코칭 리더십과 심리적 안정감이 창의적 문제해결능력에 미치는 영향: 조직변화풍토의 조절된 매개모형

Creative problem-solving is recognized as an important determinant of organizational innovation and sustainable growth. Despite this importance, there is still a lack of studies analyzing the antecedents and situational factors that enhance creative problem-solving. Therefore, this study investigates the effect of coaching leadership on creative problem-solving capacity. We also examine whether psychological safety positively mediates the above relationship. In addition, we address the moderating role of organizational change climate in the relationship between psychological safety and creative problem solving capacity. Finally, we test the moderated mediating role of organizational change climate for the indirect effect of coaching leadership on creative problem solving capacity through psychological safety. By using a cross-sectional design, with a questionnaire administered to 221 employees working in Korean manufacturing and service firms, the hypotheses were tested. The results of the empirical test have shown that coaching leadership was positively related to creative problem-solving capacity. We also found that psychological safety positively mediated the relationship between coaching leadership and creative problem-solving capacity. Moreover, there was a significant moderating effect of organizational change climate in the relationship between psychological safety and creative problem-solving capacity. Finally, our empirical results indicated that there has been the moderated mediating role of organizational change climate, which meant that when the level of organizational change climate is high, the positive effect of coaching leadership through psychological stability on creative problem-solving capacity was strengthened. This study has theoretical contributions to the existing literature in the following ways. First, it contributes to the literature on leadership and creativity by addressing the effect of coaching leadership on creative problem-solving capacity. Most previous studies have focused on the effect of many types of leadership on firm innovation and creative performance. Our study has extended this literatures by revealing the positive effect of coaching leadership on the creative problem solving capacity. Second, this study extended the previous studies by addressing a key mediator to explicate how coaching leadership induces creative problem-solving capacity. Therefore, our findings show that psychological safety is a bridging mechanism in the relationship between coaching leadership and creative problem-solving. In particular, we found that psychological safety is a crucial psychological pathway influencing employees' capacity towards creative performance. Therefore, this study enriched our understanding of how coaching leadership promoted creative problem-solving capacity. Third, we also identified organizational change climate as an important moderator enhancing the positive effect of psychological safety on creative problem-solving capacity. By identifying such a boundary condition, this study highlighted the importance of organizational climate as a condition for enhancing employees' creative problem solving capacity. Moreover, identifying the moderated mediation effect of coaching leadership on creative problem-solving capacity via psychological safety has provided an integrated picture to understand the role of leadership style on determinant, process and condition for developing creative capacity of employees. Our results also suggest several practical implications. First, our results indicate that organizational managers should be aware of the important role of coaching leadership, which positively affect creative problem-solving capacity. Second, managers should recognize the importance of psychological safety linking coaching leadership to creative problem-solving capacity. Thus, the organization-level efforts and support are needed to ensure psychological safety for stimulating employees' problem solving capacity. Thirds, our results also show that organizational change climate is a crucial condition for enhancing creative problem-solving capacity directly and indirectly. Therefore, managers should make an extra effort to facilitate the open and change oriented organizational climate for developing employees' creative problem solving capacity and creative performance.