Positive Impact, Creativity, and Innovative Behavior at Work: The Mediating Role of Basic Needs Satisfaction

In recent research, a growing body of empirical evidence suggests that prosocial impact at work can play a significant role in enhancing creativity and innovativeness. Drawing from self-determination theory, we hypothesized that basic psychological needs and benevolence satisfaction could serve as a mediating factor in the relation between an employee's perceived social impact and innovative work behavior and creativity, thus illuminating the manner in which the contentment of psychological needs fosters inventive proclivities within the organizational milieu. Results from a study in Greece and Canada (N = 528) showed that both perceived social impact and prosocial motivation are positively associated with innovative work behavior and creativity while autonomy and competence satisfaction mediate the relation between perceived social impact and the work outcomes examined within this study. Moreover, prosocial motivation was found to moderate the relation between benevolence satisfaction and innovativeness. Findings extend prior research on the role of prosociality on creative behavior at work and provide supporting evidence for the organizations that encourage and support employees' initiatives to make a positive difference in the lives of others.

The Effect of Game Playing and Goal Orientation on Creativity

In an effort to bolster employee creativity, companies like Google and Groupon have adopted indoor work spaces that incorporate slides, swings, and unconventional design. While it may be costly and time-consuming to change certain aspects of a firm's work environment (e.g., the room design) to aid creativity and brainstorming, it is relatively easy for managers to encourage employees to engage in certain forms of unstructured recreation immediately prior to creative-based tasks for a new product development. This research addresses an important oversight in the literature by exploring the effect of cognitive game playing and goal orientation on subsequent new product development creativity. It was found that a cognitive game that engenders a greater degree of fun results in greater creativity on a subsequent new product development task, compared with both a cognitive-based game that engenders less fun and a control group. Furthermore, it was found that, for a cognitive-based game that engenders a high degree of fun, individuals who are primed with a process goal orientation are more likely to be creative on a subsequent new product development task than those who are primed with an outcome goal orientation.

Motivational mindsets, mindset churn and academic performance: The role of a goal-setting intervention and purpose in life

The motivational mindset model (MMM) is a new student-centered, multidimensional perspective on motivation in higher education and aims to better explain differences in wellbeing, study success and intervention effectiveness. The four types of mindsets within the model (high-impact, low-impact, social-impact, and self-impact) have proven to differ in two important dimensions of wellbeing and predictors of study success, namely a sense of purpose in life and study engagement. The present study expands the MMM by (1) examining the relationship between the mindsets and academic performance, (2) observing the mindset churn in the first year, and (3) exploring the role of the mindsets in the effectiveness of an online, narrative goal-setting intervention. To this end, the mindset of 748 first-year university students was measured at the beginning and the end of the first academic year. Results show that the mindset churn was considerable: on average 58% of the students had changed their mindset at follow-up. Results further show that students with a low-impact mindset at follow-up were more likely to drop out of the first year compared to the other three mindsets. Finally, a group of low-impact mindset students show an increased sense of purpose after participating in the goal-setting intervention and moved to a social-impact mindset during the year. This pattern provides preliminary support that the goal-setting intervention is a purpose-fostering intervention for students entering higher education with a low-impact mindset. A potential working mechanism of the goal-setting intervention is discussed as well as implications and directions for future research.

Scaffolding Positive Creativity in Secondary School Students

Guided by research in creativity studies, moral development, and positive youth development, this paper proposes four principles to guide education toward positive creativity: (1) building prosocial motivation, (2) building emotion skills to build persistence, (3) building an understanding of creativity as dynamic, and (4) building self-concept of positive creativity. To illustrate applying these theoretically derived principles to teaching positive creativity, we provide examples from the inspirED program for secondary school students, which aims to build a more positive social and emotional climate through student-led creative projects. The four phases of the inspirED program—Assess the problems, Brainstorm ideas, Complete a project, and Debrief the project’s impact—are mapped onto the four principles of teaching for positive creativity.

Positive Creativity in a Negative World

In this article we raise two linked questions in relation to positive creativity (creativity that can help transform the world to a better place): (1) Why does a great deal of positive creativity fly under the radar? and (2) What can be accomplished to enhance the visibility and frequency of positive creativity? Building off of the recent CASE model (Capital, Awareness, Spark, Exceptionality Model), which is focused on creativity that is hidden and overlooked, we unpack some of the reasons why positive creativity is often ignored in classroom settings. Using this framework as an intervention tool allows us, conversely, to identify those elements that can be enhanced to make positive creativity more visible and, overall, more present in education (and beyond).

Creative Self and Fear of Rejection

Abstract. Realization of creative potential in everyday life, sharing an original product or idea with others involves the risk of being rejected. In the current study, we explored the factors affecting the process of realization of creative potential in creative activities and creative achievements. We examined whether creative self-efficacy and creative personal identity, on the one hand, and fear of negative evaluation and rejection sensitivity, on the other hand, moderate the relationship between creative potential and real-life creativity (i.e., creative activities and achievements). According to the results, the relationship between creative potential and real-life creativity is stronger when people with creative potential have high creative personal identity and fear of negative evaluation scores. However, the relationship between creative potential and real-life creativity is not significant when people with creative potential have high scores on the creative self-efficacy and rejection expectancy scales (a cognitive aspect of rejection sensitivity). Possible explanations of the different results related to the different indicators of creativity and implications for future research are discussed.

COVID-19 Lockdown and Creativity: Exploring the Role of Emotions and Motivation on Creative Activities From the Chinese and German Perspectives

For much of 2020, countries around the world fought against the COVID-19 pandemic. Many countries went into lockdown to control the fast spread of the virus. The unusual restrictions and confinement of the lockdown brought about new challenges for people's everyday lives. With flexibility, adaptability, and problem-solving at the core of its nature, creativity has the potential to help people cope with harsh and uncertain circumstances. Were people more, the same, or less creative in their everyday life during the period of lockdown, and in which ways? What are the emotions and motivations underlying their creative or non-creative behaviors? The current study aims to explore these questions from a cross-cultural perspective. A total of 754 comparable employee samples from three Chinese and three German cities were asked about their moods during the lockdown period, their self-rated level of creativity in daily lives before and during the lockdown, and their motivations behind their creative activities. Significant increases in creativity were observed in all everyday activities in both countries with only two exceptions in the German sample. Despite minor differences, a common pattern was found across cultures: whereas the activating positive mood could directly lead to the increase in creativity in some everyday activities, such a direct Mood-Creativity link was limited in the activating negative mood circumstances. In such circumstances, motivation intervened to enable the link to creativity. It was also found that this indirect effect of motivation between mood and creativity was more pronounced with the German participants.

How Family's Support of Perseverance in Creative Efforts Influences the Originality of Children's Drawing During the Period of COVID-19 Pandemic?

This study points out that families' support of perseverance in creative efforts will increase children's originality of creative drawing through children's persistence in information searching. Data analysis based on 134 Chinese young children's creative drawings and survey supports the above hypothesis. Moreover, children's exposure to COVID-19 pandemic positively moderates the relationship between supporting perseverance and children's search persistence, such that high exposure to COVID-19 pandemic will increase the positive relationship between support of perseverance and search persistence. And children's prosocial motivation inhibits the influence of search persistence on originality. Contributions to the theory of children's creativity are discussed.

Is Visual Creativity Embodied? Thinking Aloud While Performing the Creative Mental Synthesis Task

Over time, the view that creativity is embodied has emerged. In order to explore if visual creativity is supported by embodied mechanisms, the simulation approach was used as a framework of reference. The idea that visual creativity relies on mental representations that implement motor processes was faced. Participants were instructed to think aloud while carrying out the Creative Mental Synthesis Task, which allows to form pre-inventive structures and interpret them according to a specific category. Two independent judges scored verbal protocols in terms of the number of motor, spatial, and visual thoughts reported during the pre-inventive and inventive phases, and also evaluated the final objects according to originality and appropriateness. Originality was predicted positively by inventive motor thoughts and by pre-inventive spatial thoughts, but negatively by inventive spatial thoughts; appropriateness was only predicted by inventive visual thoughts. These results suggest that actions for future object utilization were simulated while interpreting pre-inventive structures, increasing originality of objects. In addition, spatial transformations are useful to construct the pre-inventive structures, but not to interpret them. Yet, thinking of the pictorial details of the object is also essential to classify it in a given category. Limitations and future research directions are discussed.

Finding Meaning With Creativity in the Past, Present, and Future

Being creative is considered a desirable trait, yet most empirical studies emphasize how to increase creativity rather than explore its possible benefits. A natural connection is how creativity can enhance life's meaning. Many of the core concepts in work on the meaning of life, such as the needs for coherence, significance, and purpose or the desire for symbolic immortality, can be reached through creative activity. The synthesis of these two constructs-creativity and the meaning of life-is discussed with a temporal model encompassing past, present, and future pathways to creativity. The past pathway can help one understand and reflect on life. The present pathway can remind one of life's joy and the many possible connections with humanity. Finally, the future pathway strives to ensure some type of legacy that may resonate with younger generations.

Innovative behaviour of knowledge workers and social exchange attributes of financial incentive: implications for knowledge management

Purpose

Enhancing the innovative behaviour of knowledge workers is a main task in knowledge management. The pay-for-performance policy is one of the management practices for innovative behaviour enhancement and has been gaining popularity in the knowledge-intensive context. However, it is still uncertain whether such practice really enhances the innovative behaviour of knowledge workers. To address this issue, this paper aims to propose and verify a conceptual framework incorporating kernel notions of social exchange, psychological empowerment and work engagement rooted in the social cognition paradigm.

Design/methodology/approach

The current study conducts a survey on 608 knowledge workers and their supervisors, validating the model structure and causal path pattern of the proposed framework. The causality is delineated from social exchange attributes of financial incentive, psychological empowerment and work engagement to innovative behaviour of knowledge workers.

Findings

Perceived organisational support and perceived pay equity are primary antecedents of symbolic incentive meaning reflected in the financial incentive of the pay-for-performance policy. Symbolic incentive meaning comprising dimensions of relative position, control and personal importance relates positively to innovative behaviour of knowledge workers. Psychological empowerment and work engagement are partial mediators of the positive relationship.

Originality/value

The current study explicates why and how social exchange attributes of the financial incentive provided by the pay-for-performance policy may enhance innovative behaviour of knowledge workers. Implications are supplied to knowledge management scholars and practitioners to optimise the pay-for-performance policy for innovative behaviour enhancement.

Propiedades psicométricas del Work Preference Inventory (WPI) en una muestras de adultos jóvenes mexicanos

El presente trabajo analiza las propiedades psicométricas del Work Preference Inventory (WPI; Amabile, Hil, Hennessey & Tighe, 1994) traducido al español, en una muestra de 762 participantes mexicanos de entre 17 y 27 años. La consistencia interna del instrumento indica un alfa de Cronbach general de .72, así como de .71 para la escala de motivación intrínseca y de .69 para la de motivación extrínseca. Se realizaron análisis factoriales para agrupar los reactivos en dos escalas primarias y cuatro secundarias. Además se hizo la baremación a partir de la muestra estudiada. Los resultados indican que el WPI es un instrumento es válido y confiable para medir la motivación en poblaciones universitarias.

Pay, Intrinsic Motivation, Extrinsic Motivation, Performance, and Creativity in the Workplace: Revisiting Long-Held Beliefs

The role of compensation or extrinsic rewards, including pay for performance (PFP), has received relatively little attention in the organizational behavior/psychology literature on work motivation. What attention it has received has often taken the form of raising cautions about the potential harmful effects of PFP on (intrinsic) work motivation, as well as on creativity. We critically assess the theory and evidence that have provided the basis for such arguments and conclude that support for such claims (in workplace settings) is lacking. We seek to provide a more accurate view of how extrinsic rewards such as PFP operate in the workplace and how they influence workplace motivation, creativity, and performance. We document how social determination theory and creativity theory have recently undergone major changes that better recognize the potential positive influence of extrinsic rewards such as PFP. Finally, we identify areas in need of further research.