Kris Byron

Rewards and creative performance: a meta-analytic test of theoretically derived hypotheses.

Although many scholars and practitioners are interested in understanding how to motivate individuals to be more creative, whether and how rewards affect creativity remain unclear. We argue that the conflicting evidence may be due to differences between studies in terms of reward conditions and the context in which rewards are offered. Specifically, we examine 5 potential moderators of the rewards-creative performance relationship: (a) the reward contingency, (b) the extent to which participants are provided information about their past or current creative performance, (c) the extent to which the reward and context offer choice or impose control, (d) the extent to which the context serves to enhance task engagement, and (e) the extent to which the performance tasks are complex. Using random-effects models, we meta-analyzed 60 experimental and nonexperimental studies (including 69 independent samples) that examined the rewards-creativity relationship with children or adults. Our results suggest that creativity-contingent rewards tend to increase creative performance-and are more positively related to creative performance when individuals are given more positive, contingent, and task-focused performance feedback and are provided more choice (and are less controlled). In contrast, performance-contingent or completion-contingent rewards tend to have a slight negative effect on creative performance.

A Meta-Analytic Investigation of the Relationship of State and Trait Anxiety to Performance on Figural and Verbal Creative Tasks

Extensive research suggests when and how anxiety has debilitating or facilitating effects on routine cognitive tasks or motor tasks. However, research examining anxiety’s relation to performance on creative tasks such as divergent thinking and artistic tasks is less conclusive despite a rather substantial literature. The authors’ meta-analytic investigation of 59 independent samples finds that anxiety is significantly and negatively related to creative performance. In addition, the findings provide insights into factors such as task complexity, type of task (i.e., figural or verbal), and type of anxiety (i.e., state or trait) that moderate the relationship between anxiety and creativity—all of which are consistent with the idea that anxiety and creativity present competing cognitive demands. In addition to identifying gaps in the literature such as the need for research using a two-component model of anxiety in relation to creativity, the authors’ results have practical implications for those seeking to increase individual creativity.

Rewards and Creativity

The issue of whether reward increases or decreases creativity has been marked by considerable controversy, with substantial data marshaled for both views. Our analysis of the literature suggests that behaviorists increase creativity by making reward contingent on creative performance. Cognitively oriented researchers appear to reduce creativity by using noncontingent reward or by being vague about what constitutes desirable performance. Thus, a key variable seems to be whether individuals discriminate the necessity of creativity for reward. Moreover, contrary to some approaches that assert that reward decreases creativity by lessening perceived self-determination, reward appears to increase perceived self-determination. We summarize results from a meta-analysis of more than 60 studies examining rewards effects on creativity. These results suggest that reward for creativity increases creativity when recipients understand that rewards are contingent on being creative. Reward for performance, not specifically creative performance, increases creativity to a lesser extent, whereas noncontingent reward reduces creativity.

Realizing Challenges and Guarding Against Threats Interactive Effects of Regulatory Focus and Stress on Performance

Self-regulation seems crucial to understanding how employees perform under stress because employees must regulate their thoughts, feelings, and behavior to deal effectively with work stress. Integrating regulatory focus theory and the challenge–hindrance stressor framework, we theorized that the effects of regulatory focus on job performance would vary as a function of the level of stress employees experience. Specifically, we contend that employees are more efficacious and motivated (and thus perform better) when they have established goal and coping strategies that allow them to cope with the stress they face; those lacking in these strategies are likely to find the stress overwhelming and taxing (and perform worse). Using multisource data of 160 salespersons, we investigated this relationship with two measures of job performance. We found that challenge stress moderates the relationship between promotion focus and job performance: When challenge stress is high, promotion focus is positively related to job performance; when low, promotion focus is negatively or not significantly related to job performance. We also found that hindrance stress moderates the relationship between prevention focus and job performance: When hindrance stress is low, prevention focus is negatively related to job performance, but when high, prevention focus is positively related to job performance. Moreover, we find some support for three-way interactions suggesting that using mismatched goal and coping strategies is especially harmful. Our results explain performance differences in high-stress situations and highlight the important role of self-regulation when employees are in stressful conditions.

Board Independence and Corporate Misconduct: A Cross-National Meta-Analysis:

Although increased board independence is a commonly offered solution to curbing corporate misconduct, scholars have expressed skepticism about its effectiveness, and empirical evidence is mixed. We argue that the relationship between board independence and corporate misconduct is likely nuanced—and may vary by the type of independence (e.g., independence on the whole board or on the audit committee) and by national context. We conducted a meta-analysis of 135 studies spanning more than 20 countries. We find that the board independence–corporate misconduct relationship (a) is generally negative, (b) varies based on the implementation form that independence takes on (i.e., independence of the whole board, on the audit committee, or between the roles of CEO and board chair), and (c) is more strongly negative in countries with less corruption. We advance corporate governance theory and research by demonstrating that the popular governance practice of increasing board independence must both account for the manner in which independence is implemented and consider the powerful influence of firms’ broader societal context to clearly understand its effect. Further, based on our review of the literature, we uncover opportunities for the advancement of corporate governance and corporate misconduct research.

Quitting the Boss? The Role of Manager Influence Tactics and Employee Emotional Engagement in Voluntary Turnover:

Employees commonly cite their managers’ behavior as the primary reason for quitting their jobs. We sought to extend turnover research by investigating whether two commonly used influence tactics by managers affect their employees’ voluntary turnover and whether employees’ emotional engagement and job satisfaction mediate this relationship. We tested our hypotheses using survey data collected at two time points from a sample of financial services directors and objective lagged turnover data. Using multilevel path modeling, we found that managers’ use of pressure and inspirational appeals had opposite effects on employee voluntary turnover and that employees’ emotional engagement was a significant and unique mediating mechanism even when job satisfaction, the traditional attitudinal predictor of turnover, was also included in the path model. Our findings contribute to turnover research by demonstrating a relationship between specific managerial behaviors and employee turnover and shed light on a key mediating mechanism that explains these effects.

The ""Dark Side"" of Electronic Communication: Research on Employee and Relational Outcomes

As electronic communication becomes more ubiquitous in organizations, there is a need to understand its effects on employees. The four empirical papers in this symposium contribute to this field of research by considering (1) the detrimental impacts of certain types of email communication, text/instant messaging, and social media posts (e.g. frequent electronic interruptions, email incivility, abusive emails, and controversial coworker Facebook posts), (2) employee outcomes (e.g. anxiety, lower performance, and lower organizational citizenship behavior), (3) workplace relational outcomes (e.g. conflict with coworkers, perceptions of supervisor in- person inauthenticity and surface acting), (4) mediators of the relationships between electronic communication and outcomes (e.g. electronic communication overload, negative rumination, and feelings of annoyance), and (5) moderators of the relationships between electronic communication and outcomes (e.g. cognitive load of interruptions, quality of face-to-face i...