Creative through Time Pressure? A Cross-Level View on Creative Self-Efficacy & Knowledge Sharing

Abstract

Creative ideas – and the innovations they enable – are key competitive advantages for organizations. However, as organizations need to innovate faster than their competitors in order to survive, the creative processes of individuals and teams are increasingly subject to time constraints. Drawing on the social cognitive theory and the social exchange theory, we investigate the relationship between time pressure and creativity at the individual and team level integrating two opposing mechanisms. We propose that at the individual level a motivational mechanism (namely creative self-efficacy) leads to a positive influence of time pressure on creativity, while on the team level a social mechanism (namely the lack of knowledge sharing) leads to a negative influence. We collected multi-source data from 138 team members and 27 supervisors participating in two product development programs. A multilevel analysis approach did not yield significant results, potentially due to insufficient statistical power. However, exploratory post hoc analyses revealed promising results: The individuals’ creative self-efficacy partially mediated this relationship. Team time pressure had a negative indirect effect on team creativity via team knowledge sharing. We discuss the implications of the findings for future research and organizations.