Employee Creativity Putting into Action: The Role of Supervisory Responsiveness and Achievement Goal Orientation

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Employee Creativity Putting into Action: The Role of

Supervisory Responsiveness and Achievement Goal

Orientation

Master thesis, MSc, specialization Human Resource Management University of Groningen, Faculty of Economics and Business

July 15, 2015

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ABSTRACT

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1. Introduction

“An idea that is developed and put into action is more important than an idea that exists only as an idea.” A thought by Edward de Bono in his book Serious Creativity (1993, p. 37) might represent the whole idea about the significance to implement a thought rather than just thinking about it. It also indicates that indeed, generation of an idea is a different process from its implementation (e.g. Baer, 2012; Van de Ven, 1986) and might not necessarily lead to it (Baer, 2012). In addition, the innovation – which built up from both processes (Van de Ven, 1986), is essential for the growth, success and wealth of firms (Tellis, Prabhu, & Chandy, 2009). Even though Baer (2012) has identified that individual motivation is important in bridging the relationship between creativity and implementation of ideas, little research has yet been conducted to examine the factors and mechanisms underlying the implementation of ideas voiced employees. This is unfortunate because innovation is seen as a uncertain and complicated socio-political process associated with people that may have conflicting goals and views (Eisenhardt and Bourgeois, 1988; Frost and Egri, 1991). In such a socio-political context (Maute & Locander, 1994; van de Ven, 1986; Baer, 2012), new ideas put forward by employees can be resisted by their supervisors who are loyal to the current frameworks of thoughts and actions (Janssen, 2005; Janssen, 2003; Dougherty & Heller, 1994; Kanter, 1988). Therefore, it is important to examine the social-political aspect that play a role in the implementation of ideas.

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2005). In addition, leaders are expected to have the power to pass on the creative ideas voiced by employees to even higher position management with a decision-making power (Detert & Burris, 2007; Janssen, 2005), and making the ideas more likely to be implemented. Leaders have the power to give or hold back support towards bottom-up creativity (Amabile, Schatzel, Moneta, & Kramer, 2004), and their evaluating role is key in the survival of new and useful ideas for the sake of the organization (Sijbom, Janssen, & Van Yperen, 2014). Consequently, supervisors’ response towards the creative ideas voiced by employees can affect whether these ideas are going to be implemented or not. In other words, supervisors can either make or break the implementation of ideas. This research will examine supervisory responsiveness as the intervening mechanism to clarify the extent to which creative ideas voiced by employees are put into action and implemented. Supervisor responsiveness is defined as the extent to which employees perceive their supervisor as fair, prompt, unbiased, willing to take action, and effective in dealing with their creative ideas (Janssen & Gao, 2013).

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Sijbom, et. al, 2014). Therefore, supervisors are likely to be less responsive towards radical ideas than incremental ideas.

However, supervisors are not ‘blank sheets’ without their own ambitions and purposes. They have their own achievement motivation bound to their action (Hambrick & Mason, 1984; Yukl, 1989), and affecting the way they feel, think, and behave towards employees (cf., Elliot, 2005; Farr, Hofmann, & Ringenbach, 1993), including their reaction to employee’s creative ideas (Sijbom, et. al., 2014). In this research, I differentiate between two kinds of achievement goals that will be explored, which are performance goals and mastery goals. People with performance goals strive to demonstrate their competence by outperforming others and valuing normatively high outcomes (Elliot & McGregor, 2001; Elliot, Murayama, & Pekrun, 2011). Given their priority to demonstrate their competence, supervisors with this kind of achievement motivation might feel that creative ideas are a threat towards the current framework and practices they have established and that they see as manifestation of their competence (Sijbom, et. al., 2014). Moreover, given the nature of radical ideas that usually result in substantial changes, supervisors will more likely to be threaten by radical ideas. Hence, they are expected to be less responsive towards it. In contrast, considering that incremental ideas only modify and thus further reinforce the existing framework of thoughts and practices (Gilson, Lim, D’Innocenzo, & Moye, 2012; Gilson and Madjar, 2011; Benner & Tushman, 2003; Subramaniam & Youndt, 2005), performance goal supervisors will likely to be more responsive towards these ideas than towards radical ideas voiced by employees.

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may see potential to learn and develop from radical ideas that extend the existing framework of thoughts and practices (Sijbom, et. al., 2014). Accordingly, this research will examine supervisor’s achievement goal as a boundary condition that may moderate the relationship between type of ideas voiced by employees and supervisory responsiveness.

Taken together, this research examines a mediated moderation model proposing that supervisory responsiveness mediates the relationship between type of creative ideas (incremental vs radical) voiced by employees and the implementation of these ideas, and that supervisor achievement goal moderates this indirect relationship by influencing the first path from type of creative ideas to supervisory responsiveness. As such, the present study contributes to the literature in several ways.

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2. Theoretical Framework

Voice and Implementation of Creative Ideas: The Mediating Role of Supervisory Responsiveness

There are a lot of creative ideas that are being proposed yet the realization is not necessarily occurred (Baer, 2012). This is probably because the generation of an idea is a different process from its implementation (e.g. Baer, 2012; Axtell, Holman, Unsworth, Wall, Waterson, & Harrington, 2000), and might not necessarily lead to it (Baer, 2012), while the desirable result of innovation is built up from both processes (Van de Ven, 1986). It has to be understood that by definition, creativity is the production of novel and potentially useful ideas for organization (Amabile, 1996; Mumford & Gustafon, 1988; George, 2007), whereas innovation is the successful development and implementation of creative ideas (Amabile, 1996; van de Ven, 1986). Therefore, the production of innovation consists of two different activities: the development of novel, useful ideas, and their implementation (Baer, 2012; Axtell, et. al., 2000; Unsworth, Brown, & McGuire, 2000). There are loads of studies about creativity and innovation, but they have the tendency to focus more on either generation of ideas (Amabile & Gryskiewicz, 1989; Oldham & Cummings, 1996) or their implementation (Bunce & West, 1994; Damanpour, 1991). Therefore, research on both as continuous process is scarce (Baer, 2012; Axtell, et. al., 2000). For that reason, it is still challenging to examine both stages as one continuous process. The problem of examining the two processes as a whole might be that the implementation of ideas is highly influenced by socio-political activities (Van de Ven, 1986), and the chance for ideas to be implemented depends more on the possibility to gather political support rather than the possibility of ideas to produce result (Kanter, 1988).

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some interests and jeopardize some alliances (Kimberly, 1981). Hence, implementation of ideas is a highly socio-political process (Green, Welsh, & Dehler, 2003).

Janssen (2004) added one more step in the innovation process, which is to promote an idea after its generation in order to be implemented. In this process, employee needs the necessary power and backup to realize the idea, hence he or she has to find friends, backers or sponsors to achieve this goal (Quinn, 1979; Maidique, 1980). In addition, a suitable supportive environment (Axtell, et. al., 2000) such as the structural order within the team, and the amount and kind of power behind it (Kanter, 1988) also play role in the promotion of ideas. Therefore, idea implementation is highly dependent on others (Axtell, et. al., 2000) and social factors (Clegg, Unsworth, Epitropaki, & Parker, 2002).

While the production of creative ideas might be an individual activity, the implementation of these ideas is a collective achievement (van de Ven, 1986). As such, there is a high degree of probability that leaders influence implementation of ideas proposed by employees because they have formal responsibility for evaluating and implementing these ideas that are generated and proposed (Maute & Locander, 1994). In most organizations, there is a hierarchy that should be followed through in order to implement new ideas because most decision-making actions are not applicable for employees, but for their supervisor or leader. In addition, supervisors are expected to have the power to pass on the creative ideas voiced by employees to even higher position management with a decision-making power, and making the ideas more likely to be implemented.

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focused on refining new applications or modification for existing methods, processes, services, technology, products, or framework; and adapting what is currently done. For example, adding a new feature to an established delivery service in a restaurant. In contrast, radical ideas are breakthrough ideas that are substantially and fundamentally different than current practices and alternatives, majorly transform existing products, services or technology, and thus are revolutionary to a field. For example, changing the concept of star-hotel into budget hotel (Gilson, et. al., 2012; Gilson and Madjar, 2011; Benner & Tushman, 2003; Subramaniam & Youndt, 2005). The distinctions between both ideas are evident in how they give different outcomes, risk, and the degree of new knowledge embedded in the innovation (Dewar & Dutton, 1986). Given these differences between incremental and radical ideas, the supervisor’s response towards either type of creative ideas might vary.

Given the nature of it, incremental ideas do not have a great impact to revolutionize the status quo, are less risky, less costly and have more predictable outcomes. Therefore, these ideas will generate little potential resistance (Dewar & Dutton, 1986). It also has the tendency only to improve or modify the existing framework; so it is likely that incremental ideas will be perceived as contributing to improvement and advancement towards the existing framework. When the improvements based on the ideas are made, the modified framework can be seen as a better version of the previous one, and will not wound supervisors’ attachment towards the existing framework. Hence, supervisors are expected to be responsive towards incremental ideas.

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leaders in the organization -, have more privilege to participate in decision making, and have more access to business information (i.e. strategic plans) than their subordinates. These are two of the three fundamental rights that constructed formal ownership, which can create psychological ownership towards organization and the current practices that let them hold position as leader (Chi & Han, 2008). As a result, supervisors feeling attached towards the current practices will have to keep it from changes. Principally, members of organizations who are devoted to current situation and have low tolerance towards change are expected to resist innovative actions (Dougherty & Heller, 1994; Frost & Egri, 1989; Janssen, 2003; Kanter, 1988). So, employees’ radical creative ideas towards change might be resisted by supervisors because changes will bring insecurity and stress, and there is a tendency that supervisors will prefer to stay with their habit, familiar practices and actions, and interest and commitment to the current framework of theories and practices (Janssen, 2003).

Considering that the change that radical ideas bring is more substantial and fundamental than incremental ideas that only redefines and adjust existing condition, and based on the above reasoning, the following hypothesis is proposed:

H1. Supervisors respond more positively towards incremental ideas than radical ideas voiced by employees.

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(funds, materials, space, time), and support (endorsement, backing, approval, legitimacy) (Kanter, 1988; Janssen, 2005) that are crucial for the further development and implementation of new ideas. Furthermore, coworkers might also be more responsive towards employees’ ideas if the supervisor recognizes and backs the potential value of those ideas, hence giving more support of the ideas to be implemented (Janssen, 2005). Moreover, responsive supervisors will be more likely to communicate the ideas to managers with higher position, that have bigger decision-making power and more resources to support the implementation of the ideas. However, if the supervisors do not act in a responsive way towards the ideas, there might be no possibility that the ideas will be heard by people in higher position, making the possibility of ideas to be implemented unlikely.

Supervisor’s reaction towards employees’ ideas might be varied depend on the nature of the ideas. However, regardless of the type of ideas voiced by employees, supervisory responsiveness plays a crucial role in the implementation of creative ideas. When supervisor is not responsive towards an idea, the idea proposed might be unlikely implemented. On the other hand, when supervisor is responsive towards an ide, the chance the idea to be implemented is higher. Supervisor responsiveness, defined as the extent to which employees perceive their supervisor as fair, prompt, unbiased, willing to take action, and effective in dealing with their creative ideas (Janssen & Gao, 2013), plays an important role in the implementation of creative ideas. This leads to the formulation of the second hypothesis, which is as follows:

H2. Supervisory responsiveness is positively related to implementation of creative ideas voiced by employees.

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H3. Supervisory responsiveness mediates the relationship between type of creative ideas (incremental vs radical) voiced by employees and the implementation of these creative ideas.

The Moderating Role of Supervisor Achievement Goal

Supervisors are not ‘blank sheets’ without their own ambitions and purposes. They have their own achievement motivation bound to their action (Hambrick & Mason, 1984; Yukl, 1989), and affecting the way they feel, think, and behave towards employees (Elliott, 2005; Farr, et. al., 1993), including their reaction to employee’s creative ideas (Sijbom, et. al., 2014), which can influence the likelihood of ideas to be implemented.

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Individuals with strong performance goals define competence in normative terms (Ellliot & McGregor, 2001). They strive to demonstrate competence by outperforming others, and they perceive success as achieving or exceeding normative-based standards (Ames & Archer, 1988; Ames, 1992). People in this category prioritize their ability and sense of self-worth, and it is important for them to gain public recognition that one is better than others by comparing their performances with others (Van Yperen, 2003) or perform in a superior way (Ames, 1992). In other words, they have desire to demonstrate competence relative to others (Van Yperen, 2003). Given their priority to demonstrate their competence, supervisors with this kind of achievement motivation might feel that creative ideas are a threat towards the current framework and practices they have established and see as manifestation of their performance and competence (Sijbom, et. al. 2014).

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H4. Supervisor performance goal moderates the effect of type of creative ideas (incremental vs radical) on supervisory responsiveness, such that this effect is more pronounced for supervisors with stronger rather than weaker performance goals.

On the other hand, individuals with mastery goal define competence in absolute/ intrapersonal terms (Ellliot & McGregor, 2001). They prioritize in developing new skills, trying to have a clear comprehension about their work, improving the competence level and task mastery, or achieving a sense of mastery based on self-referenced standards (Ames, 1992; Meece, Blumenfeld, & Hoyle, 1988; Ames & Archer, 1988; Elliot & Church, 1997; Van Yperen, 2003). They value learning processes, and presume that effort is the key to achieve mastery. The focus of this goal is the intrinsic value of learning (Ames & Archer, 1988), the maximum use of effort, and the belief that effort will bring success or a sense of mastery (Ames, 1992; Ames & Archer, 1988). It also involves searching challenging tasks, attainment of task-based and self-based competence, and maintaining effective endeavor under failure (Dweck & Leggett, 1988; Elliot, Murayama, & Pekrun, 2011). People with mastery goal orientation tend to compare their present performance with their previous performance, instead of comparing it with other people (Van Yperen, 2003). Considering this argument, supervisors with mastery-oriented goals might think that their subordinates’ creative ideas are a potential source to learn new information they can utilize to further develop their leadership competence and domain (Sijbom, et. al., 2014).

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supervisors may perceive breakthrough ideas as potential sources for new information and suggestions they can utilize to acquire new knowledge and further develop their leadership competence and domain, thereby making them less resistant concerning this type of ideas. Accordingly, the following hypothesis reads:

H5. Supervisor’s mastery goal moderates the effect of type of creative ideas (incremental vs radical) on supervisory responsiveness, such that this effect is more pronounced for supervisors with weaker rather than stronger mastery goals.

Moderated Mediation Model

Taken all together, it can be suggested that the type of ideas voiced by employees has an indirect relationship with their implementation. This indirect relationship is mediated by supervisory responsiveness and moderated by supervisor achievement goal for the relationship between type of ideas and supervisory responsiveness. As such, the mediated moderation model proposes supervisor achievement goal orientation as a boundary condition and supervisor responsiveness as an intervening process mechanism that regulate when and why creative ideas voiced by employees will be implemented. To test this mediated moderation model, and considering the arguments that have been explained before, the following hypotheses are proposed:

H6. Supervisor performance goals moderate the indirect relationship between type of creative ideas (incremental vs radical) voiced by employees and the implementation of these ideas through supervisory responsiveness such that the indirect relationship is more pronounced for supervisors with stronger rather than weaker performance goals.

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Figure 1. Conceptual Model

3. Methodology

Research Setting, Procedure, and Participants

The hypotheses that have been presented in the previous section were tested in a critical incident among 115 corporate employees in several fast moving consumer goods (FMCG) companies in Indonesia. Participants were professional-level employees with full-time and part-time contracts, from various functions. Describe the procedure you used to approach the participants, and provide characteristics of the sample of participants.

Critical incident study was conducted to test the hypothesis in which employees were asked to recall an event where they voiced their ideas – either incremental or radical, to their supervisor in the past year. Employees were randomly divided into two groups, the first was assigned to recall incremental creative ideas, the second group was requested to recall radical creative ideas. They were provided with a clear definition of either incremental or radical ideas, and then asked to recall an event where they voiced their ideas – either incremental or radical, to their supervisor in the past year. Participants were also asked to describe the idea that they voiced in order to check that the idea match with the definition of incremental or radical ideas.

Three sets of questionnaire were used; the first consists of the six-item questionnaire about achievement goals by Elliott, Murayama, and Pekrun (2011), the

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second and the third consist of questionnaires about supervisory responsiveness (Saunders, et. al., 1992) and idea implementation (Baer, 2012). All items were taken from original scales except for goal orientation that has been adapted to a workplace context.

Measurement

Manipulation check. The ideas recalled and described by the participants were

checked on their creative nature (i.e., originality, potential usefulness). Furthermore, to check whether participants correctly reported an incremental or radical idea, the ideas described by the participants were scored as incremental (1) or radical (2) by the researcher unknown of the experimental conditions.

Supervisors’ achievement goal. This variable was measured by asking the

employees about the goals that their supervisors pursue in their work. I used the 6-item achievement goal questionnaire by Elliott, Murayama, and Pekrun (2011) as adapted by Sijbom, et. al. (2014) to be suitable with the context of the research. Performance achievement goal items are comprised of: (1) My supervisor’s aim is to outperform other colleagues; (2) In his/her work, my supervisor is striving to do well compared to other colleagues; and (3) In his/her work, my supervisor’s goal is to do better than other colleagues. Items of mastery goals are: (1) My supervisor’s aim is to perform better in his/her work than he/she has done in the past; (2) In his/her work, my supervisor is striving to do well relative to how well he/she has done in the past; (3) My supervisor’s goal in his/her work is to do better than he/she typically does. All items were rated on a 7-point Likert scale ranging from 1 (not true) to 7 (extremely true).

Supervisory Responsiveness. Seven-item questionnaire developed by Saunders,

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expressed the idea to him or her”. Each item was rated on a 7-point Likert-type scale, ranging from 1 (totally disagree) to 7 (totally agree).

Idea implementation. A 3-item subscale developed by Baer (2012) was used to

measure this variable. On a response scale ranging from 1 (not at all) to 7 (totally), employees were asked to rate the extent to which their idea reached certain stages of implementation. The questions are: Please rate the extent to which, in the past, the idea that you described: (1) has been approved for further development; (2) has been transformed into usable products, processes, or procedures; (3) has been successfully implemented at the organization.

Control variables. Control variables that were included in the data analysis are

gender, education, age, organizational tenure, job tenure, years of affiliation with supervisor, and organizational function. These demographics might affect the supervisory responsiveness and idea implementation.

Data Analysis

First of all, the reliability coefficients of all scales were tested by calculating the Cronbach Alpha. When the α was above .70, the scales were considered as reliable. After that, the mean and standard deviation for each variable and control variable were presented. Correlation between every variable and control variable was also examined using Pearson analysis. Only control variable that has significant correlation with the dependent variable (ideas implementation) that will be incorporated in the hypothesis testing, as suggested by Becker (2005).

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effect on the model. Finally, a bootstrapping procedure with confidence intervals were conducted to see whether there is a significant indirect effect of type of ideas on idea implementation through supervisor responsiveness.

4. Result

Manipulation Check

First, I checked whether the ideas the participants had recalled and voiced towards their supervisors were creative in nature in terms of originality and potential usefulness. Out of 115, sixteen ideas were not creative because they were not new in the work setting they were voiced. These ideas were excluded from the analyses. Second, for the remaining ideas, as intended, all participants in the incremental condition were able to recall incremental ideas they voiced towards their supervisor (M= 1.00; SD = .00), whereas participants in the radical condition almost all came up with radical ideas (M = 1.93, SD = .26 ; F=(1, 97), 547.71, p< .00, partial

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2 = .85).

Handling of Missing Data

Even though the amount of missing data in the research was minimal, a few missing data were encountered in some variables due to respondents’ inattentiveness and reluctance to rate certain statements. As a result, in this case, the missing data were replaced with the mean of the variable in order to avoid eliminating responses.

Descriptive Statistics, Reliability, and Correlations

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Goal appeared to have good internal consistency, α = .91, α = .94, α = .78, and α = .90, respectively.

It is worth mentioning that the study variables were significantly correlated with each other. First, supervisory responsiveness and ideas implementation are positively correlated (r = .56 p < .01). Second, a significant positive correlation between supervisor’s performance achievement goal and supervisory responsiveness is also noticed (r = .345, p < .01). Moreover, supervisor’s mastery achievement goal and supervisory responsiveness also have a significant positive correlation (r = .546, p < .01). Some correlations with the control variables were also noticed. There is a significant positive correlation between ideas implementation and affiliation with supervisor (r = .217, p < 0.05).

Hypotheses Testing

Hypothesis 1 predicts that supervisors respond more positively towards incremental ideas than radical ideas voiced by employees. The result in table 2 showed the mean score of supervisory responsiveness indicates a difference on both responsiveness between incremental (M = 5.34) and radical ideas (M = 4.92). ANOVA test was also run, and indicates that the mean difference is significant (F(1,97) = 4.77; p < .05, partial

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2_{= .05). Thus, the mean score of supervisory responsiveness towards incremental ideas}

is significantly higher than of radical ideas. Therefore, hypothesis 1 is supported.

Hypothesis 2 predicts that supervisory responsiveness towards creative ideas is positively related to implementation of incremental ideas voiced by employees. The regression analysis was conducted for this relationship, including the control variables. The result of the regression analysis as seen in table 3 indicates that supervisory responsiveness is positively related to implementation of creative ideas voiced by employees (B = .55; t = 6.44; p = .00). Therefore, hypothesis 2 is proven

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implementation of these creative ideas. This hypothesis was tested using model 4 of PROCESS tool as shown in table 3. It can be seen that there is no significant relationship between the type of ideas and ideas implementation (B = -.02; t = -.20 ; p = .84). However, there is a significant relationship between type of ideas and supervisory responsiveness (B = -.23; t = -2.30; p = .02), such supervisor will response less towards radical ideas than incremental ideas. The mediation test confirmed the indirect relationship between type of ideas and ideas implementation through supervisory responsiveness (indirect effect = -.13; 95% CI = -.24 to -.04). Therefore, hypothesis 3 is proven.

Hypothesis 4 predicts that supervisor’s performance goal moderates the effect of type of creative ideas (incremental vs radical) on supervisory responsiveness, such that this effect is more pronounced for supervisor with stronger rather than weaker performance goal. As the results reported in Table 4 shows, the interaction between types of ideas and supervisors’ performance achievement goal was not found to significantly predict supervisory responsiveness (B = -.05; t = -.49 p = .63). These results did not provide support for Hypothesis 4.

Hypothesis 5 indicates that supervisor’s mastery goal moderates the effect of type of creative ideas (incremental vs radical) on supervisory responsiveness, such that this effect is less pronounced for supervisor with stronger rather than weaker mastery goal. It is apparent as shown in table 4 that interaction between types of ideas and supervisors’ mastery achievement goal does not significantly relate to supervisory responsiveness (B = .04; t = .44 p = .66). Therefore, hypothesis 5 is not supported. However, it is worth mentioning that supervisor mastery achievement goal also significantly affects supervisory responsiveness (B = .58; t = 5.55; p = .00), meaning, supervisor mastery achievement goal promotes supervisory responsiveness.

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such that the indirect relationship is more pronounced for supervisors with stronger rather than weaker performance goal. As can be seen in table 4, there is no significant relationship between the interaction of type of ideas and supervisor’s performance achievement goal, and supervisory responsiveness (B = -.05; t = -.49 p = .63). A bootstrap process with 95% confidence interval was conducted, and it indicates that type of ideas and ideas implementation were indirectly related through supervisory responsiveness at both high and low level of supervisor’s performance achievement goal. Hence, there is an indirect relationship between type of ideas and ideas implementation through supervisory responsiveness regardless of the level of supervisor’s performance achievement goal. It points out that supervisor’s performance achievement goal did not moderate this indirect relationship. Therefore, no support for Hypothesis 6 was found.

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Table 2. Result of Descriptive and ANOVA Analysis between type of ideas and supervisory responsiveness

Descriptive Statistics

Mediator: Supervisory Responsiveness

Type of Ideas Mean N SD

Incremental 5.34 47 .79 Radical 4.92 52 1.09 Total 5.12 99 .98 ANOVA Mean Square F p Between Groups 4.39 4.77 .031

Table 3. Result of regression analysis for type of ideas predicting ideas implementation through supervisory responsiveness

Mediator

Predictor Supervisory Responsiveness

B S.E. t p

Constant -.11 .35 -.32 .75

Affiliation with supervisor. .02 .09 .29 .78

Type of Ideas -.23 .10 -2.30 .02

R2 _p

.05 .07

Dependent Variable

Predictor Ideas Implementation

B S.E. t p

Constant -.77 .30 -2.63 .01

Affiliation with supervisor. .20 .07 2.77 .01 Supervisory Responsiveness .55 .09 6.44 .00

Type of Ideas -.02 .09 -.20 .84

R2 p

.36 .00

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Table 4. Results of mediation moderation analysis with supervisor’s performance achievement goal as moderator

Mediator

Predictor Supervisory Responsiveness

B S.E. t p

Constant -.52 .31 -1.67 .10

Affiliation with spv. .13 .08 1.69 .10

Types of Ideas -.21 .08 -2.58 .01

Spv’s Performance A.G. -.02 .10 -.15 .88 Type of Ideas*Spv’s Performance A.G. -.05 .10 -.49 .63

Spv’s Mastery A.G. .58 .11 5.55 .00

Type of Ideas*Spv’s Master A.G. .04 .10 .44 .66

R2 p

.37 .000

Dependent Variable

Predictor Ideas Implementation

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5. Discussion

This study has the goal to further give understanding of the role of supervisors in the implementation of creative ideas. A mediated moderation model was examined specifying how type of ideas was indirectly related to ideas implementation through supervisory responsiveness, and moderated by supervisor achievement goal for the first stage that links type of ideas and supervisory responsiveness. Results show that supervisors respond more positively towards incremental than radical ideas.

Furthermore, supervisory responsiveness towards incremental ideas is positively related to ideas implementation. It shows that a higher degree of supervisory responsiveness towards incremental ideas leads to a significantly higher ideas implementation. Therefore, in general, supervisory responsiveness will affect whether creative ideas are going to be implemented or not. It is also worth mentioning that there is no significant relationship between type of ideas and ideas implementation. It indicates that supervisory responsiveness acts as full mediator towards the indirect relationship between type of ideas and ideas implementation.

The presumption that high supervisor performance achievement goal would result in a more pronounced relationship between type of ideas and supervisory responsiveness and low supervisor performance achievement goal would result in a less pronounced relationship between type of ideas and supervisory responsiveness was not found. It means that the relationship between type of ideas and supervisory responsiveness does not depend on supervisor performance achievement goal.

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It was also proposed that the indirect relationship between type of ideas and ideas implementation through supervisory responsiveness would be more pronounced when supervisor performance achievement goal was higher rather than lower. Findings show that types of ideas indirectly related to ideas implementation through supervisory responsiveness. However, the relationship was not found to be affected by the level of supervisor performance goal.

Finally, the presumption that the indirect relationship between type of ideas and ideas implementation through supervisory responsiveness would be more pronounced when supervisor master achievement goal was lower rather than higher was not supported. Therefore, supervisor mastery achievement goal does not affect the indirect relationship between type of ideas and ideas implementation through supervisory responsiveness.

Theoretical Implications

This study has numbers of theoretical implications. The model is linking the mechanisms between type of ideas and ideas implementation determined by supervisory responsiveness and supervisor achievement goal. The results contribute to the literatures on creative ideas, achievement goal, supervisory responsiveness, and ideas implementation. This study also provides more thoughts towards the lack of studies that directly examine the conditions determining when creative ideas are implemented into actual innovations (Baer, 2012).

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Secondly, this study examined what factors make leaders more or less responsive towards creative ideas voiced by employees. In most of creativity literatures, leaders are subjected as the variable that stimulates ideas (e.g. Janssen & Gao, 2013; Janssen, 2005; Janssen, et. al., 2004; Gumusluoglu & Ilsev, 2009), while this study determines what kind of factors make leaders responsive towards the ideas. In other words, past research always put leader roles as independent variable, while this research put leader factors in mediator and moderator variable. This research provided theoretical logic and empirical evidence on supervisor’s characteristic in terms of achievement goal that affect supervisor’s response towards bottom-up creativity. The different condition of supervisor achievement goal was not found to significantly affect supervisor’s respond towards type of ideas. So, supervisor motivation does not significantly affect supervisor’s response towards creative ideas voiced by employees. It is more affected by external effect, such as – proved by this research, the degree of change these ideas might bring.

Finally, this research takes into account the role of leader in the process of ideas implementation, while most research focus on other factors such as group and organizational characteristics (West, 2002; Somech & Drach-Zahavy, 2013; Axtell, et. al., 2000), trust (Clegg, et. al., 2002), and employees’ characteristics (Baer, 2012, Unsworth, et. al., 2000). It is proved in this research that leaders’ response towards ideas voiced by employees will determine whether ideas will be implemented or not.

Potential Limitation and Suggestions for Future Research

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Secondly, this research only takes into account the perception of employees towards the variables. It did not consider supervisor’s perception towards ideas implementation. For future research, more objective methods could be used, such as considering supervisor’s perception towards their own achievement goal and their responsiveness.

Third, this research treats leader role as mediating variable, whereas other research also put leader role as a stimulant towards generation of creative ideas (e.g. Janssen & Gao, 2013; Janssen, 2005; Janssen, et. al., 2004; Gumusluoglu & Ilsev, 2009). It can be argued that these two variables – leader role and creativity have effect on each other. For future research, it is very intriguing to examine the two-way effect of these variables.

Finally, this research was conducted in one type of industry, which is fast moving consumer goods (FMCG). It might not be representative to apply the findings in general context. Perception towards supervisor achievement goal, supervisory responsiveness, and ideas implementation might be varied across industry.

Practical Implications

Despite the limitation, there are still some practical implications that can be utilized. This study aims to give more understanding on the role of supervisor in the implementation of ideas. Organizations can therefore predicts that implementation of ideas are highly affected by supervisory responsiveness. This will enable organizations to place supervisors with certain characteristic to enable the implementation of creative ideas voiced by employees, or even disable it.

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APPENDIX

The following section will present the complete questionnaires that will be distributed to the respondents.

Supervisors’ Goal Orientation (Elliott, et. al., 2011)

All of the items in this variable will be rated from 1 (not true) to 7 (extremely true)

Performance goal orientation’s items:

(1) My supervisor’s aim is to outperform other colleagues

(2) In his/her work, my supervisor is striving to do well compared to other colleagues (3) In his/her work, my supervisor’s goal is to do better than other colleagues. Items of

mastery goal orientation are

Mastery goal orientation’s item:

(1) My supervisor’s aim is to perform better in his/her work than he/she has done in the past

(2) In his/her work, my supervisor is striving to do well relative to how well he/she has done in the past

(3) My supervisor’s goal in his/her work is to do better than he/she typically does Supervisory Responsiveness (Saunders, et. al., 1992)

All of the items will be rated from 1 (totally disagree) to 7 (totally agree) 1. My boss gave high priority to handling my idea.

2. My boss was fair when I expressed the idea to him or her.

3. I took my idea to my boss because he or she deals with them effectively. 4. My boss took action to correct the idea that I speak to him or her about. 5. My boss did not take action in response to the idea I expressed. (R) 6. My boss handled my idea promptly.

7. My boss was willing to support me when my idea was valid.

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11. My boss did not do anything about my idea. (R)

12. The idea that I expressed to my boss were not handled until days have gone by. (R) 13. Even when my boss knew that I was right, he or she would not support me when I

bring in my idea. (R)

14. My boss treated the idea expressed from other workers and myself equally.

Ideas implementation (Baer, 2012)

All of the items will be rated 1 (not at all) to 7 (totally)

Please rate the extent to which, in the past, the idea that you described: (1) have been approved for further development.

Employee Creativity Putting into Action: The Role of Supervisory Responsiveness and Achievement Goal Orientation