The influence of social relationship quality on employee creativity

Using survey data from 398 professional or technical workers and their direct supervisors in a large automobile manufacturing enterprise, we built and tested a model to connect the quality of two main social exchange relationships (leader-member exchange: LMX, team-member exchange: TMX) and employee creativity. The results of our study showed that both LMX quality and TMX quality positively related to employees´ intrinsic motivation, which in turn has a positive influence on employee creativity. Furthermore, moderate effect analysis showed that creative self-efficacy weakened LMX quality´s positive effect on intrinsic motivation but had no significant negative moderate effect on TMX quality´s influence on intrinsic motivation. Future research directions and limitations of the study were also discussed.