Pressure to Be Creative: How Organizational Creativity Pressure Influences Employee Work Engagement

Abstract

Creativity and innovation are vital for organizational growth and success, driving many organizations to increase pressure for employee creativity. Yet, researchers have neglected investigating how employees respond to creativity pressure at the workplace. This paper introduces the concept of organizational creativity pressure – the pressure on employees to continually develop novel and useful ideas and solutions – and investigates how employees respond to this pressure. Drawing on the transactional theory of stress (Lazarus & Folkman, 1984) and the need-based theory of work motivation (Green, Finkel, Fitzsimons, & Gino, 2017), we theorize that organizational creativity pressure, as a form of workplace stressor, is appraised as a challenge stressor and promotes work engagement in employees. Building on the emerging research on gender and creativity, we further theorize that the positive effects of organizational creativity pressure on challenge appraisal and work engagement are stronger for men than for women. An experimental study and a field survey found evidence consistent with our theory. Unexpectedly, the pattern of interaction is such that men are significantly less engaged than women at low organizational creativity pressure. At high organizational creativity pressure, there is no significant gender difference in engagement. These findings have important theoretical contributions for research in creativity, gender and workplace stress as well as practical implications for modern organizations in which creativity is an important performance imperative.