Report: Moral Leadership, Employee Identification, and Creativity

This report summarizes a research article investigating the relationship between moral leadership and employee creativity within a Chinese context. The study explores the mediating roles of employee identification with leaders and leader-member exchange (LMX). Data collected from 160 supervisor-subordinate dyads revealed that moral leadership positively correlates with both employee identification and LMX. Furthermore, employee identification partially mediates the relationship between moral leadership and LMX, significantly enhancing LMX, which in turn fosters creativity. The research suggests that moral leadership, employee identification, and LMX collectively contribute to employee creativity, offering valuable insights for business ethics, leadership development, and organizational behavior, particularly within collectivist cultures. The article recommends companies prioritize moral character in leader selection, promote employee recognition, and invest in moral leadership training to foster a culture of ethical values and creativity.

Running head: RESEARCH METHODS AND QUANTITATIVE ANALYSIS

RESEARCH METHODS AND QUANTITATIVE ANALYSIS 2
Table of Contents
A brief summary of the journal article............................................................................................3
Key elements of the article:.............................................................................................................3
Purpose of an article summary is to give the reader a brief,............................................................5
References........................................................................................................................................6

RESEARCH METHODS AND QUANTITATIVE ANALYSIS 3
A brief summary of the journal article
This article identifies the association amid moral leadership along with employee creativity,
treats identification of workforces with leader and leader-member exchange (LME) as two
mediators and builds innovative hypothetical approach regarding employee creativity.
Furthermore, employee recognition with leaders partially mediates the association amid LMX
and moral development. In this way, employee identification with leader highly influences the
LMX that can lead to high creativity (Gu, Tang, and Jiang, 2015).
Key elements of the article:
The study’s objectives
Under this study, the key objective of this research is to address the role of identification of
workforces with leader and leader-member exchange (LME) as two mediators in investigating
the association amid the employee creativity as well as moral leadership in the context of China.
Importance
This research is significant to understand the identification of workforces with leader and leader-
member exchange (LME) in the context of China (Walumbwa, Mayer, Wang, Wang, Workman,
and Christensen, 2011).
Contribution
The researcher has contributed spark interest and adds innovative vocabulary with the conversion
with regards to employee creativity and moral leadership in the Confucianism-specific context.
Design:
For this study, the researcher has gathered the data from two modes like subordinates as well as
supervisors. The questionnaire of subordinated involves the independent variables,
intermediating variables, and control variables while the questionnaire of supervisor involves the

RESEARCH METHODS AND QUANTITATIVE ANALYSIS 4
dependent variable regarding employee creativity. Information was gathered from 160
supervisors and subordinates dyads in the People’s Republic of China. These data was beneficial
to understand that moral leadership is optimistically associated with both recognition of
workforces with the leader and leader-member exchange (Gu, Tang, and Jiang, 2015).
Results:
Findings provide innovative notional structure regarding development of future theory and
assessing the creativity and practical implication for investigator and executives in the business
ethics. The result of this research demonstrates the device where the moral leadership is
favorably associated with creativity of workforces from relational perspectives in a context of
China in which existence of Confucianism, collectivism, and power distance is high. It was also
found that there is a positive liaison among moral leadership as well as employee creativity,
which is arbitrated by the recognition of workforces with leader-member exchange and leaders
(Gu, Tang, and Jiang, 2015).
Recommendations:
From the study of this article, it can be recommended that the company should focus on leader
choice with a focus on the moral requirement as well as other significant qualification. It should
also facilitate the recognition and reward employee’s behavior, and moral leadership training and
education (Zhang, Huai, and Xie, 2015). The company may also build a culture with moral
values and creativity at the workplace. These strategies will target to develop the moral
leadership in terms of gaining the creativity of workforces and avoid the possible dark side of
creativity among workforces. Leaders in China should also focus on their own moral behavior
such as willpower, justice, integrity, and role modeling that may improve the leader-member
exchange, creativity of workforces and employee’s identification (Chen, and Hou, 2016).

RESEARCH METHODS AND QUANTITATIVE ANALYSIS 5
Purpose of an article summary is to give the reader a brief,
The key purpose of this article is to clarify the mediating procedures from ethical leadership to
creativity among workforces. This study has covered different chapters to gather the data in
systematic manners. These chapters were involved introduction, literature review, research
methodology, findings and conclusion (Gu, Tang, and Jiang, 2015).

RESEARCH METHODS AND QUANTITATIVE ANALYSIS 6
References
Chen, A. S. Y., & Hou, Y. H. (2016). The effects of ethical leadership, voice behavior and
climates for innovation on creativity: A moderated mediation examination. The
Leadership Quarterly, 27(1), 1-13.
Gu, Q., Tang, T. L. P., & Jiang, W. (2015). Does moral leadership enhance employee creativity?
Employee identification with leader and leader-member exchange (LMX) in the Chinese
context. Journal of Business Ethics, 126(3), 513-529.
Walumbwa, F. O., Mayer, D. M., Wang, P., Wang, H., Workman, K., & Christensen, A. L.
(2011). Linking ethical leadership to employee performance: The roles of leader-member
exchange, self-efficacy, and organizational identification. Organizational Behavior and
Human Decision Processes, 115(2), 204-213.
Zhang, Y., Huai, M. Y., & Xie, Y. H. (2015). Paternalistic leadership and employee voice in
China: A dual process model. The Leadership Quarterly, 26(1), 25-36.