Antecedents of Employee Creativity
Transcript of Antecedents of Employee Creativity
Universität Konstanz
Mathematisch-Naturwissenschaftliche Sektion
Fachbereich Psychologie
Antecedents of Employee Creativity
Dissertation
zur Erlangung des akademischen Grades des
Doktors der Naturwissenschaften
(Dr. rer. nat.)
Vorgelegt im März 2013 von
Nils Henker
Tag der mündlichen Prüfung: 17.06.2013
Erste Referentin: Prof. Dr. Sabine Sonnentag
Zweite Referentin: Prof. Dr. Carmen Binnewies
Meinen Eltern
Eigenabgrenzung
Die Dissertation besteht aus drei empirischen Studien, die in eigenen Kapiteln
dargestellt sind. Durch die allgemeine Einleitung und die abschließende Diskussion
werden diese Studien in einen gemeinsamen Zusammenhang gefügt. Die
inhaltlichen und konzeptionellen Arbeiten, Datenaufbereitung und Datenauswertung,
Interpretation sowie die schriftliche Darstellung der Ergebnisse wurden eigenständig
und ausschließlich von mir unter der Betreuung von Frau Prof. Dr. Sabine Sonnentag
geleistet. Ich habe mich dabei keine anderen als der von mir gekennzeichneten
Quellen und Hilfen genutzt und wörtlich oder inhaltlich übernommene Stellen als
solche gekennzeichnet. Die Koautorin der ersten Studie, Dana Unger, trug als
Diskussionspartnerin und ihre Unterstützung bei der Datenerhebung zu Studie 1 bei.
Die Daten der Studie 1 und Studie 2 wurden im Rahmen des von der VW Stiftung
geförderten Projekts „The Chronicle of an Idea“ erhoben. An der Datenerhebung
dieser beiden Studien wirkten Annette Aßmann, Sylvia Dollinger, Ariane Mertens,
Kathrin Niessalla und Isabelle Rek als studentische Hilfskräfte mit.
TABLE OF CONTENT
VORVERÖFFENTLICHUNGEN DER DISSERTATION ..............................................3
Konferenzbeiträge ................................................................................................... 3
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS ............................................................................................4
ZUSAMMENFASSUNG ...............................................................................................5
SUMMARY ..................................................................................................................8
GENERAL INTRODUCTION ..................................................................................... 10
STUDY 1 - TRANSFORMATIONAL LEADERSHIP AND EMPLOYEE CREATIVITY: THE MEDIATING ROLE OF PROMOTION FOCUS AND CREATIVE PROCESS ENGAGEMENT ........................................................................................................ 21
Summary ............................................................................................................... 21
Introduction ........................................................................................................... 22
Method .................................................................................................................. 29
Results .................................................................................................................. 34
Discussion ............................................................................................................. 42
STUDY 2 - IS POSITIVE AFFECT ENOUGH FOR CREATIVITY? THE MODERATING ROLE OF RELATIONSHIP CONFLICTS ........................................ 47
Summary ............................................................................................................... 47
Introduction ........................................................................................................... 48
Method .................................................................................................................. 53
Results .................................................................................................................. 56
Discussion ............................................................................................................. 60
STUDY 3 - PROMOTION FOCUS AND EMPLOYEE CREATIVITY: THE MEDIATINGROLES OF DAY-SPECIFIC PROMOTION FOCUS AND
DAY-SPECIFIC POSITIVE AFFECT ........................................................................ 64
Summary ............................................................................................................... 64
Introduction ........................................................................................................... 65
Method .................................................................................................................. 72
Results .................................................................................................................. 75
Discussion ............................................................................................................. 78
GENERAL DISCUSSION .......................................................................................... 83
REFERENCES ........................................................................................................ 103
3
VORVERÖFFENTLICHUNGEN DER DISSERTATION
Teilergebnisse dieser Dissertation wurden mit Genehmigung der Universität
Konstanz, vertreten durch Frau Prof. Dr. Sabine Sonnentag, in folgenden Beiträgen
veröffentlicht:
Konferenzbeiträge
Henker, N., Sonnentag, S., & Unger, D. (2012, April) Promotion focus as a
mediator between transformational leadership and creativity. Paper presented at the
27th Annual Conference of the Society for Industrial and Organization Psychology,
San Diego, USA.
Henker, N. & Sonnentag, S. (2011, August). Is positive affect enough? The
moderating role of relationship conflicts. Paper presented at the 71st Academy of
Management Annual Meeting, San Antonio, USA.
Henker, N. & Sonnentag, S. (2010, September). The importance of
spontaneous work-related ideas for the relationship between positive affect and
creativity. Paper presented at the 47th Conference of the German Society of
Psychology, Bremen, Germany.
4
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
I want to thank all people who contributed to this dissertation.
First of all, I want to thank Sabine Sonnentag for supervising this dissertation.
Thank you for supporting me throughout all stages of this dissertation. You provided
me a great role model of how to do scientific research and helped me with your
guidance and advice to complete this dissertation. I am grateful that I had the
opportunity to be part of your research team. Without your constant support, this
dissertation would not have been possible.
Additionally, I want to thank Prof. Dr. Carmen Binnewies for appraising my
dissertation and Prof. Dr. Urte Scholz and Prof. Dr. Sabine Boerner for being part of
my dissertation committee.
I thank Anne-Grit Albrecht, Stefanie Daniel, Sarah Kern, Jana Kühnel, Inga
Nägel, Angela Neff, Alexander Pundt, Anita Starzyk, Dana Unger, Laura Venz, and
Jieming Zhou for being such great colleagues. By discussing my ideas and sharing
your opinions with me, you helped me to improve my research. Likewise, I thank the
work group of Prof. Dr. Martin Kleinmann (University of Zurich) for the fruitful
discussions.
I also thank my research assistants Annette Aßmann, Sylvia Dollinger, Ariane
Mertens, Kathrin Niessalla, and Isabelle Rek for helping me to collect the data.
Finally, I want to thank my parents for their unconditional support and for
providing me so many opportunities in my life and Anne for her great patience and
belief in me.
Zusammenfassung 5
ZUSAMMENFASSUNG
Für Firmen, die in einem dynamischen, sich rasant entwickelnden Umfeld
konkurrieren, ist Kreativität ein Schlüssel zum Erfolg. Kreative Mitarbeiter tragen zum
Unternehmenserfolg bei, indem sie neue und nützliche Ideen erzeugen. In
Anbetracht der Bedeutung von Mitarbeiterkreativität, ist es wichtig mögliche
Ursprünge von Mitarbeiterkreativität zu identifizieren und Variablen zu untersuchen,
die diesen Zusammenhang moderieren oder mediieren. Diese Dissertation hat zum
Ziel, die bestehende Forschung in diesem Gebiet zu erweitern, indem sie die
Beziehung zwischen Kreativität und unterschiedlich stabilen Personen- bzw.
Kontextfaktoren untersucht. Der Fokus der Dissertation richtet sich auf
transformationale Führung, Promotion Focus und positivem Affekt als potenzielle
Ursprünge von Mitarbeiterkreativität. Zusätzlich wird in dieser Dissertation
untersucht, ob zum einen das Erleben von zwischenmenschlichen Konflikten am
Arbeitsplatz die Beziehung zwischen positivem Affekt und Mitarbeiterkreativität
moderiert und zum anderen Promotion Focus den Zusammenhang zwischen
transformationaler Führung und Mitarbeiterkreativität mediiert. Die Ergebnisse
bezüglich positiven Affekts und Promotion Focus werden darüber hinaus in einem
multiplen Mediationsmodell integriert. In diesem Modell mediieren die
tagesspezifischen Ausprägungen des positiven Affekts und des Promotion Focus
den Zusammenhang zwischen allgemeinen Promotion Focus und
Mitarbeiterkreativität.
Studie 1 untersuchte die Mechanismen, die transformationale Führung mit
Mitarbeiterkreativität verbinden. In den Hypothesen wurde angenommen, dass
Promotion Focus und das Engagement im kreativen Prozess den Zusammenhang
Zusammenfassung 6
zwischen transformationaler Führung und Mitarbeiterkreativität vermitteln. An der
Längsschnittstudie mit drei Erhebungszeiträumen (jeweils vier Wochen voneinander
getrennt) nahmen 279 Arbeitnehmer teil. Zur Testung der Hypothesen wurden der
Ansatz der kausalen Schritte und ein Struktur-Gleichungs-Modell angewendet. Die
Ergebnisse stützen die Hypothesen und legen ein sequenzielles Mediationsmodell
nahe. Arbeiternehmer, die ihre Führungskraft als transformational wahrgenommen
haben, hatten einen stärker ausgeprägten Promotion Focus. Diese stärkere
Ausprägung des Promotion Focus war verbunden mit einem höheren Engagement
im kreativen Prozess, das wiederum mit höherer Kreativität zusammenhing.
Studie 2 untersuchte den Zusammenhang von positivem Affekt und Kreativität
und wie dieser Zusammenhang durch das Erleben von zwischenmenschlichen
Konflikten am Arbeitsplatz moderiert wird. Es nahmen 101 Angestellte der
Werbeindustrie an der Tagebuchstudie über einen Zeitraum von fünf aufeinander
folgenden Arbeitstagen teil. Eine hierarchischen Regressionsanalyse, die die
Mehrebenenstruktur berücksichtigt, hat gezeigt, dass ein positiver Zusammenhang
zwischen positivem Affekt und Mitarbeiterkreativität besteht. Jedoch zeigte sich
dieser Zusammenhang nur an Tagen, an denen die Teilnehmer wenig
zwischenmenschliche Konflikte erlebten.
Studie 3 untersuchte welche Mechanismen dem Zusammenhang zwischen
allgemeinem Promotion Focus und tages-spezifischer Kreativität zugrunde liegen. Es
wurden Onlinedaten von 122 Arbeitnehmern in der Werbeindustrie an zwei
aufeinander folgenden Arbeitstagen gesammelt. Die Ergebnisse stützen ein multiples
Mediationsmodell, in dem die tagesspezifischen Ausprägungen des Promotion Focus
und des positiven Affekts den Zusammenhang zwischen allgemeinem Promotion
Focus und tagesspezifischer Kreativität vermitteln.
Zusammenfassung 7
Diese Dissertation erweitert die bestehende Forschung über potenzielle
Ursprünge von Mitarbeiterkreativität. Es wurde untersucht, welche Rolle die
Kontextvariablen transformationale Führung und zwischenmenschliche Konflikte und
die Personenvariablen positiver Affekt und Promotion Focus im Zusammenhang mit
Mitarbeiterkreativität spielen, wobei diese Zusammenhänge in unterschiedlichen
zeitlichen Abständen untersucht wurden. Darüber hinaus wurden in Studie 3 zentrale
Befunde der ersten beiden Studien integriert, indem das Zusammenspiel der
Personenvariablen der ersten Studie (Promotion Focus) und der zweiten Studie
(positiver Affekt) untersucht wurde. Zusammenfassend lässt sich feststellen, dass
Kontext- und Personenvariablen im Zusammenhang mit Mitarbeiterkreativität stehen
und dass diese Variablen auch untereinander zusammenhängen.
Summary 8
SUMMARY
For companies that compete in a dynamic, fast paced environment, creativity
is a key to success. Creative employees contribute to the success of the organization
by producing novel and useful ideas. Considering the importance of employee
creativity, it is critical to identify possible antecedents of employee creativity and to
investigate variables that moderate or mediate these relationships. It is the aim of this
dissertation to add to previous research by investigating the relationship between
creativity and personal or contextual factors which vary in their degree of stability.
More specifically, this dissertation examined positive affect, transformational
leadership, and promotion focus as antecedents of employee creativity. Moreover,
this dissertation investigated the moderating role of relationship conflicts in the
relationship between positive affect and employee creativity and tested promotion
focus as a mediator in the relationship between transformational leadership and
employee creativity. Finally, the present dissertation integrated the research on
positive affect and promotion focus into a multiple mediation model, in which both
day-specific positive affect and day-specific promotion focus mediate the relationship
between a general tendency to be promotion-focused and employee creativity.
Study 1 investigated the mechanisms that link transformational leadership and
employee creativity. Promotion focus and creative process engagement were
hypothesized as mediators in the relationship between transformational leadership
and employee creativity. A sample of 279 employees provided longitudinal data with
three measurement points (each separated by four weeks). The hypotheses were
tested with the causal step approach and structural equation modeling. The results
supported the hypotheses and indicated a sequential mediation model. Employees
who indicated that they had a transformational supervisor were more promotion-
Summary 9
focused and in turn engaged more strongly in the creative process. This increased
engagement was in turn related to higher creativity.
Study 2 examined positive affect as an antecedent of employee creativity and
the moderating effect of relationship conflicts. A total of 101 employees from the
advertising industry provided diary data over five consecutive working days. Results
from a hierarchical regression analysis using a multilevel modeling approach showed
that positive affect was positively related to employee creativity. However, this
relationship only emerged on days when employees experienced little relationship
conflicts.
Study 3 investigated the underlying mechanisms of the relationship between
general promotion focus and day-specific creativity. Online data was gathered on two
consecutive working days from 122 employees of the advertising industry. The
results supported a multiple mediation model with day-specific promotion focus and
day-specific positive affect as mediators in the relationship between general
promotion focus and day-specific creativity.
In conclusion, this dissertation extends research on the antecedents of
employee creativity. Specifically, the roles of the contextual variables
transformational leadership and relationship conflicts and the person variables
positive affect and promotion focus were examined and different timeframes were
applied. Moreover, by investigating the person variables of Study 1 (promotion focus)
and Study 2 (positive affect) together, Study 3 integrated key findings of the previous
two studies. Taken together, the results of three empirical studies demonstrated that
both contextual and person variables are antecedents of employee creativity and that
these antecedents in turn related among each other.
Chapter 1: General Introduction 10
GENERAL INTRODUCTION
Creativity has been the cornerstone for prosperity of science and arts (Feist,
1998). All inventions from Stone Age tools to modern aircrafts started as a creative
idea. In many life situations, creativity plays a vital role. For example, being creative
helps children to cope with everyday problems (Russ, 1998), fosters academic
performance of students (Rindermann & Neubauer, 2004), and helps couples to
maintain a healthy, long-term marriage (Livingston, 1999). In organizational research,
scholars have stressed the importance of creativity for organizational success (Scott
& Bruce, 1994; Shalley, 1995; West, 2002). Organizations rely on creative
employees to face the challenges of a rapidly changing environment (Amabile, 1996).
Creative ideas are considered as both novel and useful (Amabile, 1988). These ideas
can be related either to the organization’s business or to the organization itself
(Amabile, 1988). An example for an idea related to the organization’s business is a
new product-idea, whereas an idea about how to improve the way the work is done is
an example for an idea related to the organization itself.
Considering the importance of creativity, it is important to identify factors that
are related to employee creativity (Shalley, Zhou, & Oldham, 2004). These factors
can be classified into contextual and personal variables (Mumford, 2000; Oldham &
Cummings, 1996; Shalley et al., 2004). Contextual variables are part of the work
environment, whereas personal variables are part of the person (Shalley et al.,
2004). Previous research has demonstrated that both contextual and personal
variables, such as leadership style or affective experience, are related to employee
creativity (Baas, De Dreu, & Nijstad, 2011; Eisenbeiss, van Knippenberg, & Boerner,
2008). Shalley et al. (2004) argued that contextual and personal factors interact with
Chapter 1: General Introduction 11
and influence each other. Thus, it is important to examine both moderating and
mediating effects.
Therefore, the main goals of this dissertation are to investigate contextual and
person variables that serve as antecedents of creativity and to unfold the
mechanisms behind these relationships. Specifically, this dissertation examines the
contextual variable transformational leadership and the personal variables promotion
focus and positive affect as antecedents of employee creativity. Moreover, it
examines the contextual variable relationship conflicts as a moderator in the
relationship between positive affect and employee creativity. In addition to the
distinction between personal and contextual variables, these variables vary in their
degree of stability. Transformational leadership represents a rather stable variable
(Bass, 1990) while experiencing positive affect and relationship conflicts are
situation-specific variables (Fuller et al., 2003; Trougakos, Beal, Green, & Weiss,
2008). Promotion focus has both a stable and a situation-specific component and
both components will be investigated in this dissertation (Higgins & Silberman, 1998;
Stam, van Knippenberg, & Wisse, 2010).
In the following section, I introduce these concepts in more detail and I
demonstrate the relevance of these concepts for the research on employee creativity.
I start with the introduction of the stable variable transformational leadership. Then, I
illustrate the Regulatory Focus Theory with the concept of promotion focus (Higgins,
1997). Finally, I introduce the situation-specific variables positive affect and
relationship conflicts.
Transformational Leadership and Creativity
Research has identified leadership as an important antecedent of employee
creativity (Oldham & Cummings, 1996; Tierney, Farmer, & Graen, 1999). Particularly,
Chapter 1: General Introduction 12
transformational leadership has been associated with employee creativity (G. Wang,
Oh, Courtright, & Colbert, 2011). Bass (1985) described transformational leadership
as leadership behaviors that go beyond mere exchange processes in which a
supervisor rewards the subordinate’s performance. Rather, transformational leaders
influence their subordinates by illustrating the importance of a task, activating higher
order values, and leading the subordinates to disregard their self interests when
these interests conflict with those of the organization (Podsakoff, MacKenzie,
Moorman, & Fetter, 1990). Podsakoff et al. (1990) distinguish six behavior
dimensions of transformational leadership: Providing intellectual stimulation,
articulating a vision, providing an appropriate model, fostering the acceptance of
group goals, expecting high performance, and providing individualized support.
Providing intellectual stimulation comprises challenging subordinates to take a
different perspective on things and to reconsider the way the work is done.
Articulating a vision means that the supervisor inspires the subordinates with his or
her vision of the organization’s future. Providing an appropriate model involves that
the supervisor serves as a role model for the subordinates. Fostering the acceptance
of group goals refers to behaviors that foster the cooperation among subordinates
and that lead them to work together to achieve a common goal. Expecting high
performance adresses the expectation a supervisor has about the performance of his
or her subordinates. Providing individualized support focuses on the subordinates’
feelings. Transformational leaders show respect for the feelings and needs of their
subordinates.
Research has demonstrated that transformational leadership is an important
antecedent of employee creativity (Gong, Huang, & Farh, 2009; Shin & Zhou, 2003).
Transformational leaders foster the creative self-concept of their employees (P.
Wang & Zhu, 2011), they encourage their subordinates to challenge the status quo
Chapter 1: General Introduction 13
and to try out new approaches (Podsakoff et al., 1990; Shin & Zhou, 2003). Yet, the
mediating mechanisms that link transformational leadership and employee creativity
are not fully investigated. In this dissertation, I address this gap and I investigate
promotion focus as a mediator in this relationship.
Promotion Focus and Creativity
Regulatory Focus Theory stems from the notion that people seek to approach
pleasure and to avoid pain, known as the hedonistic principle (Higgins, 1997).
However, Higgins (1997) points out that self-regulatory processes differ depending
on whether a person approaches a desired or avoids an undesired end-state. He
introduces two different regulatory foci reflecting these different self-regulatory
processes: Promotion focus represents an approach-regulation whereas prevention
focus represents an avoidance-regulation. Depending on the regulatory focus people
differ with respect to the needs they try to satisfy, the goals they try to achieve, and
the situations which are salient to them (Brockner & Higgins, 2001). Promotion-
focused people have developmental needs, they try to achieve goals associated with
the image they consider as their ideal self, and situations related to positive
outcomes are salient for them (Brockner & Higgins, 2001). In contrast, prevention-
focused people have security needs, their goals are linked to the expectations others
place on them, and they are sensitive to situations with possible negative outcomes
(Brockner & Higgins, 2001). Scholars consider promotion focus to be particularly
relevant for the research on creativity (Kark & Van Dijk, 2007). Research has
demonstrated that promotion focus is associated with constructs related to creativity
such as eagerness, willingness to take risks, openness to change, and attentional
flexibility (Crowe & Higgins, 1997; Friedman & Förster, 2001, 2005; Liberman, Idson,
Chapter 1: General Introduction 14
Camacho, & Higgins, 1999). In this dissertation, I want to add to this research by
investigating the relationship between promotion focus and employee creativity.
The regulatory focus comprises a stable general component and a situation-
specific component (Stam et al., 2010). The general component is developed during
a person’s childhood and is influenced through the interaction with significant others
such as parents (Higgins & Silberman, 1998). The general component reflects the
tendency to be promotion or prevention-focused. However, experimental research
has demonstrated that situational influences can have a short-term effect on a
person’s regulatory focus (Higgins, Shah, & Friedman, 1997). Thus, events that take
place during a working day can cause changes in a person’s regulatory focus.
Leadership behavior is considered as a major antecedent of a person’s regulatory
focus at work (Brockner & Higgins, 2001). Kark and Van Dijk (2007) encourage
researchers to investigate transformational leadership as an antecedent of promotion
focus. They argue that transformational leaders stimulate their employee’s growth
and developmental needs which are associated with promotion focus and thus elicit
promotion focus. In this dissertation, I answer this call and investigate if
transformational leaders foster employee creativity by inducing a promotion focus.
Moreover, I examine the processes that link promotion focus and creativity by
investigating creative process engagement as mediator in this relationship. Scholars
consider the creative outcome (novel and useful ideas) as a result of the creative
process (Gilson & Shalley, 2004; Mumford, Mobley, Uhlman, & Reiter-Palmon,
1991). The creative process involves three stages (X. M. Zhang & Bartol, 2010): At
the first stage, it starts with the identification of the problem, the next stage refers to
the search and encoding of relevant information, and the final stages includes the
generation of new ideas. Research found that supervisor behavior and engagement
in the creative process are mutually related (X. M. Zhang & Bartol, 2010) and
Chapter 1: General Introduction 15
scholars argue that supervisors can facilitate their employee’s engagement in the
creative process (Reiter-Palmon & Illies, 2004). In this dissertation, I take a twofold
look at creative process engagement. On the one hand, I investigate whether the
relationship between transformational leadership and creative process engagement
is mediated by promotion focus. On the other hand, I examine creative process
engagement as a mediator in the relationship between promotion focus and
employee creativity.
Positive Affect and Creativity
Previous research has demonstrated that affective experiences can influence
a person’s creativity (Binnewies & Wörnlein, 2011; George & Zhou, 2002). The two
major taxonomies of affect distinguish affective states according to their valence and
arousal (Russell, 1980; Watson, Wiese, Vaidya, & Tellegen, 1999). Affect can have
an either positive or negative valance and at the same time be either activating or
deactivating. The importance of this distinction becomes apparent in the meta-
analysis of Baas, Dr Dreu, and Nijstad (2008) that showed that only affect with a
positive valance and high arousal fosters creativity, while deactivating positive affect
is unrelated to creativity. This is why in this dissertation I focus on activating positive
affect.
Positive affect can be induced by everyday events such as positive feedback
or a small present (Isen & Baron, 1991). Watson, Clark and Tellegen (1988) describe
activating positive affect as a state of feeling excited and active and being energized,
concentrated, and pleasurably engaged. Scholars proposed different ways how
positive affect fosters creativity. First, the Broaden-and-Build Theory assumes that
the experience of positive affect broadens a person’s scope of attention, cognition,
and action and builds a person’s intellectual resources (Fredrickson, 1998, 2001).
Chapter 1: General Introduction 16
Consequently, people who experience positive affect are more likely to explore new
ways and to take different perspectives and thus are more creative. Second,
neuropsychologists argue that positive affect is associated with an increased
dopamine level (Ashby, Isen, & Turken, 1999). From this perspective, people who
experience positive affect are more creative because the increased dopamine level
facilitates the executive attention system and improves cognitive flexibility. Third,
positive affect has been shown to have an information value (Schwarz & Clore,
1983). Positive affect signals a person that the situation is safe. Thus, a person might
be more likely to take risks and try out new approaches when experiencing positive
affect. Yet, findings on the positive affect – creativity relationship are mixed. While
many studies found support for this relationship (Amabile, Barsade, Mueller, & Staw,
2005; Binnewies & Wörnlein, 2011), other studies did not (George & Zhou, 2002;
Kaufmann & Vosburg, 1997). To gain further understanding under which
circumstances positive affect fosters creativity, Kaufmann (2003b) suggested to
identify factors that moderate the relationship between positive affect and creativity.
This dissertation follows this call and investigates relationship conflicts as a
moderator in this relationship.
Regulatory Focus Theory proposes that a person’s affective experience is
influenced by the person’s regulatory focus (Brockner & Higgins, 2001; Higgins,
1997). Promotion-focused people are cheerful when they achieve their goals and
dejected in cases they miss their goals. By contrast, prevention-focused people feel
quiescent after they achieve their goals and agitated when the fall short of their goals
(Brockner & Higgins, 2001; Higgins, 1997). With regard to the two major taxonomies
of affect (Russell, 1980; Watson et al., 1999), promotion focus affect has either
positive valence/high arousal (success) or negative valence/low arousal (failure),
while affect associated with prevention focus has either positive valence/low arousal
Chapter 1: General Introduction 17
(success) or negative valence/high arousal (failure). Following the assumptions of
Regulatory Focus Theory, activating positive affect is strongly linked to promotion
focus (Brockner & Higgins, 2001). Thus, promotion-focused employees are more
likely to experience activating positive affect. This dissertation investigates the
mediating mechanisms in the relationship between general promotion focus and day-
specific creativity. I propose that this relationship is mediated by the situational, day-
specific promotion focus and the day-specific experience of activating positive affect.
Research Goals
The goal of this dissertation is to extent the research on employee creativity in
several ways. First, I aim to identify antecedents of employee creativity. Second, I
investigate variables that moderate or mediate the relationships between those
antecedents and employee creativity. Third, I intend to integrate these findings to
enable a more comprehensive understanding how the antecedents of employee
creativity might act together. For this purpose, I conducted three independent
empirical studies in which I examined how contextual and person variables that are
related to employee creativity: In the first study, I examine the relationship between
transformational leadership and employee creativity. More specifically, I test
promotion focus and engagement in the creative process as mediators in this
relationship. Moreover, by applying a sequential mediation model, I investigate
whether creative process engagement mediates the relationship between promotion
focus and creativity.
In the second study, I investigate the day-specific relationship between
positive affect and creativity and the moderating role of relationship conflicts. I test
whether employees are more creative during work when they experience positive
Chapter 1: General Introduction 18
affect at the beginning of the working day and how this relationship is shaped by the
experience of relationship conflicts.
In Study 3, I integrate the findings of the first two dissertation studies on
positive affect and promotion focus. To bring these two research streams together, I
build on two assumptions of Regulatory Focus Theory (Brockner & Higgins, 2001;
Higgins, 1997). First, promotion focus is associated with the experience of activating
positive affect. Second, a person’s promotion focus has a stable, general component
that reflects the general tendency to be promotion-focused and a situation-specific
component that reflects the situational influence on a person’s promotion focus. By
applying a multiple mediation model (Preacher & Hayes, 2008), I investigate day-
specific promotion focus and day-specific experience of activating positive affect as
multiple mediators in the relationship between general promotion focus and day-
specific creativity.
I apply different research designs and different methodological approaches to
enhance the generalizability of my findings. To minimize concerns related to common
method variance (Podsakoff, MacKenzie, Lee, & Podsakoff, 2003), all studies include
more than one measurement point. Study 1 applies a longitudinal design with three
measurement occasions each separated by four weeks, Study 2 is a diary study over
the course of one working week, and Study 3 is an empirical study with two
measurement points. This selection of different study designs enables me to
contribute to existing research in this field. First, by using different time frames in
each study, I am able to capture the varying stability of the variables investigated in
this dissertation. Second, by using both between-person (Study 1 and Study 3) and
within –person (Study 2) designs, I am able to take a broader view on the
antecedents of employee creativity. On the one hand, between-person designs
enable me to investigate variables that generally foster creativity. On the other hand,
Chapter 1: General Introduction 19
within-person designs explain under which circumstances employees are relatively
more creative.
Dissertation Outline
This dissertation includes three empirical studies that investigate the
antecedents of employee creativity. These studies are presented in Chapter 2 to 4.
Study 1 (Chapter 2) investigates the mediating mechanisms underlying the
relationship between transformational leadership and employee creativity. On the
basis of Regulatory Focus Theory (Higgins, 1997), my co-authors and I propose
promotion focus as a mediator in this relationship. We argue that transformational
leaders strengthen the promotion focus of their employees who in turn are more
creative. Moreover, we hypothesize that promotion-focused employees are more
creative because they are more engaged in the creative process. We propose a
sequential mediation model with promotion focus and creative process engagement
as mediators in the relationship between transformational leadership and employee
creativity. The hypotheses are tested with longitudinal data from 279 employees who
filled in three online questionnaires each separated by four weeks.
Study 2 (Chapter 3) examines the relationship between positive affect and
employee creativity and how this relationship is shaped by the experience of
relationship conflicts. Based on the Broaden-and-Build Theory (Fredrickson, 2001), a
neuropsychological theory of positive affect (Ashby et al., 1999), and the Mood as
Input Theory (Schwarz & Clore, 1983), my co-author and I propose that the
experience of positive affect in the morning fosters creativity during the working day.
Moreover, we hypothesize that the experience of relationship conflicts attenuates this
relationship. We argue that the experiences of positive affect and relationship
conflicts have diametrally opposed consequences and thus inhibit each other. These
Chapter 1: General Introduction 20
hypotheses are tested with diary data over the course of one working week from 101
employees from the advertising industry.
Study 3 (Chapter 4) integrates the findings regarding positive affect and
promotion focus from Study 1 and Study 2. Based on the assumption of Regulatory
Focus Theory (Brockner & Higgins, 2001; Higgins, 1997), my coauthor and I examine
positive affect associated with promotion focus as a mediator in the relationship
between promotion focus and creativity. In this study, we distinguish between the
general and the situational component of promotion focus. We argue that the
relationship between general promotion focus and creativity on a specific day is due
to the day-specific promotion focus and the day-specific experience of positive affect.
We test a multiple mediation model (Preacher & Hayes, 2008) with data gathered
from 122 employees from the advertising industry over two consecutive working
days.
In the final chapter (Chapter 5), I summarize the findings of the three studies.
In addition, I discuss the theoretical implications of these findings and outline how the
findings contribute to research on the antecedents of employee creativity. At the end
of this chapter, I point out the practical implications of these findings as well as
directions for future research.
Chapter 2: Transformational Leadership and Employee Creativity 21
STUDY 1
TRANSFORMATIONAL LEADERSHIP AND EMPLOYEE CREATIVITY : THE
MEDIATING ROLE OF PROMOTION FOCUS AND CREATIVE PROC ESS
ENGAGEMENT
Summary
We conducted a three-wave longitudinal study with 279 employees to investigate the
processes underlying the relationship between transformational leadership and
employee creativity. Using Regulatory Focus Theory, we hypothesized that
promotion focus mediates the relationship between transformational leadership and
employee creativity and that creative process engagement mediates the relationship
between promotion focus and employee creativity. We used regression analysis and
structural equation modeling to test our hypotheses. Our results provide support for a
sequential mediation model. Promotion focus mediated the relationship between
transformational leadership and employee creativity. Creative process engagement
partially mediated the relationship between promotion focus and employee creativity.
This study contributes to the literature by identifying the mediating mechanism for the
relationship between transformational leadership and employee creativity and
providing a comprehensive model that illustrates the importance of the different
stages within the creative process as antecedents of employee creativity.
Chapter 2: Transformational Leadership and Employee Creativity 22
Introduction
Creativity is beneficial for organizational success (Oldham & Cummings, 1996;
Scott & Bruce, 1994). Therefore, one major concern of research on creativity is to
identify factors that promote employee creativity (Baas et al., 2008; Binnewies &
Wörnlein, 2011; Hülsheger, Anderson, & Salgado, 2009). Studies found
transformational leadership to be positively related to employee creativity (Eisenbeiss
et al., 2008; Wu, McMullen, Neubert, & Yi, 2008; A. Y. Zhang, Tsui, & Wang, 2011).
Transformational leadership involves behaviors that encourage employees to take a
different view on how they do their work and that challenge them to try out new
approaches (Podsakoff et al., 1990). Shin and Zhou (2003) found that
transformational leaders strengthen the intrinsic motivation of their followers and thus
foster their creativity. Yet, the underlying psychological processes that link
transformational leadership and employee creativity are not fully investigated.
Scholars see employees’ regulatory focus as a possible mediator in this relationship
(Kark & Van Dijk, 2007). Regulatory Focus Theory distinguishes two different foci
which shape the needs a person seeks to satisfy and the goals the person wants to
achieve (Brockner & Higgins, 2001). According to Regulatory Focus Theory, leaders
influence employee behavior by inducing either a promotion or a prevention focus
(Brockner & Higgins, 2001; Neubert, Kacmar, Carlson, Chonko, & Roberts, 2008).
Promotion focus is associated with developmental needs and goals related to the
ideal self (Brockner & Higgins, 2001) and is beneficial for creative behavior
(Friedman & Förster, 2001). In our study, we test the assumption that promotion
focus serves as a mediator in the relationship between transformational leadership
and employee creativity (Kark & Van Dijk, 2007).
Scholars consider creativity as the outcome of a process that involves the
stages of problem identification, information search and encoding, and idea
Chapter 2: Transformational Leadership and Employee Creativity 23
generation (Gilson & Shalley, 2004; Mumford, 2000). The more employees engage in
the creative process, the more likely it is that they produce outcomes that can be
considered as creative (X. M. Zhang & Bartol, 2010). We propose that creative
process engagement mediates the relationship between promotion focus and
creativity as outcome.
The aim of our study is twofold. First, we investigate promotion focus as a
mediator in the relationship between transformational leadership and employee
creativity. Thereby, we fill a gap in the literature by examining the relationship
between transformational leadership and employee promotion focus, which has been
proposed some time ago, but has not been empirically tested yet (Brockner &
Higgins, 2001; Kark & Van Dijk, 2007). Second, we take a closer look at the
relationship between promotion focus and employee creativity. We investigate
creative process engagement as the intervening process that links promotion focus
to employee creativity. While previous research has pointed out the importance of
engaging in the creative process as a whole (X. M. Zhang & Bartol, 2010), we look at
the process in more detail and examine how the different stages of the creative
process are related to employee creativity. Thus, we can specify the relative
importance of the single stages of the creative process.
Transformational Leadership and Creativity
Creativity is considered as the production of novel and useful ideas (Amabile,
1988). These ideas are either related to the organization’s business, such as new
products, or to the organization itself, such as new procedures (Gilson & Shalley,
2004). Creativity is a continuum (Amabile, 1996) with minor adoptions of existing
ideas at the low and radical new ideas at the high end (Perry-Smith & Shalley, 2003).
Chapter 2: Transformational Leadership and Employee Creativity 24
It is in the nature of this conceptualization that less creative ideas are more common
than highly creative ideas.
Previous research found transformational leadership to be crucial for
employee creativity (Gong et al., 2009; Shin & Zhou, 2003). Transformational
leadership is associated with a climate that supports creativity (Sarros, Cooper, &
Santora, 2008). Transformational leaders encourage employees to challenge the
status quo and to try new approaches that foster employee creativity (Kark & Van
Dijk, 2007; Shin & Zhou, 2003). According to Podsakoff et al. (1990),
transformational leadership comprises six key behaviors: Providing intellectual
stimulation, articulating a vision, providing an appropriate model, fostering the
acceptance of group goals, expecting high performance, and providing individualized
support. Transformational leadership involves behaviors that stimulate employees to
question their current assumptions about their work and to figure out different ways
how it can be performed (Avolio, Bass, & Jung, 1999; Podsakoff et al., 1990). Bass
(1988) states that transformational leadership provides intellectual stimulation and
moves employees “towards a creative synthesis by generating various possible
solutions” (p. 29). By providing intellectual stimulation, employees see difficulties as
problems to be solved (Bass, 1990) and increase their efforts on subsequent tasks
(Bass, 1988). Transformational leaders strengthen the creative self-concept of their
employees (P. Wang & Zhu, 2011). They motivate their employees by providing a
desirable vision, expressing high performance expectations, and providing
individualized support (Shamir, House, & Arthur, 1993).
Following the reasoning described above, we want to replicate previous
findings that transformational leadership fosters employee creativity.
Hypothesis 1: Transformational leadership is positively related to employee
creativity.
Chapter 2: Transformational Leadership and Employee Creativity 25
Promotion Focus
The underlying principle of Regulatory Focus Theory is that people are either
motivated to approach pleasure or to avoid pain (Higgins, 1997). Regulatory Focus
Theory distinguishes between two self-regulatory foci: A promotion focus, which is
associated with the motivation to achieve desired end-states and a prevention focus,
which is associated with the motivation to avoid undesired end-states (Higgins,
1997). Both foci refer to behaviors and self-conceptions people apply to align
themselves with appropriate goals or standards (Higgins, 1997; Kark & Van Dijk,
2007). Promotion and prevention focus differ in terms of the needs people wish to
satisfy, the goals and standards they try to achieve, and the perceived situations that
matter to them (Brockner & Higgins, 2001). When people are promotion-focused,
they seek to satisfy their growth and developmental needs. They are motivated to
achieve goals representing their belief of their ideal self. Thus, situations critical for
these goals are especially salient when people are promotion-focused (Brockner &
Higgins, 2001). When people are prevention-focused, their security needs become
most salient, they follow goals representing how they ought to be, and situations with
possible negative outcomes become salient for them (Brockner & Higgins, 2001). In
this regard, the basic underlying motivation of promotion focus is change and the
underlying motivation of prevention focus is stability (Kark & Van Dijk, 2007).
Depending on a person’s regulatory focus, the person interprets a situation as
challenging or threatening. In the context of creativity, particularly promotion focus is
relevant because promotion focus is associated with eagerness and risk-taking
(Brockner & Higgins, 2001; Kark & Van Dijk, 2007), and thus is beneficial for
individual creativity (Amabile, 1988; Friedman & Förster, 2001). Promotion focus
broadens the attentional scope and fosters the accessibility of cognitive
representations (Baas et al., 2008). In laboratory settings, promotion focus fostered
Chapter 2: Transformational Leadership and Employee Creativity 26
idea generation and creative insight (Crowe & Higgins, 1997; Higgins, 1997). In a
field study, Neubert et al. (2008) demonstrated that employees’ promotion focus was
related to creative behavior. In line with this previous research, we propose a positive
relation between promotion focus and creativity.
Hypothesis 2: Promotion focus is positively related to employee creativity.
Brockner and Higgins (2001) consider everyday interaction with organizational
authorities as a major antecedent of the regulatory focus at work. Transformational
leadership encourages growth and development of the employee and is eligible to
induce a promotion focus (Kark & Van Dijk, 2007). Employees who share a vision
with their leader are more likely to create an ideal self and employees with
transformational leaders are assumed to focus stronger on positive outcomes (Kark
& Van Dijk, 2007; Stam et al., 2010). Similarly, Shin and Zhou (2003) stated that
transformational leaders provide an environment in which employees are interested
and focused on their tasks instead of security concerns. Therefore, we propose that
transformational leaders influence their employees by activating their ideal self and
by making positive outcomes more salient (Kark & Van Dijk, 2007; Stam et al., 2010)
and thus induce a promotion focus. As displayed in Figure 2.1, we hypothesize that
employees’ promotion focus fosters employee creativity and serves as a mediator in
the relationship between transformational leadership and employee creativity.
Transformational leadership should be related to a higher level of promotion focus,
which in turn will be related to a higher level of employee creativity.
Hypothesis 3: Promotion focus mediates the relationship between
transformational leadership and employee creativity.
Chapter 2: Transformational Leadership and Employee Creativity 27
Creative Process Engagement
The creative process precedes the creative outcome (Gilson & Shalley, 2004;
Mumford et al., 1991). Engagement in the creative process represents a necessary
first step towards creativity (Gilson & Shalley, 2004; Shalley, 1991, 1995)
The creative process involves three stages: (1) Problem identification, (2)
information search and encoding, and (3) idea generation (X. M. Zhang & Bartol,
2010). The creative process starts with problem identification (Davis, 2009; X. M.
Zhang & Bartol, 2010). At this stage, the employee defines the problem (Mumford,
2000). The employee has to structure the problem and has to identify goals,
procedures, restrictions, and information relevant for the solution of the problem
(Reiter-Palmon & Illies, 2004). Research found that the amount of time spent on this
first stage of the creative process is positively related to the quality and originality of
the solution (Reiter-Palmon, Mumford, Boes, & Runco, 1997). Taking more effort at
the stage of problem identification enables employees to develop a more accurate
representation of the problem and is positively related to more original ideas
(Redmond, Mumford, & Teach, 1993; Reiter-Palmon, Mumford, & Threlfall, 1998).
Thus, we propose that engagement in the stage of problem identification fosters
creativity. In turn, problem identification benefits from considering diverse
environmental input related to the problem (Reiter-Palmon et al., 1998). We assume
that promotion focus fosters problem identification, because people are more likely to
consider additional, new alternatives when they are promotion-focused (Liberman et
al., 1999). As displayed in Figure 2.1, we hypothesize that engagement in the stage
of problem identification serves as a mediator between promotion focus and creativity
as outcome.
Hypothesis 4: Problem identification mediates the relationship between
promotion focus and employee creativity.
Chapter 2: Transformational Leadership and Employee Creativity 28
After the problem is identified, the person moves toward collecting and
processing relevant information (X. M. Zhang & Bartol, 2010). This second stage
involves the search for information and concepts relevant for an advanced
understanding of the identified problem (Mumford, 2000). Information search and
encoding involves both the consideration of already existing concepts and the
development of new concepts by using information from the memory and external
sources (Reiter-Palmon & Illies, 2004). Time spent on information search and
encoding is positively related to solution quality (Illies & Reiter-Palmon, 2004) and
thus, is likely to increase creativity (Reiter-Palmon & Illies, 2004). When employees
are promotion-focused, they apply an elaboration style which allows them to see
unobvious relations and this elaboration style is associated with an integrative
ideation (Zhu & Meyers-Levy, 2007). Thus, we propose that engagement in the stage
of information search and encoding serves as a mediator between promotion focus
and creativity as outcome.
Hypothesis 5: Information search and encoding mediates the relationship
between promotion focus and employee creativity.
Considering and developing concepts related to the problem and integrating
the relevant information triggers the third stage of the creative process: The
generation of ideas and alternatives (X. M. Zhang & Bartol, 2010). The combination
and reorganization of the gathered information fosters a new understanding and the
exploration of applications and implications of this new understanding leads
ultimately to a set of new ideas (Mumford, 2000). When people are promotion-
focused, they have a stronger inclination to produce many alternatives in order to
increase the chances to match their desired end-state (Crowe & Higgins, 1997).
Likewise, we propose that promotion-focused employees show higher engagement in
Chapter 2: Transformational Leadership and Employee Creativity 29
the stage of idea generation, which involves the generation of different possible
solutions and alternatives (X. M. Zhang & Bartol, 2010).
Following this reasoning, we hypothesize that engagement in the stage of idea
generation serves as a mediator between promotion focus and creativity as outcome.
Hypothesis 6: Idea generation mediates the relationship between promotion
focus and employee creativity.
Figure 2.1. Conceptual model.
Method
Participants
The study was conducted in Germany as an online panel survey with three
measurement points, each separated by four weeks. Participants worked within the
fields of information technology, human resources, research and development,
Chapter 2: Transformational Leadership and Employee Creativity 30
technical support, executive management, strategy, and public relations. Because we
investigated the relationship with leadership behavior, participants had to have a
direct supervisor. Additionally, we focused on employees working full-time in project-
work settings because transformational leadership is particularly important for project
teams (Keller, 1992). The first questionnaire was completed by 1,173 participants,
the second one by 584 participants and the third one by 332 participants. Since
inattentiveness is a problem in web-based data collection (Johnson, 2005), we
applied the idea of semantic antonyms (Goldberg & Kilkowski, 1985) to identify
careless responses. This led to the exclusion of 53 participants.
Our final sample comprised 279 employees (196 men and 83 women) who
participated in all three waves of data collection. Participants’ mean age was 39.69
years (SD = 10.33). Most participants worked in the area of information technology
(42 %), followed by human resources (16 %), research and development (13 %),
technical support (10 %), executive management (10 %), strategy (8 %), and public
relations (2%). On average, participants worked 10.63 years (SD = 8.39) in their field
of occupation and 45 % held a leadership position. As their highest educational level,
140 participants held a college degree, 63 participants a high school degree, 70
participants a secondary school degree, 2 participants held no degree at all, and 4
participants indicated they held a different type of degree.
Because of the considerable attrition in our sample, we tested whether the
means of the study variables at Time 1 and Time 2 differed in the final sample
compared to the dropouts at the respective measurement point. We found no
differences for transformational leadership (M = 3.36 vs. M = 3.33, t = 0.58, ns),
promotion focus (M = 3.23 vs. M = 3.23, t = 0.11, ns) and the creative process
engagement subscale problem identification (M = 3.01 vs. M = 3.11, t = 1.38, ns) and
information search and encoding (M = 3.24 vs. M = 3.32, t = 1.01, ns). Yet,
Chapter 2: Transformational Leadership and Employee Creativity 31
participants who filled in all three questionnaires indicated significantly higher scores
on job control (M = 3.79 vs. M = 3.65, t = 2.43, p < .05) and lower scores for the third
creative process engagement subscale idea generation (M = 2.98 vs. M = 3.15, t =
2.16, p < .05). According to Cohen (1992), the effect sizes of the differences for both
job control (d = .17) and idea generation (d = .18) were small. Therefore, we assume
that the dropout did not systematically bias our results.
Measures
The data collection took place at three points in time, separated by four weeks
each. To minimize common methods variance (Podsakoff et al., 2003), we measured
transformational leadership, promotion focus, and job control at Time 1, creative
process engagement at Time 2, and creativity as outcome at Time 3. All measures
were in German.
Transformational leadership. We assessed transformational leadership at
Time 1 with the measure developed by Podsakoff, MacKenzie, Moorman, and Fetter
(1990). The measure included the subscales identifying and articulating a vision with
five items (e.g., ”My supervisor inspires others with his/her plan for the future”),
providing an appropriate model with three items (e.g., ”My supervisor leads by doing,
rather than by telling”), fostering the acceptance of group goals with four items (e.g.,
”My supervisor gets the group to work together for the same goal”), high performance
expectations with three items (e.g., ”My supervisor will not settle for the second
best”), providing individualized support with four items (e.g., ”My supervisor shows
respect for my personal needs”), and intellectual stimulation with four items (e.g., ”My
supervisor challenges me to think about old problems in new ways”). Participants
gave their responses on a 5-point scale ranging from 1 (not at all) to 5 (completely).
We computed the overall transformational leadership measure without the two
Chapter 2: Transformational Leadership and Employee Creativity 32
reverse coded items of the individualized support subscale because negatively coded
items are less internally consistent and less strongly associated with the overall scale
(Carlson et al., 2011) and thus might impair the model fit. The correlation between
the reduced scale and the full scale was r = .99, p < .001. Cronbach’s α for the
remaining overall 21-item scale was .96.
Promotion focus. We used the Work Regulatory Focus Scale (Neubert et al.,
2008) to measure promotion focus at Time 1. The promotion focus scale includes
three sub-dimensions with three items for each dimension. Example items are: “I
tend to take risks at work in order to achieve success” (gains); “I focus on
accomplishing job tasks that will further my advancement” (achievement); “My work
priorities are impacted by a clear picture of what I aspire to be” (ideals). A 5-point
scale was used to assess to what extend the statements apply, ranging from 1 (not at
all) to 5 (completely). In our analyses, we used an overall promotion focus score
(Cronbach’s α = .90).
Job control. In our analyses, we controlled for the level of job control because
research found job control to be related to creative behavior (Janssen, 2000; Ohly,
Sonnentag, & Pluntke, 2006) and to moderate the relation between leadership
behavior and creative behavior (Volmer, Spurk, & Niessen, 2012). To measure job
control, we used a three-item scale developed by Spreitzer (1995). Participants
reported on three items how much control they had about the way they perform their
tasks at work (e.g. “I can decide by myself how to do my work”; Cronbach’s α = .90).
Because we measured transformational leadership, promotion focus, and job
control at the same time, we conducted a Confirmatory Factor Analysis to determine
whether the three scales represented distinct constructs, modeling transformational
leadership and promotion focus as higher order factors with their respective
Chapter 2: Transformational Leadership and Employee Creativity 33
subscales. This three-factor model showed a sufficient fit, χ2 (483) = 999.78, CFI =
.93, RMSEA = .062, SRMR = .06 and a better fit than the best fitting two-factor model
χ2 (485) = 1270.12, CFI = .89, RMSEA = .076, SRMR = .10; ∆χ2 (2; N = 279) =
270.34, p < .001 and a better fit than the one-factor model χ2 (487) = 1812.17, CFI =
.81, RMSEA = .099, SRMR = .122; ∆χ2 (4; N = 279) = 812.39, p < .001.
Creative process engagement. We assessed creative process engagement at
Time 2 with 11 items developed by Zhang and Bartol (2010). The creative process
comprises the stages of problem identification (three items, e.g., “I thought about the
problem from multiple perspectives”; Cronbach’s α = .88), information searching and
encoding (three items, e.g., “I consulted a wide variety of information”; Cronbach’s α
= .88), and idea generation (five items, e.g., “I looked for connections with solutions
used in seeming diverse areas”; Cronbach’s α = .91). Participants indicated for each
item how often they engaged in this behavior over the past four weeks, using a 5-
point scale ranging from “never” to “very frequently”.
Because the three sub-dimensions of creative process engagement represent
related constructs, we conducted a Confirmatory Factor Analysis to determine
whether the distinction between the three constructs was valid. The three-factor
model showed a fairly good model fit, χ2 (41) = 153.42, CFI = .96, RMSEA = .099,
SRMR = .04, and fit the data better than the best fitting two-factor model χ2 (43) =
193.87, CFI = .94, RMSEA = .112, SRMR = .04; ∆χ2 (2; N = 279) = 40.45, p < .001,
and a better fit than the one-factor-model χ2 (44) = 273.91, CFI = .90, RMSEA = .137,
SRMR = .05; ∆χ2 (3; N = 279) = 120.49, p < .001.
Self-rated creativity. We assessed creativity as outcome at Time 3 with nine
items from Tierney, Farmer, and Graen (1999), which were adapted to a self-rating
format in earlier research (Carmeli & Schaubroeck, 2007). Participants were asked to
Chapter 2: Transformational Leadership and Employee Creativity 34
rate the extent to which they had shown creative approaches at work during the last
four weeks. A sample item is “During my work I tried out new ideas and approached
to problems”. Cronbach’s alpha was .95.
To test whether the three measures of creative process engagement and the
measure of creativity were distinct constructs, we conducted an additional
Confirmatory Factor Analysis. The four-factor model showed a good model fit, χ2
(164) = 418.70, CFI = .95, RMSEA = .075, SRMR = .04, and fit the data better than
the best fitting three-factor model χ2 (167) = 814.50, CFI = .87, RMSEA = .118,
SRMR = .09; ∆χ2 (3; N = 279) = 395.80, p < .001. Thus, creativity as outcome is
distinct from creative process engagement.
Results
Descriptive Statistics
Table 2.1 displays the means, standard deviations, and correlations among all
variables used in the path model.
35
Table 2.1. Means, standard deviations, and correlations among the study variables (N = 279)
Mean SD 1 2 3 4 5 1 Transformational leadership 3.22 0.93 -
2 Promotion focus 3.23 0.77 .44 -
3 CPE: Problem identification 3.01 0.93 .27 .42 -
4 CPE: Information searching and encoding 3.24 0.94 .33 .42 .70 -
5 CPE: Idea generation 2.98 0.94 .32 .47 .84 .80 -
6 Creativity 3.08 0.89 .32 .52 .65 .49 .66
Note. N = 279. All correlations higher than .10 are significant at p < .05. CPE = Creative process engagement.
Chapter 2: Transformational Leadership and Employee Creativity 36
Hypotheses Testing
We hypothesized that promotion focus mediates the relationship between
transformational leadership and creativity as outcome and that the engagement in
the different stages of the creative process mediates the relationship between
promotion focus and creativity as outcome. To test our hypotheses, we used two
approaches. As a first approach, we conducted a hierarchical regression analysis
following the procedure suggested by Baron and Kenny (1986). According to the
causal step approach, for a mediation three conditions have to be met: (1) The
independent variable has to be related to the mediator, (2) the independent variable
has to be related to the outcome variable, and (3) when both the independent
variable and the mediator are added to the regression the mediator has to become
significant while the independent variable becomes non-significant. As a second
approach, we used structural equation modeling to test the postulated model. The
advantage of this approach is that it allowed us to estimate the indirect effect directly
(Preacher & Hayes, 2008).
We conducted regression analyses to test whether transformational leadership
and promotion focus predict their respective mediators. Because scholars suggested
testing mediations with the bootstrap approach (Shrout & Bolger, 2002), we applied
bootstrapping in all our regressions. The results show that transformational
leadership was positively related to promotion focus (β = .40, p < .001), while
controlling for job control. Likewise, promotion focus was positively related to the
creative process measures problem identification (β = .51, p < .001), information
search and encoding (β = .50, p < .001), and idea generation (β = .57, p < .001),
while controlling for job control.
Chapter 2: Transformational Leadership and Employee Creativity 37
We conducted a hierarchical regression analysis to predict creativity as
outcome. The results are shown in Table 2.2. In the first step, we entered job control
as a control variable. In the second step, we entered transformational leadership. In
line with Hypothesis 1, transformational leadership was positively related to creativity
as outcome. In the next step, we added promotion focus as a predictor. The
relationship between transformational leadership and creativity as outcome became
insignificant and promotion focus became a significant predictor for creativity as
outcome. These results support Hypothesis 2 and are in line with Hypothesis 3 that
promotion focus mediates the relationship between transformational leadership and
creativity as outcome. In the last step, we added the creative process measures to
the regression. The results show that problem identification and idea generation
become significant predictors, while information search and encoding was unrelated
to creativity as outcome. Even though the strength of promotion focus as a predictor
was reduced by the inclusion of the creative process measures (no overlapping
confidence intervals), it still remained significant, indicating a partial mediation. Thus,
our results support Hypotheses 4 and 6, but not Hypothesis 5.
Chapter 2: Transformational Leadership and Employee Creativity 38
Table 2.2. Hierarchical regression analyses predicting creativity as outcome (N = 279) β 95% Confidence interval
Lower End Upper End
Step 1
Job control .04 -.10 .17
R2 .00
F .37
Step 2
Job control -.03 -.16 .11
Transformational leadership .29*** .14 .44
R2 .06
F 8.67
∆R2 .06***
∆F 16.95***
Step 3
Job control -.02 -.14 .09
Transformational leadership .06 -.08 .20
Promotion focus .57*** .44 .70
R2 .27
F 34.08
∆R2 .21***
∆F 79.96***
Step 4
Job control .01 -.08 .11
Transformational leadership .02 -.09 .14
Promotion focus .30*** .17 .42
Problem identification .29*** .13 .45
Information search and encoding -.15 -.32 .02
Idea generation .39*** .19 .57
R2 .53
F 50.66
∆R2 .26***
∆F 49.28***
*** p < .001; ** p < .01; * p < .05
Chapter 2: Transformational Leadership and Employee Creativity 39
We computed a structure equation model with manifest variables to estimate
the indirect effects in the model, using Mplus software (Muthén & Muthén, 2007). In
this analysis, we took into account that the creative process does not follow a strict
sequential order (Reiter-Palmon & Illies, 2004). For instance, a person being at the
stage of idea generation might realize that she or he does not have sufficient
information and goes back to the stage of information search and encoding.
Therefore, we added correlations among each stage of the creative process.
Because creative process engagement did not fully mediate the relationship between
promotion focus and creativity as outcome, we added a direct path between
promotion focus and creativity as outcome to the model. This model fitted the data
well, χ2 (4, N = 279) = 4.41, CFI = 1, RMSEA = .019, SRMR = .02, and had a better
fit than the model fit without a direct path, χ2 (5, N = 279) = 34.69, CFI = .96, RMSEA
= .15, SRMR = .05, ∆χ2 (1; N = 279) = 30.28, p < .001.
40
Table 2.3. Indirect effects on creativity as outcome (N = 279)
Path β 95% Confidence interval
Lower End Upper End
TF � PF � Creativity .12*** .07 .18
PF � PI � Creativity .13*** .07 .24
PF � Sea � Creativity -.02 -.07 .01
PF � IG � Creativity .03* .01 .08
TF � PF � PI � Creativity .06** .02 .10
TF � PF � Sea � Creativity -.01 -.03 .01
TF � PF � IG � Creativity .02* .01 .03
*** p < .001; ** p < .01; * p < .05. TF = Transformational leadership; PF = Promotion focus; Creativity = Creativity as outcome; PI =
Problem identification; Sea = Information search and encoding; IG = Idea generation
Chapter 2: Transformational Leadership and Employee Creativity 41
Figure 2.2 displays the model and the estimates. The results for the indirect
effects are shown in Table 2.3. The indirect effect of transformational leadership
through promotion focus on creativity as outcome was significant, supporting
Hypothesis 3. Also, indirect effects of promotion focus on creativity as outcome
through problem identification and idea generation were significant, but the indirect
effect through information search and encoding was not significant. These findings
support Hypotheses 4 and 6 and contradict Hypothesis 5. The findings are in line
with the results from the hierarchical regression analysis that the relationship
between promotion focus and creativity as outcome is partially mediated by problem
identification and idea generation. Additionally, we found sequential indirect effects of
transformational leadership on creativity as outcome through promotion focus and
problem identification and through promotion focus and idea generation.
Figure 2.2. Path estimates of the final model.
*** p < .001; ** p < .01; * p < .05
Chapter 2: Transformational Leadership and Employee Creativity 42
Discussion
The aim of our study was to investigate the mediating processes of the
relationship between transformational leadership and employee creativity. Results
support a sequential mediation model: Transformational leadership is positively
related to promotion focus, which in turn is linked to increased creativity as outcome,
both directly and indirectly via creative process engagement. Thus, our findings
extend previous research that stressed the importance of leadership style for
employee creativity (Oldham & Cummings, 1996; Tierney et al., 1999), particularly
transformational leadership (Shin & Zhou, 2003).
Our study goes beyond previous research by examining promotion focus as a
mechanism that mediates the relationship between transformational leadership and
employee creativity. The results are in line with the assumption that transformational
leaders evoke a promotion focus in their employees who in turn are more creative
(Kark & Van Dijk, 2007).
In our study, we extend previous research and provide a more comprehensive
model by taking the whole creative process into account. We showed that the relation
between promotion focus and creativity as outcome is partially mediated by creative
process engagement. This finding is in line with the assumption of Regulatory Focus
Theory that promotion-focused employees use approach strategies to achieve their
desired end-states (Brockner & Higgins, 2001). We found that promotion focus is
associated with a higher engagement in the creative process. Promotion-focused
employees think of a problem from multiple perspectives, they consult various
information, and they consider solutions found in other areas. Our results reveal
indirect relations between transformational leadership and creativity as outcome
through promotion focus and problem identification and through promotion focus and
idea generation. Spending effort on identifying the problem and generating ideas are
Chapter 2: Transformational Leadership and Employee Creativity 43
positively related to the creative outcome. Thereby, our results highlight the
importance of getting an accurate representation of the problem and generating
possible solution for the creative outcome. Yet, we found no indirect relations
including a path through the stage of information search and encoding. These
findings contradict previous research that found increased information search
resulting in more original and more appropriate solutions (Illies & Reiter-Palmon,
2004). This missing link through the information search and encoding stage might be
due to the difficulty to draw an exact line between problem identification and
information search and encoding on the one hand and between information search
and encoding and idea generation on the other hand. Because the creative process
is no isolated consecutive sequence, information search and encoding processes
may start before the problem is completely identified and the idea generation may be
triggered while the information search and encoding processes are still going on
(Reiter-Palmon & Illies, 2004). Thus, information search and encoding might still be
beneficial for creativity as outcome by fostering problem identification and idea
generation, as it is suggested by the positive correlation between the different stages
of the creative process (see Table 2.1).
Limitations and Future Research
Our study has some limitations that suggest avenues for future research. We
measured both the predictor variable (transformational leadership) and the mediator
(promotion focus) at the same time. One might argue that relations between these
two variables could also be turned around in the way that promotion-focused
employees appraise their leader as more transformational. Yet, the fact that only
promotion focus becomes a significant predictor for creativity, when both variables
Chapter 2: Transformational Leadership and Employee Creativity 44
are added to the regression, indicates that promotion focus – rather than
transformational leadership - serves as the mediator.
Second, the use of single-source data raises concerns about common method
bias due to common rater effects (Podsakoff et al., 2003). Common rater effects can
be caused by participants who want to maintain consistency in their answers or
whose answers are systematically biased (Podsakoff et al., 2003). This concern is
particularly relevant for the constructs creative process engagement and creativity as
outcome, because these constructs refer to a similar content. Podsakoff et al. (2003)
recommend to face this issue by separating the measurement of predictor and
outcome variables. We considered this recommendation by using three different
measurement points. Thus, we separated the measurement of creative process
engagement and creativity as outcome.
Still, the use of self-rated creativity is a limitation. Future research should
address this issue by including objective measures of creativity. However, creative
process engagement is an internal process and as such it should be rated by the
employees themselves (X. M. Zhang & Bartol, 2010).
Our study provided a closer look at the role of promotion focus and how it is
related to the different stages of the creative process. Promotion focus is considered
to foster creativity by broadening the attentional scope and facilitate the accessibility
of cognitive representations (Baas et al., 2008). A task for future research is to
examine whether the importance of a broad attentional scope and high accessible
cognitive representations vary at different stages of the creative process. It is
conceivable that a broad scope of attention is particularly beneficial at the stage of
problem identification, whereas a higher access of cognitive representations might
have the strongest effect while searching and encoding information.
Chapter 2: Transformational Leadership and Employee Creativity 45
When employees are promotion-focused, they are motivated to achieve
positive outcomes (Brockner & Higgins, 2001). Experimental research showed that
promotion-focused participants altered an initially boring task in a way that the task
became more intrinsically motivating (Smith, Wagaman, & Handley, 2009).
Considering these findings, our results are consistent with past research that
examined intrinsic motivation as a mediator for the relationship between
transformational leadership and creativity (Shin & Zhou, 2003). A synthesis of our
study and past research suggests a complex mediating mechanism for the
relationship between transformational leadership and employee creativity:
Transformational leaders evoke a promotion focus in their employees, who might
alter their work tasks in a way that these tasks become more intrinsically motivating
and thereby the employees become more creative. Future research could test this
more complex model.
Practical Implications
Considering the importance of employee creativity for organizational success
(Oldham & Cummings, 1996; Scott & Bruce, 1994), it is critical for leaders to know
how they can foster the creativity of their employees. Our results suggest that leaders
should apply transformational leadership behaviors. It is important for employee
creativity that leaders provide intellectual stimulation, encourage the employees to try
out different approaches, share a vision with their employees and show consideration
for employees’ individual needs. Additionally, by identifying promotion focus as a
mediator in the relationship between transformational leadership and employee
creativity, our results highlight the importance of employees’ regulatory focus. Since
leadership style is just one antecedent of employees’ regulatory focus among others
(Brockner & Higgins, 2001), it is important for organizations to provide a beneficial
Chapter 2: Transformational Leadership and Employee Creativity 46
context for promotion focus and to limit possible constraints. For example,
organizations should establish a culture that highlights achievements instead of
focusing on failure avoidance. Moreover, our results point to the importance of
creative process engagement for employee creativity. In our study, we focused on
the indirect relation between transformational leadership and creative process
engagement via promotion focus. Yet, leaders might want to increase creative
process engagement more directly. To increase creative process engagement,
leader should provide enough time for sufficient problem identification, foster
information search and encoding by supplying resources, and help employees to
generate ideas by providing analogies (Reiter-Palmon & Illies, 2004).
In conclusion, our study adds to the body of research that demonstrates that
transformational leadership is an antecedent of employee creativity (Jung, Chow, &
Wu, 2003; Shin & Zhou, 2003). Our study supports the assumption that promotion
focus serves as a mediator between transformational leadership and employee
creativity (Kark & Van Dijk, 2007) and highlights the importance of creative process
engagement.
Chapter 3: Positive Affect and Creativity 47
STUDY 2
IS POSITIVE AFFECT ENOUGH FOR CREATIVITY? THE MODER ATING ROLE
OF RELATIONSHIP CONFLICTS
Summary
By adopting a within-person perspective, this study examines the relationship
between positive affect in the morning and day-specific creativity and the moderating
effect of relationship conflicts (i.e. conflicts which refer to the persons involved).
Daily-survey data were gathered over the course of one working week from 101
employees from the advertising industry. Hierarchical linear modeling showed that
relationship conflicts moderated the relationship between positive affect in the
morning and day-specific creativity. A higher level of positive affect in the morning
was related to higher day-specific creativity only on days low on relationship conflicts.
The results highlight the importance of a work environment without relationship
conflicts so that the positive affect – creativity relationship can emerge.
Chapter 3: Positive Affect and Creativity 48
Introduction
Because of the global competition being creative as a company becomes
more and more critical for companies’ success (Amabile, 1988; Shalley & Perry-
Smith, 2001; West, 2002; Woodman, Sawyer, & Griffin, 1993). To be creative,
companies need employees who produce creative ideas. That means ideas, which
are both novel and useful for a particular issue (Amabile, 1996; Oldham &
Cummings, 1996).
Research has identified positive affect as a potential antecedent of employee
creativity (Madjar, Oldham, & Pratt, 2002; Vosburg, 1998). A meta-analysis of mainly
laboratory experiments showed that positive affect enhances creativity in contrast to
neutral or negative affect (Davis, 2009). Yet, a field study by George and Zhou
(2002) revealed mixed findings. The authors pointed out that the positive affect -
creativity relationship emerges only under certain conditions. Considering this
inconsistency, Kaufmann (2003a) suggested that future research should focus on
possible moderators of the relationship between positive affect and creativity.
We answer this call by investigating relationship conflicts as a moderator of
the relationship between positive affect and creativity. Relationship conflicts are
workplace conflicts that refer to the personal tastes or values of the involved persons
(De Dreu & Weingart, 2003). Scholars assume that relationship conflicts impair team
creativity (Hüttermann & Boerner, 2011). Yet, research has not further examined how
relationship conflicts might impair creativity. We propose that relationship conflicts
impair the beneficial effects of positive affect on creativity and thereby moderate the
relationship between positive affect and creativity.
The aim of our study is twofold. First, we want replicate past findings by
investigating positive affect as an antecedent of creativity (Binnewies & Wörnlein,
2011). Second, we want to reconcile the inconsistent finding regarding the positive
Chapter 3: Positive Affect and Creativity 49
affect – creativity relationship by pointing out that this relationship emerges only
under certain conditions. We contribute to literature by illustrating how relationship
conflicts shape the positive affect – creativity relationship.
In order to meet the dynamic nature of creativity (Amabile et al., 2005), we
investigated how relationship conflicts moderate the relation between positive affect
and creativity at the day level. We conducted a diary study to capture the daily
fluctuations of creativity, positive affect, and relationship conflict. Our design enables
us to investigate intra-individual variability of the day-specific relationship between
morning positive affect and creativity at work and how this relationship changes
according to the degree of relationship conflicts on the respective day.
Creativity
Creativity involves the creation of noval ideas and is the antecedent of a
successful implementation of the final innovation in the organization (Amabile, 1988;
West, 2002). Creativity implies the production of ideas that are related to the
organization’s business such as new product ideas or to the organization itself such
as new procedures (Amabile, 1988).
Creativity is defined as a continuum (Amabile, 1996). Low levels of creativity
comprise, for example, minor adoptions of existing ideas, whereas the production of
a radical new idea describes a high level of creativity (Perry-Smith & Shalley, 2003).
Apparently highly creative ideas are less frequent than less creative ideas. The
variability of creativity is consistent with the conceptualization of employee creativity
as a dynamic construct that varies on a daily basis (Amabile et al., 2005).
Previous research found that group composition, supervisor’s leadership style
and behavior of colleagues are related to employee creativity (Eisenbeiss et al.,
2008; Madjar, 2005; Shin & Zhou, 2007; J. Zhou, 2003). Scholars consider social
Chapter 3: Positive Affect and Creativity 50
influences such as interactions with supervisors or colleagues as antecedents of
creativity (Amabile, 1988; Perry-Smith & Shalley, 2003; Woodman et al., 1993).
Madjar et al. (2002) found that a work environment with helpful colleagues was
positively related to the employee’s individual creativity. This relation was mediated
by positive affect. This stream of research suggests that social processes within the
work environment may be relevant for creativity and thus rises the question about the
role of relationship conflicts (Hüttermann & Boerner, 2011).
Positive Affect and Creativity
Positive affect is related to employees’ behavior at work (Forgas & George,
2001; Fritz & Sonnentag, 2009; Isen & Baron, 1991; Seo, Barrett, & Bartunek, 2004).
A considerable number of creativity studies has focused on the relationship between
positive affect and creativity (Amabile et al., 2005; George & Brief, 1992; George &
Zhou, 2007; Kaufmann, 2003a).
Positive affect describes an affective state that does not necessarily require
attention, but provides an affective tone for a specific situation (George & Brief,
1992). High positive affect is characterized by a pleasant state of feeling excited and
active and is associated with high energy, full concentration, and pleasurable
engagement (Watson et al., 1988). The circumplex model distinguishes activating
and deactivating affective states (Russell, 1980). Meta-analytic findings revealed that
positive affective states are positively related to creativity when they are activating
(e.g., happy), but not when they are deactivating (e.g., relaxed) (Baas et al., 2008).
The Broaden-and-Build Theory of positive emotions assumes that positive affect
broadens one’s thought and action repertoires and thus leads to novel and creative
thoughts and actions (Fredrickson, 1998, 2001). From a neuropsychological
perspective, positive affect is associated with an increased dopamine level (Ashby et
Chapter 3: Positive Affect and Creativity 51
al., 1999). The increased dopamine release enhances cognitive flexibility and thus
fosters creativity (Ashby et al., 1999). Positive affect can as well have an
informational (Schwarz & Clore, 1983) and enhance employees’ feeling of safety
(Forgas & George, 2001), which in turn can foster creativity (Baas et al., 2008;
Brockner & Higgins, 2001). Positive affect will lead to greater creativity on
subsequent tasks, because employees engage more in divergent thinking and are
therefore more likely to come up with creative ideas.
Amabile et al. (2005) collected daily measures of creativity and affect over the
course of several weeks. The authors found that positive affect on a given day was
positively related to creativity on the next day. In our study, we focus on the day-
specific relation between activating positive affect in the morning and creativity during
work. Morning affect reflects how people feel when they start to work and are faced
with the tasks that are scheduled for the day (Rothbard & Wilk, 2011). We propose
that morning positive affect enhances creativity during the subsequent workday.
Hypothesis 1: Day-specific positive affect in the morning will be positively
related with day-specific creativity.
Conflicts and Positive Affect
Intragroup conflicts describe situations in which the goals or interests between
the involved parties are incompatible or in opposition (Korsgaard, Jeong, Mahony, &
Pitariu, 2008). Regarding the type of disagreement, research differentiates between
relationship conflicts and task-related conflicts (Barki & Hartwick, 2004; Jehn, 1995).
Task-related conflicts result from different viewpoints or ideas about task-relevant
content and thereby tend to increase task performance (Jehn, 1995; Simons &
Peterson, 2000). In contrast, relationship conflicts comprise conflicts which refer to
the involved persons such as personal taste or values (De Dreu & Weingart, 2003)
Chapter 3: Positive Affect and Creativity 52
and result in a perception of interpersonal incompatibly (Simons & Peterson, 2000).
Research on relationship conflicts found a negative relationship with task
performance (De Dreu & Weingart, 2003). Scholars assume that relationship conflicts
impair performance by reducing cognitive flexibility, inducing rigid thinking, and
drawing attention away from the task (Pelled, 1996; Simons & Peterson, 2000).
Threatening situation such as relationship conflicts reduce a person’s ability to
process new and complex information (Pelled, 1996; Staw, Sandelands, & Dutton,
1981). In these situation people rather rely on well-learned responses than on new
ones (Staw et al., 1981). Speaking in terms of creativity, relationship conflicts keep
employees from trying out new procedures and ideas. Relationship conflicts can
activate a conflict mental model (Carnevale & Probst, 1998). A conflict mental model
is associated with increased cognitive rigidity and narrower mental categories
(Carnevale & Probst, 1998). Experimental research shows that expectation or
experience of a conflict situation causes decreased performance of a subsequent
creative task (Carnevale & Probst, 1998).
Yet, we assume that the experience of relationship conflicts affects employee
creativity by shaping the relationship between positive affect and employee creativity.
As mentioned above, scholars argue that positive affect fosters creativity by
broadening one’s thoughts and actions and increasing cognitive flexibility
(Fredrickson, 2001; Isen & Baron, 1991). Because positive affect and relationship
conflicts have diametrally opposed consequences, we propose that relationship
conflicts impair the beneficial effects of positive affect. Relationship conflicts reduce
the increased cognitive flexibility and limit the thought and actions that otherwise
would be stimulated by positive affect. Additionally, instead of working on the task
and produce a creative solution, an employee has to spend time and energy to deal
with the non-task related conflict (Pelled, 1996).
Chapter 3: Positive Affect and Creativity 53
We propose that relationship conflicts moderate the relationship between
positive affect and creativity. We expect that the experience of relationship conflicts
attenuates the relationship between positive affect and creativity.
Hypothesis 2: Day-specific relationship conflicts moderate the relation
between morning positive affect and day-specific creativity. The relation will be
stronger when day-specific relationship conflicts are low than when day-specific
relationship conflicts are high.
Method
Procedure and Sample
The sample comprised employees from the advertising industry in Germany.
We chose the advertising industry because in this field being creative is part of the
job requirements (Stuhlfaut & Windels, 2012). Employees were contacted via
telephone and informed about our study and the procedure of the data collection.
Data were collected with two daily surveys to be completed over five consecutive
working days and a general survey. All surveys had to be filled in online. The
employees who agreed to participate received the general survey in the week before
the daily survey started. Participation was rewarded with a detailed feedback of the
study results. A total of 192 people agreed to participate in the study. Of these 192
people, 161 completed the general survey. Out of these 161 participants, 156 filled in
both surveys on a total of 590 days. Protocol data indicated that on 74 days at least
one survey was filled in at the wrong time, resulting in valid data of 516 days from
145 persons. Another 44 persons were excluded from the sample because they
indicated that they were working without colleagues or a supervisor and could not
provide data about the occurrence of relationship conflicts at work.
Chapter 3: Positive Affect and Creativity 54
The final sample was comprised of 101 participants who provided data on a
total of 338 days. The majority of participants (65%) were female. Participants’ age
ranged from 19 to 56 years (M = 35.09; SD = 9.07). On average, the participants
worked 9.76 years (SD = 7.71) in the advertising industry and thereof 4.82 years (SD
= 4.73) for their current employer. More than half of the participants (N = 54) held a
college degree.
Measures
The first daily survey had to be filled in the morning before work, the second
one immediately after work, mostly in the afternoon. The before-work survey included
a measure of positive affect, the after-work survey measures of task conflicts,
relationship conflicts, and creativity. With the general survey we measured the control
variable job control and demographic variables. We controlled for job control,
because research identified this variable to be related to employee creativity (Ohly et
al., 2006).
Daily Before-Work Survey
Positive affect. We used four items from the Positive and Negative Affect
Schedule (Watson et al., 1988) to measure positive activating affect (To, Fisher,
Ashkanasy, & Rowe, 2011). Participants were asked to indicate to which extend they
felt at the moment “excited”, “enthusiastic”, “interested”, and “inspired”. Cronbach’s
alpha ranged from .82 to .89 (M = .86).
Daily After-Work Survey
Day-specific creativity. Day-specific creativity was assessed with nine items
from Tierney et al. (1999). The items were adapted to a self-rating format (Ohly &
Chapter 3: Positive Affect and Creativity 55
Fritz, 2010). Participants were asked to rate the extent to which they had shown
creative approaches during their work time on the respective day. A sample item is
“During my work I generated novel, but operable work-related ideas”. Day-specific
Cronbach’s alpha ranged between .86 and .89 (M = .87).
Day-specific relationship conflicts. To measure day-specific relationship
conflicts we used the four relationship conflict items of the intragroup conflict scale
from Jehn (1995). Participants indicated the presence of day-specific relationship
conflicts with their colleagues or supervisor by answering four items on a five point
Likert scale (1 = “statement does not apply at all” to 5 = “statement does fully apply).
A sample items is: “Today there were emotional conflicts between me and my
colleagues or supervisor”. Day-specific Cronbach’s alpha ranged from .58 to .92 (M =
.83).
Since we measured day-specific creativity and day-specific relationship
conflicts at the same time, we conducted a confirmatory factor analysis to ensure that
the measures represent distinct factors. Results show a better fit for a model
comprising two distinct factors, χ2 (64) = 185.20, CFI = 0.921, RMSEA = 0.64, than a
one-factor model, ∆ χ2 = 792.4, p < .001.
General Survey
Job control. To measure job control we used a three item scale developed by
Spreitzer (1995). Participants reported on three items how much control they had
about the way they perform their tasks at work (e.g. “I can decide by myself how to
do my work”; Cronbach’s α = .92).
Demographic variables. The participants reported their age, sex, occupation,
tenure and level of education.
Chapter 3: Positive Affect and Creativity 56
Data Analysis
Our dataset comprised measures on two levels. On the first level (day level)
were the measures of the daily surveys, on the second level (person level) the
measures of the general survey. The day-level data were nested within the person-
level data. This hierarchical structure requires the data being analyzed with a
multilevel approach (Bryk & Raudenbush, 1992). In the regression analyses we
group-mean centered the day-level variables which means we centered the day-level
predictor variables around their respective person mean to analyze day-specific
effects within persons (Hofmann & Gavin, 1998).
Results
Means, standard deviations and correlations are displayed in Table 3.1. We
tested our hypotheses using nested hierarchical linear models. The first model (null
model) included only the intercept. In Model 1, we entered the person-level (Level 2)
variable job control. In Model 2 and 3, we added the day-level (Level 1) variables
day-specific relationship conflicts (Model 2) and morning positive affect (Model 3). In
Model 4 we included the interaction term morning positive mood x day-specific
relationship conflicts. Table 3.2 displays the results.
Chapter 3: Positive Affect and Creativity 57
Table 3.1. Means, Standard Deviations, and Correlations among the Study Variables.
Mean SD 1 2 3 4
1 Morning positive affect 2.40 .73 - -.09 .30**
2 Day-specific relationship conflicts 1.34 .68 -.03 - .07
3 Day-specific creativity 2.27 .80 .33** .13 -
4 Job control 3.67 .88 .10* .09* -.01 -
Note. Correlations below the diagonal are person level correlations (N = 101).
Correlations above the diagonal are day level correlations (N = 338). ** p < .01, * p <
.05.
Model 1 and Model 2 did not improve the model fit compared to the null model
when predicting day-specific creativity. Neither job control nor day-specific
relationship conflicts were significant predictors of day-specific creativity. Model 3 led
to an improved model fit compared to Model 2. Positive affect in the morning was
significantly related to day-specific creativity. Thus, the results support Hypothesis 1.
The interaction term between morning positive affect and day-specific relationship
conflicts added in Model 4, contributed to an increased model fit. The interaction
between morning positive affect and day-specific relationship conflicts was
significant.
58
Table 3.2. Multilevel Estimates for Models Prediciting Day-specific Creativity (N = 338 days).
Model 1 Model 2 Model 3 Model 4
Variable Estimate SE t Estimate SE t Estimate SE t Estimate SE t
Intercept 2.29 0.07 3.13** 2.30 0.07 33.13** 2.30 0.07 33.12** 2.29 0.07 33.27**
Job control 0.10 0.08 1.21 0.10 0.08 1.21 0.10 0.08 1.21 0.10 0.08 1.23
Day-specific relationship conflicts
-0.04 0.05 0.72 -0.03 0.05 0.55 -0.02 0.05 0.49
Morning positive affect 0.18 0.08 2.28* 0.18 0.08 2.41*
Morning positive affect x day-specific relationship conflicts
-0.36 0.13 2.70**
- 2 x log 661.80 661.28 656.13 648.94
∆ – 2 x log 1.45 0.52 5.15* 7.19**
df 1 1 1 1
Level 1 Variance .25 .25 .24 .23
Level 2 Variance .39 .39 .39 .39
Note. ** p < .01, * p < .05; Nullmodel: - 2 x log = 663.25, Level 1 Variance = .25, Level 2 Variance = .40.
Chapter 3: Positive Affect and Creativity 59
To test the significance of the simple slopes of this interaction, we selected
two different values for the moderator variable relationship conflicts (Preacher,
Curran, & Bauer, 2006). We used a value one standard deviation above the mean
(high relationship conflicts) and a value one standard deviation below the mean (low
relationship conflicts). Results showed that morning positive affect was a significant
predictor for daily creativity only on days low on day-specific relationship conflicts (γ =
0.539, SE = 0.112, t = 4.834, p < .001), whereas there was no significant relation on
days high on day-specific conflicts (γ = -0.173, SE = 0.114, t = 1.515, ns). Figure 3.1
displays the relation between morning positive affect and day-specific creativity for
days high and days low on day-specific relationship conflicts. The results support
Hypothesis 2. Day-specific relationship conflicts moderate the relation between
morning positive affect and day-specific creativity.
Chapter 3: Positive Affect and Creativity 60
Figure 3.1. Interaction between positive affect and relationship conflicts predicting
day-specific creativity.
Discussion
The aim of our study was to investigate the relationship between morning
positive affect and day-specific creativity and to point out how this relationship is
shaped by the experience of relationship conflicts. We found that positive activating
affect was positively related to employee creativity. Our results are in line with
previous research and provide further support for the positive affect – creativity
relationship (Amabile et al., 2005; Baas et al., 2008).
Furthermore, our results support the assumption that the positive affect –
creativity relationship requires fitting circumstances to emerge (George & Zhou,
2002; Kaufmann, 2003a, 2003b). We proposed that relationship conflicts moderate
the relationship between positive affect and creativity. Our results revealed that
morning positive affect was related to employee creativity only on days low on day-
specific relationship conflicts. No relation was found on days high on relationship
conflicts. The results are in line with previous research that describes diamentral-
1,6
1,8
2
2,2
2,4
2,6
2,8
3
Low positive affect High positive affect
Low relationship conflicts
High relationship conflicts
Chapter 3: Positive Affect and Creativity 61
opposed effects for positive affect and relationship conflicts. Positive affect broadens
the thoughts of a person (Fredrickson, 2001). However, the experience of
relationship conflicts induces rigid thinking (Carnevale & Probst, 1998). Moreover,
relationship conflicts and positive affect have contrary effects on employees feeling of
safety. While positive affect signals safe situation (Schwarz & Clore, 1983),
relationship conflicts increase social insecurity (Jehn & Mannix, 2001). Thereby,
relationship conflicts attenuate the beneficial effects of positive affect on employee
creativity. Moreover, we did not find a direct relationship between relationship
conflicts and day-specific creativity. This suggests that the effects of relationship
conflicts do not impair creativity per se. They rather inhibit the beneficial effects of
positive affect. Thus, a workplace without relationship conflicts does not foster
creativity itself, but it is necessary so that positive affect can facilitate employee
creativity.
Limitations
This study has some limitations. First, the use of self-report measures raises
concern of common method variance (Podsakoff et al., 2003). This concern was
particular relevant for our study because positive affect is seen as a source of
common method variance (Podsakoff et al., 2003). Positive affect causes people to
evaluate themselves in a more positive way. Thus, the correlation between positive
affect and creativity might rather be due to the more positive self-evaluation than to
an actual increased creativity. However, recent meta-analytic research found no
increased correlation between positive affect and creativity when studies used self-
ratings of creativity compared to non-self-report measures of creativity (Ng &
Feldman, 2012). Nevertheless, we addressed the issue of common method variance
by using separate measurement points for morning positive affect on the one hand
Chapter 3: Positive Affect and Creativity 62
and day-specific relationship conflicts and day-specific creativity on the other hand
(Podsakoff et al., 2003). Additionally by using person-centered predictor scores our
analyses were not confounded by between person biases caused by individual
response tendencies (Ilies, Schwind, Wagner, & Johnson, 2007). Rather than
differences of the absolute score between persons our focus were changes within
persons.
A second limitation is that participants assessed their own creativity. Since our
sample comprised employees’ of the advertising industry, one might argue that the
creativity measure is biased in terms of social desirability. Participants who give
social desirable answers should indicate increased absolute scores of creativity. Yet,
we applied a within-person design and focused on the day-specific relationship
between positive affect and creativity and not on absolute differences of creativity
between persons.
Although, our design allowed us to monitor participants’ experience and
behavior close to its actual occurrence and therefore to draw a detailed picture of the
positive affect – creativity relationship, we did not directly examine the mechanisms
that mediate the interaction between positive affect and relationship conflicts. Future
research should address this question by looking more closely on the mediating
processes behind the interplay of positive affect and relationship conflicts.
Implications for Research and Practice
Our results suggest that the positive affect – creativity relationship is shaped
by day-specific incidents that happen during a working day. We identified relationship
conflicts as a moderator for this relationship. Future research should focus on
identifying further moderators. With relationship conflicts, we focused on destructive
incidents, but future research might also investigate constructive incidents. As
Chapter 3: Positive Affect and Creativity 63
coworkers’ support and leadership style were found to be positively related to
creativity (Eisenbeiss et al., 2008; Madjar et al., 2002), they may have the potential to
strengthen the positive affect – creativity relationship.
The practical implications of our study are twofold. First, our results illustrate
the positive effects of positive affect. Employees should try to increase their positive
affect in the morning. Research on leisure time activities showed that employees who
spend their spare time with challenging activities such as sport or diversified hobbies
experience more activating positive affect in the morning (Sonnentag, Binnewies, &
Mojza, 2008). Thus, employees might foster their creativity by spending their leisure
time with challenging activities. Second, relationship conflicts attenuate the
relationship between positive affect and creativity. Supervisors should create a work
environment that prevents relationship conflicts. For example, Simons and Peterson
(2000) found that a climate of trust can prevent that task conflicts grow into
relationship conflicts. Thus, supervisors can foster creativity by creating a climate that
prevents the emergence of relationship conflicts.
Chapter 4: Promotion Focus and Employee Creativity 64
STUDY 3
PROMOTION FOCUS AND EMPLOYEE CREATIVITY: THE MEDIAT ING ROLES
OF DAY-SPECIFIC PROMOTION FOCUS AND DAY-SPECIFIC PO SITIVE
AFFECT
Summary
Research has demonstrated a positive relationship between general promotion focus
and creativity. In our study we investigated the mediating mechanisms of this
relationship. Regulatory Focus Theory proposes that affect related to promotion
focus is associated with the positive affectivity dimension. We tested a multiple
mediation model with day-specific promotion focus and day-specific positive affect as
mediators. We gathered data of 122 employees from the advertising industry, who
filled in questionnaires on two consecutive working days. The results support our
hypotheses. The relationship between general promotion focus and day-specific
creativity is mediated by day-specific promotion focus and day-specific positive
activating affect. The results indicate that general promotion focus is associated with
higher creativity on a specific day, because on this day the employees are more
promotion-focused and experience more positive affect.
Chapter 4: Promotion Focus and Employee Creativity 65
Introduction
To be successful organizations rely on creative employees (Amabile, 1996;
Oldham & Cummings, 1996). Considering that some employees are more creative
than others, interindividual differences are an important topic for research on
employee creativity (Oldham & Cummings, 1996; Scott & Bruce, 1994; Tierney et al.,
1999). Research indentified promotion focus as an important antecedent of employee
creativity (Kark & Van Dijk, 2007; Neubert et al., 2008). Regulatory Focus Theory
distinguishes two regulatory foci: Promotion and prevention focus (Higgins,
1997).Promotion focus is a self-regulatory principle that determines the needs and
goals of a person (Brockner & Higgins, 2001). Promotion-focused people seek to
satisfy their growth and developmental needs and they try to accomplish goals that
represent their ideal selves (Brockner & Higgins, 2001; Higgins, 1997). In contrast,
prevention-focused people have security needs and try to satisfy the expectations of
their environment (Brockner & Higgins, 2001; Higgins, 1997). Promotion focus
behavior is characterized by eagerness and risk-taking (Kark & Van Dijk, 2007).
Thus, it is apparent that in the field of creativity promotion focus is particularly
relevant (Kark & Van Dijk, 2007; Neubert et al., 2008). Although research
demonstrated that generally promotion-focused employees are more creative
(Neubert et al., 2008; Q. Zhou, Hirst, & Shipton, 2012), is it not fully investigated why
generally promotion-focused employees are more creative on a specific day. As
research on regulatory focus turned to organizational settings, Brocker and Higgins
(2001) emphasized that it is important to investigate the mediators in the relationship
between regulatory focus and behavioral outcomes. We address this gap and
investigate two mechanisms that link general promotion focus to creativity on a
specific day. In more detail, we look at day-specific promotion focus and day-specific
Chapter 4: Promotion Focus and Employee Creativity 66
positive affect as mediators in the relationship between general promotion focus and
day-specific creativity.
First, promotion focus has a general component that represents stable
differences between persons and it has a specific component that reflects the
situational influences on the person (Stam et al., 2010). Experimental research
demonstrated that a person’s promotion focus can be manipulated by situational
cues (Friedman & Förster, 2001). Moreover, this situation-specific promotion focus
fostered creativity. In our study, we account for this less stable component of
promotion focus by investigating day-specific promotion focus as a mediator in the
relationship between general promotion focus and day-specific creativity. Second,
research on the link between promotion focus and creativity has so far neglected that
in addition to the behavioral consequences, scholars assume that promotion focus
influences a person’s affective experience (Brockner & Higgins, 2001; Higgins,
1997). In terms of the two major taxonomies of affect (Russell, 1980; Watson et al.,
1999), promotion-focused employees experience activating positive affect when they
achieve their goals and deactivating negative affect when they miss their goals, while
prevention-focused affect ranges from deactivating positive affect in case of success
and activating negative affect in case of failure (Brockner & Higgins, 2001). Brockner
and Higgins (2001) point out the importance to delineate the relationship between
promotion focus and affect and promotion focus and behavioral outcomes. They
argue that researchers should investigate affect as both a consequence of promotion
focus and an antecedent of behavioral outcomes. Past research has demonstrated a
positive relationship between creativity and positive affect (Amabile et al., 2005;
Binnewies & Wörnlein, 2011). However, meta-analytic findings have examined the
relationship between positive affect and creativity in more details (Baas et al., 2008).
Results show that positive affect fosters creativity only when it is activating and
Chapter 4: Promotion Focus and Employee Creativity 67
associated with promotion focus. Considering these findings, we propose day-
specific positive affect as a second mediator in the relationship between general
promotion focus and day-specific creativity.
Taken together, the aim of our study is to investigate the relationship between
general promotion focus and day-specific creativity. Specifically, we examine the role
of day-specific positive activating affect and day-specific promotion focus both as
consequences of general promotion focus and antecedents of creativity. Thereby, we
demonstrate that the relationship between general promotion focus and day-specific
creativity is not simply due to day-specific promotion focus, but is also due to
increased day-specific positive affect. We contribute to the literature by examining a
multiple mediation model with day-specific positive affect and day-specific promotion
focus as mediators in the relationship between general promotion focus and day-
specific creativity. Thus, we integrate the research of both promotion focus and
positive activating affect as antecedents of creativity, in order to enable a better
understanding why promotion focus is beneficial for creativity.
Promotion Focus
Regulatory Focus Theory is a topic that receives growing research attention
(Lanaj, Chang, & Johnson, 2012). Higgins (1997) proposes that the regulatory focus
shapes the self-regulation processes of a person. The theory distinguishes between
two self-regulatory foci: promotion and prevention focus. People who are promotion-
focused have an approach motivation and seek to achieve desired end-states
(Higgins, 1997). On the contrary, prevention-focused people have a motivation to
avoid undesired end-states (Higgins, 1997). Thus, promotion-focused employees
seek to engage in behaviors that bring them closer to accomplish a task, while
prevention-focused employees seek to avoid behaviors that interfere with task
Chapter 4: Promotion Focus and Employee Creativity 68
accomplishment. Moreover, the needs and goals of a person and the psychological
relevance of a situation vary regarding to the person’s regulatory focus (Brockner &
Higgins, 2001; Higgins, 1997). On the one hand, promotion focus is associated with
growth and developmental needs and goals that represent the ideal self of a person.
Situations with the presence and absence of positive outcomes are particularly
salient for promotion-focused people (Brockner & Higgins, 2001). On the other hand,
prevention focus is associated with security needs and goals that represent the ought
self of a person. The presence or absence of negative outcomes is salient for
prevention-focused people (Brockner & Higgins, 2001). However, both regulatory foci
are rather independent than end-points on a continuum (Förster, Higgins, & Bianco,
2003).
Scholars argue that promotion focus is particularly relevant for employee
creativity because promotion-focused employees are eager and willing to take risks
in order to accomplish their task (Friedman & Förster, 2001; Kark & Van Dijk, 2007).
According to experimental research, promotion-focused people are more open to
change (Liberman et al., 1999), engage in a relational elaboration style (Zhu &
Meyers-Levy, 2007), have increased attentional flexibility (Friedman & Förster, 2005),
and produce more alternatives in order to achieve success (Crowe & Higgins, 1997).
Considering these previous findings, we propose that employees with a general
promotion focus are more creative on a specific day.
Hypothesis 1: General promotion focus is positively related to day-specific
creativity.
Day-specific Promotion Focus and Creativity
The dispositional tendency to be promotion or prevention-focused goes back
to experiences during early childhood (Higgins & Silberman, 1998). The interaction
Chapter 4: Promotion Focus and Employee Creativity 69
with significant others shapes a child’s regulatory focus. A nurturance-oriented
parenting style can instill a promotion focus and a security-oriented parenting style
can instill a prevention focus. Even though people develop a disposition to be
promotion-focused, the strength of the promotion focus depends on the context
(Lanaj et al., 2012). Stam et al. (2010) distinguish between a chronic, general
promotion focus and a situation-specific promotion focus. Experimental research has
demonstrated that simple cues such as the framing of the task can elicit a situation-
specific promotion focus (Higgins et al., 1997). By telling the participants that they
could win extra money, the researchers made the positive outcome more salient and
thus induced a promotion focus (Higgins et al., 1997).
Every day employees are faced with behaviors and circumstances that
influence their regulatory focus (Brockner & Higgins, 2001). For example, a reward
for being successful can elicit a promotion focus when the success is associated with
the accomplishment of a positive outcome (vs. successfully preventing negative
consequences). Experimental research has demonstrated that participants showed
increased attentional flexibility and creativity after the presentation of promotion-focus
cues (Friedman & Förster, 2001, 2005). Therefore, we propose that employees are
more creative on days when they are highly promotion-focused.
Nonetheless, generally promotion-focused employees actively seek situations
that offer the opportunity to achieve positive outcomes (Brockner & Higgins, 2001).
Thus, employees have the tendency to maintain their general regulatory focus. A
recent meta-analysis revealed that persons who are promotion-focused in their
general life domains are also more promotion-focused at work (Lanaj et al., 2012).
Even though the day-specific promotion focus is influenced by situational cues, we
propose generally promotion-focused employees are more promotion-focused in a
specific situation and therefore more creative in this situation.
Chapter 4: Promotion Focus and Employee Creativity 70
Taken together, we hypothesize that generally promotion-focused employees
are more creative on a specific day, because their general promotion focus fosters
the promotion focus on this day.
Hypothesis 2: General promotion focus is positively related to day-specific
promotion focus.
Hypothesis 3: Day-specific promotion focus is positively related to day-specific
creativity.
Hypothesis 4: Day-specific promotion focus mediates the relationship between
general promotion focus and day-specific creativity.
Positive Affect and Creativity
The affective experience influences an employee’s behavior at work (Brief &
Weiss, 2002; Forgas & George, 2001; Fritz & Sonnentag, 2009; Ilies, Scott, & Judge,
2006). Affect describes feelings that are consciously accessible and do not
necessarily refer to a specific object (Fredrickson, 2001). According to the two major
taxonomies of affect (Russell, 1980; Watson et al., 1999), affective experiences are
classified along the valence (positive vs. negative) and arousal (high vs. low)
dimensions (Russell, 1980; Watson et al., 1999). Past research on the influence of
affect on creativity has shown that the experience of positive affect is positively
related to increased creativity during the following working day (Amabile et al., 2005;
Binnewies & Wörnlein, 2011).
Scholars have suggested different explanations why positive affect fosters
creativity. First, the Broaden-and-Build Theory assumes that positive affect broadens
a person’s thought and action repertoire (Fredrickson, 1998, 2001). According to this
theory, people who experience positive affect are more creative, because they are
more playful, explorative and take different views on things. Second,
Chapter 4: Promotion Focus and Employee Creativity 71
neuropsychologists assume that the relationship between positive affect and
creativity can be explained by the dopamine level (Ashby et al., 1999). Positive affect
is associated with an increased dopamine release. The increased dopamine level
enhances cognitive flexibility and thus fosters creativity. Third, from a “mood-as-
input” perspective, positive affect signals a safe situation (Forgas & George, 2001;
Schwarz & Clore, 1983). In safe situations, employees might take risks and try out
novel approaches because they do not fear negative consequences in case of
failure.
Importantly, meta-analytic findings showed that the link between positive affect
and creativity occurred only for activating positive affect and not for deactivating
positive affect (Baas et al., 2008). Considering the previous findings, we propose that
activating positive affect fosters creativity.
Hypothesis 5: Day-specific positive affect is positively related to day-specific
creativity.
Positive Affect and Promotion Focus
A persons’ regulatory focus influences the affect he or she experiences
(Brockner & Higgins, 2001). Brockner and Higgins (2001) emphasize that the
different affective experiences associated with both regulatory foci leads to different
work behaviors. Affect associated with promotion focus varies from cheerful in case
of success to dejected in case of failure; whereas affect associated with prevention
focus varies from quiescence (success) to agitation (failure). Thus, a person’s
affective response to success or failure varies depending on the person’s regulatory
focus. In terms of the two major taxonomic dimensions of affect valence and arousal
(Russell, 1980; Watson et al., 1999), affect associated with promotion focus has
either a positive valence/high arousal (success) or negative valence/low arousal
Chapter 4: Promotion Focus and Employee Creativity 72
(failure), while affect associated with prevention focus has either a positive
valence/low arousal (success) or negative valence/high arousal (failure). This
distinction is important, because as we pointed out earlier only affect with a positive
valance and high arousal fosters creativity (Baas et al., 2008). Thus, generally
promotion-focused employees are more likely to experience activating positive affect.
Our reasoning is that promotion focus fosters creativity indirectly via activating
positive affect. We propose that generally promotion-focused employees are more
creative because they experience more positive activating affect.
Hypothesis 6: General promotion focus is positively related to day-specific
positive affect.
Hypothesis 7: Day-specific positive affect mediates the relationship between
general promotion focus and day-specific creativity.
Method
Procedure and Sample
We conducted an online study with employees of advertising agencies in
Germany1. We selected the advertising industry, because in this field being creative
is part of the job (Stuhlfaut & Windels, 2012). We contacted employees of advertising
agencies via telephone and informed them about our study and the procedure of the
data collection. Participation was rewarded with a feedback of our study results.
Employees who agreed to participate received two emails with links to online
questionnaires, one on Monday (Time 1) and one on Tuesday (Time 2). A total of
182 employees participated in our study. Both questionnaires were completed by 146
participants. Protocol data indicated that out of these 146 participants 24 filled in at
1 The sample used in this study was a different one than the sample of Study 2.
Chapter 4: Promotion Focus and Employee Creativity 73
least one questionnaire on a wrong day. These participants were excluded from
further analysis.
The final sample comprised 122 participants (61% male). The mean age of the
participants was 41.24 years (SD = 11.20). On average, participants worked 15.29
years (SD = 9.58) in the advertising field and 8.29 years (SD = 6.57) for their current
employer. The majority (N = 111) indicated that they worked in the advertising
production and the remaining participants indicated they worked in the
administration. More than half of the participants (N = 69) held a college degree and
93 persons held a leadership position.
Measures
To minimize common method variance we collected our data with two
questionnaires on different days (Podsakoff et al., 2003). In the first questionnaire
(Time 1), we measured general promotion focus and day-specific activating positive
affect as a control variable. In the second questionnaire (Time 2), we measured day-
specific promotion focus, day-specific activating positive affect, and day-specific
creativity.
General promotion focus. We measured general promotion focus with the
Work Regulatory Focus Scale (Neubert et al., 2008). The scale includes three
dimensions with three items for each dimension: Gains (“I tend to take risks at work
in order to achieve success”), achievement (“I focus on accomplishing job tasks that
will further my advancement”), and ideals (“My work priorities are impacted by a clear
picture of what I aspire to be”). Participants indicated to what extend the statements
applied on a 5-point scale, ranging from 1 (not at all) to 5 (completely). Cronbachs’s
alpha was .82.
Chapter 4: Promotion Focus and Employee Creativity 74
Day-specific promotion focus. We framed the items of the Work Regulatory
Focus Scale (Neubert et al., 2008) to the respective day (e.g. “Today, I took risks at
work in order to achieve success) and we excluded three items that were not
adequate for a day-specific framing (“a chance to grow is an important factor for me
when looking for a job“, „if my job did not allow for advancement, I would likely find a
new one“, and „if I had an opportunity to participate on a high-risk, high-reward
project I would definitely take it“). Participants indicated to what extend the
statements applied on a 5-point scale, ranging from 1 (not at all) to 5 (completely).
Cronbach’s alpha was .82.
Day-specific positive affect. We measured activating positive affect with three
items from Baas, De Dreu, and Nijstad (2008). We asked the participants to indicate
on a 5-point scale (ranging from 1 = not at all to 5 = strongly) to which extend they
felt “happy”, “upbeat”, and “elated” at the moment. We measured day-specific
activating positive affect at both times, because we controlled for activating positive
affect at Time 1. Cronbach’s alpha was .79 at Time 1 and .73 at Time 2.
Day-specific creativity. Creativity was assessed with the 9-item scale from
(Tierney et al., 1999). The 5-point scale measures the extend of creative approaches
employees show during work. A sample items is: “During my work I tried out new
ideas and approached to problems”. Cronbach’s alpha was .88.
We conducted Confirmatory Factor Analyses to examine whether the
constructs measured at the same time were distinct from each other. At Time 1, the
two-factor model with distinct factors for general promotion focus and day-specific
positive affect (χ2 (50) = 71.74, CFI = .95, RMSEA = .06, SRMR = .06) showed a
better fit than the one-factor model (χ2 (52) = 132.55, CFI = .82, RMSEA = .11,
SRMR = .16; ∆χ2 (2; N = 122) = 62.81, p < .001). Likewise at Time 2, the three-factor
model with distinct factors for day-specific creativity, day-specific promotion focus,
Chapter 4: Promotion Focus and Employee Creativity 75
and day-specific positive affect (χ2 (132) = 214.37, CFI = .98, RMSEA = .07, SRMR =
.05) showed a better fit than the best fitting two-factor model (χ2 (143) = 270.45, CFI
= .97, RMSEA = .09, SRMR = .10; ∆χ2 (2; N = 122) = 56.08, p < .001).
Results
Descriptive Statistics
Table 4.1 displays the means, standard deviations, and correlations among all
variables used in our analysis.
Table 4.1. Means, standard deviations, and correlations among the study variables
(N =122)
Mean SD 1 2 3 4 5
1 Positive affect t1 2.24 0.81 -
2 General promotion focus t1 3.13 0.68 .17 -
3 Positive affect t2 2.29 0.76 .42** .25** -
4 Day-specific promotion focus t2 2.20 0.80 .20* .52** .39** -
5 Creativity t2 2.62 0.84 .21* .28** .39** .56** -
Note. ** p < .01, * p < .05.
Hypotheses Testing
To test our hypotheses, we conducted a hierarchical regression analysis
predicting day-specific creativity. In the first step, we entered our control variable
positive affect at Time 1 into the model. In the second step, we added general
promotion focus and in the third step, we added day-specific promotion focus at Time
2 and positive affect at Time 2. The results are displayed in Table 4.2.
Chapter 4: Promotion Focus and Employee Creativity 76
Table 4.2. Hierarchical regression analysis predicting creativity at Time 2
Step 1 Step 2 Step 3
β t β t β t
Positive affect t1 0.22 2.32* 0.17 1.87 0.04 0.41
General promotion focus t1 0.31 2.85** -0.04 -0.39
Positive affect t2 0.20 2.10*
Day-specific promotion focus t2 0.53 5.49**
R2 .04 . .10 .35
F 5.40* 6.90** 15.93**
∆R2 .04 .06 .25
F 5.40* 8.09** 22.50**
Note. * p < .05; ** p < .01
In line with Hypothesis 1, the second step of the hierarchical regression
analysis shows that general promotion focus was positively related to day-specific
creativity. To test Hypothesis 2, we conducted a linear regression predicting day-
specific promotion focus. The results are displayed in Table 4.3. General promotion
focus was positively related to day-specific promotion focus (β = .59, p < .001),
supporting Hypothesis 2. As seen in Table 4.2, the third step of the hierarchical
regression analysis supports Hypothesis 3. Employees with a higher day-specific
promotion focus were more creative on that day. Moreover, in the same step of the
hierarchical regression the relationship between general promotion focus and day-
specific creativity became insignificant. According to the causal steps approach
suggested by Baron and Kenny (1986), mediation testing includes the test of three
conditions: First, the independent variable has to be related to the mediator. Second,
the independent variable has to be related to the outcome variable. Third, when both
the mediator and the independent variable are added as predictors of the outcome
Chapter 4: Promotion Focus and Employee Creativity 77
variable, the mediator has to be significant, while the independent variable has to be
non significant. Regarding the test of day-specific promotion focus as a mediator in
the relationship between general promotion focus and day-specific creativity all three
conditions have been met. Thus, the results support Hypothesis 4.
Hypothesis 5 states that employees who experience positive affect are more
creative on that day. The third step of the hierarchical regression analysis provides
support for this hypothesis: day-specific positive affect was related to day-specific
creativity (see Table 4.2). To test Hypothesis 6, we conducted a linear regression
predicting positive affect at Time 2 (see Table 4.3). The results are in line with
Hypothesis 6, general promotion focus was related to day-specific positive affect at
Time 2 (β = .20, p < .05). Moreover, all three conditions of the causal step approach
necessary to test day-specific positive affect as a mediator in the relationship
between general promotion focus and day-specific creativity have been met. Thus,
the results support Hypothesis 7.
Table 4.3. Regression analyses predicting the mediators at Time 2
Outcome
Day-specific promotion focus
t2
Positive affect t2
β t β t
Positive affect t1 .12 1.49 .37 4.74**
General promotion focus t1 .59 6.34** .20 2.17*
R2 .28 .21
F 23.50** 15.80**
Note. * p < .05; ** p < .01
Chapter 4: Promotion Focus and Employee Creativity 78
The results indicate a multiple mediation with day-specific promotion focus and
day-specific positive affect as mediators in the relationship between general
promotion focus and day-specific creativity. To test the significance of the indirect
effect via day-specific promotion focus and day-specific positive activating affect, we
applied a bootstrapping approach for multiple mediation (Preacher & Hayes, 2008).
We relied on bias corrected confidence intervals (CI) based on 10,000 bootstrap
samples to test the significance of the indirect effects. Supporting the assumption of
a multiple mediation, the results show that the relationship between general
promotion focus and creativity was mediated both via day-specific promotion focus (β
= .31, 95% CI [.178; .487]) and via positive activating affect (β = .04, 95% CI [.003;
.123]).
Discussion
Promotion focus and positive affect are considered as important antecedents
of creativity (Baas et al., 2008; Neubert et al., 2008). Our results support these
findings. Both promotion focus and positive affect are positively related to employee
creativity. Although Regulatory Focus Theory proposes a relationship between
promotion focus and activating positive affect (Brockner & Higgins, 2001; Higgins,
1997), research so far has neglected the role of activating positive affect in the
relationship between promotion focus and creativity. We addressed this gap and
integrated day-specific promotion focus and day-specific positive affect into a multiple
mediation model. Our results show that employees with a high general promotion
focus are more creative on a specific day because on this day, they are more
promotion-focused and experience more activating positive affect.
Our findings have several theoretical implications. First, we took a closer look
on the relationship between general and day-specific promotion focus. Previous
Chapter 4: Promotion Focus and Employee Creativity 79
research has already revealed a positive relationship between promotion focus
specific to the work domain and promotion focus specific to other life domains (Lanaj
et al., 2012). We demonstrated that general promotion focus is a predictor for the
promotion focus on a specific day. According to Regulatory Focus Theory,
promotion-focused employees seek to satisfy their developmental needs by engaging
in tasks with positive outcomes (Brockner & Higgins, 2001). As research has
demonstrated that the framing of a task can strengthen a promotion focus (Higgins et
al., 1997), it seems plausible that promotion-focused employees seek to engage in
tasks which have a promotion focus framing and thereby maintain their regulatory
focus.
However, because the correlation between general and day-specific promotion
focus is large yet not perfect (r = .52), our results provide support for the assumption
of situation-specific component of promotion focus. Previous research could show
that personality variables such as extraversion or conscientiousness can foster a
work-specific promotion focus (Lanaj et al., 2012). However, little is known about
situational variables that influence an employee’s promotion focus. Brocker and
Higgins (2001) discussed the influence of supervisor behavior, communication, and
feedback. Thus, it might be an avenue for future research to investigate incidents that
influence the situation-specific promotion focus at work and to identify ways how
organizations and leaders can foster the promotion focus of their employees.
Second, we highlight the role of positive affect associated with promotion
focus. Although Regulatory Focus Theory has become a relevant research topic in
the field of organizational psychology (Lanaj et al., 2012), little is known about the
mechanisms that link a regulatory focus to specific outcomes. Particularly, Brockner
and Higgins (2001) demanded further research to get a better understanding of the
interplay between promotion focus, affect and, behavioral outcomes. We addressed
Chapter 4: Promotion Focus and Employee Creativity 80
this call. Our study is a first step to unfold these mechanisms and to investigate the
role of affect associated with promotion focus in the relationship between promotion
focus and creativity. Previous meta-analytic findings already demonstrated the
necessity to consider the implications of Regulatory Focus Theory in the research on
affect and creativity (Baas et al., 2008). We went a step further and tested a more
comprehensive model with promotion focus, positive affect, and creativity. Our
results are in line with these previous meta-analytic findings and go beyond previous
research by demonstrating that the affective experience associated with promotion
focus serves as a mediator in the relationship between general promotion focus and
creativity on a specific day. Our study furthers the understanding how promotion
focus influences organizational outcomes. By investigating day-specific promotion
focus and day-specific positive affect as multiple mediators in the relationship
between general promotion focus and day-specific creativity, we demonstrated that it
is important to consider the simultaneous effect of promotion focus and affect. As
research has found a positive relationship between promotion focus and other
outcomes such as task performance or OCB (Lanaj et al., 2012), our findings
suggest that day-specific affective experience and day-specific promotion focus
might be relevant in this relationships as well. In our study, we focused on the
promotion focus affect with a positive valence. However, when investigating other
outcomes it might be helpful to take negative affect into account, too.
Limitations and Future Research
Our study has some limitations that suggest avenues for future research. First,
we measured day-specific promotion focus and day-specific creativity at the same
time. Thus, we could not capture the possible effects of day-specific promotion focus
on day-specific activating positive affect. Future research should apply a diary study
Chapter 4: Promotion Focus and Employee Creativity 81
design with more measurement points on one day to separate the measurement of
day-specific promotion focus and day-specific creativity and to investigate how being
promotion-focused in the morning influences the affective experience during work.
Second, the use of self-report measures raises the question of common
method bias which means that the answers of are person a systematically biased
and thus lead to inflated correlations (Podsakoff et al., 2003). Affect is seen as one
source of common method bias (Podsakoff et al., 2003). People who have a positive
affect might evaluate themselves more positively (e.g., more creative). Thus, this
issue is particularly relevant for studies investigating affective experiences. However,
recent meta-analytic findings showed no inflated correlations between positive affect
and creativity when the measures of creativity were self-reports compared to non-self
reports (Ng & Feldman, 2012). Still, we used two different measurement points to
minimize the risk of common method bias due to other sources (Podsakoff et al.,
2003).
Third, our sample comprised employees from the advertising industry. Past
research has shown that the context for creative performance is an moderator for the
relationship between affect and creativity (George & Zhou, 2002). In the advertising
industry, being creative is part of the job description (Stuhlfaut & Windels, 2012).
Future research should investigate whether our findings can be generalized to others
contexts, especially those with lower creativity requirements.
Practical Implications
Our study has some implications for managerial practice. First, our results
highlight the importance of general promotion focus as an antecedent of creativity.
Thus, supervisors should assign tasks that require a high amount of creativity to
those employees who are promotion-focused. Second, considering the role of day-
Chapter 4: Promotion Focus and Employee Creativity 82
specific promotion focus, supervisors might elicit a promotion focus by framing a task
in a way that focuses on the positive outcomes (Friedman & Förster, 2001).
Furthermore, scholars suggest that certain leadership styles such as servant
leadership or transformational leadership elicit a promotion focus (Kark & Van Dijk,
2007; Neubert et al., 2008). Both leadership styles are characterized by an interest in
the needs of their employees rather than a mere exchange of reward for
performance. Following this reasoning, supervisors can strengthen the promotion
focus of their employees by considering their individual needs and thus foster
employee creativity.
Chapter 5: General Discussion 83
GENERAL DISCUSSION
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
Chapter 5: General Discussion 84
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
Chapter 5: General Discussion 85
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 day-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
Chapter 5: General Discussion 86
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.
Chapter 5: General Discussion 87
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.
Chapter 5: General Discussion 88
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.
Chapter 5: General Discussion 89
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
Chapter 5: General Discussion 90
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.
Chapter 5: General Discussion 91
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 day-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
Chapter 5: General Discussion 92
experience of relationship conflicts moderates the relationship between day-specific
positive affect and creativity.
93
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
Chapter 5: General Discussion 94
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
Chapter 5: General Discussion 95
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
Chapter 5: General Discussion 96
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
varying degree of stability of the study variables and to capture both short- and long-
term relationships. In Study 1, we investigated the medium-term relationship between
the stable variable transformational leadership and employee creativity and the
mediating mechanisms over a time span of eight weeks. Whereas in Study 2, we
examined the short-term relationship between positive affect and employee creativity
and the moderating effect of relationship conflict within one working day. In Study 3,
we timely separated the measurement of the stable variable general promotion focus
on the one hand and the measurement of the situational variables day-specific
promotion focus, day-specific positive affect, and employee creativity. We
investigated both the relationships between general promotion focus and the day-
specific variables on the next day and the relationships among the day-specific
variables. Thus, to measure up to the long or short term nature of the hypothesized
relationships, each study applied a time lag that was appropriate to investigate the
respective relationships.
Practical Implication
This dissertation highlights the importance to look at possible antecedents
when organizations want to foster employee creativity. Furthermore, the results
demonstrated that the antecedents are interconnected. Several practical implications
can be derived from our findings. First, the findings point out the importance of
positive affect for employee creativity. Thus, employees should try to enhance their
Chapter 5: General Discussion 97
positive affect. Moreover, supervisors should create a work environment that does
not inhibit the beneficial effects of positive affect. Second, the results demonstrated
that supervisors can foster employee creativity by applying a transformational
leadership style. Third, promotion-focused employees are more creative.
Furthermore, our results demonstrated that promotion focus can be shaped by
situational influences. Thus, organizations and supervisors should try to create a
work environment which is beneficial for their employee’s promotion focus. In the
following, I discuss these practical implications in more detail and illustrate how they
are interconnected.
First, employees should try to foster their positive affect. It has been
demonstrated that leisure time activities influence the affective experience of an
employee (Fritz, Sonnentag, Spector, & McInroe, 2010). Previous research has
found that the engagement in challenging activities during leisure time can increase
the positive affect on the next day (Sonnentag et al., 2008). By doing sports or having
a diversified hobby, employees can increase positive affect at the beginning of the
working day and thus, they might foster their creativity. However, not every activity
has the same effect for every employee. For employees who tend to work long hours,
doing sports has a stronger effect on the experience of positive affect than social
activities (Bakker, Demerouti, Oerlemans, & Sonnentag, 2013). Thus, it is important
that an employee individually finds the leisure time activity that helps him or her to
experience more positive affect.
Additionally, employees can actively strengthen their positive affect by using
reappraisal emotion regulation strategies (Gross & John, 2003). When faced with an
unpleasant situation, people who try to reappraise the situation in a more positive
way experience more positive affect than people who try to suppress their unpleasant
feeling. Employees should cognitively reconstruct possible unpleasant situations in a
Chapter 5: General Discussion 98
way that these situations have a less negative impact on their positive affect (Gross
& John, 2003). For example, employees should interpret negative feedback from
their supervisor as a chance to improve themselves and as a support to get better at
what they do. These employees experience more positive affect than employees who
see negative feedback as a statement of their worth as a person (Gross & John,
2003).
Second, supervisors should create a work environment in which positive affect
is fully effective. Our results demonstrated that the experience of relationship
conflicts attenuates the relationship between positive affect and employee creativity.
Previous research has demonstrated that task conflicts grow into relationship
conflicts only when employees do not trust their supervisor or colleagues (Simons &
Peterson, 2000). Thus, by creating a climate of trust, supervisors can prevent the
emergence of relationship conflicts. A leadership style that increases trust in the
supervisor and that fosters the collaboration among colleagues is transformational
leadership (Podsakoff et al., 1990). Therefore, transformational leadership might
create an environment in which positive affect facilitates creativity.
Moreover, our results demonstrated that transformational leadership is
positively related to employee creativity. Supervisors should stimulate their
employees intellectually, inspire them with an appealing vision, and consider their
personal needs. Our findings revealed that employees with a transformational
supervisor are more creative because they have a stronger promotion focus.
Considering that promotion focus has a general and a situation-specific component,
organizations and supervisor should try to create a promotion focus culture.
Employees should get the feeling that they follow their ideal and try to achieve
positive outcomes. Brockner and Higgins (2001) argue that employees can get this
Chapter 5: General Discussion 99
feeling either through everyday interaction with their supervisors and coworkers or
through contextual aspects of the organization.
On the one hand, employees should be more likely to develop a promotion
focus when their supervisor serves as a promotion-focus role model. Research has
shown that employee’s perception of their supervisor as promotion-focused is
positively related to their creativity (Wu et al., 2008). Furthermore, like
transformational leaders, supervisors should help their employees to create an ideal
image of themselves by providing a stimulating and desirable vision (Stam et al.,
2010). Lastly, when giving feedback, supervisors should focus on positive outcomes
(“accomplishing success”) and not on negative outcomes (“preventing failure”). On
the other hand, contextual factors of the organization such as a reward system that
focuses on the positive outcomes (e.g. achievements) can foster the promotion focus
of the employees as well (Brockner & Higgins, 2001). Yet, not every contextual factor
is as easily adaptable to promotion focus as everyday interactions. For example, the
primary purpose of an electricity company is to guarantee the power supply. In this
context, critical incidents are mostly related to the prevention of negative outcomes
such as blackouts. In contrast, in the advertising industry it is important to attract a lot
of attention with new ideas (Southgate, Westoby, & Page, 2010). In this context,
employees have to create different ideas until a idea becomes successful.
Additionally, we found that promotion focus facilitates the experience of
positive affect. Our findings suggest that the different antecedents investigated in this
dissertation are interconnected. In addition to the immediate effects, the improvement
of one antecedent might as well boost creativity through its indirect effects via the
other antecedents. Thus, positive changes of one antecedent can foster other
antecedents and thus result in an upward spiral. For example, by applying a
transformational leadership style, supervisors strengthen the promotion focus of their
Chapter 5: General Discussion 100
employees which in turn fosters the creative process engagement and the
experience of activating positive affect.
Research Implications
This dissertation extends research on the antecedents of employee creativity
and integrates the positive affect – creativity link into the framework of Regulatory
Focus Theory. As the present dissertation investigates the mediating and moderating
mechanisms behind these relationships, results raise some questions for future
research.
First, results of Study 1 indicate that perceiving the supervisor as
transformational fosters promotion focus. This finding is in line with the proposition
that supervisor can shape the promotion focus of their employees through supervisor
- employee interaction (Brockner & Higgins, 2001). However, Study 1 applied a
relatively long time lag of four weeks. Future research should investigate the short-
term effects actual leadership behavior on a specific day has on the day-specific
promotion focus of their employees. Moreover, it might be interesting to investigate
whether the effect of actual behavior varies when the leader’s actual behavior is
consistent or inconsistent with their general leadership style.
Second, we focused on the relationship between supervisor behavior and
employee promotion focus. However, scholars assume that a person’s promotion
focus is influenced by the whole workplace environment (Brockner & Higgins, 2001).
It might be an avenue for future research to investigate other antecedents of a
person’s promotion focus at work, such as the role of coworkers and other contextual
factors. It might be interesting to investigate if coworkers have a similar influence on
a person’s promotion focus as a supervisor. Moreover, it might be possible that
supervisors moderate the relationship between other contextual factors and
Chapter 5: General Discussion 101
promotion focus. For example, I mentioned above that the work in an electricity
supplier is rather associated with prevention focus. However, if the leader is able to
communicate the meaning of the task (e.g. “We provide energy, so hospitals have
the capabilities to save lives”), employees might develop an ideal self and become
more promotion-focused.
Third, results of this dissertation suggest that the relationship between general
promotion focus and employee creativity is mediated by both positive affect and
creative process engagement. However, it is an avenue for future research to
investigate how these two mediators influence each other. Considering the different
stages of the creative process, the influence of positive affect on the engagement in
these stages might be different for each stage. From the mood-as-input perspective,
positive affect might signal a situation without problems (Schwarz & Clore, 1983).
Thus, the experience of positive affect might decrease the engagement in the stage
of problem identification. However, at the latter stages of the creative process,
increased cognitive flexibility induced by positive affect might foster the search and
encoding of relevant information and the generation of alternative solutions (Ashby et
al., 1999; Fredrickson, 2001).
General Conclusion
The goal of this dissertation was to extend the research on antecedents of
employee creativity. Three empirical studies have shown that transformational
leadership, promotion focus, and positive affect have the potential to facilitate
employee creativity. Moreover, this dissertation has demonstrated that these
antecedents are interdependent. While promotion focus is a consequence of
transformational leadership, is positive affect a consequence of promotion focus.
Thus, this dissertation urges researchers and practitioners to extend the focus of
Chapter 5: General Discussion 102
attention beyond mere isolated effects of potential antecedents to understand or
foster employee creativity.
References 103
REFERENCES
Amabile, T. M. (1988). A model of creativity and innovation in organizations.
Research in Organizational Behavior, 10, 123-167.
Amabile, T. M. (1996). Creativity in context. Boulder, Colo.: Westview Press.
Amabile, T. M., Barsade, S. G., Mueller, J. S., & Staw, B. M. (2005). Affect and
creativity at work. Administrative Science Quarterly, 50, 367-403.
Ashby, F. G., Isen, A. M., & Turken, U. (1999). A neuropsychological theory of
positive affect and its influence on cognition. Psychological Review, 106, 529-
550.
Avolio, B. J., Bass, B. M., & Jung, D. I. (1999). Re-examining the components of
transformational and transactional leadership using the Multifactor Leadership
Questionnaire. Journal of Occupational and Organizational Psychology, 72,
441-462.
Baas, M., De Dreu, C. K. W., & Nijstad, B. A. (2008). A meta-analysis of 25 years of
mood-creativity research: Hedonic tone, activation, or regulatory focus?
Psychological Bulletin, 134, 779-806.
Baas, M., De Dreu, C. K. W., & Nijstad, B. A. (2011). When prevention promotes
creativity: The role of mood, regulatory focus, and regulatory closure. Journal
of Personality and Social Psychology, 100, 794-809.
Bakker, A. B., Demerouti, E., Oerlemans, W., & Sonnentag, S. (2013). Workaholism
and daily recovery: A day reconstruction study of leisure activities. Journal of
Organizational Behavior, 34, 87-107.
Barki, H., & Hartwick, J. (2004). Conceptualizing the construct of interpersonal
conflict. International Journal of Conflict Management, 15, 216-244.
References 104
Baron, R. M., & Kenny, D. A. (1986). The moderator-mediator variable distinction in
social psychological research: Conceptual, strategic, and statistical
considerations. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 51, 1173-1182.
Bass, B. M. (1985). Leadership and performance beyond expectations. New York:
The Free Press.
Bass, B. M. (1988). The inspirational processes of leadership. Journal of
Management Development, 7, 21-31.
Bass, B. M. (1990). From transactional to transformational leadership: Learning to
share the vision. Organizational Dynamics, 18, 19-31.
Binnewies, C., & Wörnlein, S. C. (2011). What makes a creative day? A diary study
on the interplay between affect, job stressors, and job control. Journal of
Organizational Behavior, 32, 589-607.
Brief, A. P., & Weiss, H. M. (2002). Organizational behavior: Affect in the workplace.
Annual Review of Psychology, 53, 279-307.
Brockner, J., & Higgins, E. T. (2001). Regulatory focus theory: Implications for the
study of emotions at work. Organizational Behavior and Human Decision
Processes, 86, 35-66.
Bryk, A. S., & Raudenbush, S. W. (1992). Hierarchical linear models: Application and
data analysis methods. Newbury Park, CA: Sage.
Carlson, M., Wilcox, R., Chou, C.-P., Chang, M., Yang, F., Blanchard, J., et al.
(2011). Psychometric properties of reverse-scored items on the CES-D in a
sample of ethnically diverse older adults. Psychological Assessment, 23, 558-
562.
Carmeli, A., & Schaubroeck, J. (2007). The influence of leaders' and other referents'
normative expectations on individual involvement in creative work. The
Leadership Quarterly, 18, 35-48.
References 105
Carnevale, P. J., & Probst, T. M. (1998). Social values and social conflict in creative
problem solving and categorization. Journal of Personality and Social
Psychology, 74, 1300-1309.
Cohen, J. (1992). A power primer. Psychological Bulletin, 112, 155-159.
Crowe, E., & Higgins, E. T. (1997). Regulatory focus and strategic inclinations:
Promotion and prevention in decision-making. Organizational Behavior and
Human Decision Processes, 69, 117-132.
Davis, M. A. (2009). Understanding the relationship between mood and creativity: A
meta-analysis. Organizational Behavior and Human Decision Processes, 108,
25-38.
De Dreu, C. K. W., & Weingart, L. R. (2003). Task versus relationship conflict, team
performance, and team member satisfaction: A meta-analysis. Journal of
Applied Psychology, 88, 741-749.
Eisenbeiss, S. A., van Knippenberg, D., & Boerner, S. (2008). Transformational
leadership and team innovation: Integrating team climate principles. Journal of
Applied Psychology, 93, 1438-1446.
Feist, G. J. (1998). A meta-analysis of personality in scientific and artistic creativity.
Personality and Social Psychology Review, 2, 290-309.
Forgas, J. P., & George, J. M. (2001). Affective influences on judgments and
behavior in organizations: An information processing perspective.
Organizational Behavior and Human Decision Processes, 86, 3-34.
Förster, J., Higgins, E. T., & Bianco, A. T. (2003). Speed/accuracy decisions in task
performance: Built-in trade-off or separate strategic concerns? Organizational
Behavior and Human Decision Processes, 90, 148-164.
Fredrickson, B. L. (1998). What good are positive emotions? Review of General
Psychology, 2, 300-319.
References 106
Fredrickson, B. L. (2001). The role of positive emotions in positive psychology: The
broaden-and-build theory of positive emotions. American Psychologist, 56,
218-226.
Friedman, R. S., & Förster, J. (2001). The effects of promotion and prevention cues
on creativity. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 81, 1001-1013.
Friedman, R. S., & Förster, J. (2005). The influence of approach and avoidance cues
on attentional flexibility. Motivation and Emotion, 29, 69-81.
Fritz, C., & Sonnentag, S. (2009). Antecedents of day-level proactive behavior: A
look at job stressors and positive affect during the workday. Journal of
Management, 35, 94-111.
Fritz, C., Sonnentag, S., Spector, P. E., & McInroe, J. A. (2010). The weekend
matters: Relationships between stress recovery and affective experiences.
Journal of Organizational Behavior, 31, 1137-1162.
Fuller, J. A., Stanton, J. M., Fisher, G. G., Spitzmüller, C., Russell, S. S., & Smith, P.
C. (2003). A lengthy look at the daily grind: Time series analysis of events,
mood, stress, and satisfaction. Journal of Applied Psychology, 88, 1019-1033.
George, J. M., & Brief, A. P. (1992). Feeling good-doing good: A conceptual analysis
of the mood at work-organizational spontaneity relationship. Psychological
Bulletin, 112, 310-329.
George, J. M., & Zhou, J. (2002). Understanding when bad moods foster creativity
and good ones don't: The role of context and clarity of feelings. Journal of
Applied Psychology, 87, 687-697.
George, J. M., & Zhou, J. (2007). Dual tuning in a supportive context: Joint
contributions of positive mood, negative mood, and supervisory behaviors to
employee creativity. Academy of Management Journal, 50, 605-622.
References 107
Gilson, L. L., & Shalley, C. E. (2004). A little creativity goes a long way: An
examination of teams' engagement in creative processes. Journal of
Management, 30, 453-470.
Goldberg, L. R., & Kilkowski, J. M. (1985). The prediction of semantic consistency in
self-descriptions: Characteristics of persons and of terms that affect the
consistency of responses to synonym and antonym pairs. Journal of
Personality and Social Psychology, 48, 82-98.
Gong, Y., Huang, J.-C., & Farh, J.-L. (2009). Employee learning orientation,
transformational leadership, and employee creativity: The mediating role of
employee creative self-efficacy. Academy of Management Journal, 52, 765-
778.
Gross, J. J., & John, O. P. (2003). Individual differences in two emotion regulation
processes: Implications for affect, relationships, and well-being. Journal of
Personality and Social Psychology, 85, 348-362.
Higgins, E. T. (1997). Beyond pleasure and pain. American Psychologist, 52, 1280-
1300.
Higgins, E. T., Shah, J., & Friedman, R. (1997). Emotional responses to goal
attainment: Strength of regulatory focus as moderator. Journal of Personality
and Social Psychology, 72, 515-525.
Higgins, E. T., & Silberman, I. (1998). Development of regulatory focus: Promotion
and prevention as ways of living. In J. H. C. S. Dweck (Ed.), Motivation and
self-regulation across the life span (pp. 78-113). New York, NY, US:
Cambridge University Press.
Hofmann, D. A., & Gavin, M. B. (1998). Centering decisions in hierarchical linear
models: Implications for research in organizations. Journal of Management,
24, 623-641.
References 108
Hülsheger, U. R., Anderson, N., & Salgado, J. F. (2009). Team-level predictors of
innovation at work: A comprehensive meta-analysis spanning three decades
of research. Journal of Applied Psychology, 94, 1128-1145.
Hüttermann, H., & Boerner, S. (2011). Fostering innovation in functionally diverse
teams: The two faces of transformational leadership. European Journal of
Work and Organizational Psychology, 20, 833-854.
Ilies, R., Schwind, K. M., Wagner, D. T., & Johnson, M. D. (2007). When can
employees have a family life? The effects of daily workload and affect on
work-family conflict and social behaviors at home. Journal of Applied
Psychology, 92, 1368-1379.
Ilies, R., Scott, B. A., & Judge, T. A. (2006). The interactive effects of personal traits
and experienced states on intraindividual patterns of citizenship behavior.
Academy of Management Journal, 49, 561-575.
Illies, J. J., & Reiter-Palmon, R. (2004). The effects of type and level of personal
involvement on information search and problem solving. Journal of Applied
Social Psychology, 34, 1709-1729.
Isen, A. M., & Baron, R. A. (1991). Positive affect as a factor in organizational-
behavior. Research in Organizational Behavior, 13, 1-53.
Janssen, O. (2000). Job demands, perceptions of effort-reward fairness and
innovative work behaviour. Journal of Occupational and Organizational
Psychology, 73, 287-302.
Jehn, K. A. (1995). A multimethod examination of the benefits and detriments of
intragroup conflict. Administrative Science Quarterly, 40, 256-282.
Jehn, K. A., & Mannix, E. A. (2001). The dynamic nature of conflict: A longitudinal
study of intragroup conflict and group performance. Academy of Management
Journal, 44, 238-251.
References 109
Johnson, J. A. (2005). Ascertaining the validity of individual protocols from web-
based personality inventories. Journal of Research in Personality, 39, 103-
129.
Judd, C. M. (1978). Cognitive effects of attitude conflict resolution. Journal of Conflict
Resolution, 22, 483-498.
Jung, D. I., Chow, C., & Wu, A. (2003). The role of transformational leadership in
enhancing organizational innovation: Hypotheses and some preliminary
findings. The Leadership Quarterly, 14, 525-544.
Kark, R., & Van Dijk, D. (2007). Motivation to lead, motivation to follow: The role of
the self-regulatory focus in leadership processes. Academy of Management
Review, 32, 500-528.
Kaufmann, G. (2003a). The effect of mood on creativity in the innovative process. In
L. V. Shavinina (Ed.), The international handbook on innovation. (pp. 191-
203). New York, NY US: Elsevier Science.
Kaufmann, G. (2003b). Expanding the mood - creativity equation. Creativity
Research Journal, 15, 131-135.
Kaufmann, G., & Vosburg, S. K. (1997). 'Paradoxical' mood effects on creative
problem-solving. Cognition & Emotion, 11, 151-170.
Keller, R. T. (1992). Transformational leadership and the performance of research-
and-development project groups. Journal of Management, 18, 489-501.
Korsgaard, M. A., Jeong, S. S., Mahony, D. M., & Pitariu, A. H. (2008). A multilevel
view of intragroup conflict. Journal of Management, 34, 1222-1252.
Lanaj, K., Chang, C. H., & Johnson, R. E. (2012). Regulatory focus and work-related
outcomes: A review and meta-analysis. Psychological Bulletin, 138, 998-1034.
References 110
Liberman, N., Idson, L. C., Camacho, C. J., & Higgins, E. T. (1999). Promotion and
prevention choices between stability and change. Journal of Personality and
Social Psychology, 77, 1135-1145.
Livingston, J. A. (1999). Something old and something new: Love, creativity, and the
enduring relationship. Bulletin of the Menninger Clinic, 63, 40-52.
Madjar, N. (2005). The contributions of different groups of individuals to employees’
creativity. Advances in Developing Human Resources, 7, 182-206.
Madjar, N., Oldham, G. R., & Pratt, M. G. (2002). There's no place like home? The
contributions of work and nonwork creativity support to employees' creative
performance. Academy of Management Journal, 45, 757-767.
Mumford, M. D. (2000). Managing creative people: Strategies and tactics for
innovation. Human Resource Management Review, 10, 313-351.
Mumford, M. D., Mobley, M. I., Uhlman, C. E., & Reiter-Palmon, R. (1991). Process
analytic models of creative capacities. Creativity Research Journal, 4, 91-122.
Muthén, L. K., & Muthén, B. O. (2007). Mplus user's guide (5 ed.). Los Angeles:
Muthén & Muthén.
Neubert, M. J., Kacmar, K. M., Carlson, D. S., Chonko, L. B., & Roberts, J. A. (2008).
Regulatory focus as a mediator of the influence of initiating structure and
servant leadership on employee behavior. Journal of Applied Psychology, 93,
1220-1233.
Ng, T. W. H., & Feldman, D. C. (2012). A comparison of self-ratings and non-self-
report measures of employee creativity. Human Relations, 65, 1021-1047.
Ohly, S., & Fritz, C. (2010). Work characteristics, challenge appraisal, creativity, and
proactive behavior: A multi-level study. Journal of Organizational Behavior, 31,
543-565.
References 111
Ohly, S., Sonnentag, S., & Pluntke, F. (2006). Routinization, work characteristics and
their relationships with creative and proactive behaviors. Journal of
Organizational Behavior, 27, 257-279.
Oldham, G. R., & Cummings, A. (1996). Employee creativity: Personal and
contextual factors at work. Academy of Management Journal, 39, 607-634.
Pelled, L. H. (1996). Demographic diversity, conflict, and work group outcomes: An
intervening process theory. Organization Science, 7, 615-631.
Perry-Smith, J. E., & Shalley, C. E. (2003). The social side of creativity: A static and
dynamic social network perspective. Academy of Management Review, 28,
89-106.
Podsakoff, P. M., MacKenzie, S. B., Lee, J. Y., & Podsakoff, N. P. (2003). Common
method biases in behavioral research: A critical review of the literature and
recommended remedies. Journal of Applied Psychology, 88, 879-903.
Podsakoff, P. M., MacKenzie, S. B., Moorman, R. H., & Fetter, R. (1990).
Transformational leader behaviors and their effects on followers' trust in
leader, satisfaction, and organizational citizenship behaviors. The Leadership
Quarterly, 1, 107-142.
Preacher, K. J., Curran, P. J., & Bauer, D. J. (2006). Computational tools for probing
interactions in multiple linear regression, multilevel modeling, and latent curve
analysis. Journal of Educational and Behavioral Statistics, 31, 437-448.
Preacher, K. J., & Hayes, A. F. (2008). Asymptotic and resampling strategies for
assessing and comparing indirect effects in multiple mediator models.
Behavior Research Methods, 40, 879-891.
Redmond, M. R., Mumford, M. D., & Teach, R. (1993). Putting creativity to work -
effects of leader-behavior on subordinate creativity. Organizational Behavior
and Human Decision Processes, 55, 120-151.
References 112
Reiter-Palmon, R., & Illies, J. J. (2004). Leadership and creativity: Understanding
leadership from a creative problem-solving perspective. The Leadership
Quarterly, 15, 55-77.
Reiter-Palmon, R., Mumford, M. D., Boes, J. O., & Runco, M. A. (1997). Problem
construction and creativity: The role of ability, cue consistency, and active
processing. Creativity Research Journal, 10, 9-23.
Reiter-Palmon, R., Mumford, M. D., & Threlfall, K. V. (1998). Solving everyday
problems creatively: The role of problem construction and personality type.
Creativity Research Journal, 11, 187-197.
Rindermann, H., & Neubauer, A. C. (2004). Processing speed, intelligence, creativity,
and school performance: Testing of causal hypotheses using structural
equation models. Intelligence, 32, 573-589.
Rothbard, N. P., & Wilk, S. L. (2011). Waking up on the right or wrong side of the
bed: Start-of-workday mood, work events, employee affect, and performance.
Academy of Management Journal, 54, 959-980.
Russ, S. W. (1998). Play, creativity, and adaptive functioning: Implications for play
interventions. Journal of Clinical Child Psychology, 27, 469-480.
Russell, J. A. (1980). A circumplex model of affect. Journal of Personality and Social
Psychology, 39, 1161-1178.
Sarros, J. C., Cooper, B. K., & Santora, J. C. (2008). Building a climate for innovation
through transformational leadership and organizational culture. Journal of
Leadership & Organizational Studies, 15, 145-158.
Schwarz, N., & Clore, G. L. (1983). Mood, misattribution, and judgments of well-
being: Informative and directive functions of affective states. Journal of
Personality and Social Psychology, 45, 513-523.
References 113
Scott, S. G., & Bruce, R. A. (1994). Determinants of innovative behavior: A path
model of individual innovation in the workplace. Academy of Management
Journal, 37, 580-607.
Seo, M. G., Barrett, L. F., & Bartunek, J. M. (2004). The role of affective experience
in work motivation. Academy of Management Review, 29, 423-439.
Shalley, C. E. (1991). Effects of productivity goals, creativity goals, and personal
discretion on individual creativity. Journal of Applied Psychology, 76, 179-185.
Shalley, C. E. (1995). Effects of coaction, expected evaluation, and goal setting on
creativity and productivity. Academy of Management Journal, 38, 483-503.
Shalley, C. E., & Perry-Smith, J. E. (2001). Effects of social-psychological factors on
creative performance: The role of informational and controlling expected
evaluation and modeling experience. Organizational Behavior and Human
Decision Processes, 84, 1-22.
Shalley, C. E., Zhou, J., & Oldham, G. R. (2004). The effects of personal and
contextual characteristics on creativity: Where should we go from here?
Journal of Management, 30, 933-958.
Shamir, B., House, R. J., & Arthur, M. B. (1993). The motivational effects of
charismatic leadership: A self-concept based theory. Organization Science, 4,
577-594.
Shin, S. J., & Zhou, J. (2003). Transformational leadership, conservation, and
creativity: Evidence from Korea. Academy of Management Journal, 46, 703-
714.
Shin, S. J., & Zhou, J. (2007). When is educational specialization heterogeneity
related to creativity in research and development teams? Transformational
leadership as a moderator. Journal of Applied Psychology, 92, 1709-1721.
References 114
Shrout, P. E., & Bolger, N. (2002). Mediation in experimental and nonexperimental
studies: New procedures and recommendations. Psychological Methods, 7,
422-445.
Simons, T. L., & Peterson, R. S. (2000). Task conflict and relationship conflict in top
management teams: The pivotal role of intragroup trust. Journal of Applied
Psychology, 85, 102-111.
Smith, J. L., Wagaman, J., & Handley, I. M. (2009). Keeping it dull or making it fun:
Task variation as a function of promotion versus prevention focus. Motivation
and Emotion, 33, 150-160.
Sonnentag, S., Binnewies, C., & Mojza, E. J. (2008). "Did you have a nice evening?"
A day-level study on recovery experiences, sleep, and affect. Journal of
Applied Psychology, 93, 674-684.
Southgate, D., Westoby, N., & Page, G. (2010). Creative determinants of viral video
viewing. International Journal of Advertising, 29, 349-368.
Spector, P. E. (2006). Method variance in organizational research: truth or urban
legend? Organizational Research Methods, 9, 221-232.
Spreitzer, G. M. (1995). Psychological empowerment in the workplace: Dimensions,
measurement, and validation. Academy of Management Journal, 38, 1442-
1465.
Stam, D., van Knippenberg, D., & Wisse, B. (2010). Focusing on followers: The role
of regulatory focus and possible selves in visionary leadership. The
Leadership Quarterly, 21, 457-468.
Staw, B. M., Sandelands, L. E., & Dutton, J. E. (1981). Threat-rididity effects in
organizational behavior: A multilevel analysis. Administrative Science
Quarterly, 26, 501-524.
References 115
Stuhlfaut, M. W., & Windels, K. (2012). Measuring the organisational impact on
creativity: The creative code intensity scale. International Journal of
Advertising, 31, 795-818.
Tierney, P., Farmer, S. M., & Graen, G. B. (1999). An examination of leadership and
employee creativity: The relevance of traits and relationships. Personnel
Psychology, 52, 591-620.
To, M. L., Fisher, C. D., Ashkanasy, N. M., & Rowe, P. A. (2011). Within-person
relationships between mood and creativity. Journal of Applied Psychology.
Trougakos, J. P., Beal, D. J., Green, S. G., & Weiss, H. M. (2008). Making the break
count: An episodic examination of recovery activities, emotional experiences,
and positive affective displays. Academy of Management Journal, 51, 131-
146.
Volmer, J., Spurk, D., & Niessen, C. (2012). Leader-member exchange (LMX), job
autonomy, and creative work involvement. The Leadership Quarterly, 23, 456-
465.
Vosburg, S. K. (1998). The effects of positive and negative mood on divergent-
thinking performance. Creativity Research Journal, 11, 165.
Wang, G., Oh, I. S., Courtright, S. H., & Colbert, A. E. (2011). Transformational
leadership and performance across criteria and levels: A meta-analytic review
of 25 years of research. Group & Organization Management, 36, 223-270.
Wang, P., & Zhu, W. (2011). Mediating role of creative identity in the influence of
transformational leadership on creativity: Is there a multilevel effect? Journal
of Leadership & Organizational Studies, 18, 25-39.
Watson, D., Clark, L. A., & Tellegen, A. (1988). Development and validation of brief
measures of positive and negative affect: The PANAS scales. Journal of
Personality and Social Psychology, 54, 1063-1070.
References 116
Watson, D., Wiese, D., Vaidya, J., & Tellegen, A. (1999). The two general activation
systems of affect: Structural findings, evolutionary considerations, and
psychobiological evidence. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 76,
820-838.
West, M. A. (2002). Sparkling fountains or stagnant ponds: An integrative model of
creativity and innovation implementation in work groups. Applied Psychology-
an International Review-Psychologie Appliquee-Revue Internationale, 51, 355-
387.
Woodman, R. W., Sawyer, J. E., & Griffin, R. W. (1993). Toward a theory of
organizational creativity. Academy of Management Review, 18, 293-321.
Wu, C., McMullen, J. S., Neubert, M. J., & Yi, X. (2008). The influence of leader
regulatory focus on employee creativity. Journal of Business Venturing, 23,
587-602.
Zhang, A. Y., Tsui, A. S., & Wang, D. X. (2011). Leadership behaviors and group
creativity in Chinese organizations: The role of group processes. The
Leadership Quarterly, 22, 851-862.
Zhang, X. M., & Bartol, K. M. (2010). Linking empowering leadership and employee
creativity: the influence of psychological empowerment, intrinsic motivation,
and creative process engagement. Academy of Management Journal, 53,
107-128.
Zhou, J. (2003). When the presence of creative coworkers is related to creativity:
Role of supervisor close monitoring, developmental feedback, and creative
personality. Journal of Applied Psychology, 88, 413-422.
Zhou, Q., Hirst, G., & Shipton, H. (2012). Context matters: Combined influence of
participation and intellectual stimulation on the promotion focus-employee
creativity relationship. Journal of Organizational Behavior, 33, 894-909.
References 117
Zhu, R., & Meyers-Levy, J. (2007). Exploring the cognitive mechanism that underlies
regulatory focus effects. Journal of Consumer Research, 34, 89-96.