Idiosyncratic deals and employee creativity: The mediating role of creative self‐efficacy

Abstract

Idiosyncratic deals (i‐deals) have become an increasingly popular human resource management practice to attract, retain, and motivate employees. This is particularly true for those employees whose jobs require some level of creativity, as these types of jobs are often the ones that allow for or benefit most from these customized work arrangements. Using social cognitive theory that focuses on the development of self‐efficacy as a conduit between environmental cues and behavioral outcomes, we explored the relationships between two predominant types of i‐deals—developmental i‐deals and flexibility i‐deals—and employee creativity through the mediating effect of creative self‐efficacy (CSE). Results based on a study of 177 full‐time employees from three organizations supported our hypotheses for developmental i‐deals and employee creativity, with CSE fully mediating this relationship. We also discovered a curvilinear relationship between flexibility i‐deals and creativity in additional post hoc analyses. There are three main contributions of our work. First, using social cognitive theory, we explored an internal motivational mechanism (i.e., CSE) of these customized employment arrangements, adding to the more traditional use of social exchange theory in the extant literature. Second, we found that the two different types of i‐deals have differential effects on employees' creativity through the mediation mechanism of CSE. These results shed light on how the motivational properties of i‐deals differentially affect employee creativity and suggest that there may be alternative intervening mechanisms for flexibility i‐deals. Third, this study contributes to both the creativity and human resource management literatures by examining a new type of work condition, i‐deals, that could enable employees' creativity.