Abstract
Organizational creativity is indispensable in a highly competitive and dynamic academic environment; and the role of individuals is mostly unquantifiable. Hence the study argued that the ideas, novel research output, patents, grants of the academic staff depend on the flexible wellbeing of the workforce which is at a low level in Nigeria. Thus, the paper investigated the role of personality traits on the relationship between flexible wellbeing and organizational creativity. The paper implemented a cross-sectional survey research design and collated data from six hundred and twenty-one academic staff ranked from Senior Lecturer to Professor from eight selected private universities in South-West, Nigeria through applying multi-stage random sampling technique. Reliable and validated tests were conducted on the adapted questionnaire before it was used for the study. The result from hierarchical regression analysis using SPSS add-on called process analysis revealed that personality traits have a moderating effect on the interactions between flexible wellbeing and organizational creativity (ΔR2 = 0.014, ΔF(1, 528) = 13.579, p < 0.05). Management to tailor wellbeing policies and practices to workers’ creative drive as there is no “one-size-fits-all” approach to designing an effective flexible wellbeing strategy.
Highlights
Organizational creativity intellectually has been referred to interchangeably as individual creativity and team creativity
Eight (8) from the thirty-six (36) private universities were selected grounded on the following criteria, (1) year of university accreditation which was within the first 10 years (1999 to 2009) of licensing private universities in Nigeria; since these private universities have survived the formative phases of university establishment; (2) ownership of the university; and (3) ranking on Joint Admissions Matriculation Board (JAMB) 2017 data, based on, popularity, academic stability, affordability, quality of academic staff and available facilities in defining candidates’ preferred choice of universities (Economic Confidential, 2017)
The introduction of the moderator in Table 1 significantly improved the effect of personality traits on the relationship between flexible wellbeing and organizational creativity (∆R2 = 0.470, p < 0.05)
Summary
Organizational creativity intellectually has been referred to interchangeably as individual creativity and team creativity. Nigeria has maintained rankings in the lower regions on organizational creativity. Because of inaccessibility to essential creativity data Nigeria was not ranked (Cornell University, European Institute of Business Administration [INSEAD] & World Intellectual Property Organization [WIPO], 2015; Dimnwobi et al, 2016). In 2018 and 2019, Nigeria ranked 131 of 140 countries and 135 of 141 countries respectively for critical thinking in teaching and research skills (World Economic Forum, 2018, 2019) thereby, continuing creativity rankings in the lower regions. These lower creativity rankings have remained a growing concern in the Nigerian education market resulting in a weak brand image
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