Complementary Effects of HPWS and Leadership on Creativity: A Social Embeddedness Perspective

Abstract

Although the critical role of creativity in organizational success has long been emphasized, the mechanisms through which high-performance work systems (HPWS) influence employee creativity remain underexplored. Similarly, there is limited understanding of the joint effect of human resources practices and leadership styles on employee psychological state and creativity. Based primarily on a social embeddedness framework of thriving, this study investigates the indirect effect of HPWS on employee creativity through evidence of thriving at work. We integrate resource perspective with research on social embeddedness framework to explore the moderating role of temporal leadership in the relationship between HPWS and thriving. Hypotheses are tested using multi-wave, multi-source data from 235 employees and their direct supervisors. Our results show that thriving at work mediates the positive relationship between HPWS and employee creativity and that temporal leadership strengthens the relationship between HPWS and employee thriving. The contribution of this study lies in explaining how employee creativity is triggered by HPWS and how temporal leadership complements HPWS.