Psychological capital and self‐reported employee creativity: The moderating role of supervisor support and job characteristics

Although the positive effect of psychological capital (PsyCap) on employee performance is well documented, the conditions under which PsyCap exerts the most influence on creativity warrant further research. Complementing and extending prior studies, we theorize and examine how two critical contextua...

Full description

Saved in:
Bibliographic Details
Published in:Creativity and innovation management 2019-03, Vol.28 (1), p.30-41
Main Authors: Cai, Wenjing, Lysova, Evgenia I., Bossink, Bart A. G., Khapova, Svetlana N., Wang, Weidong
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Creativity
Employee attitude
Psychology
Supervisors
Work environment
Citations: Items that this one cites
Items that cite this one
Online Access:Get full text
Tags: Add Tag
No Tags, Be the first to tag this record!
Description
Summary:Although the positive effect of psychological capital (PsyCap) on employee performance is well documented, the conditions under which PsyCap exerts the most influence on creativity warrant further research. Complementing and extending prior studies, we theorize and examine how two critical contextual factors (supervisor support for creativity [SSC] and job characteristics) effectively activate PsyCap associated with self‐reported employee creativity. Drawing on an interactional perspective, we use trait activation theory to examine the moderating effects of SSC and job characteristics on the relationship between PsyCap and self‐reported employee creativity. Through rigorous hypotheses testing (N = 356 individuals from multiple industries in Chinese firms), our results demonstrate that both SSC and job characteristics positively moderate the PsyCap–creativity relationship. Additional analyses reveal that PsyCap is most effective at enhancing creativity when both SSC and job characteristics are high. Implications of these findings for theory, future research and practice are discussed.
ISSN:0963-1690
1467-8691
DOI:10.1111/caim.12277