Linking Intrinsic Motivation to Employee Creativity: The Role of Empowering Leadership

This research aimed to explore the relationship between the challenge and enjoyment dimensions of intrinsic motivation and employee creativity at an individual level. Besides, the study focused on investigating the moderating role of empowering leadership in promoting employee creativity at work. In particular, in the context of Vietnam’s electricity industry, the power generation stage faces significant challenges, forcing to innovate and restructure strongly to respond flexibly to the requirements of the electricity market development in Vietnam as well as gradually integrate with other countries in Southeast Asia. The authors used structural equations modeling (SEM) combined with Hayes’ moderator variable analysis method (2017) based on primary data. The data included 550 questionnaires from technicians, engineers, and experts directly involved in the operation and production of 36 power generation businesses Vietnam. The results showed the relationship between the enjoyment dimension of intrinsic motivation and employee creativity is not statistically significant, which partly explains the instability of the link between intrinsic motivation and employee creativity. Meanwhile, the challenge dimension is positively associated with employee creativity, but this relationship is more robust in empowering leadership. The study also indicated the challenge dimension of intrinsic motivation is an important predictor of employee creativity.