Contents lists available at ScienceDirect Journal of Business Research journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/jbusres The moderating effect of benevolence on the impact of organisational culture on employee creativity ☆ Samuel Ogbeibu a, ⁎ , Abdelhak Senadjki a , James Gaskin b a Universiti Tunku Abdul Rahman (UTAR), Faculty of Business and Finance, Jalan Universiti, Bandar Barat, 31900 Kampar, Perak, Malaysia b Brigham Young University, Provo, UT 84602, USA ARTICLE INFO Keywords: Trustworthiness Creative ideas Benevolence Employee creativity Organizational culture ABSTRACT Rooted in the Nigerian manufacturing industry experience, this study, investigates the effect of top management leaders' benevolence on the impact of organisational culture (OC) on employee creativity. Structural equation modelling (SEM) results indicated that top management leaders' benevolence, and adhocracy OC have positive and significant effects on employee creativity. Market and clan OC have significant negative effects on employee creativity, and hierarchy OC has no significant effect on employee creativity. Likewise, benevolence has no significant moderating effect on the impact of clan OC on employee creativity, and has a significant negative moderating effect on the impact of adhocracy OC on employee creativity. SEM results demonstrate that bene- volence has a significant positive moderating effect on the impact of market OC on employee creativity, and a significant negative moderating effect on the impact of hierarchy OC on employee creativity. Policy implications and future directions are also discussed. 1. Introduction Martha, Carolina, Joseph, Niels, and Pei-Chuan (2002) advocated that organisational culture (OC) is “the pattern of variations within a society, or, more specifically, as the pattern of deep-level values and assumptions associated with societal effectiveness, shared by an inter- acting group of people” (p. 276). Organisations across several countries have experienced diverse challenges as a result of applying an OC that is not supportive of the kind of values they require to engender em- ployee creativity (Dong, 2002; Huston & Sakkab, 2006; Peterson, 2005). Several Nigerian manufacturing organisations are known to employ a predominant hierarchical OC (Gabriel & Kpakol, 2014), and studies (Gupta, 2011; Naranjo-Valencia, Jiménez-Jiménez, & Sanz- Valle, 2016) lament that this has a negative impact on employee creativity. The Nigerian manufacturing industry is an integral part of the country's economic development – a catalyst for modernisation with propensities of creating multiplier effects (Akume & Abdullahi, 2013). However, some studies (Dimnwobi, Ekesiobi, & Mgbemena, 2016; Emeka, Ifeoma, & Emmanuel, 2015) have identified a growing dete- rioration in its innovation capabilities. This reflects a lack of an en- gendered employee creativity workforce, and the application of an unsupportive OC. Employee creativity in general feeds off of creative ideas (Bai, Lin, & Li, 2016; Gilson & Litchfield, 2017). Nevertheless, creative ideas repeatedly get lost or repressed in Nigerian manu- facturing organisations, as they sometimes appear to be unwelcomed by managers (Akume & Abdullahi, 2013). A parallel case is when top management leaders exhibit unreceptive attitudes to creative ideas employees share by exhibiting questionable, unkind or malevolent be- haviours within Nigerian manufacturing organisations (Gabriel & Kpakol, 2014; John, 2011). Hence, there is need for top management leaders to consider becoming more benevolent, since it could have a rather positive effect on employee creativity (Zhou & George, 2003). Employee creativity is an individual level phenomenon that mirrors the production of creative ideas, builds uniquely upon existing ideolo- gies, and suggests novel approaches to create new solutions (Amabile & Pillemer, 2012; Ogbeibu, Senadjki, & Luen Peng, 2017). In order to engender employee creativity, top management leaders ought to re- cognise the role of organisational benevolence. The extent to which an individual is perceived to possess and display good intentions towards another is denoted as benevolence (Mayer, Davis, & Schoorman, 1995). By becoming more benevolent, organisations may be able to build strong resilience against a future of constant change (Castro, Gomes, & de Sousa, 2012). The need to have a benevolent top management leader who strongly expresses emotions that reflect goodwill, compassion, care, altruism and kindness towards employees in order to engender https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jbusres.2018.05.032 Received 11 November 2017; Received in revised form 21 May 2018; Accepted 22 May 2018 ☆ A deep appreciation is given to Prof. Marko Sarstedt for his invaluable efforts in supporting and contributing towards the success of this research. ⁎ Corresponding author. E-mail addresses: ogbeibu.s@1utar.my (S. Ogbeibu), abdelhak@utar.edu.my (A. Senadjki), james.gaskin@byu.edu (J. Gaskin). Journal of Business Research 90 (2018) 334–346 0148-2963/ © 2018 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved. T