A multilevel exploration of team conflicts and creativity: the role of empowering leadership behavior

Purpose Drawing on affective events theory, this study aims to unravel how team conflicts connect to emotional reactions, employee creativity and team creativity. It also examines the moderating role of empowering leadership behavior (ELB). Design/methodology/approach The study integrates multi-level, multi-wave, multi-source data from 478 employees and 93 teams from an emerging nation. Findings The results find that team task conflict enhances creativity in employees and teams, whereas emotional conflict reduces. Team task conflict instigates positive affect and reduces negative affect, and the effect of emotional conflict is vis-à-vis. Employee positive affect ignites employee creativity, and negative affect extinguishes it. The interactive effects of ELB instigate the positive outcomes of team task conflict and eradicate the negative outcomes of emotional conflict. Originality/value This study progresses the affective, individual and team outcomes by presenting the nuances of team task and emotional conflict by extending its boundary conditions of empowering behavior. Results contribute several theoretical offerings to leadership, teamwork, conflict and creativity literature.