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. 2023 May 2:1–11. Online ahead of print. doi: 10.1007/s12144-023-04703-0

The effects of ethical leadership on creativity: A conservation of resources perspective

Guangping Li 1,#, Luyuan Li 1, Lei Xie 2,✉,#, Omar S Lopez 2
PMCID: PMC10152030  PMID: 37359639

Abstract

The pursuit of novelty can be a challenging experience that often comes with stress. Thinking outside the box can even lead to ethical dilemmas, particularly when innovators are under the pressure to meet deadlines. In this study, we examine creativity as a stress-inducing process, especially when employees encounter setbacks during their pursuit of novelty. Our aim was to explore the relationship between ethical leadership and creativity from a Conservation of Resources (COR) perspective. Using two distinct research samples, we discovered that help seeking behavior during the pursuit of novelty is crucial for acquiring resources in the workplace and serves as a mediator in the relationship between ethical leadership and creativity. We also discuss the theoretical and practical implications of these findings.

Keywords: Ethical leadership, Help seeking, Creativity

Introduction

Rapid technological changes, globalization, and demanding customers require organizations to be innovative. Consequently, creativity is regarded as a core competence for today’s employees. Much research has shown that unleashing employee creativity enables organizations to change, compete, and transform; being creative, which includes generating novel ideas and implementing new plans, enhances organizational innovation in the long run (Gumusluoglu & Ilsev, 2009; Litchfield et al., 2015; Shalley & Gilson, 2004). However, with the constant changing and increasingly demanding requirements from customers, thinking outside the box may create ethical dilemmas, especially when individuals are under stress (Tu & Liu, 2013). Indeed, Amabile and Pratt (2016) argued that “a creative idea may be useful for attaining either an evil aim or a morally good aim, and a fully implemented innovation could do harm or good or both” (p. 158). In two experiments, Muller et al., (2013) found that individuals who are creative often face not only significant psychological but also paramount social challenges. When facing such challenges and pushing the limits using creative ideas, ethical discussions occur more frequently than ever (Fassin, 2000; Feng et al., 2018; Moran et al., 2008). That is, being creative can be a recursive process because novel ideas often fail to be transferred to tangible goods. If one fears of failure and is pressured to take shortcuts, this situation may cause unethical behavior. Thus, “in order for creative ideas within organizations to promise constructive outcomes (deemed as such by social consensus) once they are successfully implemented, they must be linked to a socially positive system of values, morals, and ethics” (Amabile & Pratt, 2016, p. 158). Creativity and innovation must be ethical and studying what makes innovation ethical is critical. In addition, knowing what ethical conditions may lead to improved creativity is important as well.

We know that creativity can be enhanced by various individual and organizational level factors (Elrehail et al., 2018; Perry-Smith & Mannucci, 2017; Scott & Bruce, 1994; Xie et al., 2021). Nonetheless, though leadership is one of the most prominent influencers of employees’ behavior and action in an organization, the extant creativity literature often underestimates ethical leaders’ influence on employees’ creativity. For example, Tu and Liu, (2013) called for more scholars to focus on the impact of organizational ethics on creativity as unethical affairs which cause detrimental effects to organizations are increasing at an alarming rate (Shafique et al., 2019). Only a handful of researchers have paid attention to ethical leadership and R&D members’ creativity (e.g., Chen & Hou, 2016). But we argue that studying the relationship between ethical leadership and creativity is timely and highly relevant in today’s business environment, not only for R&D members. Ethical leadership is defined as “the demonstration of normatively appropriate conduct through personal actions and interpersonal relationships, and the promotion of such conduct to followers through two-way communication, reinforcement, and decision making” (Brown et al., 2005, p. 120). Ethical leaders help employees make “right” decisions and come up with “right” designs with “right” processes. Moreover, ethical leaders, who often show openness to bidirectional communications and act as moral models, support progressive ideas (Javed et al., 2019). More critically, when employees experience trial and error during the novelty generation process, influenced by their ethical leaders, they are likely to embrace failure instead of considering unethical conducts. It is because followers generally perceive their leaders as role models and working with ethical leaders foster their ethical standards (Brown et al., 2005). Moreover, ethical leaders also play a role of moral manager, who enforces the ethical code in an organization, which enhances followers’ ethical behavior.

In addition to examining the extent to which ethical leadership affects creativity, we propose one mediator which explains the psychological mechanism from a conservation of resources (COR) perspective (Hobfoll, 1989). According to COR theory, individuals are motivated to gain, maintain, and protect valued resources to reduce one’s stress level (Hobfoll, 1989). In this study, we argue that ethical leadership can create certain psychological resources and promote help seeking among peers that can improve employee creativity because novelty seeking can be a resource drain and stressful event and gaining social resources from help seeking may help individuals respond to stress successfully (Duan et al., 2018; Xie & Li, 2022).

Theoretical background

Predominantly, researchers attempted to understand the relationship between ethical leadership and creativity from social learning theory (e.g., Ma et al., 2013; Mo et al., 2019). Social learning theory posits that employees learn vicariously (Bandura, 1986). For example, in the organizational context, followers learn organizational rules by observing their leaders’ and peer’ behavior and actions. In the field of leadership and creativity, through social learning, previous research has confirmed the positive roles of psychological safety and psychological empowerment in explaining the relationship between ethical leadership and creativity (e.g., Mo et al., 2019). However, researchers have not attempted to connect ethical leadership and creativity from the perspective of COR theory (Hobfoll, 1989, 2001). This theoretical omission of using COR to explain the relationship between ethical leadership and creativity is consequential because constantly pursuing creative ideas can be stressful (Lave & Wenger, 1991; Odoardi et al., 2019), and researchers need to examine creativity with the factor of stress. For example, Reiter-Palmon and Illies (2004) confirmed that being creative requires an extensive cognitive processing, which causes high stress.

Further, we argue that ethical leaders promote employees’ help seeking behavior in an ethical social environment and gained resources from help seeking promote continuous novelty seeking. Employees are often under stress when they constantly deplete resources through heavy cognitive activities such as novelty seeking and problem solving (Odoardi et al., 2019; Park et al., 2021). When their energy is low and get stuck in problem solving, seeking for help gains them resources rather than working in solitary and endure the stress. In reality, “it is unlikely, therefore, that creative outcomes will be realized without a large degree of support from organizations and organizational leaders” (Reiter-Palmon & Illies, 2004, p. 55). Indeed, receiving peers’ and leaders’ supportive help that can be instrumental to the creative process; it helps employees to “identify problems and generate alternatives” (Kwan et al., 2018, p. 1358). Drawing on COR, we argue that when ethical leaders are presented in an organization, they are likely to promote employees’ help seeking behavior as previous research has confirmed that ethical leadership is positively associated with employee’s help seeking behavior (Kalshoven & Boon, 2012). Influenced by ethical leader’s empowerment and open communication, employees gain valued resources from help seeking from leaders and peers. With gained valued resources, employees become less stressful and are likely to engage in creative activities. The hypothesized model is presented in Fig. 1.

Fig. 1.

Fig. 1

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Hypothesized model

Ethical leadership and help seeking.

We define help seeking as the process of garnering work-related resources intended to positively affect the recipient (Van Yperen & Hagedoorn, 2003). Regarding the relationship between ethical leadership and help seeking, empirical evidence indicates a positive association between these two constructs (e.g., Brown et al., 2005; Kalshoven and Boon, 2012; Treviño et al., 2003). As mentioned above, ethical leaders cultivate a supportive environment that encourages followers’ open communication (Brown et al., 2005). Gaining a considerable latitude to express opinions, even controversial ones, critically influences employees’ perception of obtained social support and thus their help seeking behavior (Engemann & Scott, 2020; Piccolo et al., 2010). When employees perceive trust and support from their leaders and peers, they are likely to seek for help when needed (Koydemir-Özden, 2010). Thus, we propose that the presence of ethical leadership facilitates employees’ help seeking behavior.

  • Hypothesis 1: Ethical leadership is positively related to help seeking behavior.

Help seeking and creativity

Conceptually, Caplan (1974) suggested that receiving help from peers and supervisors enhances communication among individuals and with opportunities for genuine feedback and validations of their expectations of others. From a COR perspective, help seeking gains resources for creative activities. It is well documented that work resources and workload “stimulate” or “hinder” creativity (Rasulzada & Dackert, 2009, p. 193). Direct help from peers or leaders is arguably one of the most important job resources that can facilitate individual’s creative activities. Claxton (1998) argued that this type of resource improves employees’ engagement level into creative work. In addition, when creative individuals experience obstacles, direct help from their supervisors or peers would affect them psychologically toward a positive direction. Empirically, when employees perceive that their organization supports them, they are less likely to experience burnout (Gerich & Weber, 2020), stress (Viswesvaran et al., 1999), or conflict (French et al., 2018). All these positive psychological states may support creative activities. Thus, we hypothesize that help seeking behavior is positively related to creativity.

  • Hypothesis 2: help seeking is positively related to creativity.

The mediating role of help seeking

In this research, we also argue that there is an indirect relationship between ethical leadership and creativity via help seeking. Based on COR theory, ethical leadership encourages employees to seek for help when they experience temporary setback, and with gained resources from peers and leaders, novelty seeking continues, and problems are likely to be resolved. Ethical leaders’ personal traits and especially their ways of open communication for decision-making promote help seeking among peers. With more frequent help seeking, employees are more likely to receive useful instructions and informative directions to produce novel ideas. More critically, help seeking from multiple peers and leaders reduce counterproductive behavior, and high creativity performance is likely to be elicited.

  • Hypothesis 3: The relationship between ethical leadership and creativity is fully mediated by help seeking.

Study 1

To collect our two-wave survey data (one month interval) in Study 1, we employed a convenience sampling technique. Given that our objective was to investigate the correlation between ethical leadership and creativity, we sought out a company that had a strong commitment to ethical values. Specifically, we aimed to recruit an organization with a well-defined ethics code incorporated into their mission statement, which served as a guiding principle for their daily operations. Additionally, we wanted a company that emphasized ethical conduct and promoted a culture of integrity throughout all levels of the organization. By selecting such a company, we could ensure that our study results accurately reflected the connection between ethical leadership and creativity in the workplace.

The first author announced the research project to his MBA students, and a student who worked for a healthcare provider volunteered to participate. This healthcare provider was a large organization with over 1000 employees that incorporated ethics codes in their mission statement and promoted an ethical culture throughout the organization. Furthermore, this healthcare provider faced the challenge of providing innovative care for their patients during the COVID-19 pandemic when medical resources were scarce. Therefore, we proceeded with our research and contacted the HR administrator of this organization with a letter of research intent. Because of the personal relationship established between the third author and the HR administrator, we gained the email access to the randomly selected 500 employees who worked in the organization. An email with an online survey link was sent to the selected employees and 424 responded to the first survey, representing a response rate of 84.8%. The respondents were assured of the confidentiality of their responses. The first survey contained demographics questions and the ethical leadership scale. To reduce the likelihood of common method bias (Podsakoff et al., 2003), we sent out the second survey which comprised questions regarding the mediator—help seeking, and the outcome variable, creativity one-month after the first survey (see the Appendix for survey details). A total of 250 s-wave responses were valid. Coding ensured that respondents from two surveys were matched. Finally, 189 respondents were kept for subsequent data analysis in Study 1. Among the 189 participants only 2 were males. Regarding their age, 71 participants (37.6%) were from the age group of 18–25 years old, 76 participants (40.2%) were from the age group of 26–35 years old, 41 participants (21.7%) were from the age group of 36–45, and 1 participant (0.5%) were from the age group of 46 and above. As far as participants’ educational level, 105 held a bachelor’s degree and 84 graduated from vocational colleges.

Measures

Creativity

We measured employee creative by using Liu and Shi’s (2009) 5-item scale on employee creative behavior (Cronbach’s α = 0.93). A sample item is, “I often have creative ideas in the workplace.” Employees rated the five statements by scoring them ranging from 1 (strongly disagree) to 5 (strongly agree).

Ethical leadership

We measured ethical leadership by using Brown et al.’s (2005) 10-item Ethical Leadership Scale (Cronbach’s α = 0.98). A sample item is, “My supervisor discusses business ethics or values with employees.” Employees rated the 10 statements by scoring them ranging from 1 (strongly disagree) to 5 (strongly agree).

Help seeking behavior

We measured employees’ perception of their seeking help behavior by using Van Yperen and Hagedoorn’s (2003) 4-item Job Social Support Scale (Cronbach’s α = 0.89). A sample item is, “when I need help during problem solving, I ask my co-workers for help.” Employees rated the four statements by scoring them ranging from 1 (strongly disagree) to 5 (strongly agree).

Control variables

We also included individual demographic characteristics in the analysis because these variables may affect the relationships of interest (e.g., Debus et al., 2012; Zhou & George, 2001). We added gender, age, and educational level as control variables. However, gender and age were not significantly related to the dependent variable. Since including nonsignificant control variables would erode degrees of freedom (Atinc et al., 2012), we did not include these two variables in the final measurement model. We controlled for education nonetheless as it had been found to be significantly related to creativity (e.g., Liu et al., 2020).

Non-response bias and attrition analysis

Following Goodman and Blum’s (1996) approach, we used multiple logistic regression to test for systematic differences in the two waves of responses. Multiple logistic regression was conducted using gender, age, educational level, ethical leadership, and help seeking as independent variables and the survey time as the dependent variable. The results show that all logistic regression coefficients were nonsignificant. These results suggest that employees randomly dropped out of the study.

Common method variance

Due to the nature of the research is self-report correlational study from a single data source, potential common method variance (CMV), which may inflate the relationship between constructs (Fuller et al., 2016). To reduce CMV, we addressed this issue both procedurally and statistically. First, we collected the data from two timepoints. Second, we used Harman’s one-factor test to estimate the potential CMV issue. The principal factor analysis results showed that there were four factors detected with the major factor explaining less than 40% of the total variance. We also followed Kock’s (2015) recommendation to test the VIF values of all four constructs. The values were between 1.13 to 1.24, which is below the threshold value of 3.3. Thus, our data is less likely to be threatened by the CMV.

Discriminant validity

The measurement model has three factors. The Confirmatory Factor Analysis (CFA) showed a good model fit to the data. According to Hoyle (2012), we used the following fit indexes to examine the model fit: Root Mean Square Error of Approximation (RMSEA), Comparative Fit Index (CFI), and Standardized Root Mean Squared Residual (SRMR). The measurement model fit the data well (χ2/218 = 2.28, p < 0.001; RMSEA = 0.08; CFI = 0.95; TLI = 0.94; SRMR = 0.05). To further test the discriminant validity of the measurement model, we conducted a series CFAs to test the model fit of alternative models. First, we tested a two-factor model (ethical leadership combined with help seeking and creativity). The fit results did not show a good fit to the data (RMSEA = 0.18; CFI = 0.72; TLI = 0.69; SRMR = 0.20; χ2/df = 2.77, p < 0.001). Second, we test a one-factor model (combining all four factors). The model fitted the data poorly (RMSEA = 0.22; CFI = 0.58; TLI = 0.54; SRMR = 0.12; χ2/df = 3.42, p < 0.001; see Table 1). Therefore, the measurement model shows a satisfactory discriminant validity (Hoyle, 2012).

Table 1.

Confirmatory factor analysis results

Model χ2/df P value RMSEA CFI TLI SRMR
Measurement model 2.28  < 0.001 0.08 0.95 0.94 0.05
1-factor model 3.42  < 0.001 0.22 0.58 0.54 0.12
2-factor model 2.58  < 0.001 0.18 0.72 0.69 0.20
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Results

We first calculated the pairwise intercorrelations among the four major variables and listed the descriptive statistics (mean and standard deviation) in Table 2. Reliabilities are shown in the parentheses. As shown in Table 2, all four variables are correlated with each other positively and significantly. The perception of ethical leadership had the highest mean with 4.13. and employee creativity is the lowest with 3.27.

Table 2.

Descriptive statistics of variables

Ethical leadership Help seeking Creativity Mean Standard deviation
Ethical leadership (0.98) 4.13 0.92
Help seeking 0.32** (0.89) 3.80 0.67
Creativity 0.10* 0.30** (0.93) 3.27 0.77
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N = 189

*p < 0.05; **p < 0.01

Table 3 demonstrated the Cronbach’s alpha coefficients, standardized factor loadings, average variance extracted, and composite reliability. All factor loadings were above 0.70, and the composite reliabilities are above 0.80. Hence, according to Hair et al. (2010), the internal consistency of the scale items is satisfactory.

Table 3.

Measurement model

Variable Average Variance Extract α coefficient Items Factor loadings Composite Reliability
Ethical leadership 0.85 0.98 EL1 0.88 0.98
EL2 0.84
EL3 0.86
EL4 0.93
EL5 0.96
EL6 0.93
EL7 0.94
EL8 0.95
EL9 0.97
EL10 0.95
Help seeking 0.64 0.89 SS1 0.90 0.87
SS2 0.93
SS3 0.70
SS4 0.70
Creativity 0.73 0.93 CR1 0.76 0.93
CR2 0.85
CR3 0.89
CR4 0.86
CR5 0.89
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Hypothesis testing

We employed a structural equation modelling technique to test all three hypotheses. Concerning for the comparatively small sample size, we used the bootstrapping (1000 samples) methodology (Preacher et al., 2007). In this study, 95% bias-corrected confidence intervals were calculated using the Mplus 8.4 software (Muthén & Muthén, 1998–2017). The path analysis showed all three hypotheses were supported. First, ethical leadership is positively related to help seeking (β = 0.27, p < 0.001, 95% CI = 0.14 to 0.40). Second, Hypothesis 2 was supported as the path coefficient between help seeking and creativity was positively and significantly associated (β = 0.18, p = 0.03, 95% CI = 0.02 to 0.35). Lastly, the indirect effect of ethical leadership on creativity is positive and significant (β = 0.10, p < 0.01, 95% CI = 0.03 to 0.17) and the direct effect of ethical leadership on creativity is negative and nonsignificant (β = -0.041, p = 0.30, 95% CI = -0.12 to 0.04).

Discussion

In Study 1, we examined the mediating effect of help seeking on the connection between ethical leadership and creativity using the sample from a healthcare organization. The results of the SEM analyses demonstrated that the relationship between ethical leadership and creativity is fully mediated by help seeking, which confirmed the prediction COR theory.

Study 2

To confirm the relationship among the studied variables in Study 1, we replicated Study 1 using a distinct sample. We contacted a dozen of companies who had previously expressed interests in participating such studies in a college level workshop. In that workshop the first author built personal relationship with those companies. The first author sent out recruitment emails to each company and eventually, several replied and one from the service industry was selected to participate in this study. This company met the selection criteria we used in Study 1. We followed the same procedure in Study 1 to collect the empirical data for Study 2. This service company provided a broad range of organizational support, including compensation and benefits, talent recruitment and development, financial audit, and human resource data management. Following the same procedure in Study 1, we contacted the company’s HR manager with a letter of research intent and gained access to all employees in the company through the point of contact. Regarding the recruitment procedure, the HR administrator announced our research in their organization’s WeChat (a popular social media platform in China) group and sent out an online survey link to all employees embedded in a paragraph of recruitment text. After paring two surveys (one month apart), a total of 157 respondents were identified for Study 2. Among the 157 participants only 10 were males. In terms of participants’ age, 40 participants (25.4%) were from the age group of 18–25 years old, 60 participants (38.2%) were from the age group of 26–35 years old, 52 participants (33.1%) were from the age group of 36–45, and 5 participant (0.3%) were from the age group of 46 and above. As far as participants’ educational level, 105 employees held a high school degree and 50 earned their bachelor’s degree in college and two had master’s degrees.

We asked the same questions from Study 1 to the employees in the consulting company. Even though we collected data at two different time points, because of its self-report nature, we conducted a series of tests to detect the common method variance (CMV). First, we used Harmon’s one-factor test (Fuller et al., 2016). The results showed four factors with eigenvalues larger than 1 and the major factor explained less than 40% of the total variance. Second, we calculated the VIF values (Kock, 2015). The average value was 1.22, ranging from 1.12 to 1.27, which shows satisfactory level of data. Thus, our data is less likely to suffer from CMV.

Results

We calculated the pairwise intercorrelations among the four major variables and list the descriptive statistics (mean and standard deviation) in Table 4. Reliabilities are shown in parentheses. From the table we can tell that all four variables are correlated with each other positively and significantly. The perception of ethical leadership had the highest mean with 4.47. and employee creativity is the lowest with 3.38. Cronbach’s Alphas are shown in the parentheses, all of which are above the 0.7 threshold.

Table 4.

Descriptive statistics of variables

Ethical leadership Help seeking Creativity Mean Standard deviation
Ethical leadership (0.97) 4.47 0.71
Help seeking 0.27** (0.86) 4.16 0.72
Creativity 0.14* 0.44** (0.96) 3.38 1.09
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N = 157

* p < 0.05; ** p < 0.01

Discriminant validity

Following the same procedure to test the measurement model’s discriminant validity, we conducted a series of CFAs. The measurement model showed a better fit comparing to the two-factor, three-factor, and single factor model. Table 5 listed the fit indexes of all three models. Moreover, similar to Study 1, we reported Cronbach’s alpha coefficients, standardized factor loadings, average variance extracted, and composite reliability. All factor loadings were above 0.70, and the composite reliabilities are above 0.80, all of which confirmed the internal consistency of the scale items (see Table 6 for details).

Table 5.

Discriminant validity of four models

Model χ2/df RMSEA CFI TLI SRMR
Measurement model 2.3** 0.09 0.95 0.95 0.06
Two-factor model 6.68** 0.19 0.72 0.69 0.18
Single factor model 11.21** 0.26 0.49 0.44 0.25
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*p < 0.01

Table 6.

Measurement model

Variable Average Variance Extract α coefficient Items Factor loadings Composite Reliability
Ethical leadership 0.80 0.98 EL1 0.92 0.98
EL2 0.77
EL3 0.86
EL4 0.95
EL5 0.96
EL6 0.96
EL7 0.93
EL8 0.94
EL9 0.86
EL10 0.78
Help seeking 0.68 0.89 SS1 0.94 0.89
SS2 0.97
SS3 0.64
SS4 0.70
Creativity 0.79 0.93 CR1 0.87 0.95
CR2 0.90
CR3 0.94
CR4 0.85
CR5 0.89
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Hypothesis testing

In Study 2, we still used the SEM technique to test all three hypotheses. We used the bootstrapping (1000 samples) methodology (Preacher et al., 2007). The path analysis showed that all three hypotheses were supported. Ethical leadership is positively correlated with help seeking (β = 0.30, p < 0.001, 95% CI = 0.17 to 0.44); help seeking and creativity were positively and significantly correlated (β = 0.17, p < 0.01, 95% CI = 0.5 to 0.38). Lastly, Study 2 confirmed a full mediation effect of help seeking as the indirect effect was positive and significant (β = 0.17, p = 0.001, 95% CI = 0.07 to 0.27), while the overall direct effect of ethical leadership on creativity was negative and nonsignificant (β = -0.07, p = 0.47, 95% CI = -0.24 to 0.11).

Discussion

Like in Study 1, Study 2 also examined the mediation effect of help seeking on the link between ethical leadership and creativity. However, in Study 2, we used a distinct sample from a consulting company. The SEM results indicated that the positive relationship between ethical leadership and creativity is fully mediated by help seeking, which was found in Study 1.

General discussion

Drawing on Conservation of Resources (COR) theory, we conducted two studies to explore the link between ethical leadership and creativity, and the role of help seeking as a mediator. Given that seeking novelty can be a stress-inducing and resource-depleting activity, we found that ethical leadership was positively related to one important resource gaining method—help seeking, which in turn is positively associated with creativity when employees are under stress. This finding is important within the context of COR theory. Based on the COR theoretical framework, previous research has established that ethical leaders offer job-related resources (e.g., role clarification or emotional support) to enhance employee well-being (Kalshoven & Boon, 2012), foster psychological safety (Javed et al., 2019), encourage psychological empowerment (Mo et al., 2019), among other positive outcomes. The direct relationship between ethical leadership and help seeking advances our understanding of the facilitative role of ethical leadership in promoting help seeking behaviors in the workplace. Within the framework of COR theory, ethical leaders can alleviate the threat of net resource loss by setting clear objectives and encouraging reciprocal support among employees. As a result, under the guidance of an ethical leader, employees are more likely to seek and offer help to each other. The positive and direct link we found between help seeking and creativity contributes to the creativity literature by highlighting the one interpersonal factor that can enhance creativity. Our study responds to the recent call by Sun et al. (2020) for research on factors that explain intra-individual variations in creativity. This finding suggests that employees should actively engage in information-seeking and resource-seeking behaviors in the workplace to promote their creativity.

The finding regarding the mediating role of help seeking suggests that an individual's help seeking behaviors play a critical role in connecting ethical leadership and creativity. Specifically, when employees are under stress, their creativity may be at risk of compromise, and the ability to gain resources through help seeking becomes crucial for sustaining novelty seeking behaviors. Thus, this finding highlights the importance of seeking help as a means of overcoming obstacles and maintaining a creative mindset, particularly in high-pressure environments. Our identification of the mediating effect of help-seeking sheds light on how ethical leadership can support employees in converting help-seeking behaviors into resources for innovation. Our findings emphasize the importance of leaders' encouragement and support for help-seeking, as employees are less likely to become innovators without such support, even when under the supervision of ethical leaders. Moreover, our research contributes to the existing literature on creativity by addressing its "dark side," which can include hidden costs and negative outcomes (Gino & Ariely, 2012), such as work-family conflict (Xie & Li, 2022). Previous research has often overlooked the potentially negative consequences of creativity, and our study provides a more nuanced understanding of the conditions under which creativity can be fostered and supported in a stressful environment. By focusing on the role of ethical leadership and help-seeking in facilitating creativity, we build upon COR theory and extend previous research in this area. Our results provide further evidence of the positive influence of ethical leadership on creativity and suggest that the promotion of help seeking behaviors can be an effective strategy for overcoming the challenges associated with continuous novelty seeking in high-pressure work environments.

Theoretical implication

Concerning creativity, previous research has emphasized on the importance of how leaders influence followers’ motivation to be creative. Transformational leadership and leader-member exchange have been explored extensively to explain the possible connection between them with creativity (Gumusluoglu & Ilsev, 2009; Shin & Zhou, 2003; Wang & Rode, 2010). At the team level, leader’s dialectical thinking ability strengthens the effect of followers’ self-efficacy on creativity (Han & Bai, 2020). Our work contributes to the literature that we built on COR and discovered new mediators as employee resources that explain the indirect relationship between ethical leadership and creativity. This research provides evidence that creativity research can profit from examining ethical leadership from a COR perspective. In a nutshell, remaining creative can be exhausting. Generating new ideas and seeking novelty can be time-consuming and stressful (Johns & Morse, 1997). Working in a socially supportive environment is found beneficial to creativity.

Practical implication

This research has its merits in offering future training programs for HR professionals. First, the findings regarding the direct positive connections between ethical leadership and help seeking indicates that ethical leadership training is essential for the improvement of employees’ collaboration—employees help each other when help is requested. Nonetheless, our findings have limited generalizability as previous research has found that ethical leaders may not always influence followers in a positive way especially when ethical leaders pressured too much to followers on the moral aspect. Second, the positive association between ethical leadership and help seeking lends the idea of open communication and the emphasis on moral is critical to build a social supportive environment for employees who respect business ethics. Lastly, help seeking correlates with creativity which is an important finding as more and more organizations are looking for ways to improve creativity. Hence, seeking for help is a great way to receive support when ethical leadership is present in the workplace. Without the support from ethical leaders, help seeking might be less common and working in solitary may compromise novelty seeking when employees are stuck with challenging problems. Thus, this research suggests that at the leadership level, ethical leadership not only enforces the ethical aspects of organizational operations, but also can enhance employee creativity through help seeking.

Limitations

Despite some major contributions to the literature, there are several limitations. First, the nature of the research is correlational, which limits our ability to argue for the causal relationship between ethical leadership and creativity. We garnered our data from self-report, even though we managed to collect the predictor and the dependent variable from multiple waves, we cannot rule out the influence of common method variance. A second potential limitation pertains to the Chinese sample. The data came from two organizations in China where employees’ ethical conduct is heavily emphasized. Future researchers should consider collecting samples from companies where ethical codes are encouraged but the leaders may conduct unethical deeds in daily operations. For example, Reynolds et al. (2014) found more immoral behavior in business-related tasks when leaders deem the situation as competitive. Third, according to COR, other potential mediators can further explain the indirect effect between ethical leadership and creativity. For example, psychological detachment is a recover resources from the workplace. The ability of taking respite might be an importance valued resources to connect ethical leadership and creativity in the workplace.

Conclusion

Using a 2-study design, we found that ethical leadership was positively correlated with employees’ creativity via their help seeking behavior. In a nutshell, ethical leaders create resources in the organization for employees who experience temporary setbacks during novelty seeking. Consequently, the gained resources promote employees’ creativity. In particular, we examined and discovered that ethical leaders facilitate employees’ help seeking behavior, and through gained help from peers and leaders, employees become more creative. The findings of the study suggest that organizations should promote ethical leadership training and select leaders with high moral standards to promote employees’ creative thinking. Employees’ help seeking behavior should be encouraged given its mediating role between ethical leadership and creativity.

Appendix 1

Creativity

  1. I often have innovative and creative ideas at work.

  2. I often share my new ideas to my peers and supervisors for their support and recognition.

  3. I often seek for resources for the realization of my innovative ideas.

  4. I often actively make plans to implement my innovative ideas.

  5. I often help my colleagues to achieve their innovative ideas.

Ethical leadership

  1. My supervisor listens to what employees have to say

  2. My supervisor disciplines employees who violate ethical standards

  3. My supervisor conducts his/her personal life in an ethical manner

  4. My supervisor has the best interests of employees in mind

  5. My supervisor makes fair and balanced decisions

  6. My supervisor can be trusted

  7. My supervisor discusses business ethics or values with employees

  8. My supervisor sets an example of how to do things the right way in terms of ethics

  9. My supervisor defines success not just by results but also the way that they are obtained

  10. My supervisor when making decisions, asks “what is the right thing to do?”

Help seeking

  1. When I need help during problem solving, I ask my immediate supervisor for help.

  2. If necessary, can you ask your immediate supervisor for help to solve problems?

  3. When I need help during problem solving, I ask my co-workers for help.

  4. If necessary, can you ask your co-worker for help to solve problems?

Funding

This study was supported by the base of humanities and social science and logistics research center in University of Henan province under grant No. 2017-JD-04.

Data availability

The datasets generated during and/or analyzed during the current study are available from the corresponding author on reason- able request.

Declarations

Ethical approval

All procedures performed in this study involving hu- man participants were in accordance with the ethical standards of the institutional and/or national research committee and with the 1964 Declaration of Helsinki and its later amendments or comparable ethical standards.

Informed consent

Informed consent was obtained from all individual participants included in the study.

Conflict of interest

The authors declare no conflict of interest.

Footnotes

The first and the third author contributed to the article equally.

Publisher's note

Springer Nature remains neutral with regard to jurisdictional claims in published maps and institutional affiliations.

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Associated Data

This section collects any data citations, data availability statements, or supplementary materials included in this article.

Data Availability Statement

The datasets generated during and/or analyzed during the current study are available from the corresponding author on reason- able request.

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