The influence of leader humor on employee creativity: from the perspective of employee voice.

Creativity is a primary factor in driving transformational change. This study explored the impact of leader humor on employee creativity (incremental and radical creativity) from the perspective of employee voice. Data were collected from 812 Chinese employees through multipoint surveys. Through the surveys, we found that (1) leader humor has a significant positive effect on employee incremental and radical creativity; (2) promotive/prohibitive voice mediates the relationship between leader humor and employee incremental/radical creativity separately; (3) contradictory thinking moderates the effect of leader humor on prohibitive voice and further moderates the indirect effect of leader humor on radical creativity; and (4) the moderated mediation model mainly applies to state-owned enterprises rather than private-owned enterprises. The theoretical and practical implications of these findings are discussed.

Employee Political Skill, Supervisor-Subordinate Guanxi, and Work-Family Conflict: The Cross-Level Moderating Role of Family-Friendly Practices.

Many studies have examined the negative effects of work-family conflict on society, organizations, and individuals. Nonetheless, alleviating employee work-family conflict is a topic worthy of further investigation. Few studies examine the antecedent variables of work-family conflict from personal skill and Guanxi perspectives. Studies that test the moderating role of family-friendly practices at the organization level are also rare. Accordingly, we collected data from 404 employees of 51 organizations. The research data are time-lagged and multileveled. The results of hierarchical linear model (HLM) show: (1) Employee political skill negatively affects employee perceived work-family conflict; (2) Employee political skill positively affects supervisor-subordinate Guanxi; (3) Supervisor-subordinate Guanxi partially mediates the relationship between employee political skill and employee work-family conflict (that is, employees can use their political skill to build high-quality supervisor-subordinate Guanxi, further reducing their perceived work-family conflict); (4) Organization family-friendly practices negatively moderate the relationship between supervisor-subordinate Guanxi and work-family conflict (that is, in organizations with high level family-friendly practices, the negative relationship between supervisor-subordinate Guanxi and work-family conflict becomes weak); Furthermore, by coding with Mplus software (Muthen & Muthen, Los Angeles, CA, USA), we also find: (5) Organization family-friendly practices moderate the indirect effect of employee political skill on employee work-family conflict. The results have both theoretical and empirical implications. Further research directions are addressed at the end.

The High-Performance Work System, Employee Voice, and Innovative Behavior: The Moderating Role of Psychological Safety.

In this study, we examined the associations of the high-performance work system (HPWS) with employee innovative behavior, and tested a theoretical model in which these associations were mediated by employee voice (promotive and prohibitive voice) and moderated by psychological safety. Matched data were collected from 46 HR（Human Resource） managers and 374 full-time employees from 46 companies in China with multi-source and time-lagged techniques. We found that the HPWS is associated with employee behavior. Both the promotive voice and prohibitive voice partially mediate the relationship between HPWS and employee innovative behavior. Psychological safety moderates the relationship between HPWS and the promotive voice. However, psychological safety does not moderate the relationship between HPWS and the prohibitive voice. Furthermore, psychological safety moderates the mediation effect of the promotive voice between HPWS and employee innovative behavior. We discuss the theoretical and practical implications of these findings.

High-Performance Work System, Work Well-Being, and Employee Creativity: Cross-Level Moderating Role of Transformational Leadership.

Under the new normal, the economic development mode and growth momentum of China has brought about fundamental changes, which means that the development of enterprises has gradually shifted from being factor-and investment-driven to being innovation-and talent-driven. As the foundation of corporate innovation, employee creativity plays an important role in this process. In the field of strategic human resource management, high-performance work system is the embodiment of its core competence. Although some research has begun to try to explore the impact of high-performance work system on employee creativity, the underlying mechanism and the boundary condition is not yet fully understood. According to the Job demands-resources (JD-R) model, this study theorized and examined whether and when high-performance work system stimulate employee creativity. Using a sample of large and medium-sized enterprises in China, we collected data, which are time-lagged and multilevel, from 266 employees in 61 departments. Results of the hierarchical linear model found that (1) High-performance work system is positively related to employee creativity; (2) High-performance work system positively affects employee work well-being; (3) Work well-being positively affects employee creativity; (4) Employee work well-being partially mediates the relationship between high-performance work system and creativity; (5) Transformational leadership, which represents an important contextual variable in the workplace, moderates the relationship between work well-being and employee creativity; (6) Moreover, we have also revealed that transformational leadership can moderate the indirect effect of high-performance work system on employee creativity. We discussed the theoretical and practical implications of these findings.