A Workgroup Climate Perspective on the Relationships Among Transformational Leadership, Workgroup Diversity, and Employee Creativity

Previous research on the effects of workgroup diversity and workgroup functioning and outcomes has produced mixed results. We address these inconsistencies by proposing a model that considers the effects of both transformational leadership and workgroup climate on one workgroup outcome believed particularly relevant to diversity: employee creativity. Multilevel analyses of 172 individuals working in 31 teams found that innovation workgroup climate level mediated the relationship between transformational leadership and employee creativity. Furthermore, results indicated that diverse groups had higher innovation climate strength when transformational leadership was high, and that innovation climate level was more strongly related to employee creativity when innovation climate strength was high. Overall, these results suggest that transformational leadership may lessen the negative effects associated with workgroup diversity. Implications for both theory and practice are discussed.