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To Be (Creative), or not to Be (Creative)? A Sensemaking Perspective to Creative Role Expectations

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Abstract

By combining organizational role theory with core features of the sensemaking perspective of creativity, we propose conditional indirect relationships between creative role expectations and employee incremental and radical creativity that are mediated by creative self-expectations and moderated by perceived necessity for performance improvement and creative cognitive style. We find empirical evidence for our hypothesized effects across two studies. First, in a field study using data collected from 325 supervisor–employee dyads in an academic institution in China, we find that creative role expectations are positively related to creative self-expectations and that perceived necessity for performance improvement strengthens this positive relationship. Furthermore, we find that creative self-expectations directly relate to incremental creativity, but that creative cognitive style is a necessary boundary condition under which such self-expectations relate to radical creativity. Second, the results of an additional survey study among 201 US employees suggest that the psychological process through which employees internalize external role expectations for creativity into their self-expectations for creativity is primarily driven by the satisfaction of basic needs for competence. Theoretical and practical implications are discussed.

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Notes

  1. We thank an anonymous reviewer for suggesting to us to compare the hypothesized model with alternative models using this analytic approach.

  2. We thank an anonymous reviewer for suggesting to us to directly test our arguments for Hypothesis 1.

  3. More detailed results of the additional study are available from the first author.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Psychology, School of Sociology, China University of Political Science and Law, 27 Fuxue Lu, Changping District, 102249, Beijing, People’s Republic of China

    Ye Liu

  2. Department of Human Resource Management and Organizational Behavior, Faculty of Economics and Business, University of Groningen, Nettelbosje 2, 9747, AE, Groningen, The Netherlands

    Tim Vriend & Onne Janssen

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  1. Ye Liu
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  2. Tim Vriend
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  3. Onne Janssen
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Correspondence to Ye Liu.

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Appendix

Appendix

Results of moderated mediation analyses without controls

Predictor

Creative self-expectations

Employee incremental creativity

Employee radical creativity

Estimate

SE

p

Estimate

SE

p

Estimate

SE

p

Creative role expectations

0.61***

0.07

0.000

− 0.03

0.07

0.727

0.05

0.09

0.600

Perceived necessity for performance improvement

0.03

0.05

0.476

      

Creative role expectations × perceived necessity for performance improvement

0.15**

0.05

0.003

      

Creative self-expectations

   

0.18*

0.08

0.021

0.18*

0.08

0.028

Creative cognitive style

   

0.01

0.05

0.815

0.09

0.07

0.170

Creative self-expectations × creative cognitive style

   

0.05

0.03

0.176

0.10**

0.03

0.004

  1. Note. N = 325
  2. *p < 0.05; **p < 0.01; ***p < 0.001

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Liu, Y., Vriend, T. & Janssen, O. To Be (Creative), or not to Be (Creative)? A Sensemaking Perspective to Creative Role Expectations. J Bus Psychol 36, 139–153 (2021). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10869-019-09669-0

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