The main goal of this dissertation was to investigate personal and contextual variables that serve as antecedents of employee creativity. I conducted three
independent studies to examine the potential benefits of transformational leadership, promotion focus, and positive affect. Furthermore, I examined promotion focus and creative process engagement as mediators in the relationship between
transformational leadership and employee creativity and I investigated relationship conflicts as a moderator that impairs the beneficial effects of positive affect. Finally, I integrated the findings on promotion focus and positive affect by testing a multiple mediation model with day-specific promotion focus and day-specific positive affect as mediators in the relationship between general promotion focus and employee
creativity. In the following sections, I summarize the findings of the three studies and point out the dissertation’s contribution to research. At the end of this chapter, I discuss the strengths and limitations of this dissertation and I give an overview of the implications for practice and future research.
Summary of Findings
In the first study (Chapter 2), my co-authors and I investigated the mediating mechanisms in the relationship between transformational leadership and employee creativity. Based on Regulatory Focus Theory (Brockner & Higgins, 2001; Higgins, 1997), we proposed promotion focus as a mediator in this relationship. By inducing a promotion focus, transformational leadership should foster employee creativity.
Furthermore, we proposed creative process engagement as an additional mediator.
We hypothesized that promotion-focused employees are more creative because they are more engaged in the creative process. We tested a sequential mediation model
with longitudinal data with three measurement points (each separated by four weeks) from 279 employees.
Results supported the hypothesized model. Transformational leadership at Time 1 was positively related to employee creativity at Time 3. Moreover, this relationship was mediated by promotion focus at Time 2. Participants who reported that they had a transformational leader were more creative because they had a stronger promotion focus. Furthermore, results indicated that the relationship
between promotion focus and creativity was due to an increased engagement in the creative process.
Study 2 (Chapter 3) focused on the day-specific relationship between positive affect and employee creativity. Based on previous research (Amabile et al., 2005;
Binnewies & Wörnlein, 2011), my co-author and I proposed that positive affect is positively related to employee creativity. Moreover, we examined the experience of relationship conflicts as a moderator in this relationship. We proposed that the experience of relationship conflicts can impair the beneficial effects positive affect has on employee creativity. Thus, the relationship between positive affect and employee creativity should only emerge on days low on relationship conflicts. We tested these hypotheses with diary data from 101 employees of the advertising industry.
The results supported our hypotheses. Positive affect was positively related to employee creativity. However, this relationship emerged only on days when the employees experienced a low level of relationship conflicts. Thus, relationship conflicts attenuate the relationship between positive affect and employee creativity.
Study 3 (Chapter 4) integrated the findings of the previous two studies. Again relying on Regulatory Focus Theory (Brockner & Higgins, 2001; Higgins, 1997), we proposed that positive affect is both an antecedent of employee creativity and a
consequence of promotion focus. Furthermore, we considered the assumption that promotion focus has both a general and a specific component (Stam et al., 2010).
We proposed a multiple mediation model with specific promotion focus and day-specific positive affect as mediators in the relationship between general promotion focus and employee creativity. This model was tested with data provided by 122 employees of the advertising industry on two consecutive working days.
Results showed that generally promotion-focused employees were more creative. In line with our hypotheses, day-specific promotion focus and day-specific positive affect mediated the relationship between general promotion focus and
employee creativity. Generally promotion-focused participants were more creative on a specific day because on this day they had a stronger promotion focus and
experienced more positive affect.
Taken together, findings from the three studies demonstrate that employee creativity is related to both contextual and personal variables and that these variables are interconnected. On the one hand, by investigating a contextual variable as a moderator, findings demonstrate that contextual variables can shape the relationship between personal variables and creativity. On the other hand, by investigating
personal processes that are triggered by contextual variables, results help to
understand how contextual variables foster creativity. Moreover, findings show how situation-specific variables are related to more stable variables. Thus, this
dissertation sheds light on the processes that link stable variables to outcome creativity.
In Study 1, promotion focus was found to be a mediator in the relationship between transformational leadership and employee creativity. These findings are in line with two propositions of the Regulatory Focus Theory (Brockner & Higgins, 2001;
Higgins, 1997). First, everyday interaction with the supervisor can influence
promotion focus of the employees. Our results support the assumption that transformational leaders might serve a role model that primes a promotion focus (Kark & Van Dijk, 2007) and that their visions can help employees to develop an ideal self (Brockner & Higgins, 2001). Second, findings support the proposition that
promotion focus is beneficial for creativity. Kark and Van Dijk (2007) argue that promotion focus fosters employee creativity because promotion-focused employees are more eager and willing to take risks. Moreover, our results showed that increased creativity was due to a higher engagement in the creative process. When working on a task, a strong promotion focus was associated with thorough problem identification, broad information search, and increased idea generation. These results illustrate the interplay between personal and contextual characteristic.
Findings of Study 2 are in line with the propositions of the Broaden-and-Build Theory (Fredrickson, 2001) and the dopaminergic theory of positive affect (Ashby et al., 1999) that the experience of positive affect increases cognitive flexibility and thus has beneficial effects on creativity. In this study, the experience of positive affect in the morning was positively related to increased creativity during the working day.
However, the relationship between positive affect and creativity emerged only on days low on relationship conflicts. This finding supports the assumption that
relationship conflicts may induce a conflict mental model (Carnevale & Probst, 1998).
Relationship conflicts refer to the attitudes or values of the involved persons (De Dreu & Weingart, 2003). These conflicts can induce black-and-white thinking which characterizes a conflict mental model (Judd, 1978). Diamentrally opposed to the effects of positive affect, a conflict mental model is associated with cognitive rigidity (Carnevale & Probst, 1998). Positive affect enhances cognitive flexibility, yet the experience of relationship conflicts impairs it again. Thus, it seems that the cognitive effects of relationship conflicts attenuate the beneficial effects of positive affect.
Study 3 supports the proposition of the Regulatory Focus Theory that promotion focus is associated with the experience of activating positive affect (Brockner & Higgins, 2001; Higgins, 1997). Moreover, the effect of promotion focus on creativity is partly due to the experience of positive affect. These findings
demonstrate that affective experience and creativity are not isolated outcomes of an employee’s promotion focus. Rather it shows that the affective experience helps the employee to be more creative.
Furthermore, the results of Study 1 and Study 3 have demonstrated that an employee’s promotion focus is both related to contextual variables (e.g. leadership) and to the personal disposition to be promotion-focused. These findings can be interpreted in line with the proposition that long-lasting relationships (e.g. teacher – student or supervisor – employee relationship) can influence the tendency to be promotion-focused (Higgins & Silberman, 1998) and that contextual variables can shape the situation-specific promotion focus (Brockner & Higgins, 2001). Thus,
considering the effects promotion focus has on creativity, an employee with a weaker tendency to be promotion-focused might need stronger situational cues to develop a promotion focus.
Contributions to Research
Findings from the present dissertation add to previous research on work and organizational psychology. This dissertation extends the knowledge on the contextual and personal antecedents of employee creativity. On the one hand, it points out how personal variables mediate the influence of contextual variables on creativity. On the other hand, it demonstrates how contextual variables can serve as moderators in the relationship between personal variables and creativity. In the following, I illustrate the main research contributions in more detail.
As Regulatory Focus Theory is a topic of growing research interest (Lanaj et al., 2012), this dissertation took a closer look on the personal variable promotion focus. In line with propositions from Regulatory Focus Theory that promotion focus influences behavioral outcomes (Brockner & Higgins, 2001), findings show that promotion focus fosters creativity. Moreover, this dissertation investigated different mediating mechanisms that link promotion focus and creativity.
First, findings indicate that promotion-focused employees are more creative because they are more engaged in the creative process. Brocker and Higgins (2001) proposed that promotion focus is associated with eagerness and risk-taking.
Promotion-focused employees have the motivation to approach a desired end-state (Higgins, 1997). They are likely to try out new ways of doing things if they have the feeling that it will bring them closer to the desired end-state. Compared to prevention-focused employees who have the motivation to avoid undesired end-states,
promotion-focused employees are willing to take the risk that these new ways results in failure (an undesired end-state). Our results support these propositions and
moreover, they suggest that promotion focus manifests in high engagement in the creative process and that this engagement facilitates creativity. The creative process precedes the creative outcome (Gilson & Shalley, 2004). Our results demonstrate that promotion-focused employees take more effort at the three stages of the creative process. They try to understand the nature of the problem, they retain more relevant information, and they use this information to generate more alternative solutions.
Thus, our results suggest that the approach motivation of the promotion focus manifests itself in an increased engagement in the creative process which in turn results in higher creativitiy. These findings help to understand the process within a person that foster creativity.
Second, this dissertation investigated positive affect as another mediator in the relationship between promotion focus and creativity. We integrated the research on the positive affect – creativity link into the framework of Regulatory Focus Theory.
Findings indicate that positive affect is both an antecedent of creativity and a consequence of promotion focus. Thus, it is important to delineate the effects of promotion focus on the affective experience and on behavioral outcomes.
Considering the results of Study 1 and Study 3, promotion focus seems to foster creativity both via its behavioral and affective consequences. Thus, our findings highlight the importance to distinguish between behavioral and affective
consequences (Brockner & Higgins, 2001). This should be even more critical in cases when the behavioral and affective consequences have opposed effects. For example, according to Regulatory Focus Theory, promotion-focused employees who fall short of their goals get angry (Brockner & Higgins, 2001). This anger might induce a conflict mental model which is associated with rigid thinking and narrower cognitive categories (Carnevale & Probst, 1998). At the information search and encoding stage of the creative process, employees benefit from cognitive flexibility and the ability to connect different cognitive categories (Reiter-Palmon & Illies, 2004). In this case, being promotion-focused might increase the motivation to search and encode new information, however, being angry might impair the ability to be successful at this stage of the creative process. These findings highlight the importance to distinguish and to understand the different processes within a person that are related to
creativity.
Moreover, Study 2 demonstrated that the relationship between positive affect and creativity emerges only on days with few relationship conflicts. Thus, contextual variables have the potential to attenuate this relationship. To explain mixed findings regarding the relationship between positive affect and creativity, identifying possible
moderators in this relationship is needed (George & Zhou, 2002; Kaufmann, 2003b;
Kaufmann & Vosburg, 1997). Our findings may help to explain why positive affect is not always beneficial for creativity. The findings indicate that possible moderator variables can impair the beneficial effects of positive affect and thus undermine the relationship between positive affect and creativity. Thus, a contextual variable is not necessarily directly related to employee creativity. Still, it might impair the processes triggered by a person variable and thereby influence the relationship between the person variable and creativity.
Furthermore, findings add to the research on transformational leadership.
Even though it has been previously demonstrated that transformational leadership has beneficial effects on creative performance (G. Wang et al., 2011), research on the mediating mechanisms is sparse. We found that transformational leaders strenghten the promotion focus of their employees and thus increase employee creativity. These findings help to understand how leadership behavior results in more employee creativity.
Moreover, scholars propose that transformational leadership might indirectly reduce the emergence of relationship conflicts (Hüttermann & Boerner, 2011). By increasing team identification, transformational leaders prevent that task conflicts turn into relationship conflicts and that diversity results in relationship conflicts
(Hüttermann & Boerner, 2011). Considering the results of this dissertation, the influence of transformational leadership on positive affect and creativity might be twofold. On the one hand, transformational leadership might indirectly foster the experience of positive affect via promotion focus and on the other hand, by reducing relationship conflicts, transformational leadership might strengthen the relationship between positive affect and creativity.
Moreover, findings of this dissertation are in line with the proposition of Regulatory Focus Theory that promotion focus has both a stable and a situational component (Brockner & Higgins, 2001). The situation-specific promotion focus is shaped by both the general tendency to be promotion-focused and contextual variables. Higgins and Silberman (1998) argue that long term interactions with
significant others shape the stable component. Following this reasoning, supervisors who have a medium-term relationship with their employees might have an influence beyond the specific situation and therefore shape the stable component of their employee’s promotion focus. This findings point out the importance to distinguish the general and situation-specific component of a person variable and to consider the situational influences when one investigates this variable from a day-specific perspective.
Figure 5.1 illustrates how an integrated framework of all variables of this dissertation could look like. In Study 1, findings showed that transformational leadership and employee’s promotion focus are positively related. As described above, the medium-term relationship between supervisor and employee might influence the stable component of their employee’s promotion focus. Moreover, scholars assume that transformational leadership can prevent relationship conflicts (Hüttermann & Boerner, 2011). The results of Study 3 demonstrated that general promotion focus was positively related to both specific promotion focus and day-specific experience of positive affect. Findings of Study 1 showed that promotion focus predicted the engagement in the creative process four weeks later. This relationship might emerge on a day-specific basis as well. Furthermore, it might be possible that day-specific positive affect influences the engagement in the creative process (see Research Implication). As the findings of Study 1 and Study 2 indicated, creative process engagement and day-specific positive affect foster creativity and the
experience of relationship conflicts moderates the relationship between day-specific positive affect and creativity.
Figure 5.1. Illustration of an integrated framework of all variables.
Transformational leadership
General promotion focus
Creative process engagement Day-specific
promotion focus
Day-specific positive affect
Creativity
Relationship conflicts
Strengths and Limitations
The main limitation of this dissertation is the use of self-report data in all three studies. This raises concerns of common method variance and whether the
relationships among the study variables are biased (Podsakoff et al., 2003).
Specifically, common method bias can be due to participants who want to maintain consistency in their answers. This is particularly relevant when the related variables refer to a similar content such as creativity and creative process engagement in Study 1 and general and day-specific promotion focus in Study 3. We followed the suggestion of Podsakoff et al. (2003) to separate the measurement of these variables and used different measurement points for creativity and creative process
engagement in Study 1 and for general and day-specific promotion focus in Study 3.
Another source of common method variance might be positive affect (Podsakoff et al., 2003). When experiencing positive affect, employees might view themselves in more favorable terms. Since the relationship between positive affect and creativity is a main focus of this dissertation, this source of common method variance is highly relevant for this dissertation. It implies that the experience of positive affect might be related to creativity not because employees are actually more creative but rather because they view themselves as more creative. Contrary to this reasoning, recent meta-analytic findings demonstrated that the use of self-report data did not inflate the relationship between positive affect and creativity compared to non-self-report data (Ng & Feldman, 2012). Moreover, using non-self-report data does not guarantee that these ratings are more accurate (Spector, 2006). When supervisors rate the creativity of their employees, their estimations might be biased as well. Thus, using
multi-source rating does not necessarily result in a more accurate estimation of the relationship between predictor and outcome (Spector, 2006). Still, future research
should try to replicate our findings and use others sources than self-report data to assess creativity.
We conducted three independent studies with different time frames and different samples to enhance the generalizability of our findings. We tested positive affect as an antecedent of creativity in Study 2 and Study 3 and promotion focus in Study 1 and Study 3, whereas transformational leadership was tested as an
antecedent only in Study 1. The results of all three studies demonstrated positive relationships between these antecedents and employee creativity. Furthermore, findings showed that the relationships between employee creativity and the investigated antecedents (with the exception of transformational leadership) were similar in different samples and thus support the generalizabilty of our findings.
However, the use of highly selective samples in Study 2 and Study 3 might impair the external validity. In these studies, we relied on employees working in the advertising industry. This field was chosen because in this field being creative is part of the job (Stuhlfaut & Windels, 2012). This raises the concern whether our findings are applicable for other fields of occupation. For the generalizability of promotion focus as an antecedent of employee creativity, we tested this relationship in Study 1 and Study 3. In Study 1, the participants worked in different fields of occupations, including information technology, human resources, research and development, technical support, executive management, strategy, and public relations. The similar findings for promotion focus in both studies support the external validity of these results. On the contrary, positive affect was only tested in samples comprising employees of the advertising industry. Thus, it is the concern that the positive relationship between positive affect and creativity might be due to creative job requirements in the advertising industry. However, George and Zhou (2002) found that creative job requirements can actually have an opposite effect. Creative job
requirements can moderate the relationship between positive affect and creativity in a way that positive affect can even impair creativity when the creative job
requirements are high. Thus, the relationship between positive affect and employee creativity might even be stronger in other fields than the advertising industry.
We used different time lags in each study. Thus, we were able to consider the
We used different time lags in each study. Thus, we were able to consider the