Employee radical creativity: the roles of supervisor autonomy support and employee intrinsic work goal orientation

We aimed to investigate whether supervisor autonomy support influences employees’ radical creativity through their intrinsic work goal orientation and how employees’ willingness to take risks moderates the indirect relationship. We tested our prediction using data from a field study (Study 1: 262 supervisor-subordinate dyads) and an experimental study (Study 2: 101 Chinese students). The results of Study 1 showed that supervisor autonomy support was positively related to employees’ intrinsic goals and radical creativity and that intrinsic goals played a mediating role. The results of Study 2 revealed that supervisor autonomy support had a positive impact on radical creativity via intrinsic goals and that employees’ willingness to take risks moderated the indirect relationship. The results of the two studies suggested that supervisor autonomy support promotes radical creativity through employee intrinsic work goal orientation when supervisors’ willingness to take risks is high rather than low.