ORIGINAL RESEARCH article
Front. Psychol.
Sec. Organizational Psychology
Identity leadership and employees' creative performance: A serial mediation model of relational energy and organizational embeddedness
Provisionally accepted
- 1Korea University, Sejong, Republic of Korea
- 2Gachon University, Seongnam, Gyeonggi, Republic of Korea
Select one of your emails
You have multiple emails registered with Frontiers:
Notify me on publication
Please enter your email address:
If you already have an account, please login
You don't have a Frontiers account ? You can register here
The aim of this study is to examine the relationship between identity leadership and creative performance. This study also examines the mediating roles of relational energy and organizational embeddedness in this causal relationship. Furthermore, a serial mediation model is applied, expecting that identity leadership will enhance the creative performance of organizational members through serial mediation paths. An empirical analysis was conducted with 397 employees working in companies in South Korea. The results showed that identity leadership was positively related to creative performance. Relational energy and organizational embeddedness mediated the relationship between identity leadership and creative performance. Last, identity leadership increased relational energy, enhancing organizational embeddedness and leading to higher creative performance through a serial mediation effect. Our findings confirmed the role of leaders in enhancing the creative performance of employees. Furthermore, our empirical results revealed specific pathways through which identity leadership influences employee attitudes and performance. In doing so, we contribute to the body of research on leadership and social identity theory. Finally, we provide practical implications for managers who want to facilitate employee creative performance.
Keywords: Identity leadership, Relational energy, organizational embeddedness, creativeperformance, serial mediation
Received: 23 Feb 2025; Accepted: 05 Nov 2025.
Copyright: © 2025 Jung, Kang and Choi. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) or licensor are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.
* Correspondence:
Seung-Wan Kang, global7@gachon.ac.kr
Suk Bong Choi, sukchoi@korea.ac.kr
Disclaimer: All claims expressed in this article are solely those of the authors and do not necessarily represent those of their affiliated organizations, or those of the publisher, the editors and the reviewers. Any product that may be evaluated in this article or claim that may be made by its manufacturer is not guaranteed or endorsed by the publisher.