Differentiated transformational leadership, conflict and team creativity: an experimental study in China

Purpose The authors investigated the impacts of differentiated transformational leadership (TFL), including team-focused TFL and individual-focused TFL, on team creativity through the mediating effect of team conflict, consisting of task conflict and relationship conflict. Design/methodology/approach The authors designed and conducted a close-to-reality experiment, enrolling 180 students and six professors from a large Chinese university. Student participants worked on a real marketing project and professor participants imitated the behaviors of transformational leaders. Using the computed values of team-focused TFL, individual-focused TFL, team creativity, task conflict and relationship conflict, the authors assessed the relationship among differentiated TFL, team creativity and team conflict. Findings Team-focused TFL has a significantly positive impact on team creativity through the mediating effect of task conflict, whereas individual-focused TFL has a significantly negative impact on team creativity through the mediating effect of relationship conflict. Originality/value From a new perspective of team conflict, the authors revealed the "black box" of the differentiated TFL-team creativity relationship. Moreover, other determinants were well controlled in the experiment, and thus, the authors effectively clarified the intervening mechanism of differentiated TFL on team creativity through the mediating effect of team conflict.