Proactive Vitality Management and Creative Work Performance: The Role of Self-Insight and Social Support

Integrating proactivity and creativity literatures, we argue that people can perform more creatively at work when they proactively manage their levels of vitality. Proactive vitality management is defined as individual, goal-oriented behavior aimed at managing physical and mental energy to promote optimal functioning at work. We hypothesize that this process may be facilitated by being aware of one's own state and by support from others. A total of 242 employees participated in a weekly diary study for three consecutive weeks, yielding 610 observations. Results of multilevel analyses show that participants reported more creative work performance during weeks in which they had proactively used vitality management. In addition, in line with our predictions, self-insight and social support for creativity in the workplace acted as cross-level moderators and strengthened the relationship between proactive vitality management and creativity. We conclude that a proactive approach regarding physical and mental energy is an important bottom-up strategy that may foster creativity in work settings.     

创造性人格与员工创造力:一个被调节的中介模型研究

本文基于动机行动和成就动机理论,构建一个被调节的中介模型以检验创造性人格对员工创造力产生的作用机理。以251套来自主管-下属配对的问卷数据为样本,实证分析结果表明:创造性人格可预测员工创造力产生,学习目标导向与绩效证明目标导向在两者之间起部分中介作用;内在动机能够强化个体目标导向对创造力的作用,并显著正向调节创造性人格对员工创造力的间接效应。最后,论文讨论了研究发现对员工创造力产生的理论和实践意义。     

Proactive vitality management in the work context: development and validation of a new instrument

In the present research, we use proactivity literature and studies on energy at work to argue that individuals may proactively manage their vitality (i.e., physical and mental energy) to promote optimal functioning at work. We develop and validate a scale to measure proactive vitality management (PVM), and explore the nomological network. We conducted a five-day diary study (N = 133; 521 days), a survey study (N = 813) and a cross-sectional study measuring daily PVM (N = 246) among working individuals from various occupational sectors. The results show that PVM can be reliably measured with eight items that load on one overall factor, both on general and daily level. Furthermore, daily PVM was moderately but positively related to the use of work-related strategies and micro-breaks. Moreover, PVM related positively to relevant personal characteristics (i.e., proactive personality and self-insight) and showed moderate but positive relationships with job crafting and relaxation (convergent validity). PVM was unrelated to psychological detachment and decreasing hindering demands (discriminant validity). Finally, PVM was positively related to well-being, in-role work performance, creative work performance and performance on the Remote Associates Test (criterion validity). We conclude that employees may promote their own work performance through the use of PVM.     

Linking Proactive Personality to Creative Performance: The Role of Job Crafting and High-Involvement Work Systems

This study proposed that job crafting serves as a mechanism reflecting how proactive personality affects creative performance, and this study explored whether these relationships are moderated by high-involvement work systems. Drawn from the conservation of resources theory to develop a cross-level moderated mediation model, a three-wave longitudinal study was conducted with 346 employees and their supervisors in 27 high technology firms in China. This study found that proactive personality was positively related to creative performance and that job crafting mediated the relationship between proactive personality and creative performance, and an indirect effect of proactive personality on creative performance through job crafting was significant when high-involvement work systems was low but not high. Thus, the research results indicate that when human resource management involves less participatory management, incentive rewards, extensive training and information sharing, proactive employees can draw from their personality to craft their job tasks, relations and cognitions, thereby improving creative performance. The theoretical and managerial implications, limitations, and future research directions are discussed.     

Strengths use and work engagement: a weekly diary study

The present study among 65 civil engineers investigates the impact of organizational support for strengths use on weekly work engagement and proactive behaviour. Positive psychology postulates that strengths use makes people feel authentic and efficacious. We argue that employees use these positive psychological states as resources that fuel work engagement and proactive work behaviour. Participants completed a general questionnaire regarding strengths use support, and a weekly quantitative diary questionnaire regarding their strengths use, self-efficacy, work engagement, and proactive behaviour over a period of five consecutive workweeks. In line with the hypotheses, the results of multilevel structural equation analyses showed that organizational strengths use support was positively related to weekly strengths use. Furthermore, the results indicated that weekly strengths use was positively related to weekly work engagement and proactive behaviour, through weekly self-efficacy (sequential mediation). Although strengths use support contributed indirectly to work engagement (mediated by strengths use and self-efficacy), there was no significant indirect relationship with proactive behaviour. Our study indicates that strengths use is associated with employees’ levels of self-efficacy, work engagement, and proactive behaviour and that organizations can help employees to use their strengths more often by giving them the opportunity to do what they are good at.     

The relative importance of proactive behaviors and outcomes for predicting newcomer learning,well-being,and work engagement

New employees can accelerate and optimize their socialization by behaving proactively, although the key behaviors vary across studies. Recent research suggests that newcomer proactive behaviors influence socialization through the mediating effect of corresponding proactive outcomes. This may partly explain differences across studies, along with possible variations in the relative importance of specific proactive behaviors. This study investigates further the mediating role of proactive outcomes, and the relative importance of different proactive behaviors and proactive outcomes in predicting newcomer learning, well-being, and work engagement. Based on a sample of 176 temporary agency workers, support for the mediating role of proactive outcomes was found, although some proactive behaviors were effective in their own right. Relative importance analyses revealed that different proactive behaviors were important for different socialization criteria. Practical and theoretical implications of these findings are discussed.     

Looking on the Bright Side: The Positive Role of Organisational Politics in the Relationship between Employee Engagement and Performance at Work

Scholars have largely focused on the negative consequences of organisational politics for employees' performance. In contrast, we maintain that organisational politics has positive aspects and moderates the relationship between employee engagement and behaviors at work such as knowledge sharing, creativity, proactivity, and adaptivity. Using data from 253 high‐tech employees and their supervisors in Israel, our findings demonstrate that perceptions of organisational politics strengthen the relationship between employee engagement and these behaviors. When engaged employees perceive their workplace to be political, they are more proactive, creative, and adaptive, and more likely to share their knowledge with their peers. These findings confirm the challenge/opportunity stressor theory regarding perceptions of organisational politics and suggest that whether politics is viewed as positive or negative depends on the employees' point of view. For those who are engaged and more actively involved in their jobs, politics can be regarded as a challenge and even an opportunity for obtaining more resources to improve their performance. Implications for the development of theory and practice in this area are discussed.     

Cross-National Explorations of the Impact of Affect at Work Using the State-Trait Emotion Measure: A Coordinated Series of Studies in the United States,China, and Romania

Drawing on the social information process perspective, we hypothesized that transformational leadership fosters psychological safety climate leading to enhanced individual-level creative process engagement. Furthermore, psychological safety climate was hypothesized to strengthen the relationship between creative process engagement and employee creativity. The hypothesized model was tested with data obtained from a sample of 358 employees and their supervisors from two organizations in the People’s Republic of China. Results of hierarchical linear modeling analysis revealed that transformational leadership influenced creative process engagement via psychological safety climate. Furthermore, psychological safety climate moderated the creative process engagement–creativity relationship such that the relationship was stronger in groups with high rather than low psychological safety climate.     

工作-家庭支持对员工创造力的影响探讨

采用问卷调查法, 以773对上级-下属配对数据为样本, 探讨了工作-家庭支持对员工创造力的影响及其内在作用机制。结果表明, 在我国文化背景下, 工作-家庭支持由组织支持、领导支持、情感性支持和工具性支持四个因素组成, 其中组织支持和领导支持统称为工作领域支持, 情感性支持和工具性支持统称为家庭领域支持; 工作投入中介工作领域支持对员工创造力的影响; 创造性人格在工作投入与员工创造力关系之间起调节作用。     

Linking Failure Feedback to Individual Creativity: The Moderation Role of Goal Orientation

The sense-making theory of creativity is extended by identifying failure feedback as a process that shapes creative interpretations and actions. We also consider the moderating effect of goal orientation on the relationship between failure feedback and individual creativity, according to the sense-making theory. A 2-waves survey data from 345 R&D employees and their supervisors in five Chinese high-tech companies indicated: (a) supervisors’ failure feedback positively correlates with incremental and radical creative performance, (b) learning goal orientation strengthens the relationship between failure feedback and creativity, and (c) avoidance goal orientation attenuates the relationship between failure feedback and creativity. The findings suggest that goal orientations play roles in optimizing failure feedback effects on creativity outcomes.     

新员工工作重塑会带来积极的结果吗?领导成员交换与个体传统性的作用

每年都有大量的高校毕业生进入职场。在企业竞争日趋激烈的今天, 如何将这些大学毕业生快速地转变成高绩效的企业员工, 是一个重要的研究议题。基于自我表达的理论视角, 本研究探讨工作重塑能否促进新员工的任务绩效和创造力, 以及领导成员交换和个体传统性如何影响新员工的工作重塑。我们对256名新员工进行4轮的问卷调查, 最终得到125份有效的匹配问卷。数据分析结果显示: (1)工作重塑会正向影响新员工的工作投入, 进而影响他们的任务绩效和创造力; (2)对于传统性比较高的新员工, 领导成员交换可以促进他们的工作重塑; (3)个体传统性正向调节领导成员交换对任务绩效、创造力的间接作用, 当个体传统性高时, 领导成员交换通过工作重塑和工作投入对任务绩效、创造力的积极影响更为显著。本研究从新员工自我表达的视角为组织提升新员工的任务绩效和创造力提供了新的思路。     

Fostering Creativity in the Classroom: Effects of Teachers' Epistemological Beliefs,Motivation, and Goal Orientation

The relationships of teachers' epistemological beliefs, motivation, and goal orientation to their instructional practices that foster student creativity were examined. Teachers' perceived instructional practices that facilitate the development of multiple perspectives in problem solving, transfer, task commitment, creative skill use, and collaboration were measured as indicators of their effort to foster creative thinking in students. Participants were 178 elementary‐school teachers of third‐, fourth‐, and fifth‐graders. Teachers' learning goal orientation was the most significant teacher attribute that demonstrated significant impacts on all five creativity‐fostering instructional practices. Teachers with sophisticated beliefs about knowledge and with high intrinsic motivation for creative work also reported supporting student creativity through some of their instructional practices. However, teachers' motivation for challenging work, beliefs about learning, or performance goals did not significantly predict most of the creativity‐fostering instructional practices. Educational implications of the current findings are offered.     

Daily playful work design: A trait activation perspective

We introduce the concept of daily playful work design (PWD) and test the factorial validity of a new instrument to assess PWD. Using trait activation theory, we hypothesize that employees who are more open to experiences and playful will be more engaged and creative in their work on the days they playfully design their work activities. We tested the factorial validity of the instrument and our hypotheses in a sample of 88 employees who answered questionnaires during five consecutive workdays (N = 391 observations). The multilevel analyses yielded evidence for the psychometric quality of the PWD instrument and generally supported the hypotheses. The traits openness and playfulness moderated the relationship of daily PWD behaviors with daily work engagement and creativity.     

Individual Goal Orientations,Team Empowerment,and Employee Creative Performance: A Case of Cross‐level Interactions

Intrigued by relationship between team motivational context and individual characteristics in the organizational reality, we developed and tested a cross‐level model to investigate the interactive effects of team empowerment and individual goal orientations on individual creative performance through the mediating mechanism of an individual's creative self‐efficacy. Using multi‐wave multi‐source data from 63 R&D teams in three IT companies, we found that (1) team empowerment, individual learning goal orientation, and individual performance orientation are all positively related to individual creative performance through mediation of creative self‐efficacy; (2) learning orientation and performance approach orientation could both supplement the effects of team empowerment on individual creative self‐efficacy. Our findings point to the importance of individual goal orientation in shaping the effects of team motivation climates and provide insights for both scholars and practitioners. The specific practical implications include but are not limited to (1) individuals with learning and performance approach orientations should be identified during hiring procedures given that they could still thrive in less empowered teams and maintain a relatively high level of creative self‐efficacy and creative outcomes; (2) managers should consider assigning employees who are more learning oriented to more empowering and open‐ended tasks in order to obtain better creative results.     

Drive and Direction: Empathy with Intended Targets Moderates the Proactive Personality–Job Performance Relationship via Work Engagement

Proactive employees are self-starting and driven. Thus, they typically exhibit high levels of work engagement. While work engagement reflects the degree to which employees are attentive and absorbed when performing their work tasks, it does not guarantee effective job performance unless their actions are strategic. We draw on Grant and Ashford’s (2008) proactivity framework to develop a drive and direction contingency model that expands our understanding of how and when proactive personality predicts job performance via work engagement. We argue that employee’s drive (represented by the positive relation of proactive personality with work engagement) predicts job performance only when the employee also has high (vs. low) empathy with their intended targets, such as customers. Empathy with intended targets allows employees to understand and feel their targets’ concerns and feelings, thus providing a direction that guides their work engagement to address their targets’ interests and predict job performance. Results from a multiple-source (employees, supervisors, and organizational records) lagged (T1–T2) field study and a lab experiment support our model. We discuss the implications, limitations, and future directions of our findings.     

Team Mental Models,Team Goal Orientations,and Information Elaboration,Predicting Team Creative Performance

This study aimed to enhance understanding of team creativity by investigating the type of team mental models that team members develop during their work on a creative problem solving task. We hypothesized that teams that develop dissimilar team mental models, compared to similar and complementary team mental models, will achieve a higher information elaboration. This effect will be moderated by the development of a high learning-performance team goal orientation. Information elaboration in turn was hypothesized to predict team creative performance. In a 3 (similar/dissimilar/complementary team mental models) × 3 (learning/performance/learning-performance goal orientation) experimental study on a sample of 33 teams (N = 98) we found that teams that developed more dissimilar team mental models and experienced a learning-performance goal orientation intervention engaged in more information elaboration. Information elaboration, in turn, mediated the relationship between the interaction between team mental models and team goal orientations and team creative performance. Implications for research on team mental models and team creativity are discussed.     

Antecedents and Consequences of Creativity in Teams: When and How Leader Humility Promotes Performance via Team Creativity

The antecedents of team creativity and their effects on team task performance are explored in this study, with a particular focus on how leader humility promotes team creativity and when team creativity can be converted into performance. Hypotheses were tested via a multiple-source and time-lagged study with 341 employees and 104 teams from five different organizations in China. The results showed that leader humility promotes team creativity through team creative efficacy, and leader conscientiousness moderates this indirect effect. Furthermore, team creativity is more positively related to team task performance when teams are more future oriented. The theoretical contributions and management significance of these findings are discussed, followed by a discussion of limitations and directions for future research.     

Positivity bias in employees' self-ratings of performance relative to supervisor ratings: The roles of performance type,performance-approach goal orientation,and perceived influence

As hypothesized, data from two field studies among employees and their supervisors showed that employees are more likely to positively bias their self-ratings relative to supervisor ratings when creative performance rather than inrole performance is being evaluated. In addition, employees' performance-approach goal orientation and perceived influence were found to enhance positivity bias in self-ratings of creative performance. Moreover, performance-approach goal orientation and perceived influence appeared to combine and interact in their effects, such that the impact of perceived influence on positivity bias in self-ratings was larger when performance-approach goal orientation was weaker rather than stronger.     

Cognitive pathways of team climate for creativity: Implications for member creativity and job performance

ABSTRACT

The present study examines the contextual effects of team climate for creativity on creative behavior and job performance of employees. Drawing on the team-knowledge management perspective, we identify team-learning orientation and collective problem solving as main intermediate cognitive processes. The results, based on 856 employees across 102 work units of a high-tech company, demonstrate that these 2 team-level cognitive processes mediate the cross-level effects of team climate for creativity on creative behavior and job performance. This study reveals the cognitive ramifications of team climate for creativity as a favorable social context for employee creativity. By highlighting the cognitive process activated by team climate for creativity, this work complements existing studies focusing mostly on the affective and motivational mechanisms that underlie the team context–creativity relationship.     

创造与领导力的结合：创造型领导

管理理论的研究已迈进创新/创造管理阶段,其典型代表为创造型领导力的理论研究。文章在探讨了创造与领导力关系的基础上,分析了创造型领导的影响效能,阐述了领导者创造思维的前因、领导者与员工创造思维过程研究。最后从创造型领导的技能与策略的发展、认知神经科学范式的采纳、多维整合等角度,评述未来研究趋势。