임파워링 리더십이 조직구성원의 창의성에 미치는 영향에 관한 연구 : 내재적 동기부여, 상사신뢰, 지식공유의 매개를 중심으로 = Study of The Influence of Empowering Leadership on Follower’s Creativity : Mediating Role of Intrinsic Motivation, Trust on Superior and Knowledge Sharing

다국어 초록 (Multilingual Abstract)

In order to enhance the organizational competency and secure competitive advantage in a rapidly changing business environments, the leadership that enables employees to work in dynamic and creative ways is essential. This is because the leader directly influences follower’s attitude and behavior. Although the necessity for a research on the relations between leadership and creativity has been raised, relevant studies are insufficient. In this context, the purpose of this study is to investigate about the relationship between empowering leadership and employee creativity. This study specifically focuses on the mediating role of intrinsic motivation, trust on superior, and knowledge sharing in the influence of empowering leadership on employee creativity. Through this research, the study not only examines the effectiveness of empowering leadership on employee creativity, but it also hopes to provide academic implications and managerial insights to management executives of Korean companies who are subject to relatively strong hierarchical culture.
To achieve this purpose, a research model and hypotheses were developed to examine the theoretical questions. To test the model proposed, a survey was conducted. The survey was designed to be answered in the team(or department) manager-subordinate dyad; each questionnaire was answered by a pair of manager and his or her subordinate. A total of 510 copies in pair of questionnaires were distributed to the superiors and their subordinates of 44 companies, respectively. Among them 470 pairs of copies were analyzed to test the hypotheses. Types of industries included in survey ranged from manufacturing to finance/insurance, construction, information technology, retail and logistics, trading, and other services. The collected data were analyzed by using AMOS18.0 and SPSS17.0 to verify hypotheses of this study.

The findings and their implications of this study are as follows;
First, it was found that empowering leadership significantly influenced on the follower’s intrinsic motivation. Empowering leadership, by delegating discretional power and autonomy to an employee, enlarged their impact on the job and enhanced their sense of self-control, self-determination, self-efficacy, as well as the meaningfulness of work; this means that follower’s intrinsic motivation was elevated.
Second, the study found that empowering leadership highly affected the employee’s trust on superior. This implies that empowering behaviors such as delegating discretional authority to the subordinates, allowing them to participate in the decision making, and expressing high confidence on their performance built strong trust in the superior.
Third, the analytical results supported the hypothesis that intrinsic motivation would positively influence knowledge sharing among employees. This suggests that features of intrinsic motivation such as needs for competence and self-efficacy and eagerness of self-growth encouraged employees to actively engage in learning activities, and knowledge sharing. Moreover, it may also imply that intrinsically motivated employees sought to perceive a sense of self-worth and the usefulness of gained knowledge through the act of knowledge sharing.
Fourth, trust on superior was found to increase the act of knowledge sharing among employees. This implies that such trust promoted the sharing of knowledge by creating a trusting atmosphere, increasing a sense of psychological safety, and inspiring cooperation in organization. In addition, such relationship built on trust created stronger social and emotional ties among the employees, and led them to have mutually reciprocal expectations, which resulted in active knowledge sharing.
Fifth, it is proven that empowering leadership significantly influenced knowledge sharing among employees. This can be interpreted that employees shared knowledge and information more aggressively in order to carry out their expanded role responsibly and successfully. It can further mean that employees were encouraged to share their knowledge when they were required to make autonomous decisions.
Finally, the hypothesis that knowledge sharing affected by intrinsic motivation, trust on superior, and empowering leadership would significantly influences creativity was supported by the survey results. This means that knowledge sharing behavior facilitated the flexibility of cognitive thinking, creative thinking skills, and information processing skills, enabling the generation of creative new ideas. Moreover, knowledge sharing helped generate novel and useful creative outcomes by stimulating cognitive inertia, and allowing employees to connect and integrate new information.

The contribution and managerial implication of this study can be summarized as;
First, this study empirically verified that empowering leadership is a very effective form of leadership in that it affects follower’s creativity, an important element in determining an organization’s competitiveness. This implies that it is possible to carry out research on the relationship between empowering leadership and employee creativity with variables other than those discussed in this study, and that further studies are called for hereafter. And given the importance of its influence, empowering leadership should be emphasized in Korean companies.
Second, the research survey was conducted of multiple businesses, and the survey’s subjects were not limited by factors such as gender, age, position or field of job. Therefore, the findings can be considered to have secured validity and generalization, and be a reliable source for further studies. Results gained from the survey are comprehensive and objective in that they covered creativity ranging from the general to the professional. These findings suggest that creativity needs to be considered more importantly in general organizations.
Third, the fact that empowering leadership had strong consequences in employee’s intrinsic motivation and their trust in the superior is significant in regard to leadership effectiveness. That is, empowering leadership serves as a crux of leadership as it contributes to building trust, a core foundation of an organization, instilling a true sense of motivation, and strengthening employee’s respect and trust towards his/her superior. This suggests that management executives should seriously consider this aspect in developing managerial leadership.
Finally, knowledge sharing among employees plays a very important role in securing the organizational competency and competitive advantage. The fact that empowering leadership contributed to the sharing of knowledge and therefore affected follower’s creativity leaves important implications to the management. It also implies that empowering leadership be considered greatly in development of organizations and managerial strategies.

Though this study provided significant academic and practical findings, there are some limitations:
First, in this study, the impact of empowering leadership is limited to individual’s creativity. In order to provide more meaningful implications, further studies should be expanded to team creativity, and organizational creativity.
Second, in this research, control variables for type of industry or structural features of organization did not considered in detail. However, empowering leadership may face limitations in certain industrial features or organizational purposes. Therefore, it seems meaningful to conduct studies on the comparison of influence of empowering leadership in different types of organizations.
Third, this study measured creativity in one, general aspect. However to improve the results, there is a need to measure creativity in multiple aspects such as in its novelty and usefulness.
Finally, this study is a cross-sectional one in nature, limited to a specific time line in measuring the effectiveness of leadership. For a more accurate result, a longitudinal research is necessary.

It is hoped that further research can be developed by overcoming the above limitations.

목차 (Table of Contents)

• 제 1 장 서 론 = 1
• 제 1 절 문제의 제기 및 연구목적 = 1
• 1. 문제의 제기 = 1
• 2. 연구목적 = 5
• 제 2 절 연구방법 및 범위 = 7
• 1. 연구방법 = 7
• 2. 연구범위 = 8
• 제 2 장 이론적 배경 = 11
• 제 1 절 임파워링 리더십 = 11
• 1. 임파워링 리더십의 개념 및 정의 = 11
• 2. 임파워링 리더십과 다른 리더십과의 관계 = 21
• 제 2 절 창의성 = 23
• 1. 창의성의 개념 및 정의 = 23
• 2. 창의성에 관한 선행연구 = 31
• 제 3 절 내재적 동기부여 = 35
• 1. 내재적 동기부여의 개념 및 정의 = 35
• 2. 내재적 동기부여의 선행요인 및 결과 = 40
• 제 4 절 조직 내 신뢰 = 46
• 1. 신뢰의 개념 및 정의 = 46
• 2. 신뢰의 기능 = 52
• 제 5 절 지식공유 = 56
• 1. 지식의 개념 및 정의 = 57
• 2. 지식공유 = 60
• 제 3 장 연구의 설계와 분석방법 = 68
• 제 1 절 연구모형 = 68
• 제 2 절 연구가설의 설정 = 73
• 1. 임파워링 리더십과 내재적 동기부여와의 관계에 대한 가설 = 73
• 2. 임파워링 리더십과 상사신뢰와의 관계에 대한 가설 = 77
• 3. 내재적 동기부여와 지식공유와의 관계에 대한 가설 = 80
• 4. 상사신뢰와 지식공유와의 관계에 대한 가설 = 84
• 5. 임파워링 리더십과 지식공유와의 관계에 대한 가설 = 89
• 6. 지식공유와 조직구성원 창의성과의 관계에 대한 가설 = 93
• 제 3 절 변수의 조작적 정의 = 98
• 1. 임파워링 리더십 = 98
• 2. 조직구성원의 창의성 = 101
• 3. 내재적 동기부여 = 102
• 4. 상사신뢰 = 103
• 5. 지식공유 = 104
• 6. 통제변수 = 105
• 제 4 절 조사 및 분석방법 = 106
• 1. 자료조사 및 절차 106
• 2. 연구대상 = 107
• 3. 분석방법 = 108
• 제 4 장 실증분석 결과 = 110
• 제 1 절 기초통계분석 = 110
• 1. 인구통계분석 = 110
• 2. 기초통계분석 = 112
• 제 2 절 측정도구의 신뢰성 및 타당성 검정 = 114
• 1. 신뢰성 검정 = 114
• 2. 타당성 검정 = 115
• 제 3 절 연구의 가설검정 = 124
• 1. 연구모형 = 124
• 2. 연구가설 검정 = 125
• 3. 직접효과 및 간접효과 분석 = 131
• 제 5 장 결론 = 136
• 제 1 절 연구결과의 요약 및 논의 = 136
• 제 2 절 연구의 시사점 = 145
• 제 3 절 연구의 한계점 및 향후 연구의 발전방향 = 153
• 참고문헌 = 158
• ABSTRACT = 185
• 부록 <설문지> = 192