Abstract
ABSTRACTDetachment from work during non-work time is generally related to a decrease in work-related strain. However, it might also hamper employees’ generation of new and useful ideas about work by completely shutting off work-related thoughts and/or feelings outside of work. In this day-level study, we used a within-person design to investigate the role of cognitive and emotional detachment from work during non-work time in relation to equivalent types of job demands and job resources, in the prediction of employee creativity. Cognitive detachment from work refers to mentally disconnecting from work and no longer thinking about job-related issues, whereas emotional detachment from work refers to affectively disconnecting from work and no longer experiencing job-related emotions. Survey data were gathered over the course of eight consecutive days from 151 health care employees. Multi-level analyses revealed that: (1) cognitive detachment was positively related to creativity, irrespective of the level of cognitive job demands and resources; (2) high emotional job demands in combination with either low levels of emotional detachment or high levels of emotional job resources were positively related to creativity. This day-level study provides insight into the relation between detachment from work and creativity from a process perspective, by showing specific conditions under which different types of detachment from work benefit employee creativity.
Highlights
After a hard day’s work, should employees set their work aside and detach from it to enhance their generation of new and useful ideas about work? Or is employee creativity rather enhanced by letting work-related thoughts and/or feelings linger during non-work time? Employee creativity can be defined as the generation of new and useful ideas about work by employees (Amabile, 1988; George & Zhou, 2001)
Multi-level analyses revealed that: (1) cognitive detachment was positively related to creativity, irrespective of the level of cognitive job demands and resources; (2) high emotional job demands in combination with either low levels of emotional detachment or high levels of emotional job resources were positively related to creativity
We hypothesized that the combination of high cognitive demands, high cognitive resources, and low cognitive detachment would be positively related to creativity, as well as the combination of high emotional demands, high emotional resources, and high emotional detachment
Summary
After a hard day’s work, should employees set their work aside and detach from it to enhance their generation of new and useful ideas about work? Or is employee creativity rather enhanced by letting work-related thoughts and/or feelings linger during non-work time? Employee creativity can be defined as the generation of new and useful ideas about work by employees (Amabile, 1988; George & Zhou, 2001). Binnewies et al (2009) reported a similar relation in a longitudinal survey study: positive work reflection, as opposed to the complete absence of work-related thoughts, predicted an increase in creativity at work 6 months later. These findings suggest that complete detachment from work might not always be exclusively beneficial, in that it may block the generation of new and useful work-related ideas. It remains unclear how detachment effects are influenced by the specific working conditions (i.e., particular job resources and job demands) that employees encountered during the day, and whether different working conditions require different levels and/or kinds of detachment
Sign-in/Register to view highlights & summary Sign-in/Register to access full text options 
Free) 
Talk to us
Join us for a 30 min session where you can share your feedback and ask us any queries you have
Schedule a call
