Creative Process Engagement And Incremental/Radical Creativity

Employee creativity is regarded as the cornerstone of organizational innovation and the key factor to improve organizational performance and maintain organizational competitiveness.Therefore,how to stimulate employees’ creativity has always been the focus of organizational managers and management scholars.Creative process engagement has been found to be an important factor affecting creativity.However,most studies consider such engagement as an essential stage of creativity,without explaining its internal mechanism,and all focus on the positive effect on creativity.Therefore,the existing research largely ignores the internal mechanism and multifaceted effects of creative process engagement on employee creativity.Drawing from the extended self theory,a theory of psychological ownership,and self-affirmation theory,this research explores the“double-edged sword” effect of creative process engagement on individual incremental and radical creativity,revealing the internal mechanism and boundary condition.Based on the extended self theory and a theory of psychological ownership,this research proposes that creative process engagement will increase individuals’ idea-based psychological ownership.This psychological ownership,on the one hand,triggers cognitive persistence and then promotes individuals’ incremental and radical creativity.On the other hand,it may trigger cognitive rigidity,thus reducing individuals’ incremental and radical creativity.Idea-based cognitive persistence may have a stronger positive impact on radical creativity,so creative process engagement may have a stronger positive indirect effect on radical creativity.Idea-based cognitive rigidity may have a stronger negative impact on radical creativity,so creative process engagement may have a stronger negative indirect effect on radical creativity.Then,building upon the self-affirmation theory,this research proposes that supervisor expectations for creativity will enhance the relationship between idea-based psychological ownership and cognitive persistence,and then enhance the positive indirect effect of creative process engagement on individuals’ incremental and radical creativity.On the other hand,it will weaken the relationship between idea-based psychological ownership and cognitive rigidity,and thus weaken the negative indirect effect of creative process engagement on individuals’ incremental and radical creativity.This research examined the theoretical model and hypotheses through three studies.The first study adopted the multi-wave field survey method.Through a three-wave field survey with 275 employees from different organizations recruited from the online research platform,Study 1 shows that creative process engagement has a positive impact on idea-based psychological ownership.However,there is no relationship between idea-based psychological ownership and incremental or radical creativity,which leads to the insignificant indirect effect of creative process engagement on individuals’ incremental or radical creativity(via idea-based psychological ownership).The second study adopted the experimental research design.Through a scenario experiment with 211 subjects from different organizations recruited from the online research platform,Study 2 shows that creative process engagement promotes individuals’ incremental and radical creativity through enhanced idea-based psychological ownership and cognitive persistence.However,creative process engagement also reduces individuals’ incremental and radical creativity through enhanced idea-based psychological ownership and cognitive rigidity.There is no difference in the positive or negative indirect effects of creative process engagement on the two types of creativity.The third study adopted the multi-wave field survey method and the experience sampling method.Through a three-wave field survey with 253 employees and their direct leaders from different organizations recruited through MBA students from two universities in central China,and through an experience sampling study for 10 working days with 99 employees from different organizations recruited from the online research platform,Study 3 shows that supervisor expectations for creativity enhance the relationship between idea-based psychological ownership and cognitive persistence,and then enhance the positive indirect effect of creative process engagement on individuals’ incremental and radical creativity.Supervisor expectations for creativity weaken the relationship between idea-based psychological ownership and cognitive rigidity,and then weaken the negative indirect effect of creative process engagement on individuals’ incremental and radical creativity.Through examining the internal mechanism and boundary condition of the“double-edged sword” effect of creative process engagement on individuals’ incremental and radical creativity,this research will enrich the literature on creative process engagement,psychological ownership,and creativity.Specifically,our findings will extend the understanding of the relationship between creative process engagement and creativity,add new perspectives to the research on the relationship between psychological ownership and creativity,provide new views for the theoretical model on creativity,and enrich the boundary of the extended self theory.In addition,this research will provide practical guidance for organizations on how to manage creative processes and how to improve employees’ creativity.