The Fire to Inspire: A Multilevel and Multimethod Investigation of How and When CEO Passion for Organizational Development Impacts Employee Creativity

In this paper, we conceptualize CEO passion for organizational development (CEO POD) as CEOs’ strong inclination to continuously grow and improve their companies, which they find important and fulfilling. We draw from social information processing theory to articulate how and when CEO POD may trickle down to facilitate frontline employees’ creativity. Our research encompasses three studies employing different methodologies, including a multilevel, multisource, and multiphase survey and two vignette-based experiments. The results consistently support our model, revealing that CEO POD inspires middle managers to exhibit transformational leadership, which subsequently fosters frontline employees’ creativity. Moreover, CEO self-promotion skills augment the indirect effect of CEO POD on employee creativity via middle managers’ transformational leadership. Our findings generate valuable theoretical and practical implications to leverage CEO POD to foster employees’ creativity in the fast-changing business environment.