The mediating role of accounting controls between supervisors' empowering leadership style and subordinates' creativity and goal productivity

This study investigates the impact of subordinates' use of accounting controls on their job performance in circumstances where their supervisor adopts an empowering leadership style. We surveyed 98 Australian managers in the disability and manufacturing industries. The results show that diagnostic and scanning use mediate the relationship between supervisors' empowering leadership style and subordinates' creativity and goal productivity. When supervisors engage in empowering behaviours, subordinates are more likely to draw on accounting controls to cope with the greater information demands and job ambiguity inherent to such a leadership style. Furthermore, scanning use increases creativity whilst diagnostic use reduces creativity.