Standing in others' shoes: The role of leader prosocial motivation in facilitating employee creativity

By reference to social learning theory, this research examines the effect of leader prosocial motivation on employee creativity through investigating the mediating role of employee perspective taking and the moderating role of leader performance. Using a dyadic sample of 262 subordinates and their direct supervisors, the results reveal that leader prosocial motivation positively relates to employee perspective taking and employee perspective taking can mediate the correlation of leader prosocial motivation with employee creativity. Meanwhile, leader performance can moderate the correlation of leader prosocial motivation with employee perspective taking. Moreover, the perspective taking's mediating role between leader prosocial motivation and employee creativity can be moderated by leader performance. Finally, according to the findings and limitations of the study, its future research and managerial implications are discussed.