The impact of close monitoring on creativity and knowledge sharing: The mediating role of leader-member exchange

We examine the influence of supervisors' close monitoring on employees' creativity and knowledge sharing, both of which are important to the enhanced performance and survival of organizations in this era of uncertainty and change. We also identify the mechanism through which supervisors' close monitoring affects employees' creativity and knowledge sharing. A survey was conducted with military officers in South Korea, among whom supervisor-employee interactions occur daily. A regression analysis of 163 supervisor-employee dyads shows that supervisors' close monitoring has a negative impact on employees' creativity and knowledge sharing; a mediation test using a bootstrapping methodology shows that supervisors' close monitoring has a significantly negative indirect impact on employees' creativity and knowledge sharing with leader-member exchange (LMX) as the mediator. Our theoretical contribution is to provide an improved understanding of the relationships among the variables. We also offer a practical implication because our findings show that supervisors' close monitoring may hinder employees' creativity and knowledge sharing by undermining LMX.