Alice H.Y. Hon

Proactive Personality and Employee Creativity: The Effects of Job Creativity Requirement and Supervisor Support for Creativity.

This study examined the relationships between proactive personality and employee creativity and the moderating roles of job creativity requirement and supervisor support for creativity in activating proactive personality associated with employee creativity. To provide a rigorous test of the hypotheses, we conducted a field study from a sample of 157 employee–supervisor pairs in South Korea. The results revealed that a proactive personality was positively associated with employee creativity. In addition, job creativity requirement and supervisor support for creativity jointly influenced the relationship between proactive personality and employee creativity. Specifically, proactive employees exhibited the highest employee creativity when job creativity requirement and supervisor support for creativity were both high.

Shaping environments conductive to creativity : the role of intrinsic motivation

A great deal of research on creativity is based on the principle of intrinsic motivation, which underlies creative performance and mediates the effects of contextual factors on employee creativity. Using a sample of Chinese employees from hotel industry, this study’s findings support the intrinsic motivation principle. This study applies the self-determination theory to model and examine intrinsic motivation and shows that a sense of autonomous motivation among employees plays a significant role in predicting employee creativity. Factors that promote creativity through autonomous motivation include a climate for creativity, empowering leadership, and coworker support. On the other hand, both task and personal conflict were negatively related to autonomous motivation. A controlling or coercive management style characterized by a focus on punishment, obligations, or external standards appears to be antithetical to employee creativity.

Overcoming Resistance to Change and Enhancing Creative Performance

Drawing on the sense-making perspective, the authors develop and test a cross-level model of individual creativity, integrating resistance to change and three human resource contextual factors to moderate the individual relationship. This cross-level study of working adults from a wide array of Chinese companies addresses one of the major challenges managers face in enhancing individual-level creativity: overcoming employees’ resistance to change. The authors study the efficacy of three contextual factors that are important elements of the creative process—modernity climate, leadership style, and coworker characteristics—for helping managers overcome this challenge. The authors find that the three contextual variables moderate the negative relationship between resistance to change and creativity, and the pattern of results indicates that managing human resources practices may mitigate the detrimental effects of resistance to change on creativity.

An interactional perspective on perceived empowerment: the role of personal needs and task context

This study examines the influence of individual needs and task characteristics on a multifaceted definition of perceived empowerment using an interactional perspective. Respondents were Hong Kong Chinese employees and most of them lower-level or nonmanagerial level workers in business organizations. We used regression analyses to test a number of hypotheses informed by social psychology theories. The significant findings indicate that perceived empowerment is predicted by individual characteristics (need for achievement, need for power), task situations (receipt of task feedback, competency-based reward system, participation in goal setting) and their interactions. Limitations of the study and implications for future research are discussed.

Employee creativity and motivation in the Chinese context: The moderating role of organizational culture

Based on hierarchical linear modeling (HLM) results, specific facets of culture influence service employees’ motivation and creativity. The theory of person—culture fit suggests that organizational culture moderates the relationship between employees’ intrinsic motivation and their creativity. The following three culture types are assessed in this study: innovative culture, traditional culture, and cooperative culture. The effect of these culture types on employees’ creativity is assessed using data obtained from fifty service and hospitality firms in the People’s Republic of China. The data reveal that innovative culture moderates the relationship between the need for achievement and creativity, traditional culture moderates the relationship between the need for power and creativity, and cooperative culture moderates the relationship between the need for affiliation and creativity. This article shows that a good person—culture fit plays a significant role in predicting employee creativity. For managers, the implication is to be aware of corporate culture and match employees’ motivations accordingly. In addition, managers need to identify and assist employees who feel stifled by the corporate culture.

Team Creative Performance The Roles of Empowering Leadership, Creative-Related Motivation, and Task Interdependence

Drawing on theories of self-determination, leadership, and creativity, this study developed and tested a conceptual model that aligns empowering leadership with team creativity by simultaneously testing the mediating effects of team self-concordance and team creative efficacy. The results from survey data from managers and workers in mainland China reveal that empowering leadership positively influenced team creativity via team self-concordance and team creative efficacy. In addition, the moderation–mediation path analysis indicated that team task interdependence strengthened the direct effects of empowering leadership on team self-concordance and team creative efficacy, as well as its indirect effect on team creativity. Empowering leadership includes leading by example, coaching, participative decision making, informing, and showing concern. By implication, managers should identify tasks that require teamwork (such as guest service) and then make every effort to empower employees and improve their task interdependence.

The Effects of Group Conflict and Work Stress on Employee Performance

This study investigates the positive and negative effects of group conflict and work stress. It uses a multilevel analysis to examine the effects of task-related conflict and relationship conflict on two different types of work stress, namely, challenge-related stress and hindrance-related stress. Furthermore, the study analyzes the effects these types of stress have on hotel employees’ job performance and job satisfaction. The results of hierarchical linear modeling from a survey of 265 employees and their managers in fifty Chinese hotels reveal that (1) team task conflict was positively associated with challenge-related stress, which in turn, was positively associated with job performance and satisfaction; and (2) team relationship conflict was positively associated with hindrance-related stress, which in turn, was negatively associated with job performance and satisfaction. We also found that work stress mediates the cross-level relationship between group conflict and the individual outcomes relating to performance and satisfaction. The key implication of the findings is that work-related conflict and stress are not always necessarily bad for organizational outcomes. Instead, task-related conflict and the resulting stress may improve employees’ sense of accomplishment when the task is complete. By the same token, relationship-based conflict and stress generally lead to negative outcomes for the employee and organization.

Employee creativity and innovation in organizations: Review, integration, and future directions for hospitality research

Purpose The purpose of this paper is twofold. First, the study considers research on creativity and innovation in the field of general management and hospitality. Second, the paper develops a theoretical model to integrate individual- and group-level creativity particularly for service organizations. Design/methodology/approach This paper provides a comprehensive, albeit non-inclusive, review of research on creativity and innovation in organizations. The review reveals that hospitality research on creativity and innovation has not matched the new advances in management research, particularly the multilevel nature of creativity and the outcomes of creativity. Thus, to advance research in hospitality, this paper proposes a multilevel model of creativity based on a strategic contingency power theory. This model examines how individual- and group-level uncertainties hinder creativity. Moreover, the model also considers several uncertainty coping strategies and examines individual- and group-level outcomes of creativity. Findings The proposed theoretical model integrates individual- and group-level uncertainty determinants of creativity and yields a multilevel approach to creativity. Several testable hypotheses are proposed. Research limitations/implications This paper highlights the strategic contingency power approach between individual- and group-level uncertainties in creativity. Uncertainty coping practices that alleviate the negative effects of uncertainties on creativity will be useful to managers and service organizations. Originality/value The proposed model provides plausible guidelines that advance creativity research in hospitality management.

Does standardized service fit all?: Novel service encounter in frontline employee-customer interface

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to explore the nature of the novel service encounter with reference to three research questions: first, what kind of creative acts do frontline employees undertake during a novel service encounter? Second, how does the novel service encounter correlate with service innovation? Third, how does it vary in different market environments? The novel service encounter refers to creative acts undertaken by frontline staff working at the employee-customer interface. These acts are important sources of new ideas for service innovation and demand systematic study. Design/methodology/approach – Methods in this study are triangulated by combining interviews, field observations and a survey to develop an observation template for examining the creative acts undertaken by frontline employees during service encounters in an international tourist apparel retailer. Findings – This paper provides initial empirical evidence of the process of the novel service encounter and highlights the...

When Will the Trickle-Down Effect of Abusive Supervision Be Alleviated? The Moderating Roles of Power Distance and Traditional Cultures

The trickle-down model of abusive supervision points out that the negative effect of abusive supervisory behaviors will be imitated by the subordinates and transmits along the organizational hierarchy. An important question arises herein as when and how this negative effect will be stopped or alleviated. In this study, we examine the positive relationship between abusive supervisory behavior and abusive subordinate behavior and the negative relationship between subordinates’ abusive behavior and service performance in teams from hospitality industry. Moreover, we posit that two team-level cultural values (power distance and traditional values) moderate the trickle-down effect of abusive supervision. Data were obtained from 266 supervisor–subordinate dyads in the hotel industry in China. The hierarchical linear modeling (HLM) results revealed that (1) abusive supervision positively predicts abusive subordinate behavior, (2) abusive subordinate behavior negatively predicts service performance, and (3) both traditional and power distance values mitigate the negative effects of abusive supervision in the supervisor–subordinate relationship. Theoretical and practical implications of the findings are discussed.