LAUSR

The factors that influence graduate student creativity have drawn attention in higher education research. It is controversial whether leader–member exchange (LMX), here representing supervisor–student exchange relationship, can promote creativity. Previous studies on the LMX–creativity relationship have ignored the roles of negative psychological processes and personality differences. From the resource allocation perspective, we consider challenge stress and hindrance stress as the mediators and identify personal initiative (PI) as a moderator to examine the relationship between LMX and graduate student creativity. The results obtained from 576 Chinese samples confirm that LMX promotes graduate student creativity by reducing their hindrance stress; the interaction term between high PI and high LMX increases challenge stress. These findings support the importance of developing high quality supervisor–student exchange relationship for graduate students, adding their challenge stress, reducing their hindrance stress, and cultivating their PI so as to improve their creativity.