Employee Goal Orientation And Employee Creativity

Employee creativity is the foundation of organizational innovation.It is through the development and realization of employee creativity could organizations keep their innovative vitality to survive and grow in the volatile environment.Creativity and innovation are vital to many jobs and industries,in other words,organizations of any industry could benefit from their employees' creativity,so they need to make full use of employees' creative potential,stimulate and enhance their creativity.Employees' creativity is long expected,but it requires extensive time and energy and involves a high risk of failure,so employees do not intend to take risks for it,and it is crucial for organizations to identify and direct those who have both the ability and intention to engage in creative activities.Previous research has shown that goal orientation is a construct related to individual learning,intrinsic motivation,effort and meeting challenges,which are found to be positively related to creativity.So based on Amabile's Componential Theory of Organizational Creativity and Innovation(Amabile,1988),this research proposes a framework in which individual goal orientations(GO)influence the expression of creativity.Then on the basis of Kanfer's heuristic framework of motivation contructs(Kanfer,1992)and a self-regulatory perspective,this research further proposes that goal orientations affects creativity through feedback inquiry behavior(FI).In sum,this research investigates the mechanisms by which individual goal orientations influence creativity,and explores the moderating effects of perceived organizational support(POS)on the relationship between goal orientations and feedback inquiry behavior.More specifically,this research reviews previous studies on goal orientation,employee creativity,feedback inquiry behavior,perceived organizational support,and then probes into the relationships between the focal variables on the basis of Componential Theory of Organizational Creativity and Innovation,Heuristic Framework of Motivation Constucts and Self-regulation Theory.All the focal variables are measured with valid scales,and a pilot study is conducted to further justify their reliability and validiy.With a sample of 387 supervisor-surbordinate dyads from 43 companies,confirmatory factor analyses,correlation analyses,structure equation modeling and hierarchical regression are conducted.Scales'reliability and validity,correlations and direct effects between GO,FI and creativity,the mediating effects of FI and moderating effects of POS are examined.Research results indicate:(1)In Chinese organizations,both learning goal orientation(LGO)and performance-prove goal orientation(PPGO)are positively related to employee creativity,while performance-avoid goal orientation(PAGO)'s negative association with employee creativity is nonsignificant;(2)although both LGO and PPGO are positively related to employee creativity,LGO's effect is stronger than PPGO;(3)FI partially mediates the relationships between LGO/PPGO and employee creativity,meanwhile,FI's mediating role between PAGO and employee creativity is nonsignificant;(4)POS moderates the relationships between GOs and FI.Specifically,POS strengthens the positive relationships between LGO/PPGO and FI,and diminishes the negative relationship between PAGO and FI;(5)employee creativity differs significantly across gender,FI and POS differ significantly across job position,LGO,PPGO and employee creativity differ across job tenure.This research compares different goal orientation's influence on employee creativity,deepens our understanding on PPGO's influence mechanism on employee outcome,extends research about feedback seeking behavior,offers a new perspective to how goal orientations influence employee creativity,and identifies contextual moderator which can enhance goal orientation's positive effect while reduce its negative effect.In sum,our research makes solid theoretical contributions to goal orientation,feedback seeking behavior and employee creativity,and presents practical implications to inform managers on how to effectively improve employee creativity.