Role of authentic leadership and personal mastery in predicting employee creative behavior: a self-determination perspective

Personality dispositions and their role in inducing employee creative behavior are well documented in the literature. However, much is unexplored about the collective and relative contribution of personality orientations and environmental factors in explaining creative behavior. This study used a framework based on self-determination theory (SDT) to measure the combined and relative contribution of personal mastery orientation and authentic leadership in predicting employee creative behavior as mediated by autonomous motivation. A self-reported survey was conducted among software developers working in software houses. The results of the study show that both personal mastery and authentic leadership are significant predictors of employee creative behavior. In addition, autonomous motivation significantly mediates the relationship between personal mastery, authentic leadership, and creative behavior. The findings of the study lend support to the combined effect of personality orientation and environmental factors in predicting employee creative behavior and test the SDT framework’s efficacy in predicting creative behavior.