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

http://nbn-resolving.de/urn:nbn:de:bsz:352-242428

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


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,


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


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,


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


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).


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


(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


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,


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


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.


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


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).


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.


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


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.


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.


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


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,


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,


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


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


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


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.


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.


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.


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


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


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


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


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


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.


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


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.


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


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


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 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


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)


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).


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.


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 &


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.


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.


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.


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.


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


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


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


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.


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


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


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


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


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.


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.


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.


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,


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


(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.


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.


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.


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,


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.


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


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


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


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


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


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-


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


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


with longitudinal data with three measurement points (each separated by four weeks)

from 279 employees.

Results supported the hypothesized model. Transformational leadership at

Time 1 was positively related to employee creativity at Time 3. Moreover, this

relationship was mediated by promotion focus at Time 2. Participants who reported

that they had a transformational leader were more creative because they had a

stronger promotion focus. Furthermore, results indicated that the relationship

between promotion focus and creativity was due to an increased engagement in the

creative process.

Study 2 (Chapter 3) focused on the day-specific relationship between positive

affect and employee creativity. Based on previous research (Amabile et al., 2005;

Binnewies & Wörnlein, 2011), my co-author and I proposed that positive affect is

positively related to employee creativity. Moreover, we examined the experience of

relationship conflicts as a moderator in this relationship. We proposed that the

experience of relationship conflicts can impair the beneficial effects positive affect

has on employee creativity. Thus, the relationship between positive affect and

employee creativity should only emerge on days low on relationship conflicts. We

tested these hypotheses with diary data from 101 employees of the advertising

industry.

The results supported our hypotheses. Positive affect was positively related to

employee creativity. However, this relationship emerged only on days when the

employees experienced a low level of relationship conflicts. Thus, relationship

conflicts attenuate the relationship between positive affect and employee creativity.

Study 3 (Chapter 4) integrated the findings of the previous two studies. Again

relying on Regulatory Focus Theory (Brockner & Higgins, 2001; Higgins, 1997), we

proposed that positive affect is both an antecedent of employee creativity and a


consequence of promotion focus. Furthermore, we considered the assumption that

promotion focus has both a general and a specific component (Stam et al., 2010).

We proposed a multiple mediation model with 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


promotion focus of the employees. Our results support the assumption that

transformational leaders might serve a role model that primes a promotion focus

(Kark & Van Dijk, 2007) and that their visions can help employees to develop an ideal

self (Brockner & Higgins, 2001). Second, findings support the proposition that

promotion focus is beneficial for creativity. Kark and Van Dijk (2007) argue that

promotion focus fosters employee creativity because promotion-focused employees

are more eager and willing to take risks. Moreover, our results showed that increased

creativity was due to a higher engagement in the creative process. When working on

a task, a strong promotion focus was associated with thorough problem identification,

broad information search, and increased idea generation. These results illustrate the

interplay between personal and contextual characteristic.

Findings of Study 2 are in line with the propositions of the Broaden-and-Build

Theory (Fredrickson, 2001) and the dopaminergic theory of positive affect (Ashby et

al., 1999) that the experience of positive affect increases cognitive flexibility and thus

has beneficial effects on creativity. In this study, the experience of positive affect in

the morning was positively related to increased creativity during the working day.

However, the relationship between positive affect and creativity emerged only on

days low on relationship conflicts. This finding supports the assumption that

relationship conflicts may induce a conflict mental model (Carnevale & Probst, 1998).

Relationship conflicts refer to the attitudes or values of the involved persons (De

Dreu & Weingart, 2003). These conflicts can induce black-and-white thinking which

characterizes a conflict mental model (Judd, 1978). Diamentrally opposed to the

effects of positive affect, a conflict mental model is associated with cognitive rigidity

(Carnevale & Probst, 1998). Positive affect enhances cognitive flexibility, yet the

experience of relationship conflicts impairs it again. Thus, it seems that the cognitive

effects of relationship conflicts attenuate the beneficial effects of positive affect.


Study 3 supports the proposition of the Regulatory Focus Theory that

promotion focus is associated with the experience of activating positive affect

(Brockner & Higgins, 2001; Higgins, 1997). Moreover, the effect of promotion focus

on creativity is partly due to the experience of positive affect. These findings

demonstrate that affective experience and creativity are not isolated outcomes of an

employee’s promotion focus. Rather it shows that the affective experience helps the

employee to be more creative.

Furthermore, the results of Study 1 and Study 3 have demonstrated that an

employee’s promotion focus is both related to contextual variables (e.g. leadership)

and to the personal disposition to be promotion-focused. These findings can be

interpreted in line with the proposition that long-lasting relationships (e.g. teacher –

student or supervisor – employee relationship) can influence the tendency to be

promotion-focused (Higgins & Silberman, 1998) and that contextual variables can

shape the situation-specific promotion focus (Brockner & Higgins, 2001). Thus,

considering the effects promotion focus has on creativity, an employee with a weaker

tendency to be promotion-focused might need stronger situational cues to develop a

promotion focus.

Contributions to Research

Findings from the present dissertation add to previous research on work and

organizational psychology. This dissertation extends the knowledge on the contextual

and personal antecedents of employee creativity. On the one hand, it points out how

personal variables mediate the influence of contextual variables on creativity. On the

other hand, it demonstrates how contextual variables can serve as moderators in the

relationship between personal variables and creativity. In the following, I illustrate the

main research contributions in more detail.


As Regulatory Focus Theory is a topic of growing research interest (Lanaj et

al., 2012), this dissertation took a closer look on the personal variable promotion

focus. In line with propositions from Regulatory Focus Theory that promotion focus

influences behavioral outcomes (Brockner & Higgins, 2001), findings show that

promotion focus fosters creativity. Moreover, this dissertation investigated different

mediating mechanisms that link promotion focus and creativity.

First, findings indicate that promotion-focused employees are more creative

because they are more engaged in the creative process. Brocker and Higgins (2001)

proposed that promotion focus is associated with eagerness and risk-taking.

Promotion-focused employees have the motivation to approach a desired end-state

(Higgins, 1997). They are likely to try out new ways of doing things if they have the

feeling that it will bring them closer to the desired end-state. Compared to prevention-

focused employees who have the motivation to avoid undesired end-states,

promotion-focused employees are willing to take the risk that these new ways results

in failure (an undesired end-state). Our results support these propositions and

moreover, they suggest that promotion focus manifests in high engagement in the

creative process and that this engagement facilitates creativity. The creative process

precedes the creative outcome (Gilson & Shalley, 2004). Our results demonstrate

that promotion-focused employees take more effort at the three stages of the creative

process. They try to understand the nature of the problem, they retain more relevant

information, and they use this information to generate more alternative solutions.

Thus, our results suggest that the approach motivation of the promotion focus

manifests itself in an increased engagement in the creative process which in turn

results in higher creativitiy. These findings help to understand the process within a

person that foster creativity.


Second, this dissertation investigated positive affect as another mediator in

the relationship between promotion focus and creativity. We integrated the research

on the positive affect – creativity link into the framework of Regulatory Focus Theory.

Findings indicate that positive affect is both an antecedent of creativity and a

consequence of promotion focus. Thus, it is important to delineate the effects of

promotion focus on the affective experience and on behavioral outcomes.

Considering the results of Study 1 and Study 3, promotion focus seems to foster

creativity both via its behavioral and affective consequences. Thus, our findings

highlight the importance to distinguish between behavioral and affective

consequences (Brockner & Higgins, 2001). This should be even more critical in

cases when the behavioral and affective consequences have opposed effects. For

example, according to Regulatory Focus Theory, promotion-focused employees who

fall short of their goals get angry (Brockner & Higgins, 2001). This anger might induce

a conflict mental model which is associated with rigid thinking and narrower cognitive

categories (Carnevale & Probst, 1998). At the information search and encoding stage

of the creative process, employees benefit from cognitive flexibility and the ability to

connect different cognitive categories (Reiter-Palmon & Illies, 2004). In this case,

being promotion-focused might increase the motivation to search and encode new

information, however, being angry might impair the ability to be successful at this

stage of the creative process. These findings highlight the importance to distinguish

and to understand the different processes within a person that are related to

creativity.

Moreover, Study 2 demonstrated that the relationship between positive affect

and creativity emerges only on days with few relationship conflicts. Thus, contextual

variables have the potential to attenuate this relationship. To explain mixed findings

regarding the relationship between positive affect and creativity, identifying possible


moderators in this relationship is needed (George & Zhou, 2002; Kaufmann, 2003b;

Kaufmann & Vosburg, 1997). Our findings may help to explain why positive affect is

not always beneficial for creativity. The findings indicate that possible moderator

variables can impair the beneficial effects of positive affect and thus undermine the

relationship between positive affect and creativity. Thus, a contextual variable is not

necessarily directly related to employee creativity. Still, it might impair the processes

triggered by a person variable and thereby influence the relationship between the

person variable and creativity.

Furthermore, findings add to the research on transformational leadership.

Even though it has been previously demonstrated that transformational leadership

has beneficial effects on creative performance (G. Wang et al., 2011), research on

the mediating mechanisms is sparse. We found that transformational leaders

strenghten the promotion focus of their employees and thus increase employee

creativity. These findings help to understand how leadership behavior results in more


Moreover, scholars propose that transformational leadership might indirectly

reduce the emergence of relationship conflicts (Hüttermann & Boerner, 2011). By

increasing team identification, transformational leaders prevent that task conflicts turn

into relationship conflicts and that diversity results in relationship conflicts

(Hüttermann & Boerner, 2011). Considering the results of this dissertation, the

influence of transformational leadership on positive affect and creativity might be

twofold. On the one hand, transformational leadership might indirectly foster the

experience of positive affect via promotion focus and on the other hand, by reducing

relationship conflicts, transformational leadership might strengthen the relationship

between positive affect and creativity.


Moreover, findings of this dissertation are in line with the proposition of

Regulatory Focus Theory that promotion focus has both a stable and a situational

component (Brockner & Higgins, 2001). The situation-specific promotion focus is

shaped by both the general tendency to be promotion-focused and contextual

variables. Higgins and Silberman (1998) argue that long term interactions with

significant others shape the stable component. Following this reasoning, supervisors

who have a medium-term relationship with their employees might have an influence

beyond the specific situation and therefore shape the stable component of their

employee’s promotion focus. This findings point out the importance to distinguish the

general and situation-specific component of a person variable and to consider the

situational influences when one investigates this variable from a day-specific

perspective.

Figure 5.1 illustrates how an integrated framework of all variables of this

dissertation could look like. In Study 1, findings showed that transformational

leadership and employee’s promotion focus are positively related. As described

above, the medium-term relationship between supervisor and employee might

influence the stable component of their employee’s promotion focus. Moreover,

scholars assume that transformational leadership can prevent relationship conflicts

(Hüttermann & Boerner, 2011). The results of Study 3 demonstrated that general

promotion focus was positively related to both 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


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


Strengths and Limitations

The main limitation of this dissertation is the use of self-report data in all three

studies. This raises concerns of common method variance and whether the

relationships among the study variables are biased (Podsakoff et al., 2003).

Specifically, common method bias can be due to participants who want to maintain

consistency in their answers. This is particularly relevant when the related variables

refer to a similar content such as creativity and creative process engagement in

Study 1 and general and day-specific promotion focus in Study 3. We followed the

suggestion of Podsakoff et al. (2003) to separate the measurement of these variables

and used different measurement points for creativity and creative process

engagement in Study 1 and for general and day-specific promotion focus in Study 3.

Another source of common method variance might be positive affect (Podsakoff et

al., 2003). When experiencing positive affect, employees might view themselves in

more favorable terms. Since the relationship between positive affect and creativity is

a main focus of this dissertation, this source of common method variance is highly

relevant for this dissertation. It implies that the experience of positive affect might be

related to creativity not because employees are actually more creative but rather

because they view themselves as more creative. Contrary to this reasoning, recent

meta-analytic findings demonstrated that the use of self-report data did not inflate the

relationship between positive affect and creativity compared to non-self-report data

(Ng & Feldman, 2012). Moreover, using non-self-report data does not guarantee that

these ratings are more accurate (Spector, 2006). When supervisors rate the creativity

of their employees, their estimations might be biased as well. Thus, using multi-

source rating does not necessarily result in a more accurate estimation of the

relationship between predictor and outcome (Spector, 2006). Still, future research


should try to replicate our findings and use others sources than self-report data to

assess creativity.

We conducted three independent studies with different time frames and

different samples to enhance the generalizability of our findings. We tested positive

affect as an antecedent of creativity in Study 2 and Study 3 and promotion focus in

Study 1 and Study 3, whereas transformational leadership was tested as an

antecedent only in Study 1. The results of all three studies demonstrated positive

relationships between these antecedents and employee creativity. Furthermore,

findings showed that the relationships between employee creativity and the

investigated antecedents (with the exception of transformational leadership) were

similar in different samples and thus support the generalizabilty of our findings.

However, the use of highly selective samples in Study 2 and Study 3 might impair the

external validity. In these studies, we relied on employees working in the advertising

industry. This field was chosen because in this field being creative is part of the job

(Stuhlfaut & Windels, 2012). This raises the concern whether our findings are

applicable for other fields of occupation. For the generalizability of promotion focus

as an antecedent of employee creativity, we tested this relationship in Study 1 and

Study 3. In Study 1, the participants worked in different fields of occupations,

including information technology, human resources, research and development,

technical support, executive management, strategy, and public relations. The similar

findings for promotion focus in both studies support the external validity of these

results. On the contrary, positive affect was only tested in samples comprising

employees of the advertising industry. Thus, it is the concern that the positive

relationship between positive affect and creativity might be due to creative job

requirements in the advertising industry. However, George and Zhou (2002) found

that creative job requirements can actually have an opposite effect. Creative job


requirements can moderate the relationship between positive affect and creativity in

a way that positive affect can even impair creativity when the creative job

requirements are high. Thus, the relationship between positive affect and employee

creativity might even be stronger in other fields than the advertising industry.

We used different time lags in each study. Thus, we were able to consider the

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


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


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


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


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


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


attention beyond mere isolated effects of potential antecedents to understand or

foster employee creativity.

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