How Does Individual-Level Envy Affect Team Creativity? Effects of Knowledge Seeking and Moral Reflection

• Published in: SAGE open 2021-10, Vol.11 (4)
• Main Authors: Chu, Fengdi, Zhang, Wei, Wu, Shaobo, Liu, Guolei
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Subjects: Creativity; Morality
• ISSN: 2158-2440; 2158-2440
• DOI: 10.1177/21582440211052554

Where there is a team, there is envy emotion among team members. Prior studies argue that two opposite types of envy—benign envy and malicious envy differently influence team members’ interactions, thus impact team creativity differently. However, little literature has discussed whether envy has a direct influence on team creativity. This research is conducted to narrow this literature gap. Moreover, if their relationship was verified, the mechanism needs to be further explored. Previous studies have shown negative public perception of envy and strong behavioral motivation function of it. Therefore, a morality-related variable—moral reflection, and a competition-related variable—knowledge seeking are introduced as mediating variables. To test the relationships among the above variables, an experiment with 74 MBA students’ participation was conducted. The results show the positive relationship between benign envy and team creativity, while malicious envy gets the opposite result. Besides, knowledge seeking and moral reflection are proven to be bridges connecting envy and team creativity. Envy is more complicated than what previous studies have found. It has positive sides to team creativity.