IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/pal/abaman/v22y2023i5d10.1057_s41291-023-00249-y.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Effect of paradoxical leadership on employee innovation behavior in a Confucian context

Author

Listed:
  • Gongli Luo

    (Shandong University of Science and Technology)

  • Guangming Zhu

    (Shandong University of Science and Technology)

  • Yanlu Guo

    (Shandong University of Science and Technology)

Abstract

Supervisors often exhibit paradoxical leadership behaviors in certain Confucian organizations that may seem contradictory but are interconnected, and employees demonstrate paradoxical innovation behaviors that encompass both proactive and reactive elements. By employing self-determination theory, the present study constructs a comprehensive model to investigate the impact of paradoxical leadership on employee paradoxical innovation behavior from both differentiation and integration perspectives. We conducted a three-wave survey among Chinese employees, collecting 371 valid questionnaires and analyzing the data using multiple regression analysis. The results show that: (i) Paradoxical leadership is positively related to employee proactive innovation behavior and autonomous work motivation plays a mediating role; (ii) Paradoxical leadership is also positively related to employee-reactive innovation behavior, and controlled work motivation plays a mediating role; and (iii) Paradoxical leadership facilitates employees in balancing the relationship between autonomous and controlled motivation, thereby exhibiting paradoxical innovation behaviors that are both proactive and reactive.

Suggested Citation

  • Gongli Luo & Guangming Zhu & Yanlu Guo, 2023. "Effect of paradoxical leadership on employee innovation behavior in a Confucian context," Asian Business & Management, Palgrave Macmillan, vol. 22(5), pages 2249-2279, November.
    • Handle: RePEc:pal:abaman:v:22:y:2023:i:5:d:10.1057_s41291-023-00249-y
    DOI: 10.1057/s41291-023-00249-y
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://link.springer.com/10.1057/s41291-023-00249-y
    File Function: Abstract
    Download Restriction: Access to the full text of the articles in this series is restricted.
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1057/s41291-023-00249-y?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to search for a different version of it.

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Yijun Xing & Yipeng Liu & Fabian Jintae Froese & Manli Huang, 2023. "Advancing Chinese leadership research: review and future directions," Asian Business & Management, Palgrave Macmillan, vol. 22(2), pages 493-508, April.
    2. Feifei Jiang & Donghan Wang & Zelong Wei, 2022. "How Yin-Yang cognition affects organizational ambidexterity: the mediating role of strategic flexibility," Asia Pacific Journal of Management, Springer, vol. 39(4), pages 1187-1214, December.
    3. Yan Zhang & Ying Zhang & Kenneth S. Law & Jing Zhou, 2022. "Paradoxical Leadership, Subjective Ambivalence, and Employee Creativity: Effects of Employee Holistic Thinking," Journal of Management Studies, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 59(3), pages 695-723, May.
    4. Wei, Wu & Zhou, Ying & Wang, Danni, 2023. "Learning to integrate conflicts: Paradoxical leadership fosters team innovation," Journal of Business Research, Elsevier, vol. 165(C).
    5. Sun, Yang & Garrett, Tony C. & Kim, Kyung Hoon, 2016. "Do Confucian principles enhance sustainable marketing and customer equity?," Journal of Business Research, Elsevier, vol. 69(9), pages 3772-3779.
    6. Busola Oluwafemi, Tolulope & Mitchelmore, Siwan & Nikolopoulos, Konstantinos, 2020. "Leading innovation: Empirical evidence for ambidextrous leadership from UK high-tech SMEs," Journal of Business Research, Elsevier, vol. 119(C), pages 195-208.
    7. repec:ucp:bkecon:9780226316529 is not listed on IDEAS
    8. Olli-Pekka Kauppila & Michiel P. Tempelaar, 2016. "The Social-Cognitive Underpinnings of Employees’ Ambidextrous Behaviour and the Supportive Role of Group Managers’ Leadership," Journal of Management Studies, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 53(6), pages 1019-1044, September.
    9. Leonie Backhaus & Artur Reuber & Dominik Vogel & Rick Vogel, 2022. "Giving sense about paradoxes: paradoxical leadership in the public sector," Public Management Review, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 24(9), pages 1478-1498, September.
    10. Kanat-Maymon, Yaniv & Elimelech, Maor & Roth, Guy, 2020. "Work motivations as antecedents and outcomes of leadership: Integrating self-determination theory and the full range leadership theory," European Management Journal, Elsevier, vol. 38(4), pages 555-564.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Mammassis, Constantinos S. & Kostopoulos, Konstantinos C., 2019. "CEO goal orientations, environmental dynamism and organizational ambidexterity: An investigation in SMEs," European Management Journal, Elsevier, vol. 37(5), pages 577-588.
    2. Paul Schneider, 2018. "Managerial challenges of Industry 4.0: an empirically backed research agenda for a nascent field," Review of Managerial Science, Springer, vol. 12(3), pages 803-848, July.
    3. Khaksar, Seyed Mohammad Sadegh & Shahmehr, Fatemeh S. & Miah, Shah & Daim, Tugrul & Ozdemir, Dilek, 2024. "Privacy concerns versus personalisation benefits in social robot acceptance by employees: A paradox theory — Contingency perspective," Technological Forecasting and Social Change, Elsevier, vol. 198(C).
    4. Korzynski, Pawel & Kozminski, Andrzej Krzysztof & Baczynska, Anna & Haenlein, Michael, 2021. "Bounded leadership: An empirical study of leadership competencies, constraints, and effectiveness," European Management Journal, Elsevier, vol. 39(2), pages 226-235.
    5. Gökhan Akıncı & Lutfihak Alpkan & Bora Yıldız & Gaye Karacay, 2022. "The Link between Ambidextrous Leadership and Innovative Work Behavior in a Military Organization: The Moderating Role of Climate for Innovation," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 14(22), pages 1-19, November.
    6. Jia, Jianfeng & Liu, Weipeng & Zhang, Stephen X. & Luo, Wenhao, 2024. "The unseen burden: How ambidextrous leadership erodes managers' well-being," Journal of Business Research, Elsevier, vol. 182(C).
    7. Jing A. Zhang & Tao Bai & Ryan W. Tang & Fiona Edgar & Steven Grover & Guoquan Chen, 2022. "The Development of Individual Ambidexterity Across Institutional Environments: Symmetric and Configurational Analyses," Management International Review, Springer, vol. 62(4), pages 517-540, August.
    8. Faris Alghamdi, 2018. "Ambidextrous leadership, ambidextrous employee, and the interaction between ambidextrous leadership and employee innovative performance," Journal of Innovation and Entrepreneurship, Springer, vol. 7(1), pages 1-14, December.
    9. Wenke, Kathrin & Zapkau, Florian B. & Schwens, Christian, 2021. "Too small to do it all? A meta-analysis on the relative relationships of exploration, exploitation, and ambidexterity with SME performance," Journal of Business Research, Elsevier, vol. 132(C), pages 653-665.
    10. Xixiong Xu & Lingling Duan & Youliang Yan, 2019. "The Influence of Confucianism on Corporate Environmental Investment: Evidence from Chinese Private Firms," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 11(21), pages 1-20, October.
    11. Mohammad Taghi Taghavifard & Setareh Majidian, 2022. "Identifying Cloud Computing Risks based on Firm’s Ambidexterity Performance using Fuzzy VIKOR Technique," Global Journal of Flexible Systems Management, Springer;Global Institute of Flexible Systems Management, vol. 23(1), pages 113-133, March.
    12. Pedersen, Carsten Lund, 2021. "Taking matters into one’s own hands? Addressing the relational nature of FLE autonomy," Journal of Business Research, Elsevier, vol. 136(C), pages 366-376.
    13. Sun, Yang & Garrett, Tony C. & Phau, Ian & Zheng, Bing, 2020. "Case-based models of customer-perceived sustainable marketing and its effect on perceived customer equity," Journal of Business Research, Elsevier, vol. 117(C), pages 615-622.
    14. Carla Martínez-Climent & María Rodríguez-García & Juying Zeng, 2019. "Ambidextrous Leadership, Social Entrepreneurial Orientation, and Operational Performance," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 11(3), pages 1-15, February.
    15. Kohsuke Matsuoka, 2020. "Exploring the interface between management accounting and marketing: a literature review of customer accounting," Journal of Management Control: Zeitschrift für Planung und Unternehmenssteuerung, Springer, vol. 31(3), pages 157-208, September.
    16. Chowdhury, Soumyadeb & Dey, Prasanta Kumar & Rodríguez-Espíndola, Oscar & Parkes, Geoff & Tuyet, Nguyen Thi Anh & Long, Dang Duc & Ha, Tran Phuong, 2022. "Impact of Organisational Factors on the Circular Economy Practices and Sustainable Performance of Small and Medium-sized Enterprises in Vietnam," Journal of Business Research, Elsevier, vol. 147(C), pages 362-378.
    17. Rabab H. Saleh & Christopher M. Durugbo & Soud M. Almahamid, 2023. "What makes innovation ambidexterity manageable: a systematic review, multi-level model and future challenges," Review of Managerial Science, Springer, vol. 17(8), pages 3013-3056, November.
    18. Min Huang & Xiaobo Li & Jun Xia & Mengyao Li, 2024. "Does Confucianism Prompt Firms to Participate in Poverty Alleviation Campaigns?," Journal of Business Ethics, Springer, vol. 189(4), pages 743-762, February.
    19. Jinchao Wang & Changfu Luo, 2022. "Social Mobility and Firms’ Total Factor Productivity: Evidence from China," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 14(22), pages 1-19, November.
    20. Shuxin Zhang & Sid Suntrayuth, 2024. "The Synergy of Ambidextrous Leadership, Agility, and Entrepreneurial Orientation to Achieve Sustainable AI Product Innovation," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 16(10), pages 1-19, May.

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:pal:abaman:v:22:y:2023:i:5:d:10.1057_s41291-023-00249-y. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Sonal Shukla or Springer Nature Abstracting and Indexing (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.palgrave.com .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.