceived organisational support for strengths use(POSSU)and person-job fit;secondly,it was domestic and foreign mature questionnaires that were selected to form the questionnaire,conducted on eight companies in Shanghai,Beijing,Hefei,and Dalian,covering biopharmaceuticals,insurance,finance,clothing,and construction engineering.As a result,we got a total of 300 valid sample data;Finally,using statistical softwares such as SPSS 20.0 and Amos 21.0 for statistical analysis of sample features,reliability and validity analysis,common method variance and collinearity test,descriptive statistics analysis of variables,and then through hierarchical regression analysis and bootstrap method to examine the main effects,the mediating role of POSSU and the moderation effect of person-job fit.The results show that:(1)Benevolent leadership has a significant positive effect on employee creativity;(2)POSSU plays a partial mediating role between benevolent leadership and employee creativity;(3)Person-Job fit significantly enhances the positive relationships between benevolent leadership and employee creativity;Person-Job fit significantly enhances the positive relationships between benevolent leadership and POSSU.Both of them,the positive relationships are stronger when person-job fit is high;(4)Person-Job fit significantly moderates the mediating effect of POSSU between benevolent leadership and employee creativity.The mediating influence is stronger when the Person-Job fit is high.Innovation points:Firstly,this study,differs from the previous research on the perspective of psychological empowerment,leader identity and LMX,illustrates the influence of benevolent leadership on employee creativity from a new perspective of POSSU based on COR theory.It not only enriches and deepens the application and understanding of POSSU and the mechanism of benevolent leadership on employee creativity,but also expands the application of resource conservation theory in the research of new fields of positive psychology;secondly,most of the previous studies used person-job fit as an independent variable to examine it's impact on employee creativity,while we consider the person-job fit as a moderator to influence the effectiveness of benevolent leadership,which not only enhances the contextual characteristics of the study,but also compensates for the current deficiencies in the research on the person-job fit affects the effectiveness of leadership.