Lãnh đạo chuyển đổi và quá trình tham gia sáng tạo trong doanh nghiệp viễn thông Việt Nam: Vai trò trung gian của trao quyền tâm lý

TRANSFORMATIONAL LEADERSHIP AND CREATIVE PROCESS
ENGAGEMENT IN VIETNAM TELECOMMUNICATION 
ENTERPRISES: THE MEDIATING ROLE 
OF PSYCHOLOGICAL EMPOWERMENT
LÃNH ĐẠO CHUYỂN ĐỔI VÀ QUÁ TRÌNH THAM GIA SÁNG TẠO
TRONG DOANH NGHIỆP VIỄN THÔNG VIỆT NAM: 
VAI TRÒ TRUNG GIAN CỦA TRAO QUYỀN TÂM LÝ
Dr. Nguyen Thi Phuong Linh
National Economics University
linhnp@neu.edu.vn
Abstract
Leadership influences the employee’s participation in creative activities, especially those
in the telecommunications industry, in the face of continuous technological innovation. This study
focuses on understanding the relationship of transformational leadership, creative process en-
gagement and psychological empowerment. Combining both qualitative and quantitative methods
with a sample size of 420 telecommunication enterprises employees, the research results show
that transformational leadership has a positive relationship with creative process engagement
and psychological empowerment, psychological empowerment has a positive effect on creative
process engagement, at the same time, psychological empowerment plays a mediating role in the
relationship between transformational leadership and creative process engagement. Based on
research results, the author makes implications for managers in Vietnam telecommunication en-
terprises including: developing transformational leadership by empowering and encouraging
employees’ participation in decision-making and develop new ideas, developing ways to empow-
ers employees emotionally.
Keywords: creative process engagement, psychological empowerment, telecommunication
enterprises, transformational leadership, Vietnam.
Tóm tắt
Khả năng lãnh đạo ảnh hưởng đến sự tham gia của nhân viên vào các hoạt động sáng tạo,
đặc biệt là những hoạt động trong ngành viễn thông, trước sự đổi mới công nghệ liên tục. Nghiên
cứu này tập trung vào việc hiểu mối quan hệ của lãnh đạo chuyển đổi, quá trình tham gia sáng
tạo và trao quyền tâm lý. Kết hợp cả phương pháp định tính và định lượng với quy mô mẫu là
420 nhân viên doanh nghiệp viễn thông, kết quả nghiên cứu cho thấy lãnh đạo chuyển đổi có
mối quan hệ tích cực với quá trình tham gia sáng tạo và trao quyền tâm lý, trao quyền tâm lý có
tác động tích cực đến quá trình tham gia sáng tạo, đồng thời, trao quyền tâm lý đóng một vai trò
trung gian trong mối quan hệ giữa lãnh đạo chuyển đổi và quá trình tham gia sáng tạo. Dựa
trên kết quả nghiên cứu, tác giả đưa ra các đề xuất cho nhà quản lý tại các doanh nghiệp viễn
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thông Việt Nam bao gồm: phát triển năng lực lãnh đạo chuyển đổi bằng cách trao quyền và
khuyến khích sự tham gia của nhân viên vào việc ra quyết định và phát triển các ý tưởng mới,
phát triển các cách thức để trao quyền cho nhân viên về mặt cảm xúc.
Từ khóa: quá trình tham gia sáng tạo, trao quyền tâm lý, doanh nghiệp viễn thông, lãnh
đạo chuyển đổi, Việt Nam
1. Introduction
The telecommunications sector in Vietnam is seen as a key element in the ‘Doi Moi’ eco-
nomic reform that began in 1986 and the economy has achieved a remarkable achievement of
results through structural reform initiatives to get rid of state monopolies (Lee et al., 2011). Cur-
rently, in the context of industrial revolution 4.0 with new technological innovations popping up
everywhere, telecommunication enterprises are constantly facing challenges to maintain their ad-
vantages (Andersen and Tushman, 2004) and competition between telecommunication enterprises
must be creative to meet customer requirements (Nham et al., 2020).
Leaders influence various aspects of employee behavior, this assertion has been demon-
strated in a number of studies such as transformational leaders influence employees’ creative be-
havior and performance (Golden and Shriner, 2017; Hughes et al., 2018; To et al., 2015),
transformational leaders influence employees’ innovative work behavior (Afsar et al., 2014). In
the field of creativity research, most studies focus on the leader’s influence on employee’s creative
outcomes rather than on participation in the creative process (Henker et al., 2015; Hughes et al.,
2018; Zhang and Bartol, 2010). In addition, in the study of creative process engagement, the rea-
sons for the relative high or low engagement of an employee in the organization’s creative effort
process are not fully explored (Carmeli et al., 2013; Hughes et al., 2018; Mahmood et al., 2019;
Rodriguez-Sanchez et al., 2017).
In leadership styles, transformatonal leadership allows employees to see beyond one’s ben-
efits to group and organizational overall improvement (Bass, 1998; Bass et al., 2003). Transfor-
mational leadership increases employee efficiency (as a follower), facilitates them to organize
and complete tasks to implement organizational strategies over time (Shamir et al., 1993; Fitzger-
ald and Schutte, 2010). Transformational leadership often e ... s engagement. This observation has been acknowledged in the study of
Aslam (2017), Bin Saeed et al. (2019), Zhang and Bartol (2010). When an employee believes
they are capable of performing a successful task, there is a certain degree of self-determination
in the job performance and is able to shape the desired outcome through his or her behavior, em-
ployees are more likely to focus on an idea or problem for longer and more persistent (Deci and
Ryan, 1991; Spreitzer, 1995).
Theoretically, this study confirms the mediating role of psychological empowerment in the
relationship between transformational leadership and creative process engagement. It provides a
helpful insight into understanding the underlying mechanisms which transformational leadership
influences creative process engagement. This study complements previous studies when they
have examined the effects of transformational leadership on creative process engagement through
the mediating role of an intrinsic motivation (Mahmood et al., 2019); creative self-efficacy (Azim
et al., 2019) but never mentioned the mediating role of psychological empowerment.
Implications
Based on the research results, the author gives a few implications for Vietnamese telecom-
munication enterprises managers:
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Firstly, by demonstrating that transformational leadership affects employees ‘creative
process engagement, managers should develop transformational leadership by empowering and
encouraging employees’ participation in decision-making and develop new ideas that can be put
into practice.
Secondly, the study shows that psychological empowerment acts as a mediator between
transformational leadership and creative process engagement, so managers should pay more at-
tention in developing ways to empowers employees emotionally. Managers should motivate em-
ployees to understand the nature and value of their work instead of focusing on external rewards,
giving employees considerable autonomy in doing their jobs and helping them understand the
importance and impact of their work on others.
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