Buffering the Digital Gaze: The Synergistic Role of Multidimensional Leadership in Supporting Perceived Employee Creativity Under Electronic Perceived Monitoring

Sammanfattning

As organizations increasingly depend on electronic performance monitoring, data collection of perceived Electronic Performance Monitoring (EPM) threatens the psychological conditions required for employee creativity. This quantitative study examines how leaders can buffer against electronic performance monitoring through Creativity-Enabling Leadership (CEL); conceptualized in this study as a second-order, multidimensional construct operationalized through autonomy support, psychological safety, and cognitive stimulation. Through a cross-sectional survey design with 215 participants, results demonstrated a strong positive effect of CEL on employee creativity. Moreover, simple slopes analysis revealed an amplified effect of perceived EPM intensity moderated the CEL-employee creativity relationship. Critically, an exploratory dimension-level analysis showed a synergistic buffering effect; although the complete overarching CEL framework effectively secured creativity from EPM, individual leadership dimensions failed to achieve statistical significance independently. These findings theoretically challenge traditional unidimensional paradigms of leadership by demonstrating that tackling the complexity of EPM requires a synergistic response.