This paper investigates the relationship between super-leadership and creative culture. As creativity needs self-regulated competencies and skills, a model based on certain dimensions of super-leadership behavior that affects creative culture in organization was tested using structural equation modeling (SEM). To investigate this issue, 132 employees, working in the different departments from 24 leading TV Channels, were surveyed in order to check the relationship between super-leadership approach upon creative culture which is based on idea generation and creative potential of employee. Structural equation modeling exhibited a positive significant relationship between super-leadership and creative culture in organizational settings. It was concluded that individualist creative potential must be focused to ultimately foster creative culture in organization as a whole.
Key words: super-leadership, intrinsic motivation, self-efficacy, self determination, self regulation, idea generation, creative potential and creative culture.
Acknowledgements 2
Abstract 3
INTRODUCTION 6
Rationale and Significance of the Study 7
Research Objectives 8
Research Questions 8
REVIEW OF LITERATURE 9
Why to shift from traditional leadership to Super-Leadership? 9
Self Efficacy 12
Intrinsic Motivation 13
Self Determination 15
Self Regulation 16
Idea Generation and Creative Potential 17
Creative Culture 19
THEORETICAL AND CONCEPTUAL FRAMEWORK 20
Research Hypotheses 21
METHODOLOGY 21
Data and Sample 22
Measure/Instrument Development 23
Reliability and Validity of Instrument 24
Procedure 27
RESULTS AND FINDINGS 28
Hypotheses Testing 31
DISCUSSION AND CONCLUSION 33
MANAGERIAL IMPLICATIONS OF RESEARCH 36
LIMITATIONS AND FUTURE RESEARCH 36
REFERENCES 38
INTRODUCTION
A traditional leadership approach generally focuses on influencing behavior and getting the work done. The scholarly approach emphasizes a person leading a team or organization, and the leader-follower interactions. This approach is a basically a top-down approach in which followers are influenced and administered by a single persons. This paradigm is found in the leadership literature as the only way to lead others for the past few decades.
Due to emergence and increasing support of various leadership and motivational theories overtime, a new approach about leadership i.e. super-leadership has been advocated that can trickle down and shared with team members and sometimes with the whole organization (Pearce and Conger, 2003).
Based on the same notion, self-leadership or super-leadership - a new kind of leadership approach for the knowledge-based enterprises era which concentrates on flat structures in organization and to empower employees for enhanced performance has been introduced. Super-leader is a manager who is focused towards leading others by using a technique of leading himself first to set a basis and provoke follower employees to become self-leaders.
Super-leaders help out every follower to become a self starter leader by imparting various behavioral and cognitive skills among followers that are needed to implement self-leadership approach. Super-leaders setup different standards, model them accordingly. Moreover, by encouraging and rewarding followers in realistic way to promote self-leadership at employee (follower), team, and organizational levels.
The purpose of this paper is to develop and test a model of super-leadership and creativity. It will practically contribute to the literature on super-leadership and creativity by examining the relationships between them.
This study is in continuation to the study conducted by (DiLiello and Houghton, 2008) in which a model was suggested that the employees having strong super-leadership qualities will have more creative and innovative potential. Moreover, they will also practice a high level of innovation and creativity, when they feel a strong support from their supporting workplace.
In a broader perspective, super-leadership is an effective means of developing a shared and pervasive environment that supports idea generation and creative problem solving. Succinctly, it is believed that an organization that encourages super-leadership is likely to experience higher levels of innovation through its employees that can flourish useful ideas and ultimately enhance organizational effectiveness.
Rationale and Significance of the Study
The super-leadership phenomenon is important because in the modern times, leadership emphasizes to create effective leaders, not just followers. Employees� self-leadership approach is crucial for success in the knowledge based economies. In super-leadership phenomenon, followers are treated in an appropriate manner, thus converting them into super-leaders.
If super-leaders are successful in providing strategic alignment and properly coach the followers, they can produce more productive followers, who can work independently, and call for nominal steering.
The rationale of this paper is to test and present results based upon a hypothesized model about the relationships between super-leadership and Creative Culture based upon idea generation/creative potential of employees. In short, this model can test the hypothesis that strong super-leaders are expected to have sharp idea generation/creativity potential than weak super-leaders.
Organizations that are looking forward to change due to market dynamism through the creativity and innovation of human resources of super-leaders can benefit from this research article. As argued in a study (Neck and Manz, 1996) pragmatic super-leadership research studies advocate that employees having super-leadership line of action enhance their individual performance and, at large, organizational performance, than an employee who does not practice super-leadership approaches. In current era of shrinking world, super-leadership strategies enhance organizational capacity to flourish in the face of the challenges of the twenty-first century.
Research Objectives
The body of literature on management and leadership primarily concentrates on the vibrant nature of common organizations. This paper augments the abundantly available literature on leadership studies for organizations. The main intention of this paper is to generate a forward motion to urge other academics and scholars to focus on the topic of leadership at a wider level with comprehensive objectives in mind. The main focus would be to explore the link between super-leadership behavior and creative potential through idea generation for an innovative and creative culture within organization.
Research Questions
The research questions in this case are presented as follows:
1. What is the relationship between super-leadership and creativity culture in organization?
2. How can super-leadership provoke an employee to think creatively and perform at its best level?
REVIEW OF LITERATURE
Why to shift from traditional leadership to Super-Leadership?
Super-leadership, sometimes also called as �self-leadership�, may be defined as a strategy to lead others by leading oneself (Manz and Sims, 2001). The main difference between the two leadership styles is that the focus of super-leadership is the belief of improving followers� capacity to lead who are effective self-leaders as compared to the leaders themselves in the traditional leadership. Therefore, concisely, super-leadership is to groom the followers to lead themselves.
As argued (Sims and Manz, 1996), for super-leadership behavior to be implemented, a leader has to adopt 10 most significant shifts from traditional approach of leadership to be able to move towards super-leadership approach are as follows:-
1. The leader helps out the team members/group to switch from external observation to self-observation.
2. The focus is on moving from designated goals to self-developed goals.
3. Organic control is exercised by team/group members� i.e. internal reinforcement for task performance with an addition of external reinforcement for self-leadership behaviors.
4. Leadership prefers to use motivation techniques based on external compensation and natural rewards associated with work.
5. The leader shifts converts the external criticism, a potential bad impact creating improvement, to self-criticism, for improved group/team interactions.
6. There is a move from external problem solving towards self-problem solving techniques.
7. There is a shift from external job assignments to self-job assignments.
8. Leadership moves from external planning to self-plan and from external task design to self-design of tasks.
9. Treating the emerging issues/problems as opportunities rather than a threat by the group/team members.
10. Leadership creates a commitment to organization�s vision rather than its compliance only.
Having focused to improve employees� effectiveness, self-leadership phenomenon attempts to concentrate on various issues that an organization might come across in this era of rapid globalization. It is also commented that self leadership serves as significant stimulant for creative work and work role performance (Neubert and Wu, 2006). Self-leadership predicts innovation as identified by employees (Carmeli, Meitar and Weisberg, 2006; DiLiello and Houghton, 2006).
Supervisors and work conditions can have some sort of control mechanism in a work place (Manz and Sims, 1980) but the inner drive that initiate organic control, or intrinsic motivation to work, take place from within the person (Herzberg, Mausner and Snyderman, 2003; Manz and Sims, 1980; Sergiovanni, 1992).
It is always stressed that true leadership comes from within and results in achievement streaming from followers� self-leadership (Sims and Manz, 1996).
It is asserted that one can lead in a better way if able to develop and use individuals� skills and capabilities at workplace (Manz and Sims, 1980). As advocated by (Manz, 1986) and (Manz and Neck, 2004) as organizational members are trained and permitted to adopt self-leadership strategies, a candid control mechanism is put in action.
Finally, the super-leader must develop an environment where employees are free to fail and improve after taking risky decisions and can learn in a true sense. However, risk must be calculated enough and apposite autonomy to fail is of vital importance. We can say that the super-leader should promote learning, if the mistakes are made by team/group members. Yet again, the super-leader must exercise a balance approach in terms of risk taking behaviors i.e. to become aware when one can let mistakes occur or otherwise (Sims and Manz, 1996).
Various theorists have recommended checking an association between self-leadership and creativity (DiLiello and Houghton, 2008; Houghton and Yoho, 2005; Manz and Sims, 2001). Further skimming through the literature, the relationship between creativity and self-leadership was partially ascertained on the constructs of self-determination and autonomy. According to (Amabile, 1996), autonomy is one of the major dimensions of creativity. Moreover, creativity is associated to self-determination and intrinsic motivation (Deci and Ryan, 1985). Likewise, self-determination is a basic ingredient of self-leadership's strategy (Neck and Manz, 2007). Certainly, empirical research conducted put forward that an individual's need for autonomy depends upon the individual engagement in self-leadership (Yun, Cox and Sims, 2006).
Similarly, few other relationships between creativity and self-leadership have also been proposed. For example, a connection between individual self-leadership and its extent related to individual independence and creativity has been anticipated (Houghton and Yoho, 2005).
In addition, internal locus of control, one of the hypothesized components of creativity, has been empirically linked to individual�s self-leadership (Kazan and Earnest, 2000). Finally, an approach to empower others to be self-leaders cultivates creativity rather than traditional values to be followed (Manz and Sims, 2001).
Promoting super-leadership approach is a new leadership style which supports an organizational climate to flourish and prop up creativity. This strategy is growing fast in 21st century � the era of rapid innovations.
Having gone through the literature about the need to focus on super-leadership approach, it is imperative to explore its basic features such as self efficacy, intrinsic motivation, self-determination and self-regulation, etc. Browsing through the literature on this subject, the super-leadership features are discussed in succeeding paragraphs.
Self Efficacy
As per previous study (Bandura, 1997), perceived self-efficacy is defined as a firm belief about having a capability to give desired performance that ultimately affects their lives. Self-efficacy beliefs reveal the feelings, thinking and motivators for the people.
A super-leadership strategy helps in developing self-efficacy and sharpens up regulation processes that ultimately affect job performance (Houghton and Neck, 2002).
As concluded (Konradt, Andre�en and Ellwart, 2009), the influence of self-leadership on an individual task performance was to some extent intervened by self-efficacy; however, no major impact has been reported due to autonomy. It is posited that (DeRue and Morgeson, 2007) individuals with general self-efficacy attribute success to ability and failure to insufficient effort. It is also indicated that general self-efficacy is a motivational belief or judgment about personal capabilities that influences personal action in a wide variety of situations (Chen, Gully and Eden, 2004).
Self-efficacy beliefs develop over time and through experiences. People with high self-efficacy are more likely to overcome difficulties through self-initiated change, relatively more goal-directed and more persistent in achieving their goals (Maddux, 2002). Self-efficacy refers to beliefs about personal capability to produce a desired effect by individual action (Bandura, 1997). It helps explain the potential behaviors people may engage, their persistence, and how much effort they will exert to achieve their goals (Satterfield and Davidson, 2000). It is said to be a significant performance driver in various task domains (Bandura, 1997). Therefore, based on the literature, we can precisely contend that self-efficacy is the key to individual�s knowledge and skills enhancement enabling him to be creative.
Intrinsic Motivation
The key to stimulate creativity in organization is to foster individual�s creativity, for which the easiest human element is to induce its motivation. Majority of empirical research findings in line with this statement are reported from the field of social psychology of creativity and are referred to in the literature as the �intrinsic motivation principle�.
According to (Amabile, 1988), an intrinsic motivation of individuals towards a task/job has two sides:-
1. The person�s natural preference towards such type of activities.
2. The way individual perceive and know the reasons to undertake that task, which is dependent upon external, social and environmental factors.
The second element describes a simple way to affect creativity of an individual using intrinsic motivation thus needs less resources to boost up a creative individual.
Moreover, the task or assignments that are more complex and challenging with a freedom to decide on how to carry out assigned tasks are expected to foster intrinsic motivation that, increases creativity sequentially (Amabile, 1988).
On the other hand, rigid adherence to rules and regulation has a tendency to negatively affect creativity. For case in point, (Amabile, 1997) it is pointed out that rigid rules and centralized decision making reduces as the required intrinsic motivation to do tasks creatively . Due to centralized decision-making and rigid control, information flow within organization reduces, thus disrupting the lifeline of creativity, ultimately, reducing the overall idea generation. Moreover, intrinsic motivation evolves whenever the job itself is a source of interest, self-expression, enjoyment and individual challenge (Amabile, 1997).
Likewise, it is also concluded that intrinsic motivation is a result of internal reinforcement to perform a task rather than in response to external reinforcement (Ryan and Deci, 2000).
A prior research foundation shows that formal organizational controls restrict individual freedom and thereby dampen intrinsic motivation required for creativity (Amabile, 1996; Shalley, Gilson and Blum, 2000).
A study (George and Zhou, 2001) empirically established that the individuals who demonstrate meticulous behavior at workplace and are particularly having unremitting attitude towards workplace compulsions exhibit low levels of creativity. Furthermore, intrinsic motivation is more indomitable on interesting tasks and less importunate on uninteresting tasks that require discipline and concerted effort (Gagne and Deci, 2005).
Besides, creativity is improved by positive effect (Davis, 2009) as a positive affect promote �a forward move� rather than evasion (Carver, 2001; Erez and Isen, 2002), which ultimately improve individual�s perception to perceive a task as an opportunity rather than a threat (Higgins, 1997) and to deal with issues rather than retreat (Amabile et al., 2005; Frederickson, 2001; Seo, Barrett and Bartunek, 2004).
Much of the literature cited above created a foundation that intrinsic motivation is a basic ingredient for creativity, and that intrinsic motivation is hampered if the formal and rigid control in organization is simultaneously implemented.
Self Determination
A person will be intrinsically motivated if and only if the job assigned gives rise to a sense of self-determination and a certain level of increase in competency (Deci, 1975). Self-determination generally means to have a freedom and autonomy to steer one's life, choosing where to live, who to spend time with, and what to do. It means having the needed resources to create a good life and to make responsible decisions. It also means choosing from where, when, and how to get help to resolve the potential problems (Cook, Petersen and Jonikas, 2004).
As far as self determination of employees is concerned, behavior focused strategies do help to improve self perception of their individual performance while determining the task, to be able to steer their behavior towards achievement of task. By using self observation, setting goals and objectives personally; having reward administration by self perception; using self punishment and self-cueing as an approach or technique; behavior effectiveness is maximized that helps in reducing negative issues related with the assigned task (Houghton and Neck, 2002; Manz and Neck, 2004; Neck and Houghton, 2006). Based on the literature review we conclude that, being self-determined on job helps employees to think and grow creatively in much lesser time on the task/job to be performed.
Self Regulation
Self-regulation refers to thoughts, feelings and actions that are planned and adapted to attain personal goals (Zimmerman, 2000). As described in a study (Schunk and Ertmer, 2000), self-regulated learning includes:
� Setting goals for learning
� Concentrating on instructions
� Using effective strategies to organize ideas
� Using resources effectively
� Monitoring performance
� Managing time effectively
� Holding positive beliefs about one�s capabilities.
Self-regulation can be improved through appropriate guidance, effective strategies and creating supportive and challenging contexts (Boekaerts, 2006; Perry, N and Vandekamp, 2000). Many of these strategies develop from early childhood well into adolescence (Boekaerts, 2006).
Self-regulation is a complex notion. It allows us to consider the interrelationships between key concepts such as self-efficacy and motivation within a single framework, rather than exploring these areas in isolation.
Even though several theories suggest that employees draw from a broad repertoire of behavioral strategies to enhance their creative performance (Ford, 1996; Frese, 2000; Rank, Pace and Frese, 2004), there are only a handful of studies that have empirically investigated the employees� behavioral strategies that facilitate creative performance. It was also found that effective communicators are more creative (Binnewies, Ohly and Sonnentag, 2007). Similarly, there is cumulative evidence that employees use proactive strategies such as feedback-seeking behavior and voice behavior to enhance their creative performance and/or make suggestions for change (De et al., 2008; Van Dyne and LePine, 1998).
Such findings highlight the self-regulatory potential of employees in the creative process. We expect different proactive strategies to be crucial in the different phases of the creative process. For example, communication and feedback-seeking behavior are critical factors for idea generation; feedback from others with relevant knowledge and experience might help to improve and refine the initial idea the creative person. Similarly, one could expect that proactively approaching people in the organization can help in successful idea promotion. Existing contacts with top management might be used to speed up the process of acquiring resources and spreading the word in the organization might help to acquire the required political will. These ideas ultimately suggest that creative performance can be improved through self-regulated behavior as an outcome of different organizational and emotional factors.
Idea Generation and Creative Potential
The global competitive forces are compelling organizations to develop highly innovative and creative environment, where idea generation is encouraged and serves as a live blood for organizational survival by creating a strong creative culture. Due to pressure on organizations to be more creative, idea generation and developing creative potential of employees has become an important topic.
Idea generation is one of the coherent phases of the creative process (Kanter, 1988; West and Farr, 1989). Similarly, it is argued that the creativity is nothing but the generation of novel and useful ideas (Amabile, 1988). Likewise, various scientists characterize creativity as a source of generating novel or useful ideas by individuals or teams members. This manifests that idea generation and creativity are two sides of a same coin (Greenberg and Baron, 2003).
Moreover, creativity is a vital characteristic of our daily routine. It covers problem(s) at workplace that become pleasure or an imagination that becomes a reality in a hi-tech world (Bonnardel, 1999).
Creativity and productivity are highly correlated due to which firms strongly believe in the effects creativity has on better performance; due to this conviction, organizations spend a lot of money on creativity (Dennard, 2000). However, in order to foster the idea generation and creative potential in the organization, employees are compelled to identify the underlying elements. For creating such environment, various factors have been identified and explored by the scholars (West, 2002a; West, 2002b; Mumford, 2003; Gilson and Shalley, 2004; Amabile et al., 2005; Shin and Zhou, 2003; Cheng, 1994).
More recently, the importance of interpersonal character of idea generation as highlighted in recent literature on creativity is substantiated. Furthermore, it is argued that the creation of ideas urges the interaction between the individual and its social environment (Zhou, 2008).
For idea generation, the broader (organizational) context needs to stimulate interpersonal contacts as much as possible. An open, helpful, somewhat informal culture, in which people can easily call on others, facilitates formal and informal social connections and idea generation. Creative potential is the ability and aptitude of an individual towards creative work (Hinton, 1968) (Hinton, 1970). Creative potential is comprised of creative self-efficacy, and ability of a person to be a creative performer (Tierney and Farmer, 2002). By using creative self-efficacy, one is capable of creatively solving the problems and generating innovative ideas. Creative potential also contains skill and expertise to perform well on the job. Ability to take risks by exploring new way to solve issues is part of creative potential (Amabile, Burnside and Gryskiewicz, 1999).
Creative Culture
Everybody has a role to play as citizens and consumers; culture and creativity, at the same time, help deliver new, more sustainable ways of living and working. Creative people can assist in exploring and presenting a different world, if and only if, their skills and expertise are properly exploited and recognized as one of the major means of transformation. In today�s world of rapid globalization characterized by huge social, economic, and environmental challenges, the development of a genuinely creative culture could play a part to deal with emerging challenges. Therefore, it can rightly be said that the culture that we create, will determine our fate.
As matter of fact, organizational culture has been acknowledged as an important precursor of creativity. A creative organizational culture necessitates focusing on quality, communication, work groups, cross-departmental collaboration and visible support for change and innovation (Kanter, 1988; Pillinger and West, 1995).
However, it is pertinent to mention that the impact of organizational culture on the different phases of the creative process has not yet been empirically investigated. It can be implicitly understood that organizational culture, with its strapping influence upon all processes in the organization (Cameron and Quinn, 2005; Ekvall, 1996; Sharman and Johnson, 1997) is crucial and vital during the entire creative process. Therefore, based on the existing literature review, it has been argued that the various super-leadership factors are identified as intrinsic motivation, self-efficacy, self-determination, self-regulation are influencing the ability of employees to foster/obstruct idea generation and creative potential, which is the starting point of creative culture.
THEORETICAL AND CONCEPTUAL FRAMEWORK
A hypothesized model of the relationships between super-leadership and creative culture based on idea generation and creative potential is shown in Figure 1. Research hypotheses for each of the relationships were developed. The new hypothesized model suggests that a strong basis to build work environments that support of idea generation and creativity at the individual, group and organizational levels by practicing super-leadership among the members of organizations. Theorists like (Manz and Sims, 2001) have suggested a relationship between super-leadership and creativity.
Based on the prior research, a hypothesized relationship between creativity and self-leadership can be plotted as below:
Figure 1
Research Hypotheses
As a strong super-leader is predicted to be a self-motivated, self-determined, self-regulated, having a broad sense of self-efficacy, the hypothetical theoretical model proposes the following relationship in terms of hypotheses as presented below:
H1: High level of self-efficacy leads to super-leadership behavior among employees.
H2: High level of intrinsic motivation leads super-leadership behavior among employees.
H3: High level of self-determination leads to super-leadership behavior among employees.
H4: High level of self-regulation leads to super-leadership behavior among employees.
H5: Demographics of employees serve as control variable that augments super-leadership behavior among employees.
H6: Super-leadership behavior significantly gives rise to creative culture among employees.
H7: Creative culture is positively related with creative potential of employees.
H8: Creative culture is positively related with idea generation of employees.
METHODOLOGY
This research study is based on a quantitative research design to check the cause and effect of the latent and observed constructs identified for this study. The study was planned to find out the present facts as well as facts that are yet to be explored about this phenomenon. Therefore, exploratory research has enabled us to identify the issues in both descriptive as well as exploratory manner. The study is based on testing hypotheses and overall proposed model analysis using structured equation modeling technique.
The paper analyzes potential factors of super-leadership and creative culture by using LISREL 8.8 and SPSS 14.0 softwares for the model proposed.
Data and Sample
As the Electronic Media especially TV Channels are directly related and linked to idea generation and creativity, which leads to creative culture in such organizations/firms, a representative sample from Electronic Media especially TV Channels in Pakistan, has been selected from a list of TV Channels available on internet (PEMRA Annual Report, 2009).
The Pakistan Electronic Media Regulatory Authority (PEMRA) has issued licenses to 78 Satellite TV channels since its inception in March 2002. Out of these 78 Channels, leading 24 channels were randomly selected from the list available on web based on their viewership (TV Explore: Portal of Pakistani Channels, n.d.). The link of web survey was mailed to HR Managers of these leading 24 TV channels operating in Pakistan.
An exact number of employees working in these channels were not confirmed from any source. However, informal talks with field experts revealed that a more than 2000 employees are attached with these channels.
As far as the sample size issue is concerned, it is emphasized that the minimum sample size for achieving a statistical power, within a proposed model before collecting the data, is a must (Siu Loon, 2008).
It is further deliberated that sample size needed for study is normally affected by method of estimation a researcher may adopt but generally, the recommended value is 10 participants for every free parameter to be estimated (Schreiber et al., 2006).
The acceptable or recommended sample size using SEM analysis is about 200 respondents in order to get maximum statistical power in analysis (Sivo et al., 2006).
In order to confirm sample size adequacy of this study, a total of 140 respondents� data collected within five weeks time frame is totally in line with recommendations of previous studies. Out of 140 questionnaires received, eight questionnaires were discarded due to missing data in some items. A total of 132 respondents� questionnaires were used to analyze the model.
Measure/Instrument Development
Questionnaire has been developed by the researcher for this study as a survey instrument. This questionnaire is divided into two main parts, the first part for the demographic profile of the respondent for example age, gender, experience, job position, organizational size etc and the second part to explore the super-leadership and creative culture dimensions/characteristics. The various items on super-leadership dimensions include certain factors such as intrinsic motivation, self-determination, self-efficacy and self-regulation. Moreover, items for idea generation, creative potential and creative culture were developed from few creativity-based studies (Eisenberger and Aselage, 2008; Eisenberger and Rhoades, 2001; McNeely and Meglino, 1994). These items are adapted from various creativity studies.
Moreover, the developed instrument was pre-tested for its reliability and validity through face and content validity by the group field experts and professionals. Also, standard statistical test were used for questionnaire reliability testing. The responses for 49 items scale, after pilot testing, were calculated on five points Likert-type scale, which ranges from 1-5 i.e. �Strongly Disagree� to �Strongly Agree�.
By using different scales developed by the researcher for demographic profile of an employee, which has different ranges between two-points (e.g. gender) to five points (Likert Scale), the data from respondents was collected in five weeks.
Reliability and Validity of Instrument
Content Validity
Content validity is dependent upon how the researcher developed items for measuring the construct by using the literature (Bohrnstedt, 1983). This study utilized an extensive literature review in the relevant domain which gives a strong content validity to the factors that are being empirically measured.
Reliability Analysis
The reliability and validity analysis for the scale measures used in empirical research is of prime importance due to several reasons. This ensures the results and finding and its predictive power which means a clear prediction about the proposed hypotheses (Flynn, Schroeder and Sakakibara, 1994).
Similarly, it is suggested that for testing unidimensionality of data, to check internal consistency and reliability of items used in the measures, Cronbach�s alpha statistics is basic tool to calculate and generally, its value should be above the acceptable threshold of 0.70 (Nunnally and Bernstein, 1994). Moreover, it further explained that Cronbach�s alpha is the basic criterion for reliability issue of scales being utilized (George and Mallery, 2000).
Foregoing in view, the items of scale in each construct as mentioned below were tested using coefficient alpha value for each construct as exhibited in Table 01.
Table 01: Reliability Statistics
S. No
Scale Cronbach�s
? � average correlation
between scales
As a matter of fact, the Cronbach�s Alpha values for measure items used in this study are ranging from 0.76 to 0.88 as shown in Table 01, which exhibits reliability of measures developed. This is totally in line with argument (Bagozii and Yi, 1998) that combined reliabilities measures of constructs used in particular study must exceed the 0.70 only then results can be relied.
Discriminant Validity
The discriminant validity is a technique to measure which construct and its indicators in the model are different from other construct and its indicators used in the particular study (Bagozzi, Yi and Phillips, 1991).
It can be assessed by Cronbach�s of a scale to its correlations comparison. Discriminant validity exists when the C-Alpha value is high in value than the average of its correlations among the variables (Ghiselli, Campbell and Zedeck, 1981).
In our case, the values calculated as shown in Table 01 shows that these values are much lesser than 0.85, which is considered as cut-off value. So, we may conclude that discriminant validity exists between the measuring scales that we used. It exhibited that the different scale used are for measuring different constructs.
Unidimensionality
Besides internal consistency, in order to check potential multicollinearity issue in the data to confirm unidimensionality of construct used, the correlations of possible related constructs were also computed. There is a recommended indicator that no single pair of measures should have correlations among them more than the criterion i.e. 0.9 and above (Hair, Anderson and Tatham, 1998). So, the computed values exhibited in Table 02 portray that multicollinearity in the data construct is not reported among the study constructs that we used. The correlations values are shown in Table 02 given as follows:-
Table 02: Correlations
�
As a result of various tests performed to check the unidimensionality of data, its reliability and discriminant validity confirm internal as well as external validity of the instrument used for data collection.
Procedure
Surveys are commonly used for collecting primary data for research. In this study, a survey questionnaire was developed and used to gather primary data from the respondents.
An attempt was made to increase the likelihood of obtaining the true score on general self-efficacy and self-leadership strategies rather than scores with systematic error by reducing evaluation apprehension (Donaldson and Grant-Vallone, 2002; Podsakoff et al., 2003). Respondents were assured about the anonymity, and they were told that there is no right or wrong responses to items in the scale.
A questionnaire with closed-ended statements was administered initially to HR Manager of the TV channels via email and a web link, where questionnaire was online available, was forwarded to them for giving responses from potential respondents. Initially, the response rate was very low i.e. 10 % of potential 200 respondents. Therefore, in order to expedite the data collection process, the HR, marketing and creative departments were contacted via phone to get appointments for self-administered survey. During the data collection, self-report information was also gathered from respondents regarding gender, age, and experience/tenure.
In order to address the issues of self-report bias, it is suggested that researchers may reorder the items on the questionnaire so that the criterion variable follows the independent variables (Podsakoff and Organ, 1986). This scale reordering procedure was intentional as an attempt to reduce self-report bias, as all the variables in the study were obtained from the same respondents using a single survey.
RESULTS AND FINDINGS
Table 02 has correlations values computed for the constructs of the study. A significant correlations were found between creative culture and the idea generation and creative potential (?=.71), self efficacy with creative culture (?= .57) and self-regulation with self-determination (?=.54).
Moreover, demographic variables such as education of employees, their age, gender and organizational size were also incorporated as a control variable in the hypothesized model in order to test the impact of demographic characteristics. During the analysis, it was found that Org.Size, an observed variable negatively loaded due to which the model was shown as insignificant. By removing the same variable from model and adding age as another variable in hypothesized model, the model fit statistics were successfully calculated.
Table 03 to 09 exhibits descriptive statistics of sample studies for this paper, which is comprised of their demographic characteristics such as gender, employee�s age, post field/cadre in Org., their education level, job tenure and size of organizations.
Table 03: Gender
Gender1
Table 04: Employee�s Age
Age
Table 05: Post-Field Cadre in Org.
Cadre
Table 06: Education Level
Education Level
Table 07: Job Tenure
Years
Table 08: Size of Organizations
No. of Employees
Also, Table 09 shows the means, standard deviations for the various scales that we have used in our study.
Table 09: Means and Standard Deviations
In order to test the hypothesized model, structural equations modelling (SEM) analysis via LISREL 8.0 was used, which has the benefits of correcting unreliability of scale/measures used and to test the relationship between independent antecedents (intrinsic motivation, self-efficacy, self-determination and self-regulation), mediator (super-leadership) and outcome (idea generation and creative potential for creative cultural environment) simultaneously (MacKinnon, Fairchild and Fritz, 2007).
In the hypothesized model, five observed factors (self-efficacy, intrinsic motivation, self-determination and self-regulation) and the latent factor (super-leadership) as mentioned in the Figure 1. For super-leadership, the four scales as observed variables were used in order to moderate the number of free parameters to be estimated.
The model fit statistics were calculated and established on the following fit indices such as Chi-Square Index for goodness of fit (?2), which provides estimating the real value of variance; the ratio value used (?2)/df, which is a more reliable statistic for the model fit as it exhibit the total number of degrees of freedom in relation to (?2); root mean square error approximation (RMSEA); the comparative fit index (CFI), and the standardised root mean square residual (SRMS) (Schmitt and Branscombe, 2002).
Furthermore, it is concluded that the a goodness of fit indices for a model fit, the following indicators ranges are crucial: CFI must be in a range from .95 to 1, RMSEA must be below .06, SRMR should be lower than .09, and (?2)/df value must lie in between 1 and 2 (Hu and Bentler, 1999).
In this case, the model fit the data fairly well having (?2) = 48.26, (?2)/df= 48.26/33= 1.46, RMSEA= .049, CFI= 0.99, and SRMS= .039. The Table 10 shows model fit indices for the same study.
Table 10: Goodness of Fit Indices
Fit index
Hypotheses Testing
As per hypothesized model, the Hypothesis 1 stated that high level of self-efficacy leads to super-leadership behavior among employees. The SEM analysis has revealed a significant positive relationship between super-leadership and self efficacy (? =0.67, p > .01) thus supported the first proposed hypothesis.
The hypothesis 2 assumed that high level of intrinsic motivation leads to super-leadership behavior among employees, the said hypothesis has been validated having ? = 0.69, t-value= 8.61 having p<.01.
Moreover, the hypothesis 3 proposed that high level of self-determination leads super-leadership behavior among employees. The results showed that a positive and significant (? = 0.70, t-value= 8.68 having p<.01).
Self-regulations leads to super-leadership behavior which is hypothesis 4 was also validated (? = 0.67, t-value= 8.62 having p<.01).
The proposed model after estimation as fit model for prediction is shown in Figure 2.
Figure. 2
Hypothesis 5 proposed that demographics characteristics of employees serves as control variable/s that augments super-leadership behavior among employees, a significant impact was found having ? = 0.98 and p < .01 between super-leadership and demographics of employees. This significant hypothesis means that the control variables have positive impact upon super-leadership strategy in relation to creativity.
Hypothesis 6 assumed that super-leadership behavior greatly gives rise to creative culture when idea generation and creative potential of employees is enhanced. The said hypothesis was fully supported and showed positive relationship having ? = 0.96 having p<.01 in the hypothesized model proposed.
Hypothesis 7 presumed that creative culture is augmented due to creative potential among employees within organizational settings (? = 1.01 having p<.01). Finally, Hypothesis 8 which states that creative culture is augmented due to idea generated by employees was also supported in the model having ? = 0.66 and p<.01.
The statistical significance of standardized path estimates for the various hypotheses is shown in Table 11.
Table 11. Standardized path estimates with significance level
Path
?
DISCUSSION AND CONCLUSION
The finding of this study contributes to the existing body of research on super-leadership, and improves the understanding regarding innovative behaviors of employees with respect to creative culture in organizations. Moreover, the existing body of knowledge about leadership strategies considers personal characteristics and beliefs as a basic trait to foster and improve creative culture for enhanced performance (Chen and Matheiu, 2008; Smith and Terry, 2003).
The findings of this study also brought out the idea that creative culture and employee performance on the basis of super-leadership behavior are also positively affected due to demographic profile of an employee. The hypothesis regarding demographic profile of an employee such as age, gender, experience and education has been significantly supported and exhibited that these variables does matter when creativity and super-leadership are taken in close context.
Moreover, the relationship between self-efficacy and super-leadership behavior is consistent as a study concluded (Neck and Manz, 1992) that individuals who get proper training in self-leadership skills competencies has shown improvement in their performance level, inner satisfaction and self-efficacy level, when compared with employees who did not receive such training. This significant relationship between self-efficacy and super-leadership behavior might be due to the learning orientation and transformational leadership skills as concluded by (Tierney and Farmer, 2002; Tierney and Farmer, 2004) that certain degree of learning orientation and transformational leadership approach gives rise to creative self-efficacy that further excel intrinsic motivation. Therefore, in this case, the employees of sample understudy were exhibiting the highest degree of learning orientation and transformational leadership skills which finally validated the hypothesis.
Furthermore, the findings also validated the theoretical proposition presented in a study that showed (Neck and Houghton, 2006) that intrinsic motivation is a basic catalyst and necessary prerequisite to super-leadership behavior to ensue. Intrinsically motivated individuals perform unstructured tasks better, are more willing to take risk to polish their job done, in order to pursue this goal; they need to self-regulate themselves; and must be self-determined that could flourish creative culture. As a result, employees with higher level of intrinsic motivation explore new ways and means to perform well.
This research has entailed that super-leadership behavior and creative culture are significant dimensions to steer towards designated goals and objectives and achieve desired performance. Certainly, without having super-leadership strategies and creative culture, no organizations can prosper and gain competitive advantage.
The impact of self-determination and self regulation upon super-leadership has also been validated and it adds to the existing literature that self-determination and self-regulation is a predictor of super-leadership, which connects learning strategies and thinking skills of employees with the wider wellbeing agenda within organizations.
The conclusions drawn from this study explored validation of previously developed theoretical propositions concerning super-leadership and creative culture from a different perspective, while making a move towards a new avenue for research in future.
This study has pointed out the need for better understanding of employee creativity based on super-leadership behavior of employee. However, being a new phenomenon, there is little research available with tested models of employee creativity and even less exploration of creative culture in the workplace settings. This is a significant step in understanding the determinants and process of creative culture in organization on the basis of super-leadership strategies. However, this study is a move towards more in-depth examination that is required both in qualitative and quantitative terms before exploring super-leadership phenomenon.
MANAGERIAL IMPLICATIONS OF RESEARCH
Being an efficient and effective leader, one has to understand the importance and need of empowering subordinates in order to build a model of super-leadership. The payback of the same strategy could be a highest level of commitment to the job, cutting operational overhead costs, and excellent customer service. However, this may also hamper productivity if the goals and objectives are not agreed upon openly. Basically, super-leadership and its antecedents are somewhat more beneficial in enhancing an individual�s life patterns on job. While, training on super-leadership is an essential component that may differ from organization to organization based on their future strategy. However, fundamentally, super-leadership approach could be used as a primary tool in management development training for overall organizational effectiveness.
LIMITATIONS AND FUTURE RESEARCH
The major limitation of this research is that proposed model intended to test a relationship between various variables at a single point of time. Due to that very reason, the findings are limited to a specific period of time.
Moreover, this paper has a common limitation i.e. conducting a survey research and using SEM as a technique for analysis. For example, as the respondents data were gathered using online webpage link/mail survey technique, the proper awareness and insight of the respondents about factors of this study needs to be verified. However, majority of the studies are conducted in management research area based on cross sectional design, this study has also used cross-sectional data which may be tested in longitudinal context as well to further generalize the results.
Another limitation is that a sample from electronic media in Pakistan was taken in to account, while the future studies can focus on print media as well to get broader picture in order to generalize the proposed model.
Currently, super-leadership or self-leadership approach is getting popularity and academic projection, being used in the field of human resource management for recruitment and selection processes, training programs, and research study foundation in entrepreneurship and organizational behavior studies (Konradt, Andre�en and Ellwart, 2009; Manz and Neck, 2004; Neck and Houghton, 2006; Carmeli, Meitar and Weisberg, 2006). More to the point, it would be of great use to examine the impact of super-leadership behavior strategies on career development and work-life-balance issues.
