Understanding the influence of dual authoritarian leadership on employee creativity: The type of leadership and the role of event

This paper investigates the impact of two different types of authoritarian leadership on employee creativity and the role of specific events in this mechanism. Our study used qualitative research methods and a grounded theory approach, collecting data from interviews and archives. Transcripts of eight interviews and seven archival files were selected to generate the results. We found that authoritarian leadership exhibits two seemingly contradictory components, dominance-focused authoritarian leadership and discipline-focused authoritarian leadership, which influence creativity via a negative path and a positive path, respectively. The influence mechanism consists of two stages: the stage of needs perception and the stage of coping strategy. Also, drawing on event system theory, we elicited a new notion of “enabling event,” and argued the synergistic mechanism of authoritarian leadership and the energizing event criticality on employee creativity. Our research extends understanding of the effect of authoritarian leadership on employee creativity and highlights the value of an event-oriented theory-building approach to investigating dynamic organizational phenomena.