I think I am Creative, therefore I am Creative
The Influence of Creative Self-Efficacy on Creativity
A Practical Research at Galil Software
by
Kariem Said
Master Thesis
Dr. Pedro M.M. de Faria
University of Groningen
Faculty of Economics and Business
Abstract
This paper investigates a new line of research in which the relationship between employees’ creative self-efficacy and their creativity is examined. Furthermore it looks at how supervisory support, in the form of role modeling and verbal persuasion, influences the construct of creative self-efficacy. This research continues the early steps taken in this novel area, through examining in a field experiment how creative self-efficacy is established and through examining the construct in a U.S. or non-‘Western’ context, i.e. an Arab high-tech company in Israel. The results of our study showed, in contrary to findings in initial research (e.g. Tierney & Farmer, 2002; Mathisen & Bronnick, 2009), that employees’ creative self-efficacy was not positively related to their creativity. Furthermore, supervisory role modeling was not positively related to employees’ creative self-efficacy. Verbal persuasion from the supervisor was marginally positive related to an employee’s creative self-efficacy. Implications of the results are discussed.
Preface
This thesis is written as the final chapter of my master program Strategy & Innovation at the University of Groningen. I have chosen to investigate creative self-efficacy at Galil Software in Israel. Since childhood, creativity has played a vital role in my life, from dreaming to be an inventor as a kid to starting a graphic design company as an adolescent. The other big part of my life is my family and being in this foreign country. It is my second home, which I love to visit and made part of my life during a half-year study abroad in 2009. Writing this thesis and being here made me brighter, more sensible and even a bit smarter. For this I would like to thank a couple of people.
Table of Content
1. Introduction……….. 1
2. Theoretical Framework………... 5
2.1 Business creativity………... 5
2.2 Personal and contextual factors………... 7
2.3 Employees’ creative self-efficacy and their creativity………. 8
2.4 Supervisory support………. 10
2.5 Conceptual model……… 12
3. Methodology………. 13
3.1 Setting and sample………... 13
3.2 Measures………... 14
3.3 Procedure………. 17
4. Results………... 18
4.1 Analytic Strategy………. 18
4.2 Results hypothesis 1………. 18
4.3 Results hypotheses 2a and 2b………... 20
4.4 Further results……….. 20
4.5 Concluding remarks………. 21
5. Discussion and Conclusion...………...………... 22
5.1 Theoretical implications………... 22 5.2 Practical implications………... 24 5.3 Future directions……….. 24 5.4 Limitations………... 25 5.5. Conclusion……….. 25 References………. 27
Appendix 1: Organizational Chart……… 32
Appendix 2: Questionnaire, Business Case & 30-Circle-Test……….. 33
1. Introduction
Creativity focuses on the production of novel and useful ideas and creative ideas are the start of all innovations (Amabile, 1996; 1998). The successful implementation of a new product or process depends on a good idea of a person or team and the further development of this idea (Amabile, 1996). Moreover, creativity is essential for the performance of the organization (Nonaka, 1991) and encouraging the creativity of employees is vital for organizational survival and innovativeness in the currently fast shifting market (Wu, McMullen, Neubert et al., 2008). When employees are creative at their work, novel and useful ideas are produced about products, practices, services or procedures of the organization (Shalley & Gilson, 2004). So it is no surprise that there have been several studies describing personal and contextual factors that stimulate or hamper creativity (e.g. Amabile, Conti, Coon et al., 1996; Shalley, Zhou
& Oldham, 2004). Recently, researchers have begun to more closely investigate the
mechanisms through which these factors affect creativity (Mathisen & Bronnick, 2009). One of these concepts is creative self-efficacy, i.e. individuals’ believe in the ability to produce creative outcomes (Tierney & Farmer, 2002). The current paper focuses on this new line of research (Mathisen & Bronnick, 2009; Shalley et al., 2004) and looks at how employees’ creative self-efficacy influences their creativity.
Creative self-efficacy originates from Bandura’s (1977; 1997) more general concept of self-efficacy, i.e. individuals’ beliefs about the ability to pursuit and accomplish certain tasks. Bandura (1997) and Redmond, Mumford and Teach (1993) demonstrated in their early studies that self-efficacy was positively related to creative performance. Tierney and Famer (2002) added to this work the construct of creative self-efficacy. Their initial investigation recognized a similar positive relationship between employees’ creative self-efficacy and their creative performance. Strong creative-self efficacy beliefs may provide the necessary drive for creative work (Tierney & Farmer, 2004), since creative work requires some form of internal drive to sustain its challenging, time consuming and often demanding endeavor (Mumford et al, 2002).
more work is needed to further examine the relationship between these two concepts (Shalley et al., 2004; Tierney & Farmer, 2011). Moreover, it is also not clear how employees’ creative self-efficacy is established (Mathisen & Bronnick, 2009). One of the factors that could potentially influence it is leadership (Tierney & Farmer, 2004). Leadership, especially supervisory support, is argued to be important for employees’ self-view and creativity (e.g. Oldham & Cummings, 1996; Shalley & Gilson, 2004; Wu et al., 2008). Despite the crucial role of leadership in organizations (Amabile et al. 2004), its potential influence on creativity has been understudied (Mumford et al., 2002; Atwater & Carmeli, 2009). The literature linking specific leader behavior to employee’s creative performance is even thinner (Atwater & Carmeli, 2009). Researchers that have studied the influence of leadership on employee creativity have predominantly focused on supervisory support (Cummings and Oldham, 1997; Shalley et al., 2004; Madjar et al., 2002). Therefore supervisory support, which is composed of role modeling and verbal persuasion (Tierney & Farmer, 2002), will also be taken into account in this study.
Furthermore, several authors (Shalley et al., 2004; Tierney & Farmer, 2002; 2004) have argued that research is needed to see if the effect of employees’ self view has similar outcomes across contexts and contextual conditions other than the U.S or ‘Western’ nations. Earlier work in creativity has pointed out that individuals from non-Western countries may respond differently to organizational conditions than employees in Western countries (Anderson, De Dreu & Nijstad, 2004; Shalley et al. 2004). Employees from non-Western societies may act more according to social roles, in compliance to expectations and on maintaining a good relationship with their supervisors (Cha, 1994). These factors could have an influence on employees’ self-view, their creative performance and the influence of supervisory behavior (Shalley et al., 2004).
This paper addresses these oversights by means of an empirical study at Israel’s first and largest Arab high-tech company: Galil Software. The research consist of two
research questions:
- What is the influence of supervisory support (role modeling and verbal persuasion) on employee creative self-efficacy?
Employees’ creative self-efficacy and the influence of supervisory support on this creative self-efficacy are examined using a questionnaire, whereas employees’ creativity is assessed through a supervisory rated business case and a 30-Circle-Test.
This study has both theoretical and practical relevancy. The theoretical relevancy is threefold. Firstly, the paper fills the void in current creativity literature by taking a detailed look at how employees’ creative self-efficacy influences their creativity.
Secondly, by examining the construct in another context, i.e. outside the U.S. boundaries, this study adds to the continuous development of the relationship between creative self-efficacy and employee creativity. Moreover, it addresses the applicability of this relationship across contexts, as has been recommended by Shalley et al. (2004). Thirdly, by looking how supervisory support influences employee self-efficacy, and thereby employee creativity, we contribute to the progress of a comprehensive leadership model (Mumford, Scott, Gaddis & Strange, 2002; Shalley & Gilson, 2004). This is important, given that the processes by which managers influence employees to become creative have yet to be fully understood (Atwater & Carmeli, 2009; Mumford et al., 2002).
The practical relevancy is twofold. Firstly, by examining the influence of supervisory support on creative self-efficacy, managers can gain an insight in how to stimulate employee creativity. This paper thus focuses managers’ attention on a new construct with the potential to stimulate creativity. Secondly, these recommendations can be generalized to other businesses, which share the same characteristics or operate in a similar context as Galil Software.
2. Theoretical Framework
Creative self-efficacy, i.e. employees’ beliefs in their ability to be creative in their work (Tierney & Farmer, 2002), stems from Bandura’s (1977; 1997) more general concept of self-efficacy. Tierney and Famer (2002) demonstrated in early research a positive influence of creative self-efficacy on subordinates’ creative performance. One important aspect that could influence employees’ creative self-efficacy is supervisory support (Tierney & Famer, 2004; Schyns, Torka & Gössling, 2007). These concepts: creative self-efficacy, creative performance and supervisory support are the central focus of this research. Before further discussing these concepts and presenting the hypotheses used in this study, this chapter will start by elaborating on business creativity and the personal and contextual factors influencing creativity, to put the research in context.
2.1 Business creativity
Amabile (1998) argues that creativity is a function of three components within every individual: expertise, creative-thinking skills and motivation. “Expertise refers to the technical, procedural and intellectual knowledge possessed by a person” (Amabile, 1998, p. 78). This component encompasses all that individuals know and can do in the domain of their work. “Creative-thinking skills refer to how individuals approach problems and solutions. The skill itself depends on both personality and cognitive abilities, i.e. how a person thinks and works” (Amabile, 1998, p. 79). This skill ascertains how flexible and originally individuals approach problems. “Motivation determines what people will actually do. It consists of extrinsic and intrinsic motivation, the latter being far more essential for creativity” (Amabile, 1998, p. 79). Intrinsic motivation thus provides individuals with an internal drive and desire that is seen to be vital for creative performance (Amabile, 1997). So expertise and creative-thinking skills can be seen as a person’s resources, whereas motivation determines what an individual will do with these resources (Amabile, 1998). All three components can be influenced by the organization, but motivation is the easiest to influence as opposed to the first two, which demand more time and effort (Amabile, 1997; 1998). Intrinsic motivation can be substantially increased, with faster results, through subtle changes in organizational settings, in contrary to the vast investments in time and money that needs to be made in order to develop individuals’ knowledge and widen their creative-thinking skills (Amabile, 1997; 1998).
motivation is the easiest component to influence by managers and one way of doing this is through supervisory support. So the concept of creative self-efficacy has a lot to offer in understanding creativity in organizational settings (Tierney & Farmer, 2002).
2.2 Personal and contextual factors
Shalley et al. (2004) present a framework of factors that stimulate or obstruct employee creativity, consisting of an employee’s personal characteristics, the characteristics of the context in which the employee works and the interaction among these characteristics. The personal characteristics consist of personality and cognitive style dimensions. An example of such a personal characteristic is the positive relationship between an employee’s score on the Gough’s (1979) Creative Personality Scale (CPS) and his or her creativity (Oldham & Cummings, 1996). Individuals who score high on this scale are considered to have the self-confidence and forbearance for ambiguity, tolerance for opposing views and persistence in developing their own unique and innovative ideas (Shalley et al., 2004). Contextual characteristics are work environment features that influence an employee’s creativity but are not part of him or her (Shalley et al., 2004). An example is the relationship with supervisors, wherein a supportive leadership style is expected to enhance employee intrinsic motivation and creativity (Deci & Ryan, 1985). Finally, an example of an interaction between a personal and a contextual factor that stimulates employee’s creativity is CPS or openness to experience and supervisory support (George & Zhou, 2001). Individuals with high scores on CPS or openness tend to value contextual factors that support creativity (e.g. supervisory support) and reply to these factors by displaying high creativity (Shalley et al., 2004; Oldman & Cummings, 2006).
The influence of supervisory support is, as exhibited above, a typical example of a contextual factor (Mumford et al., 2002). The contextual factors are argued to influence the intrinsic motivation of employees and can be explained by the Cognitive Evaluation Theory (Shalley et al., 2004; Deci & Ryan, 1985). This theory suggests that contextual factors have both informational and controlling features. When the informational side prevails, instead of the controlling side, the employee should feel supported and encouraged, which results in a higher intrinsic motivation (Shalley et al., 2004). So this theory is consistent with the motivational part of Amabile’s (1998) model.
2.3 Employees’ creative self-efficacy and their creativity
As noted earlier, Tierney and Farmer (2002) introduced the term creative self-efficacy to denote the concept of employees’ beliefs in their ability to be creative in their work, which is derived from Bandura’s (1977) concept of self-efficacy. Bandura (1997) stated that strong self-efficacy is a necessary element for creative performance and for detecting new information. To classify creative self-efficacy, one could put it within the general self-image spectrum of a creative individual, but the construct is more specific than the broadly defined feelings of self-esteem and confidence. It is a specific capacity judgment (Tierney & Farmer, 2002). This is also where it distinguishes itself from the more general self-efficacy view.
The relationship between employee creative self-efficacy and creativity, i.e. creative performance, can be explained through a mechanism, which highlights the motivational relevancy of creative self-efficacy for creativity (Tierney & Famer, 2002; 2011). As creative work is a time consuming and often demanding activity (Mumford et al, 2002) it requires an internal drive to sustain this challenging work. Strong creative-self efficacy beliefs provide such a drive. As described by Tierney and Famer (2002; 2004):
Creative self-efficacy appears to provide such momentum in that strong self-efficacy beliefs enhance the persistence level and coping efforts individuals will demonstrate when encountering challenging situations (Tierney & Famer, 2002, p. 1140).
Employees begin by assessing their capabilities, make choices and then put in the required effort to accomplish their jobs (Chong & Ma, 2010; Bandura et al., 2001;
Gist & Mitchell, 1992). The more favorable employees’ perceptions are about their
abilities to perform tasks creatively, the greater their effort is performing these tasks creatively (Chong & Ma, 2010). So creative self-efficacy views will lead to the motivation and the ability for employees to take on tasks and employ in specific behaviors (Bandura, 1977), which will in turn positively influence their creativity (Tierner & Famer, 2002; 2004). Or, as Bandura (1997) puts it, creativity requires an unbendable sense of self-efficacy to persist in the activity. Thus it appears that an employee needs to have a strong creative self-efficacy in order to engage in creative actions (Carmeli & Schaubroeck, 2007; Tierney & Famer, 2004). Chong and Ma (2010) even go a step further and argue that without employees’ believe and confidence in their creative ability they cannot perform creatively.
Redmond, Mumford and Teach (1993) showed that individuals’ self-efficacy views positively influence their creativity (Mumford et al., 2004). Preliminary empirical evidence also suggests that the relationship between creative self-efficacy and creative performance tends to be positive (Tierney & Farmer, 2002; Mathisen & Bronnick, 2009).
So we expect that employees’ creative self-efficacy has a positive influence on their creativity, resulting in the first hypothesis:
Hypothesis 1. Employees’ creative self-efficacy has a positive influence on their creativity
As creative self-efficacy is potentially a vital antecedent of creative behavior and performance (Mathison & Bronnick, 2009), it is important to also look at the factors that contribute and enhance employees’ creative self-efficacy. One of these factors is the role of supervisory behavior (Tierney & Famer, 2004). As this is an aspect that can be easily managed by the organization it will also be investigated in this research.
2.4 Supervisory support
Employees rely on contextual sources to judge their creative self-efficacy (Tierney & Famer, 2002). In forming efficacy views, employees gather information from their interpersonal task environment (Gist & Mitchell, 1992). Supervisors have been identified as a social context work factor (Tierney & Famer, 2004) with the potential power to influence employee behavior and thus play a key role in shaping employees’ efficacy beliefs (Eden, 1990). Amabile and Gryskiewicz (1987) argue that confidence-building behavior is an important component for managing employee creativity and Chong and Ma (2010) state that self-confidence is a requisite for creative performance. Moreover, supervisors are able to employ a number of direct and indirect influencing approaches, that affect employees’ willingness to engage in creative endeavors and the likely success of it (Mumford et al., 2004).
Redmond et al. (1993) and Tierney and Famer (2002) found some initial support in their studies for the relation between supervisory support and creative self-efficacy. Employees had higher creative self-efficacy views where their supervisors engaged in more creative support (Tierney & Famer, 2003). Bandura (1986) points to two important roles supervisors play in determining employees’ creative self-efficacy: role modeling and verbal persuasion (Tierney & Famer, 2002). As is also noted by
Schyns, Torka and Gössling (2007), a positive, non-controlling supervisor-employee
supervisors serve as role models and employees are given verbal support. Hence, we will continue to focus on role modeling and verbal persuasion.
Role modeling
Positive role modeling is vital for efficacy development for complex creative tasks, where effective performance coping is necessary (Bandura, 1997). Supervisors that engage in creative activities serve as creative role models, permitting employees to obtain relevant strategies and approaches for creativity (Shalley et al., 2004) and provide employees with information to assess their own performance efficacy, as employees may lack the sufficient information to measure their success (Tierney & Famer, 2002). Furthermore supervisors facilitate the acquisition of creative-relevant skills (Shalley & Perry-Smith, 2001; Shalley et al., 2004) and employees who witness creative behavior by their supervisors, feel that they should be able to achieve improvements in their own creative performance (Bandura, 1986). Additionally, employees from non-Western societies, e.g. Arab society, place importance on social status and following the actions and behaviors of their supervisors, which could play a part in determining how supervisory role modeling is valued by employees (Cha, 1994). Thus, specific cultural aspects, such as leadership, may be more positively valued by employees in such societies (Cha, 1994). So we expect that supervisory support, in the form of role modeling, positively influence employee creative self-efficacy. Moreover, the opposite (i.e. exposure to poor supervisory support in the form of poor role modeling; Mumford et al, 2007), is argued to have a negative influence on employee creative self-efficacy (Chong & Ma, 2010). In this research we focus however on the positive, supportive side.
Hypothesis 2a. Supervisory support, i.e. role modeling, has a positive influence on employees’ creative self-efficacy.
Verbal persuasion
Bandura (1977) states that verbal persuasion is an easy tool that can be used by supervisors to influence employee behavior, as it is readably available. Employees are led to believe they can successfully engage in creative activities, even if these activities overwhelmed them in the past (Bandura 1977; 1997). Moreover, the functioning of employees in a high-context culture, i.e. an Arab culture, in which words from supervisors have great impact on employees (Hall, 1977), may be beneficial for the effect of verbal persuasion. So we expect that supervisory support, in the form of verbal persuasion, positively influence employee creative self-efficacy.
Hypothesis 2b. Supervisory support, i.e. verbal persuasion, has a positive influence on employees’ creative self-efficacy.
2.5 Conceptual model
The relationships between the concepts supervisory support, employee creative self-efficacy and employee creativity are graphically displayed in the conceptual model in figure 1.
3. Methodology
An empirical study is developed and administrated to test the hypotheses. The study’s setting, sample, measures and procedure will be described in this section.
3.1 Setting and sample
The data is collected at Galil Software, the largest high-tech company operating in the Israeli Arab sector and Israel’s first Arab high-tech company in the field of software development (Haaretz.com, 2009). To emphasize the importance of high-tech companies in Israel; the country has the highest concentration of engineers and the largest expenditure on research and development in the world (Senor & Singer, 2009). Additionally, more than half of the world’s top technology companies have acquired Israeli start-ups or began R&D centers in Israel (Senor & Singer, 2009). Moreover, the company’s CEO and founder has been awarded Israel’s High-Tech CEO of the Year 2010 (TheMarker.com, 2011). Finally, companies operating in high-tech industries have a high degree of complexity and a fast process of knowledge generation and usage (Dachs, Ebersberger & Pyka, 2008), which are considered the backbone of innovations, new technologies and creative activities (Becker & Dietz, 2004). These factors stress the importance and relevance of the setting and make it profound for a creativity research in a non-US context.
3.2 Measures
The influence of employees’ creative self-efficacy on their creativity is examined through an assessment of employees’ view of how creative they are in their work and an actual measurement of employees’ creativity. The former is examined by using a questionnaire and the latter through a business case and an additional 30-Circle-Test. The influence of supervisory support on self-efficacy is also examined in the same questionnaire.
Questionnaire
The questionnaire, as mentioned above, consists of two parts. The first part measures employees’ creative self-efficacy and the second part measures supervisory support (role modeling and verbal persuasion), see Appendix 2, page 34. The questionnaire consists of statements, which have to be answered on a 5-point Likert scale (strongly disagree, disagree, neither agree nor disagree, agree, strongly agree). The statements used in the questionnaire are derived from and based on Carmeli and Schaubroeck (2007) and Tierney and Farmer (2002; 2004). As these statements have been previously used, they provide valid and reliable measurements of creative self-efficacy and supervisory support.
The first part consists of a 6-item scale. A sample statement is (Tierney & Farmer, 2002; 2004): “I have confidence in my ability to solve problems creatively”. This scale has a Cronbach’s alpha of .85, showing a high internal consistency, i.e. 0.7 and over is considered acceptable (Peterson, 1994). Resulting in a closely related set of items, which measure the underlying construct creative self-efficacy.
Business case
The other part of the research consists of actually measuring the creativity of employees. This is firstly done by means of a business case, referred to as an ‘ill-defined problem’ in literature (Runco, 1994), that will be rated by the supervisors. In such methods a problem is described, for which employees have to find solutions, which are rated on creativity by a scientist, expert, supervisor or team leader (Runco, 1994). The idea behind the business case is that creativity requires expertise (Amabile, 1998) and creative work occurs when employees are faced with complex and/or ill-defined problems (Mumford et al., 2004). So the business case should provide a solid measure for employee creativity and is a method that has been used numerous of times to measure creative performance (Sternberg, 1999; Friedman & Förster, 2001). Moreover, supervisory ratings are accepted methods for validation as most field studies have relied upon supervisors to judge employees’ creativity (Shalley et al., 2004).
In this research a ‘fictional’ business case has been developed, about traffic congestion problems in Tel Aviv, with assistance of the CEO of the company. The business case presents a complex and ill-defined problem that taps into the expertise of all the engineers and thus should give a good representation of their creativity (see Appendix 2, page 37). The idea is that the engineers in this software company are familiar with the concepts of traffic flows and queue lines. These concepts, derived from road traffic, are the basic models on which Internet-travel-control and networks are based. So the problem of traffic congestions in Tel Aviv represents a situation that should be recognizable to the engineers, as it represents a fundamental problem that taps into engineers’ core knowledge and capabilities.
different supervisory ratings an employee creativity score will be graded according to developed guidelines (see Appendix 3, page 41).
Additional 30-Circle-Test
In addition to supervisory ratings, a 30-Circle-Test is conducted to measure employees’ creativity (see Appendix 2, page 39). This second measurement investigates, in contrary to the business case, the more general creativity of employees. The objective is to draw as many pictures from 30 circles within one minute, where quantity prevails above quality. The test looks at employees’ ability to explore numerous thinks, which should give a valid indication about employees’ general creativity (Wang & Horng, 2002; Ted.com, 2008). Our focal point for creativity measurement is the business case, but as creativity comes in many forms (Wang & Horng, 2008), we also take into account an additional measure, i.e. 30-Circle-Test, to examine employees’ creativity. Furthermore this can provide an insight if the results from the business case, an applied measurement, relate to employees’ score on the more general creativity measurement. The researcher will rate this test on a 0-30 scale, with each drawn circle representing 1 point. 0-10 circles are considered as low creative, 11-20 as modestly creative and 21-30 as highly creativity.
Control variables
variables (creative self-efficacy, creativity (Business Case) and creativity (30-Circle-Test)).
3.3 Procedure
The questionnaire, business case and 30-Circle-Test took approximately 45 minutes. The supervisors were informed about the research and their role in judging their engineers’ creativity through email, a face-to-face talk and during an informational meeting with the CEO. For each team an appointment was made with the supervisor to agree upon a time and date to conduct the research. All the sessions were held during working hours. The employees were informed through email, after an agreed upon session by the supervisor, about the research and the day and hour at which it will take place.
The researcher was present at each meeting and started by giving a brief explanation about the research and the time available for each part. He furthermore guided the respondents through the different parts of the research and indicated the time to start and stop each section.
4. Results
In this section we present the results of our study and answer the hypotheses. We will start by elaborating on the analytic strategy, i.e. our choice of data analysis.
4.1 Analytic Strategy
Given that we use data on different teams, we first examined whether the data is best suited by a multilevel structure. This was done through testing the hypothesis with MLwIN (Rasbash et al., 2010). The intra-class correlation coefficient (ICC) is determined to find out whether the data should be analyzed in accordance to this multilevel structure. Results showed, after running null models with creativity (Business Case), creativity (30-Circle-Test) or creative self-efficacy as dependent variable and no predictors, an ICC of 0.05 for creativity (Business Case), an ICC of 0.05 for creativity (30-Circle-Test) and an ICC of 0.00 for creative self-efficacy. This shows that there is little variance on team-level, making the data suitable for analysis using normal regression analyses in SPSS, i.e. ordinary least squares (OLS) regression.
Accordingly, we have conducted an OLS regression analysis to test the hypotheses, see table 2 below. We conducted hierarchical regression analyses in which creativity (Business Case and 30-Circle-Test) was predicted by creative self-efficacy, and in which creative self-efficacy was predicted by supervisory support in the form of role modeling and verbal persuasion. We controlled for age, gender and educational level in model 1 and added the independent variables in model 2. Given the strong correlations between age and experience (years worked as engineer, years worked at Galil Software and years worked in current team), and thus a possible bias due to multicollinearity, we did not include experience as a control variable.
4.2 Results hypothesis 1
Table 1: Means, Standard Deviations, and Correlations of the Variables
in contrary to expectations, neither type of creativity is positively influenced by employees’ creative self-efficacy. Thus, our first hypothesis is not confirmed. Creative self-efficacy does not have a positively influence on the creativity of an employee.
4.3 Result hypotheses 2a and 2b
For creative self-efficacy as a dependent variable, we have measured the influence of supervisory support, consisting of the variables role modeling and verbal persuasion. Findings of the regression analysis for role modeling show no significant relationship with creative efficacy (! = .11, p = .37, NS). Thus an employee’s creative self-efficacy is not significantly related to role modeling by their supervisor, and hypothesis 2a could not be supported. Supervisory support in the form of role modeling does not have a positive influence on an employee’s creative self-efficacy.
With regard to our last hypothesis, an expected positive relationship between supervisory support, in the form of verbal persuasion, and employees’ creative self-efficacy, regression results show that verbal persuasion is indeed positively related to creative self-efficacy (! = .22, p = .07), at a 10% significance level. From this finding it can be concluded that the hypothesis is marginal confirmed. Supervisory support in the form of verbal persuasion does have a slight positive influence on an employee’s creative self-efficacy. Hence, we can state that in this particular setting only verbal persuasion by supervisors can be seen as a determinant for employees’ creative self-efficacy.
4.4 Further results
4.5 Concluding remarks
5. Discussion and Conclusion
The present article investigated a new line of research in which the relationship between employees’ creative self-efficacy and their creativity is examined. Furthermore it looked at how supervisory support, in the form of role modeling and verbal persuasion, influenced the construct of creative self-efficacy. This study continued the early steps taken in this novel area, through examining how creative self-efficacy is established and through examining the construct in a U.S. or non-‘Western’ context, i.e. an Arab high-tech company. The concepts were measured in a field experiment. Creative self-efficacy and the two aspects of supervisory support were measured using a questionnaire and creativity was measured trough a supervisory rates business case and an additional 30-Circle-Test. Based on initial research (Tierney & Famer, 2004; Mumford et al., 2004; Mathisen & Bronnick, 2009) we hypothesized positive relationships between the concepts, despite cultural differences. The results in our study however showed a different picture. Employees’ creative self-efficacy was not significantly positively related to their creativity, nor was supervisory role modeling positively related to employees’ creative self-efficacy. Verbal persuasion from the supervisor was marginally positive related to an employee’s creative self-efficacy. In the following part the implications, limitations and future directions for research will be described.
5.1 Theoretical implications
motivations and specific capacity judgments, the opposite seems to be true. It could be the case that how individuals are motivated intrinsically and how they judge their own capacity is determined by the society at large they live in. If we take a detailed look in the Arab culture and identity, it reveals that in this culture, social relationships and expectations are an integral part of an individual’s identity and these items can be attributed as influencing employees’ self-identification and self-views (Schiff, 2003). Thus, these aspect could have played a crucial role and may be a possible explanation for the unsupported relationship between creative self-efficacy as employees act more according to social roles and conform to expectations, which can indeed influence and alter the relationship between employees’ creative self-efficacy and their actual creativity. Moreover, this cultural aspect could thus explain why these employees respond differently than employees in Western countries. Hence, it shows that the construct creative self-efficacy has more to it than is currently being researched and more cross-cultural study is needed.
The other results, regarding the supervisory support on employee creative self-efficacy, show that only verbal persuasion by the supervisor was positively related to an employee’s creative self-efficacy. Although we also hypothesized a positive relationship for role modeling, verbal persuasion is one that could be easily explained through the high-context culture in Arabic societies (Hall, 1977). Words and word choices are essential in high-context cultures, as a few words can convey and communicate a complex message (Hall, 1977). Furthermore, as Cha (1994) argued, maintaining a good relationship with supervisors is an important facet in Arab societies. This corresponds back to Hall (1977) high-context cultures, in which relational and collective aspects are vital factors. Individuals from these cultures take interpersonal relations in account and getting to know each other and trust each other is the first step in a business transaction (Hall, 1977). This is foremostly done through conversation mechanisms, i.e. speech, verbal persuasion and debate (Hall, 1977; Schiff, 2003). So this could be an explanation for why verbal persuasion is the only hypothesized relationship that was actually positively related to an employee’s creative self-efficacy.
Although this result does not come as a complete surprise, it proves that in this particular setting, a software technology company, the use of a general creativity measurement may not be well suited. Applied and specific creativity appear to be of more importance and represent a fairer picture of an employees’ creativity in a technological setting.
5.2 Practical implications
The practical implications of this study are limited. Encouraging the creativity of employees is an essential aspect to organizational performance, survival and innovativeness in the currently fast shifting market (Wu, McMullen, Neubert et al., 2008). Although previous researchers (Tierney & Famer, 2002; 2004) found that creative self-efficacy is one of the mechanisms that could stimulate employee creativity is, results in this study could not support these findings. We would not argue that companies should now abandon this idea, but in particular contexts or conditional settings, such as an Arab technological company, one should be careful to generalize this construct. So for these kind of companies it would be an uneconomical investment to try to influence employees’ creativity through this mechanism. This study showed that cultural aspects might interfere with this relationship.
However, if one would like to influence employees’ believes, this can be done through verbal persuasion by supervisors. Even though these believes are not directly related to creative performance, they can support and provide employees with other facets. Bandura (1977) argued that self-efficacy believes can alter the coping behavior and expended effort. Therefore, influencing employees’ believes, through verbal persuasion by their supervisors, can have other positive externalities for a company, division or team.
5.3 Future directions
findings hold for all non-Western settings or only Arabic countries. Altogether this paper shows that more cross-cultural study is needed to fully understand the construct creative self-efficacy.
Secondly, this study showed that verbal persuasion by supervisors is positively related to an employee’s creative self-efficacy. The literature on the essential role of supervisors in organizations (Amabile et al., 2004) and the linkage between specific leader behavior and employees’ believe is thin (Mumford et al., 2002). Therefore, it would be advisable to investigate this relationship and its potential further.
Finally, a more methodological direction for future research would be to look at the different creativity measurements in relation to their setting. Our investigation illustrated that an ill-defined problem, such as a business case, does not yield the same creativity scores as a more general measurement of creativity, such as a 30-Circle-Test. To date research has predominantly focused on the relationship of concepts with creativity and not focused on the applicability of creativity measurement in different organizational settings.
5.4 Limitations
This study has its limitations as well. A limitation might be that the sample size of 72 is relatively small compared to other field studies conducted in the area of creative performance and creative self-efficacy. For illustration Tierney and Farmer (2002) have used a sample size of 233 employees in their research. However, this and the few other studies in this area relied on questionnaires to measure both concepts. In the present study we have measured creative performance through a field experiment, in which a smaller sample sizes is an inherent consequence, as the setting is more controlled and the researcher has to be present to conduct the measurement.
5.5 Conclusion
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Appendix 2: Questionnaire, Business Case & 30-Circle-Test
QUESTIONNAIRE, BUSINESS CASE &
30-CIRCLE-TEST
“CREATIVE SELF-EFFICACY”
Instructions
Creativity is an important topic in many organizations. It refers to the production of novel and useful ideas about products, practices, services or procedures. This experiment is about employee creativity. In particular it focuses on creative self-efficacy, which is an employee’s belief in his or her ability to produce creative outcomes. This experiment consists of a questionnaire, business case and a 30-Circle-Test, which will take approximately 45 minutes in total.
What do you have to do?
In the questionnaire you are firstly asked to answer some general questions about your personal background, followed by your creative self-efficacy view (this is your belief of how creative you are) and lastly about the role your supervisor plays (this is your team leader) in influencing your creative self-efficacy. The business case consists of a traffic congestion problem in Tel Aviv, which you have to try to solve within 30 minutes. In the last part you are asked to draw as many pictures as possible from circles within 1 minute. The instructor will guide you through the process and will indicate the time to start and to stop each part.
It is important to notice that this research is anonymous. Your answers are confidential and will only be used for scientific purposes.
Questionnaire
General Information 1) Age: … years2) Gender: O Male O Female
3) Number of years worked in total as an engineer (not necessarily at Galil Software): … years
4) Number of years worked at Galil Software: … years
5) Number of years worked in current team: … years
6) Highest obtained educational degree:
O MSc (Master Degree) O BSc (Bachelor Degree) O Diploma
7) Name of supervisor (Team leader): ……….
8) Team name: ……….
CONTINUE TO THE NEXT PAGE (1/3) !
Creative self-efficacy
Beneath you will find 6 statements regarding your creative self-efficacy. The questions need to be answered by circling the number of your choice. A ‘1’ means strongly disagree, a ‘2’ disagree, a ‘3’ neither agree nor disagree, a ‘4’ agree, and a ‘5’ strongly agree.
St rongl y di sa gr ee Di sa gr ee Ne it he r ag re e no r di sa gr ee Ag ree St rongl y agr ee
1. I have confidence in my ability to solve problems creatively
1 2 3 4 5
2. I feel that I am good at generating novel ideas 1 2 3 4 5
3. I have a good imagination 1 2 3 4 5
4. I am confident that I can perform creatively on many
different tasks
1 2 3 4 5
5. Compared to other people, I can do most tasks very creatively
1 2 3 4 5
6. Even when I encounter difficulties I can perform creatively
1 2 3 4 5
CONTINUE TO THE NEXT PAGE (2/3) !
Supervisory Support
Beneath you will find 6 statements regarding your supervisor. The first two questions are about supervisory support in general, the next two about role modeling and the last two about verbal persuasion. The questions need to be answered by circling the number of your choice. A ‘1’ means strongly disagree, a ‘2’ disagree, a ‘3’ neither agree nor disagree, a ‘4’ agree, and a ‘5’ strongly agree.
St rongl y di sa gr ee Di sa gr ee Ne it he r ag re e no r di sa gr ee Ag re e St rongl y agr ee
1. My supervisor bolsters my confidence in my creative potential (general)
1 2 3 4 5
2. My supervisor provides valued rewards for my creative work (general)
1 2 3 4 5
3. My supervisor serves as a good role model for creativity (role modeling)
1 2 3 4 5
4. My supervisor encourages me to set innovative and
creative goals by his actions (role modeling)
1 2 3 4 5
5. My supervisor publicly recognizes my creative efforts
(verbal persuasion)
1 2 3 4 5
6. My supervisor praises my creative work (verbal
persuasion)
1 2 3 4 5
END OF QUESTIONNAIRE (3/3), PLEASE WAIT FOR INSTRUCTIONS
Business Case – Traffic Congestions in Tel Aviv
Read the business case below and write down your answers in the available space. You have 30 minutes for this task
Traffic congestions are a big trouble for people traveling by car from and to Tel Aviv each day. They occur when the amount of cars demand more road capacity than is available. As a result, cars travel at slower speeds, trip times increase and more vehicles are queuing. This has a lot of negative consequences, such as wasted time, delays, stress and environmental damage. There are however many solutions or counter measures that could potentially solve this problem. First define how you see this problem (your assumption) and next present your solution(s) for this problem.
How do you see this problem (your assumptions)?
--- --- --- --- --- --- --- ---
Your solution(s) for this problem:
--- --- --- --- --- --- --- ---
(MORE SPACE AVAILABLE ON THE NEXT PAGE)
--- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- ---
END OF BUSINESS CASE, PLEASE WAIT FOR INSTRUCTIONS
30-Circle-Test
Draw as many pictures from the circles as you can within 60 seconds.
Appendix 3: Assessment Form Supervisor
ASSESSMENT FORM SUPERVISOR
Instructions
Creativity is an important topic in many organizations. It refers to the production of novel and useful ideas about products, practices, services or procedures. A research was conducted to test the creativity of your team’s engineers. This document contains the assessment form and guidelines for rating the creativity of your engineers’ work.
What do you have to do?
You are asked to rate the engineers’ work on creativity. The engineers were handed the task to present assumptions and find solutions for the traffic congestion problems in Tel Aviv. Your job is to rate this work on creativity. To help you do this job guidelines are developed, which can be found on the next page. The third page contains a table where you can write down the number given to each employee (number can be find in the upper right corner of the employees’ documents) and their score on a scale form 0-100. Before continuing please write down your name and the name of your team.
Thank you, Kariem Said
Name: ………
Guidelines
Your team’s engineers were handed the task of finding a solution for a ‘fictional’ traffic congestion problem in Tel Aviv (see the employees’ documents for the complete case). The engineers were asked to present their assumptions of the problem (how they see the problem) and to come up with a solution for this problem. Your task is to rate how creative this work is on a 0-100 scale. To help you rate the employees creativity we have developed a guideline. These are general guidelines, which of course can not include all possible answers, but will help you indicate the range to rate the creative work. If the employees’ answers are not within these guides, please judge by the number and quality of assumptions, degree of creative solution and in comparison to the work of the other employees, how creative their assumptions/solutions are.
Score Assumption(s) Solution(s)
0-33 Limited assumption
The assumption of the problem is described in terms of road infrastructure shortage, i.e. shortage of lanes, roads etc.
Basic, low creative solution
Solution is described in terms of adding lanes, more public transportation, speed limits, car pooling etc.
34-66 Modest creative assumption Problem is described in terms of specific supply and demand of travel-infrastructure. The hours people travel to work, the bottlenecks etc.
Acceptable, modestly creative solution Solution is described in terms of changing working hours, special lanes for user groups, reversible lanes during certain hours, park-and-ride car parks, road pricing etc.
67-100 Complex assumption of problem Employee describes the problem in terms of urban city planning/design or in the absence of traffic management systems
High creative solutions
Solutions are migration flows, city (grid) design, car-free transportation or intelligent transportation systems such as automated high way systems, active traffic management etc.
Assessment Form
Write the document number in the left column (which can be found in the upper right corner of the engineers’ document) and the creativity score in the right column.
For example if an employee’s assumption was that traffic congestions problems are due to the fact that people travel to work on the same time each day and his/her solution was described in terms of changing working hours, the creativity score would be between 34-66.
Document Number Creativity Score (0-100)
