Purpose This article develops multimodal coordination as a leadership-development construct for settings in which joint action depends on coupling heterogeneous and non-substitutable modalities, including organisations, infrastructures, technologies, finance, logistics, regulation, standards, platforms and institutional authority. Design/methodology/approach The article uses an integrative conceptual synthesis with model-building intent. Six literature streams are compared through an explicit concept matrix, four mechanism-retention criteria and a traceable audit trail linking analytical patterns to six developmental capabilities and seven propositions. Findings The conceptual synthesis yields a testable framework rather than empirical findings. It theorises why trust, shared purpose and distributed influence may remain insufficient when material, jurisdictional, financial, technological or temporal interfaces are mismatched. Multimodal conditions generate mismatch; four theoretically derived coordination mechanisms address it; six developmental capabilities enact those mechanisms; and collective operability is the proposed proximal outcome. Any distal outcomes remain contingent and require empirical testing. Practical implications The framework is translated into provisional modules, exercises and assessment evidence for executive education, organisation development and public-sector capacity building. Their effectiveness and contextual fit require empirical testing. Originality/value The article locates leadership development in the architecture that makes heterogeneous modalities workable together. It offers incremental explanatory claims, explicit scope conditions and a testable account of coordination failure and repair under fragmentation and asymmetry.
Purpose Against the backdrop of digital transformation reshaping organizational environments, digital leadership at the executive level has emerged as a critical determinant for enterprises to gain a competitive advantage. This research focuses on Generation Z employees, the core demographic of digital natives, and investigates the mechanisms underlying the stimulation of their creativity. Design/methodology/approach Based on survey data collected from 301 Generation Z employees, this research constructed and tested a moderated mediation model. Findings Executives’ digital leadership significantly and positively enhances employee creativity. This effect is achieved primarily by fostering a positive digital work climate, indicating that it plays a pivotal mediating role. Further analysis identifies employees’ regulatory focus as an important boundary condition: individuals with a promotion focus exhibit a more pronounced increase in creativity under the influence of digital leadership, mediated by the digital work climate, whereas the effect is weaker for those with a prevention focus. Originality/value This research not only clarifies the core pathway through which digital leadership influences employee creativity (i.e. the mediating role of the digital work climate) but also elucidates how intrinsic motivational tendencies (regulatory focus) differentially modulate the efficacy of this mechanism. These insights have significant theoretical and practical implications for understanding leadership effectiveness in the digital era and stimulating creativity among the new generation of employees.
Purpose-This project develops and validates a localised multidimensional scale measuring employee innovative behaviour (EIB) for Guangzhou high-tech firms, remedying defects of mainstream tools like the Team Climate Inventory (TCI), which ignore individual psychology and interpersonal networks amid China's collectivist corporate culture. Design/methodology/approach-Following standard scale-building procedures, this research first performed a PRISMA-compliant qualitative meta-analysis to extract five core EIB antecedent dimensions. Preliminary items were formed via literature review and expert interviews, then screened by the Content Validity Index (CVI). Data from 824 staff of six local high-tech enterprises was split for exploratory and confirmatory factor analyses. Sequential tests including item screening, parallel analysis, reliability, convergent/discriminant validity and common method bias inspection were carried out. Structural equation modelling and hierarchical regression with creative problem-solving (CPS) as the outcome variable further examined the scale's predictive validity. Findings-The finalised 21-item scale covers individual psychology, leadership, organisational climate, job characteristics and relational and social networks. Its overall Cronbach's a reaches 0.953, with each dimension meeting reliability standards, and the five-factor structure fits data better than rival models. All dimensions positively predict staff CPS, and social networks exert the strongest effect (ss 5 0.324, p < 0.001). Originality/value-As the first systematically verified EIB scale tailored to Chinese high-tech contexts, it supplements the group-oriented TCI by incorporating guanxi-based relational and individual factors, offering academics and managers a reliable instrument to assess multi-level drivers of employee innovation.
Purpose This conceptual paper examines how artificial intelligence (AI) reshapes leadership dynamics. It addresses a critical gap: the lack of an integrated framework explaining how AI leadership influences employees' psychological and social resources. Design/methodology/approach The paper develops the AI-augmented leadership–well-being–relational energy model. This framework challenges the job demands-resources model's static view, theorizing digital well-being as a dynamic regulatory mechanism linking leadership behaviors to relational energy. Findings The analysis finds that AI-empowering leadership enhances digital well-being and strengthens relational energy. Conversely, AI-monitoring leadership depletes these same vital resources. Research limitations/implications The proposed model is conceptual and needs empirical validation across different cultural and organizational settings. Practical implications The model provides leaders and organizations with a critical, human-centered framework for the ethical integration of AI into leadership practice, aiming to foster more resilient and energized workplaces. Social implications Socially, it promotes digitally healthy, resilient workplaces. Originality/value The primary contributions are extending the job-demands and resource model, uniquely re-conceptualizing digital well-being as a regulatory resource and relational energy as a collective amplifier and recasting the leader's role as a sociotechnical architect.
Purpose Drawing on social information processing theory and the warmth-competence framework, this study investigates how humble leadership influences followership behavior, with perceived leader warmth and competence as dual mediators and employee narcissism as a moderator. Design/methodology/approach Data were collected from 309 employees in China across three waves with one-month intervals. We employed hierarchical regression analysis and bootstrapping methods to test the hypotheses. Findings The results reveal three key findings. First, humble leadership positively influences perceived leader warmth and competence. Second, perceived leader warmth and competence serve as dual mediators in the relationship between humble leadership and followership behavior, with no significant difference in the magnitude of these two indirect effects. Third, employee narcissism negatively moderates the relationships between humble leadership and both perceived leader warmth and competence, thereby attenuating the indirect effects on followership behavior. Originality/value This study advances understanding of humble leadership by examining leader-directed followership behavior, a previously understudied outcome that directly reflects the quality of leader–follower relationships. By integrating social information processing theory with the warmth-competence framework and identifying employee narcissism as a boundary condition, this research contributes to the humble leadership and followership literature.
