Employee Creativity Research Articles

Give full play to the overqualified individuals: Do job crafting and leader–member exchange matter?

Drawing upon psychological contract theory, this study investigated how and when perceived overqualification may affect employees’ creativity. Data were collected from 164 employees and their immediate supervisors in Chinese manufacturing, information technology (IT), and services companies (female = 53.05%; age range 31–50 years; bachelor’s degree = 70.73%) using a two-wave approach over one month. Results from hierarchical regression analysis and bootstrapping analysis indicated that self-perception of overqualification was associated with lower employee creativity via less job crafting. Furthermore, higher leader–member exchange accentuated the indirect effect of perceived overqualification on creativity via job crafting. These findings are consistent with psychological contract theory in that overqualified employees are aware of organisations’ failure to live up to the psychological contract. These findings imply a need for addressing organisational context factors to provide guidance for supporting employee job crafting across qualification levels.

Supervisor incivility and service employee creativity: a moderated mediation model of negative affect state and core self-evaluation

PurposeThe present study examines the effect of supervisor incivility on service employee creativity and the mediating mechanism of negative affect state on the said relationship with the aid of Affective Events Theory (AET) and Social Power Theory. Additionally, the study explores the mitigating role of core self-evaluation in the dual stage of the moderated mediation model.Design/methodology/approachSurvey data were collected from 420 frontline employees working in four-star and five-star hotels across India and PROCESS macro in SPSS 23.0 was employed to test the hypotheses proposed in the study.FindingsThe study findings observe that frontline employees experiencing supervisor incivility face a negative affect state and it further diminishes service employee creativity. Also, the indirect effect gets attenuated at dual stages when frontline employees are equipped with a high level of core self-evaluation.Practical implicationsThe study findings provide various insights to the managers to understand the deleterious effect of supervisor incivility at work and to develop interventions to manage supervisor incivility and the negative affect state among frontline hotel employees.Originality/valueThe present study is the first and unique attempt to investigate the role of supervisor incivility experienced by frontline hotel employees in India with reference to their creativity towards customers and mediating mechanism of negative affect state. The study adds value to the literature by establishing the role of core self-evaluation in the moderated mediation model. Further, the study also provides a unique contribution to the management of frontline hospitality employees.

Affect under need satisfaction and need thwarting: A new classification for the prediction of creative performance

Affect plays a pivotal role in fostering creative performance, and there is increasing recognition that different levels and types of affect may exert distinct impacts on creative performance. Drawing upon self-determination theory, this study aims to explore a novel classification of affect—affect under need satisfaction and need thwarting—and examine its relationship with creative performance. Study 1 involved 75 participants to investigate the content of affect under need satisfaction and need thwarting. Study 2 explores the relationship between affect and creative performance using a sample of 115 employees from Beijing. The findings unveiled nine types of affect under need satisfaction (e.g., moderate levels of excited) and eleven types of affect under need thwarting (e.g., low levels of afraid). Positive associations were observed between affect under need satisfaction and creativity, while negative associations were found between affect under need thwarting and creativity. Empirical evidence corroborating the significant role of the new classification of affect in enhancing employee creativity within the context of Chinese academia and researchers is presented.

Enhancing employees’ creative performance by giving developmental feedback

PurposeThe principal objective of this current research is to explore and test an underlying mechanism to solve the inconsistent relationship between supervisors’ developmental feedback and employee creativity. This study also tests the moderating role of absorptive capacity in fully understanding the relationship between two constructs.Design/methodology/approachA time-lagged survey was utilized to collect data from 317 employees working at information technology (IT) organizations in Vietnam. This research conducted a hierarchical regression analysis to examine the hypotheses.FindingsThis research found that employees’ operational skills fully mediated the link between supervisors’ developmental feedback and employees’ creative performance. Moreover, absorptive capacity positively moderated the relationship between supervisors’ developmental feedback and employees’ operational skills as well as the relationship between employees’ operational skills and employee creativity.Originality/valueThis research is one of the first papers to discuss the mediating role of employees’ operational skills in associating supervisors’ developmental feedback with employee creativity in response to the calls of previous studies. To fully comprehend the indirect impact of supervisors' developmental feedback on workers' creative performance, this research also examines the moderating influence of absorptive capacity at the individual level.

The Effects of Issue Leadership on Hotel Employee Creativity in China and Korea: The Double-Mediating Roles of Psychological Empowerment, Trust in Leader, and Organizational Commitment

Purpose - This research focuses on creativity and leadership as key roles of organizational success. While creativity plays a crucial role in the success of companies, leadership is a significant predictor of employee and organizational creativity. The purpose of this research is to examine the impact of issue leadership on hotel employee creativity, with a specific focus on Korea and China, and determine whether issue leadership is effective on the creativity of hotel employees via empowerment, trust in leader, and organizational commitment in both countries. Design/Methodology/Approach - The research model describes psychological empowerment, trust in leader, and organizational commitment as mediators between issue leadership and employee creativity. A questionnaire survey was conducted with hotel employees in Gyeogju and Busan in Korea, and Yunnan province in China. A total of 241 samples from Korea and 235 samples from China were analyzed using SPSS and AMOS.24 to examine the relationships between issue leadership and creativity, which were double-mediated by psychological empowerment, trust in leader, and organization commitment. Findings - The findings indicate that issue leadership has a positive effect on the creativity of hotel employees in both Korea and China. This study also reveals that in the Korean group, issue leadership has a greater impact on creativity in fostering the double-mediating roles of psychological empowerment and organizational commitment, whereas in the Chinese group, issue leadership has a greater impact on creativity in fostering the double-mediating roles of trust in leader and organizational commitment. Research Implications - This research has both academic and practical implications for hotel operations in Korea and China, providing valuable insights into the role of issue leadership in promoting employee creativity.

公平与激励

Integrating the theory of fairness and incentive in enterprise salary performance management can not only ensure the fairness of the salary system, but also stimulate the work enthusiasm and creativity of employees, shape a positive corporate culture and enhance the competitiveness of enterprises. Based on this, the article elaborates the application value of fairness and incentive in enterprise pay performance management, analyses the performance of imbalance between fairness and incentive in pay performance management, and finally explores the enterprise pay performance management strategy based on fairness and incentive from the aspects of pay system, incentive mechanism, enterprise culture, and pay performance management intelligence, with a view to providing useful reference for the innovation of enterprise pay performance management. In order to improve the efficiency of enterprise pay performance management, create a positive corporate atmosphere, and promote the sustainable development of enterprises.

Różnorodność preferencji pracowników wobec pracy twórczej versus rutynowej oraz indywidualnej versus zespołowej w warunkach pracy zdalnej

The change in preferred work models that occurred during the pandemic and post-pandemic period has meant that both creative and reproductive work now takes place in stationary, hybrid, and fully remote conditions. Employees, both those performing creative and reproductive work, in teams or individually, increasingly have to function efficiently in virtual reality, and thus in conditions of physical loneliness. Therefore, this article aims to identify how performing work remotely contributed to changing the preferences of creative and non-creative employees towards performing professional duties of a creative versus routine nature, individually or in teams. The research was carried out using the CAWI survey method among 1,000 respondents in Poland, examining their opinions on the preferences for performing work of various types in remote conditions. The study showed that each of the four types of work examined is a challenge for employees who work remotely, with the majority of respondents declaring that each type of work (creative individual, creative team, routine individual, and routine team) is more difficult for them than in the pre-pandemic reality. Moreover, it was found that the more creative the nature of the work performed, the more negatively employees assessed the preferences for performing creative and routine work, both in teams and individually. Managing creative and reproductive work is one of the most important challenges for modern managers. Currently, many scientific discussions concern what work can be automated or entrusted to artificial intelligence, and what should remain in human hands. This article may be of interest to managers as well as psychologists and creativity educators, whose task will be to prepare work teams to perform creative tasks (work of a creative nature) in remote conditions. The original value of the presented work is such a broad approach to research issues, considering both preferences for creativity and reproduction of work in conditions of individual remote work and remote teamwork. The article takes into account aspects that are important from the perspective of human resources management, management of creative teams, and employee creativity management with the increasing use of hybrid and fully remote work models in organisations.

Rethinking the Building Blocks of Employee Creativity: A Meta-Synthesis of Qualitative Research

Rethinking the Building Blocks of Employee Creativity: A Meta-Synthesis of Qualitative Research

Fostering Innovation: Exploring Key Factors and Their Relationship on Organizational Performance Towards Innovation Management Culture

Employee creativity positively impacts organizations’ ability to foster innovation and influences organizational learning, as the 4.0 industry promises more innovative, sustainable, and smarter productivity. This study addresses the importance of innovation culture in the technology industry’s business landscape. Despite the growing attention given to innovation culture, there is a need to explore its relationship with corporate performance. A descriptive research design with a quantitative approach using regression analysis was used. Furthermore, 398 respondents from Chinese technological enterprises were investigated. Based on these findings, the workforce in the technology sector hires people of different ages and positions. Those who belong to the supervisory level focus more on quality control and process improvement. The findings also demonstrated that innovative culture significantly impacts firm performance through its influence on factors such as organizational learning, creativity and empowerment, value orientation, and market orientation. Thus, it emphasizes the importance of aligning innovation strategies at all organizational levels and effectively allocating resources to verify how innovation stimulates innovative behavior in organizations. Organizational learning can improve the shared values and behaviors of an organization and further improve organizational performance. A strong correlation between corporate culture and organizational performance. Moreover, the more effort a company puts into building its culture and the more it achieves, the greater its advantage in financial and non-financial performance, and the higher sustainability for innovation management culture will be evident.

Digital leadership: a systematic literature review and future research agenda

PurposeIn view of the increasing exploration and scattered literature on digital leadership, this study aims to clarify the concept, characteristics and structure of digital leadership, identify its focus research themes and further determine future research directions in this field.Design/methodology/approachA systematic literature review is adopted in this study using 53 academic documents published in peer-reviewed journals and conference proceedings, which comprehensively combs and analyzes the research achievements.FindingsThe key characteristics of digital leadership are vision motivation, digital empowerment, innovation and entrepreneurship, cross-boundary collaboration and dynamic adaptation. Digital strategic thinking, digital insight, digital change and digital talent development are the core dimensions of digital leadership. Besides, there are three main research topics: the application of digital leadership in certain contexts including school education, government governance and business management; the development of digital leadership scale within diverse contexts; and the effectiveness of digital leadership at the organizational, team and individual levels. Digital leadership has a positive role in organizational change and innovation, team effectiveness, and employee creativity and innovation behavior.Originality/valueThis study helps to clarify the connotation of digital leadership and its research progress, status and gaps, which contributes to the thorough knowledge system in the digital leadership area and the promising avenues for future research.

Reexamining the relationship between extrinsic rewards and creativity: a study from the creative process engagement perspective

Empirical findings concerning the effects of extrinsic rewards on employee creativity have been controversial and have focused mainly on the theoretical mechanism of intrinsic motivation. Although intrinsic motivation is a primary impetus for creativity, generating creative outputs is a process that requires a sequence of creative endeavors. Drawing from the componential theory of creativity, this study proposes a positive relationship between extrinsic rewards and creativity via creative process engagement. Additionally, two types of employee characteristics, i.e. person-job fit and cognitive flexibility, are important contingency factors affecting the reward–creativity relationship. Our empirical analyses of data collected from 228 supervisor-subordinate dyads demonstrate the mediating role of creative process engagement in the reward–creativity relationship. Moreover, employees with high levels of person-job fit and cognitive flexibility are found to have the highest levels of creative process engagement and, in turn, the greatest creativity when motivated by extrinsic rewards for creativity. These findings have several theoretical and managerial implications related to reward–creativity research and practice.

The Effect of Organizational Structure on Employee Creativity: A Study of Lafarge Africa Plc, Calabar

The main objective of the study was to conduct an analysis of Lafarge Africa Plc, located in Calabar, with a specific emphasis on employee creativity and organizational structure. The study's specific objectives were to examine the relationship between centralization and employee creativity at Lafarge Africa Plc, Calabar, the number of management levels present, and the effects of formalization on creativity at that organization. The descriptive research method was utilized for this investigation. The subjects of this study comprised 410 employees of Lafarge Africa Plc in Calabar, consisting of both managers and regular personnel. The data for this study was collected from primary sources through the utilization of a structured questionnaire. We conducted an ordinary least square regression analysis using SPSS 27.0 in order to derive significant insights from the data. The regression results, with ?1=0.750, p=0.000, and t=1.186, indicated that there is a significant and positive relationship between the number of organizational strata and employee creativity. As demonstrated by the model results (?1=0.355, p=0.000, t=4.288), there is a significant relationship between the degree of formalization and employee creativity. The regression analysis reveals that employee creativity is considerably and positively impacted by centralization (?1=0.722, p=0.000, t=11.562). Establishing a corporate environment that encourages and acknowledges innovative thinking is imperative for the company to achieve global dominance, substantial financial success, and development.

The Relationship between Transformational Leadership Style, Job Creativity and Job Performance Outcomes of Employees in Vietnamese Startup Enterprises

The Relationship between Transformational Leadership Style, Job Creativity and Job Performance Outcomes of Employees in Vietnamese Startup Enterprises

Relationship of challenge and hindrance stressors with turnover intention and employee’s creativity: The moderating role of emotional intelligence

The present research aimed to explore the direct relationship of challenge and hindrance stressors with turnover intention and employee creativity, moderated by emotional intelligence. This study has collected the data through questionnaires from two hundred and fifty (250) telecom sector employees of Islamabad. The data has been analyzed by regression and Cronbach’s Alpha. The findings demonstrated a significant negative relationship of challenge stressors with turnover intention and positive relationship of hindrance stressors with turnover intention. In addition, emotional intelligence moderated the direct relationship between challenge stressors and turnover intention. The study contributes to improving the work system by providing better understanding of emotional intelligence role in controlling the turnover intention.

A conceptual study on investigating the effect of innovation, transformational leadership and work stressor on employee performance of SMEs in Pakistan

The understanding of elements contributing to employee performance of small and medium enterprises (SMEs) in Pakistan is still deficient. As the SMEs of Pakistan have had difficulty surviving in their early years, their initial failure rate is 90% -95%. Initially, this is a concept paper to provide useful insights into the relationship between organizational innovation, transformational leadership, and work stressor on employee performance of small and medium enterprises (SMEs) in Pakistan's manufacturing sector. The relationship between organizational innovation, transformational leadership, and work stressor and their effect on overall employee performance is established through a review of the literature. The mediating role of creativity was also an attempt to explore. In order to reach the optimum level of employee performance to increase the outcome of SMEs in Pakistan, it is mandatory to provide an open and supportive environment to employees so they can cultivate their creative ideas. This study mainly focused on the factors that directly influence employee creativity to ensure progress in employee performance. This study emerged from the fact that a very limited study is being carried out on this issue, and further research should be carried out in this field, especially in Pakistan. A model is proposed, and hypotheses will be developing and discussed based on theoretical considerations. The findings of this study can contribute to business practice by informing employee performance, improvement strategies. Business leaders could gain additional insights into strategies to engage and motivate employees to improve performance.

Perceived overqualification and employee outcomes: The dual pathways and the moderating effects of dual‐focused transformational leadership

AbstractResearch findings concerning the effects of perceived overqualification on task performance are mixed. To reconcile the disparate findings, drawing on person‐environment theory, we propose cynicism toward the job and constructive deviance as contrasting dual pathways that explain the negative and positive effects of perceived overqualification on task performance and employee creativity. We also examine the moderating effects of dual‐focused transformational leadership (TFL) on the relationships between perceived overqualification and the two mediating mechanisms. We test this model using data collected from 469 employees and their 135 supervisors via two‐wave surveys. The results support the negative and positive mediating mechanisms. In addition, based on one field study and two online experiments, we find that individual‐focused TFL mitigates the relationship between perceived overqualification and cynicism toward the job, but that team‐focused TFL enhances the relationship between perceived overqualification and constructive deviance.

Competence Drives Interest or Vice Versa? Untangling the Bidirectional Relationships between Creative Self‐Efficacy and Intrinsic Motivation for Creativity in Shaping Employee Creativity

AbstractResearch has examined creative self‐efficacy and intrinsic motivation for creativity as important antecedents to employee creativity, but little is known about how the two antecedents influence each other to foster employee creativity. This study proposes two theoretical possibilities. First, by enhancing resilience, creative self‐efficacy can promote intrinsic motivation for creativity, which in turn boosts employee creativity. Task difficulty further strengthens creative self‐efficacy's effect on intrinsic motivation for creativity and employee creativity (via resilience). Second, by fostering creative process engagement, intrinsic motivation for creativity can promote creative self‐efficacy, which in turn boosts employee creativity. Task variability further amplifies the effect of intrinsic motivation for creativity on creative self‐efficacy and employee creativity (via creative process engagement). Results from two experiments and two field studies largely supported the hypothesized relationships. We extend the creativity literature by untangling the interrelationships between creative self‐efficacy and intrinsic motivation for creativity in shaping employee creativity.

How can leaders spark employee creativity? An interpersonal emotion management perspective

Purpose This paper seeks to examine how leaders shape employee creativity by using interpersonal emotion management (IEM) strategies. Drawing on the social information processing (SIP) theory, the authors argue that psychological safety translates leader problem-focused IEM into employee creativity, an impact which is moderated by organizational justice.Design/methodology/approach Data were collected in two waves from 201 employees and their leaders in China. Regression analysis was used to test the hypotheses.Findings Leader problem-focused IEM is positively related to employee creativity, and this relationship is mediated by psychological safety. Organizational justice positively moderates the relationship between leader problem-focused IEM and psychological safety as well as the indirect relationship between leader problem-focused IEM and employee creativity via psychological safety.Originality/value This paper identifies a novel and useful predictor of employee creativity from the perspective of leader problem-focused IEM and provides practical insights for organizations regarding ways of improving employee creativity.

Supervisor knowledge Hiding’s impact on employee creativity: implications for thriving at work and future career

ABSTRACT This study examines the relationship between supervisor knowledge hiding behaviour (SKHB) and employee creativity in the context of the social exchange theory (SET). The study also investigates the mediating roles of supervisor ostracism (as perceived by employees, or SO) and employee knowledge hiding behaviour (EKHB), and the moderating role of mastery motivational climate (MMC) on this relationship. Data was collected from 216 employees working in IT-related organisations in Pakistan and the results support the hypotheses that SKHB negatively impacts employee creativity through the sequential mediating effects of SO and EKHB. Moreover, the study found that MMC serves as a buffer, reducing the negative impact of SKHB on employee perception of SO. Overall, this study provides a deeper understanding of how supervisor knowledge hiding can affect employee creativity, which is crucial for organisations to gain a competitive advantage.

Pairing up with anthropomorphized artificial agents: Leveraging employee creativity in service encounters

Even as artificial agents (AAs) become more prevalent in service encounters, customers continue to express generally unfavorable views of their creativity, which can lead to negative service evaluations. Drawing on anthropomorphism and group stereotyping literature, the authors propose a trait transference effect from human employees to AAs in dyadic service teams. The results of five studies confirm that an anthropomorphized (vs. nonanthropomorphized) AA paired with a creative employee boosts service evaluations, both attitudinal and behavioral. Anthropomorphism induces greater perceived entitativity of the AA–employee dyad, prompting customers to transfer the creativity exhibited by the employee to the AA and perceive the AA as more creative. This transference effect is attenuated when the temporal stability of the dyad is low, customers’ lay beliefs about group entitativity are challenged, or customers have utilitarian consumption goals. These results contribute novel insights about AAs in service teams, with compelling practical implications.