Hostname: page-component-f554764f5-c4bhq Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2025-04-23T02:57:45.566Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Goal orientation and employee creativity: The mediating role of creative role identity

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  16 January 2015

Wenhao Song ,
Hongyan Yu ,
Yanlong Zhang  and
Wan Jiang
Wenhao Song
Affiliation:
ANTAI College of Economics Management, Shanghai Jiao Tong University, China, Shanghai 200052, China
Hongyan Yu
Affiliation:
ANTAI College of Economics Management, Shanghai Jiao Tong University, China, Shanghai 200052, China
Yanlong Zhang
Affiliation:
ANTAI College of Economics Management, Shanghai Jiao Tong University, China, Shanghai 200052, China
Wan Jiang
Affiliation:
ANTAI College of Economics Management, Shanghai Jiao Tong University, China, Shanghai 200052, China
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

We developed and tested a model of employee creativity based on achievement goal theory and role identity theory. Examining the relationship between the three dimensions of goal orientation and employee creativity, we explored the mediating effect of creative role identity. Data were collected from 197 employees and their supervisors from several industries in China. The results indicated that employee learning orientation was positively related to employee creativity, but that no such positive relationship existed between approach performance orientation and employee creativity. Interestingly, we found that avoidance performance orientation was positively related to employee creativity. Learning orientation, approach performance orientation and avoidance performance orientation were all found to have significant effects on creative role identity. In turn, creative role identity fully mediated the relationship between learning orientation and employee creativity, and the relationship between avoidance performance orientation and employee creativity. These findings contribute to the advancement of role identity theory, and their theoretical and practical implications are discussed.

Keywords

goal orientationlearning orientationperformance orientationcreative role identityemployee creativity
Type
Research Article
Information
Journal of Management & Organization , Volume 21 , Issue 1 , January 2015 , pp. 82 - 97
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press and Australian and New Zealand Academy of Management 2015 

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

Article purchase

Temporarily unavailable

References

Amabile, T. M. (1988). A model of creativity and innovation in organizations. In B. M. Staw & L. L. Cummings (Eds.), Research in organizational behavior, vol. 10 (pp. 123–167). Greenwich, CT: JAI Press.Google Scholar
Amabile, T. M. (1996). Creativity in context. Boulder, CO: Westview.Google Scholar
Amabile, T. M. (1997). Motivating creativity in organizations: On doing what you love and loving what you do. California Management Review, 40, 39–58.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Baas, M., De Dreu, C. K. W., & Nijstad, B. A. (2011). When prevention promotes creativity: The role of mood, regulatory focus, and regulatory closure. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 100, 794–809.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Baron, R. M., & Kenny, D. A. (1986). The moderator-mediator variable distinction in social psychological research: Conceptual, strategic, and statistical consideration. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 51, 1173–1182.Google Scholar
Burke, P. J. (1991). Identity processes and social stress. American Sociological Review, 56, 836–849.Google Scholar
Burke, P. J., & Tully, J. C. (1977). The measurement of role identity. Social Forces, 55, 881–897.Google Scholar
Callero, P. L., Howard, J. A., & Piliavin, J. A. (1987). Helping behavior as role behavior: Disclosing social structure and history in the analysis of pro-social action. Social Psychology Quarterly, 50, 247–256.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Churchill, G. A., & Peter, J. P. (1984). Research design effects on the reliability of rating scales: A meta-analysis. Journal of Marketing Research, 21(4), 360–375.Google Scholar
Drazin, R., Glynn, M. A., & Kazanjian, R. K. (1999). Multilevel theorizing about creativity in organizations: A sense making perspective. Academy of Management Review, 24, 286–307.Google Scholar
Dweck, C. S. (1999). Self-theories: Their role in motivation, personality, and development. Ann Arbor, MI: Psychology Press.Google Scholar
Elliot, A. J. (1999). Approach and avoidance motivation and achievement goals. Educational Psychologist, 34, 169–189.Google Scholar
Elliot, A. J., & Church, M. (1997). A hierarchical model of approach and avoidance achievement motivation. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 72, 218–232.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Elliot, A. J., & Harackiewicz, J. M. (1996). Approach and avoidance achievement goals and intrinsic motivation: A meditational analysis. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 70, 461–475.Google Scholar
Farmer, S. M., Tierney, P., & Kung-McIntyre, K. (2003). Employee creativity in Taiwan: An application of role identity theory. Academy of Management Journal, 46(5), 618–630.Google Scholar
Ford, C. (1996). A theory of individual creative action in multiple social domains. Academy of Management Review, 21, 1112–1142.Google Scholar
Friedman, R. S., & Förster, J. (2000). The effects of approach and avoidance motor actions on the elements of creative insight. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 79, 477–492.Google Scholar
Friedman, R. S., & Förster, J. (2002). The influence of approach and avoidance motor actions on creative cognition. Journal of Experimental Social Psychology, 38, 41–55.Google Scholar
Gong, Y. P., Huang, J. C., & Farh, J. L. (2009). Employee learning orientation, transformational leadership, and employee creativity: The mediating role of employee creative self-efficacy. Academy of Management Journal, 52(4), 765–778.Google Scholar
Grube, J., & Piliavin, J. (2000). Role identity, organizational experiences, and volunteer performance. Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, 26, 1108–1119.Google Scholar
Harackiewicz, J. M., Barron, K. E., Carter, S. M., Lehto, A. T., & Elliot, A. J. (1997). Predictors and consequences of achievement goals in the college class-room: Maintaining interest and making the grade. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 73, 1284–1295.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Hirst, G., van Knippenberg, D., & Zhou, J. (2009). A cross-level perspective on employee creativity: Goal orientation, team learning behavior, and individual creativity. Academy of Management Journal, 52, 280–293.Google Scholar
Janssen, O., & Van Yperen, N. W. (2004). Employees’ goal orientation, the quality of leader-member exchange, and the outcomes of job performance and job satisfaction. Academy of Management Journal, 47(3), 368–384.Google Scholar
Lu, L. X., Lin, X. W., & Leung, K. (2012). Goal orientation and innovative performance: The mediating roles of knowledge sharing and perceived autonomy. Journal of Applied Social Psychology, 42, 180–197.Google Scholar
McCall, G., & Simmons, J. L. (1978). Identities and interaction. New York, NY: Free Press.Google Scholar
Nunnally, J. C. (1978). Psychometric theory (2nd ed.). New York, NY: McGraw-Hill Book Company.Google Scholar
Payne, S. C., Youngcourt, S. S., & Beaubien, J. M. (2007). A meta-analytic examination of the goal orientation nomological net. Journal of Applied Psychology, 92, 128–150.Google Scholar
Petkus, E. D. Jr. (1996). The creative identity: Creative behavior from the symbolic interactionist perspective. Journal of Creative Behaviour, 30(3), 188–196.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Podsakoff, P. M., MacKenzie, S. B., Lee, J. Y., & Podsakoff, N. P. (2003). Common method biases in behavioral research: A critical review of the literature and recommended remedies. Journal of Applied Psychology, 85(5), 879–903.Google Scholar
Prabhu, V., Sutton, C., & Sauser, W. (2008). Creativity and certain personality traits: understanding the mediating effect of intrinsic motivation. Creativity Research Journal, 20(1), 53–66.Google Scholar
Rawsthorne, L. J., & Elliot, A. J. (1999). Achievement goals and intrinsic motivation: A meta-analytic review. Personality and Social Psychology Review, 3(4), 326–344.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Riley, A., & Burke, P. J. (1995). Identities and self-verification in the small group. Social Psychology Quarterly, 58, 61–73.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Rizzo, J. R., House, R. J., & Lirtzman, S. I. (1970). Role conflict and ambiguity in complex organizations. Administrative Science Quarterly, 15(2), 150–163.Google Scholar
Roskes, M., De Dreu, C. K. W., & Nijstad, B. A. (2012). Necessity is the mother of invention: Avoidance motivation stimulates creativity through cognitive effort. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 103(2), 242–256.Google Scholar
Shalley, C. E., & Gilson, L. L. (2004). What leaders need to know: A review of social and contextual factors that can foster or hinder creativity. Leadership Quarterly, 15, 33–53.Google Scholar
Steele-Johnson, D., Heintz, P., & Miller, C. E. (2008). Examining situationally induced state goal orientation effects on task perceptions, performance, and satisfaction: A two-dimensional conceptualization. Journal of Applied Social Psychology, 38, 334–365.Google Scholar
Stryker, S. (1980). Symbolic interactionism: A social structural version. Menlo Park, CA: Benjamin/Cummings.Google Scholar
Tierney, P., & Farmer, S. M. (2002). Creativity self-efficacy: Its potential antecedents and relationship to creative performance. Academy of Management Journal, 45, 1137–1148.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
VandeWalle, D. (1997). Development and validation of a work domain goal orientation instrument. Educational and Psychological Measurement, 8, 995–1015.Google Scholar
VandeWalle, D., & Cummings, L. L. (1997). A test of the influence of goal orientation on the feedback-seekingprocess. Journal of Applied Psychology, 82, 390–400.Google Scholar
VandeWalle, D., Cron, W. L., & Slocum, J. W. (2001). The role of goal orientation following performance feedback. Journal of Applied Psychology, 86, 629–640.Google Scholar
VandeWalle, D., & Cummings, L. L. (1997). A test of the influence of goal orientation on the feedback-seeking process. Journal of Applied Psychology, 82, 390–400.Google Scholar
Van Yperen, N. W. (2003). Task interest and actual performance: The moderating effects of assigned and adapted purpose goals. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 85, 1006–1015.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Wang, A. C., & Cheng, B. S. (2010). When does benevolent Leadership to creativity? The moderating role of creative role identity and job autonomy. Journal of Organizational Behavior, 31, 106–121.Google Scholar
Wang, P., & Zhu, W. C. (2011). Mediating role of creative identity in the influence of transformational leadership on creativity: Is there a multilevel effect? Journal of Leadership & Organizational Studies, 18(1), 25–39.Google Scholar
Woodman, R. W., Sawyer, J. E., & Griffin, R. W. (1993). Toward a theory of organizational creativity. Academy of Management Review, 18(2), 293–321.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Yang, K. S. (1981). The formation and change of Chinese personality: A cultural-ecological perspective. Acta Psychologica Taiwanica, 23(1), 39–56.Google Scholar
Zhang, X. M., & Bartol, K. M. (2010). Linking empower leadership and employee creativity: The influence of psychological empowerment, intrinsic motivation, and creative process engagement. Academy of Management Journal, 53(1), 107–128.Google Scholar
Zhou, J. (2003). When the presence of creative coworkers is related to creativity: Role of supervisor closes monitoring, developmental feedback, and creative personality. Journal of Applied Psychology, 88, 413–422.Google Scholar
Zhou, J., & George, J. M. (2001). When job dissatisfaction leads to creativity: Encourage the expression of voice. Academy of Management Journal, 44(4), 682–696.Google Scholar