Document Type

Thesis

Comments

This work was made for management literature to highlight the mechanism through which female supervisors encourage employee creativity.

First Faculty Advisor

R. Isil Yavuz

Second Faculty Advisor

Crystal Jiang

Keywords

supervisor gender; culture; employee creativity

Publisher

Bryant University

Rights Management

CC-BY-NC-ND

Abstract

Despite the fact that women have consistently proved that they excel through transformational leadership styles (Eagly, et al., 2003; Eagly & Johannesen-Schmidt, 2001), a type of leadership that drives creativity in individuals, they remain underrepresented in organizations globally (Michalidis, et al 2012). Thus, it is important to understand how creativity is influenced by leadership, and how leadership is influenced by gender and frequency of supervisor-employee interaction. This study utilizes a self-reporting survey which was distributed to several companies involved in federal direct investment within China. The countries accounted for in the study were Germany, Japan, and South Korea, and results will focus on leaders and subordinates within these organizations and their country of origin, creativity scores, and leadership styles. It is predicted that Germany, representing Western culture, will positively impact employee creativity, while South Korea and Japan, representing Eastern culture, will negatively impact employee creativity. Additionally, constant with social role theory and transformational leadership styles, it is presumed that female supervisors, compared to male supervisors, will positively influence employee creativity. Lastly it is expected that due to their transformative leadership styles, female supervisors will encourage more supervisor-employee interaction, which in turn helps foster greater employee creativity. This work seeks to contribute to the existing body of work because while there is an everlasting need for creativity in organizations, there is a need for more research to examine how women benefit the workplace by promoting employee creativity.

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