Junfeng Wu is a Ph.D. candidate in Organizational Behavior and Human Resources at the Department of Managerial Studies, University of Illinois at Chicago. He received his B.A. in Business Administration and his M.A. in Business Management from the School of Business at Renmin University of China. His current research interests include: servant leadership, employee creativity and multilevel phenomena and interpersonal processes in workgroups.
Perspective taking is a cognitive process in which one considers another’s viewpoint or generally sees the world through another’s vantage point. Drawing upon theory and research on perspective taking, Mr. Wu’s dissertation seeks to understand how and when servant leadership affects group creativity. Specifically, he posits that servant leadership fosters group perspective taking, meaning that within a work group, group members consider or adopt their coworkers’ viewpoints. He seeks to develop and test the idea that group perspective taking is a double-edged sword for group creativity, at the surface level, offering positive impact by improving group coordination; while at the underlying level, engendering group perspective convergence. Theoretical boundary conditions for the aforementioned relationships are examined. Mr. Wu will defend his dissertation in March 2017.