Effects Of Organizational Innovation Climate And Challenge Stressor-Hindrance Stressor On Employee Creativity

In the context of knowledge economy and globalization, innovation has becomea key factor for the organization to survive and develop. Substantial evidence nowshows that employee creativity can make an important contribution to organizationalinnovation, competitiveness, and survival. Previous studies about employeecreativity are more concentrated in the individual traits. While, in recent years, moreand more scholars began to pay attention to the role of the organizationalenvironment characteristics on employee creativity. Organizational innovationclimate has received considerable attentions as one of the characteristics of theorganizational environment. The researches have confirmed the positive role of theorganizational innovation climate on employee creativity. However, the samesupport on organizational innovation sometimes has different effect in differentorganizations. Based on the interactional approach, a organizational environmentalfactor has an effect on employee creativity when combined with other organizationalattributes. As an organizational characteristic, working pressure almost exist in anyorganization and individual, it has very significant impact on employees’psychologyand behavior. Previous studies found that three type of relationship between pressureand creativity: a positive correlation, negative correlation, curve relationship. One ofthe reasons for the inconsistent conclusions: these studies only concerned with therole of stress levels, but the nature of the pressure. Therefore, this study will examinethe effect of organizational innovation climate, challenge-hindrance stressor on thecreativity of employees, and to explore its mechanism.Data were collected from 318 employees. The questionnaire included employeecreativity, organizational innovation climate, challenge-hindrance stressor, andintrinsic motivation. The main statistic methods we used in this study are Correlationanalysis and Regression analysis. The conclusions of this study are as follows: (1) Organizational innovation climate significantly predicts idea generation andimplementation positively.(2) The challenge stressor strengths the relationship between organizationalinnovation climate and idea generation. Specifically, the positive relationshipbetween organizational innovation climate and employee creativity is stronger foremployee dealing with increasing challenge stressors.(3) The hindrance stressor weakens the relationship between organizationalinnovation climate and idea generation. Specifically, organizational innovationclimate significantly predicts employee creativity positively for employee dealingwith reducing hindrance stressors. While, organizational innovation climate does notsignificantly predict employee creativity for employees dealing with increasinghindrance stressors.(4) The hindrance stressor weakens the relationship between organizationalinnovation climate and idea implementation. Specifically, the positive relationshipbetween organizational innovation climate and employee creativity is weaker foremployees dealing with increasing hindrance stressors.(5) Intrinsic motivation acts as the mediator between organizational innovationclimate and employee creativity.(6) Intrinsic motivation mediates the interactions. For employees dealing withreducing hindrance stressors, organizational innovation climate positively predictsintrinsic motivation, thus produce high creativity; for employees dealing withincreasing hindrance stressors, organizational innovation climate does notsignificantly predict intrinsic motivation.