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The purpose of this paper is to investigate the precise role of intrinsic motivation and autonomy in relation to intellectual stimulation in creating a creative climate in a professional services firm. The intention is to discover whether theories that stress the primacy of the need for intrinsic motivation and autonomy over other managerial goals such as monitoring find support.

The authors propose and test a model for the relationship of interest. The theoretical model is tested through analysis of multilevel data gathered across in two iterations over two years from 177 employees and 64 teams in one company.

The authors find that intrinsic motivation and autonomy mediate the relationship between intellectual stimulation and creative climate. Autonomy exercises a stronger mediating effect than intrinsic motivation.

The single company research context’s specificity; causal relationships between variables cannot be empirically investigated; the verified research model cannot claim to represent how the organization actually functions, for which qualitative work is required.

Theories stressing the primacy of employee autonomy are supported over those stressing a need for management to monitor and control autonomy-seeking employees.

This paper shows the vital mediating role of employee autonomy and to a lesser extent intrinsic motivation in a professional service firm context.

The purpose of the paper is to explore why rules might be better than managerial discretion when the leadership intends to transform a desired policy into reality.

Leaders need discretion in order to deal with the great expectation demanded on them. However, discretion can open up to threats to the leadership's pursuits of rational acting. The first threat is related to emotion and impulsive behaviour and the second threat is related to conflict and opportunistic behaviour. The paper examines these threats.

In order to handle threats to rational acting the leadership has to establish and follow appropriate rules.

The paper challenges the notion that the leadership should be provided with ample discretion when they intend to transform an intended policy into reality. The paper claims that unbridled discretion might be risky and proposes that the critical and neglected challenge is to establish appropriate rules that channel and focus leadership effort.