Abstract
Creativity has become prevalent in the routine work of knowledge employees in contemporary enterprises. From the perspective of ambidexterity, drawing upon expectancy theory and self-determination theory (SDT), the present study highlights the driver behind proactive and responsive creativity. Using two-stage longitudinal data collected from 373 knowledge employee-supervisor dyads in information and manufacturing companies in China, the results show that: (1) performance-contingent rewards have an inverted U-shaped influence on proactive creativity and a U-shaped influence on responsive creativity; (2) performance-contingent rewards have an inverted U-shaped influence on autonomous and controlled motivation; (3) autonomous motivation has a positive influence on proactive creativity, but controlled motivation has a negative influence on responsive creativity; (4) autonomous and controlled motivation play a partly mediating mechanism in the non-linear effects of performance-contingent rewards on proactive and responsive creativity, respectively. Managers should enhance the ambidextrous ability to deal with proactive and responsive creativity and establish an applied and dynamic policy of performance-contingent rewards intensity to drive ambidextrous creativity.
Highlights
Nowadays, knowledge employees have comprised the majority of employees since knowledgeintensive jobs are prevalent in organizations (Drucker, 2001, p. 135–159; Oldham and Hackman, 2010)
On the other hand, based on self-determination theory (SDT), we focus on a dual-path mediating model of the effects of performance-contingent rewards on proactive and responsive creativity through autonomous and controlled motivation
A confirmatory factor analysis was conducted to test the discriminant validity of the four latent variables in [AMOS 23.0, International Business Machines Corporation (IBM), Armonk, NY, United States] Three alternative models were constructed based on the four-factor model
Summary
Knowledge employees have comprised the majority of employees since knowledgeintensive jobs are prevalent in organizations (Drucker, 2001, p. 135–159; Oldham and Hackman, 2010). Creativity is one of the most critical determinants for knowledge employees’ productivity and the survival of enterprises in the future All employees are encouraged to participate in creativity fully by offering extrinsic rewards in many enterprises. Performance-contingent rewards are defined as pay offered for employees routine performance indicators; by contrast, creativity-contingent rewards are pay offered only based on employees creative indicators (Byron and Khazanchi, 2012). Given continuous creativity being a part of routine work, the relationships between performance-contingent rewards and employees creativity may be strengthened more closely than ever. It is more worthy of discussing how performance-contingent rewards influence creativity (Gerhart and Fang, 2015)
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