Leader regulatory focus and employee problem definition: the mediating role of eagerness and vigilance

definition: the mediating role of eagerness and

vigilance

Master thesis, Msc Human Resource Management

University of Groningen, Faculty of Economics and Business

29 Januari 2017

ROSHAN GERAMIAN-NIK

Supervisor/ Rijksuniversiteit Groningen Prof. Dr. O. Janssen

Abstract

This study examined and identified the relationship between leader regulatory focus and employees’ identification and definition of problems they face. As hypothesized, I found that promotion-focused leaders motivate employees to pursue maximal goals, which induced a state of eagerness in employees to approach success. This study further showed that a state of eagerness within employees, induced by promotion-focused leadership, will lead employees to identify and define problems in their work domain in terms of opportunities. As also hypothesized, prevention-focused leaders motivate employees to pursue minimal goals, which did induce a state of vigilance in employees to avoid failure. However, a state of vigilance within employees induced by prevention-focused leadership did not lead employees to identify and define problems in terms of threats. This study contributes towards a more comprehensive understanding of the influence of leaders on how employees identify and define problems within the initial phase of creativity processes.

Leader regulatory focus and employee problem definition: the mediating role of eagerness and vigilance in the problem identification of opportunities and threats

Organizations and managers are nowadays faced with increased global competition and rapid technological changes. These technological changes and competition among organizations increases uncertainty and contributes to the need for enhanced creative performance by employees (Dess & Picken, 2001). This uncertainty confronts employees with more ill-defined and ambiguous problems (Reiter-Palmon & Illies, 2004), where the ambiguity in problems allow for creativity to define and solve them (Schraw, Dunkle & Bendixen, 1995). According to Mumford, Mobley, Uhlman, Reiter-Palmon & Doares (1991) ill-defined problems are characterized by multiple possible goals, multiple ways of solving the problem, and multiple possible and acceptable solutions. When facing an ill-defined and ambiguous problem, individuals must begin by structuring the problem and identifying the goals, procedures and restrictions to solve the problem (Mumford et al., 1991). The way the problems are constructed will have a great impact on the creative production, where problem construction provides the context for the application of other processes in the creative problem-solving effort (Getzels, 1979).

made to structure and direct problem solving (Mumford, Reiter-Palmon & Redmond, 1994). Research shows that problem construction and definition are crucial for the quality and originality of the ideas generated for problem-solving (Reiter-Palmon & Illies, 2004).

Contrary to the wide variety of research conducted on idea generation towards solutions, there is hardly any research done on the construction of ill-defined problems (Dillon, 1982). In addition, there is a lack of knowledge and understanding on the personal and situational factors and on the underlying process mechanisms that determine problem construction. In the organizational domain, managers play a crucial role in this process and they can influence employee motivation through the goals they set and the behavior they show. However, there is hardly any empirical and fundamental prove and knowledge on the how, why and when leaders either motivate or frustrate their employees in the identification or definition of ill-defined problems.

In this contribution, the influence of leaders on the problem identification phase is approached by applying leader regulatory focus. Leaders adopt regulatory goals to influence their employees (Kark & Van Dijk, 2007; Sue Chan, Wood & Latham, 2012; Wu, McMullen, Neubert, 2008) and through their behavior, actions and language leaders inspire a focus on either approaching positive end states (promotion-focus) or avoiding negative end-states (prevention-focus). Both leader regulatory foci can be effective and influential in an organization. In the sense that a leader promotion focus may promote eagerness to approach success while a leader prevention focus induces vigilance to avoid failure.

to pursue maximal goals, which induce a state of eagerness in employees to approach success. Eagerness means being enthusiastic or desirous and promotion-focused leadership induces a state of eagerness within employees that trigger employees to define ill-defined problems in terms of opportunities, where opportunities are defined as a situation or condition favorable for attainment of a goal. In contrast, leader-prevention focus motivates employees to pursue minimal goals, which induce a state of vigilance in employees to avoid failure. Vigilance implies an individuals’ state of being alert and watchful and prevention-focused leadership induces a state of vigilance within employees that trigger them to define and structure ill-defined problems in terms of threats, where threats are ill-defined as an indication or warning of probable trouble. Resulting from the above described, the research question guiding this article is stated as following: Does leader regulatory focus as mediated by eagerness and vigilance lead to the problem identification of opportunities and threats?

Leader regulatory focus and employee problem identification

Within an organization important tasks for organizational leaders include managing employees’ resources, motivating employees and maintaining or improving their employees’ performance levels (Burke, Stagl, Klein, Goodwin, Salas & Halpin, 2006). There are considerate amounts of theories in leadership stating that managers influence the motivation of employees through the goals they set and the expectations they have. Transformational and charismatic leaders for example, motivate and influence their followers by making use of inspirational and visionary messages (e.g. Burns, 1978; Conger & Kanungo, 1988; Gardner & Avolio, 1998). Existing literature illustrates that leaders, through their behavior and actions, could have substantial impact on employee outcomes. More specifically, leaders can induce a state of regulatory focus in their employees through the goals they set (Sue-Chan et al., 2012). Several studies successfully manipulated participants’ regulatory focus (Liberman, Idson, Camacho & Higgins, 1999), stating that regulatory focus can be evoked intentionally.

Here I propose a leader regulatory focus approach to the management of employee motivation in the first stage of the creativity process. The concept of regulatory focus distinguishes between two different regulation systems in goal pursuits. On the one hand a promotion-focused system which is concerned with advancement and growth by seeking for hopes, wishes and aspirations and on the other hand a prevention-focused system which focuses on ensuring security and safety by fulfilling duties and avoiding losses (Brendl & Higgins, 1996; Higgins, 1997; Liberman et al., 1999). Since a few years, research has started examining how leaders, by adopting regulatory goals in their behavior, can influence their followers to impact the employee outcomes (Kark & Van Dijk, 2007; Sue-Chan et al., 2012; Wu et al., 2008).

(prevention-focused) end states. In this way, a distinction can be made between leadership promotion and leadership prevention focus (Kark & Van Dijk, 2007). Leader promotion focus guides employees to pursue advancement through the achievement of gains and attainment of hopes, wishes and aspirations and being eager to identify and seize opportunities (i.e., maximal goals: “those goals that employees would ideally achieve but that are not necessarily achieved”; Brendl & Higgins, 1996:104). Task instructions that present certain gains, such as monetary rewards, desirable tasks or incentives should stimulate eagerness within an employee. In contrast, leader prevention focus guides employees to avoid failure and pursue security through the fulfillment of duties, obligations and responsibilities and through being alert and identifying threats (i.e., minimal goals: “the lowest goals whose end state will produce satisfaction”; Brendle & Higgins,1996: 104).

Leaders and employees in organizations are constantly faced and presented with ambiguous problems which need to be solved. Literature suggests that the way problems are constructed will have a great influence on the creativity and quality of the problem solutions (Adelman, Gualtieri & Stanford, 1995; Getzels, 1979; Mumford et al., 1991; Runco & Okuda, 1988). The identification of a problem is the first step in the creativity process, where major implications on structuring and defining the problem are directly initiated towards the employees (Adelman et al., 1995; Getzels, 1979; Runco & Okuda, 1988). Although different terms are used for this initial step, such as problem identification, problem recognition and problem construction, all these terms refer to the process of the identification of the problem by the problem solver, meaning that an ill-defined problem is structured and the parameters of the problem are identified and defined (Reiter-Palmon & Robinson, 2009). In this study the term problem identification will be used referring to the initial step in the creativity process and is defined as following:the process where a problem is identified by the problem solver and where the problem solver defines the criteria for the solution of that problem and the goals of the problem-solving efforts (Reiter-Palmon & Robinson, 2009).

promotion focus stimulate employees to grasp for opportunities, whereas leaders with a prevention focus triggers the identification of threats.

Leader promotion focus and opportunities

A leader’s behavior may be recognized by employees as the organizational endorsement of promotion focused or prevention focused concerns and this perception will influence employees by drawing out a state of regulatory focus within employees (Wu et al., 2008). In this way, leaders may influence the creative process through the instructions they provide and the message they convey to their followers. Several studies (e.g., Baron, 2004; Brockner, Higgins & Low 2004; McMullen & Shepherd, 2002, 2003; McMullen & Zahra, 2009) suggest that leader promotion focus plays a crucial role within creativity and the generation of ideas (Lam and Chiu, 2002).

Leader promotion focus directs employees towards attaining advancement and guides their attention to pursue gains. In doing this, leader promotion focus is concerned with attaining maximal goals, employees should perform at their best and make sure that these successes will be achieved. As Crowe & Higgins (1997) described, promotion focus is evoked by an emphasis on the benefits of success and the costs of failing to succeed. The most important motivational strategy reaching these maximal goals is eagerness. Promotion focused leadership is thus concerned with setting maximal goals and inducing eagerness in employees to obtain all possible means in approaching matches to their maximal goals (Brendl & Higgins, 1996; Higgins, 1997, 2000; Liberman et al., 1999; Van Dijk & Kluger, 2011).

eagerness within employees. To attain these maximal goals, promotion focus leaders will allocate attention to the benefits of success, the costs of failing to succeed and encourage employees to be eager in engaging in innovation and creativity (Förster, Friedman & Liberman, 2004). Second, promotion focused leaders will induce and foster eagerness within employees when motivating them to pursue hopes, wishes and aspirations. Consequently, these employees should be inspired by their leader and feel eager to obtain their goals. Therefore, the following hypothesis is presented:

Hypothesis 1: Leader promotion focus is positively associated with eagerness in employees.

I also propose that when promotion focused leaders will emphasize on promotion goals, these employees will be triggered in defining and structuring ill-defined problems in terms of opportunities. Opportunities are defined as a situation or condition favorable for attainment of desirable end states. Promotion-focused leaders motivate employees to pursue maximal goals (i.e., gains advancement, and ideals), which induce a state of eagerness in employees to approach success. In pursuing their needs and goals, eager employees strive to bring themselves in positions that advance fulfillment of their ideals and nurturance needs (Higgins, 1997).

their ideals selves with desired outcomes (Higgins, Roney, Crowe & Hymes, 1994). Thus, leader promotion focus guides employees to attend to potential benefits and desirable end-states that can be achieved, thereby inducing positive emotions and a state of eagerness in employees. In this way, a state of eagerness within employees, induced by promotion-focused leadership, will lead employees to identify and define problems in their work domain in terms of opportunities. As described, opportunities are defined as situations favorable for attaining desirable end-states. Driven by their eagerness, employees tend to focus on potential opportunities in ill-structured situations and therefore tend to define ill-defined problems in terms of opportunities. Taken together, promotion-focused leadership will induce eagerness in employees which motivate them to attend to and identify opportunities in ill-defined problems. Thus, employee eagerness will positively mediate the relationship between leader-promotion focus and employee identification of opportunities in ill-defined problems. Accordingly, the following hypotheses are presented:

Hypothesis 2: A state of eagerness within employees is positively associated with their identification of opportunities in ill-defined problems.

Leader prevention focus and threats

In contrast, leader prevention focus directs employees towards fulfilling their duties and avoiding failure, and guides their attention to pursue security. As such, this leader focus is concerned with attaining minimal goals to prevent employees from performing poorly and preventing them from making mistakes. As Wu et al. (2008) described, leader prevention focus encourages vigilance to become conservative and this creates a narrow attentional focus on avoiding negative outcomes and reducing risk-taking. The most important strategy of attaining these minimal goals within employees is vigilance. Prevention focused leadership is thus concerned with attaining minimal goals, thereby motivating employees to be vigilant and avoid actions that could potentially deteriorate their situation.

Specifically, for two reasons, I propose that leader prevention focus will induce a state of vigilance within employees through the instructions they provide and the messages they convey. First, by emphasizing and setting minimal goals, prevention focus leaders will allocate attention to security needs, avoiding losses, and the fulfillment of obligations and responsibilities. Such prevention focused leadership influences employees to be alert and watchful for potential failures and events that can deteriorate their situation, thereby inducing a state of vigilance within employees. Second, prevention focused leaders will recognize and reward employees for failure avoidance and fulfillment of duties and responsibilities, thereby reinforcing their vigilance. Thus, leader prevention focus induces a state of vigilance within employees that motivates and facilitates them to obtain and pursue minimal goals. Therefore, the following hypothesis is presented:

I further propose that when prevention focused leaders induce a state of vigilance in employees, these employees will be triggered to define and structure ill-defined problems in terms of threats. Threats are defined as an indication or warning of probable trouble that can deteriorate a situation. For the following reasons, I propose that employees experiencing a prevention focused leader tend to identify ill-defined problems in terms of threats. First, prevention-focused leadership guides employees to pursue minimal goals to keep their situation secure and safe. This leader focus induces a state of vigilance in employees to avoid failures, losses, and risks through strict fulfillment of duties, obligations and responsibilities. Such a state of vigilance motivates employees to attend to cues in their work environment signaling indications or warnings of potential troubles that might deteriorate their situation and thus need to be averted (Higgins & Tykocinski, 1992). Second, employees who are in a state of vigilance are susceptible to take over prevention-focused leaders’ emotions and concerns about potential threats that might obstruct attainment of minimal goals and deteriorate their situation. Thus, vigilant employees are motivated to attend to cues in the work environment that signal potential threats that needs to be averted.

Taken together, prevention-focused leadership will induce a state of vigilance within employees which motivate them to attend to and identify threats in ill-defined problems. Thus, employee vigilance will positively mediate the relationship between leader-prevention focus and employee identification of threats in ill-defined problems. Accordingly, the following hypotheses are presented:

Methods

Participants and design. Three hundred sixty-seven Dutch business school undergraduates (of whom 51,5% were male; Mage = 21.9, SDage = 2.6) participated for €8 euro

or extra course credit. Participants were randomly assigned to one of the three leader regulatory focus conditions (leader promotion focus vs. leader prevention focus vs. no leader regulatory focus) in a single factorial design. All participants who started the experiment also finished the experiment. In addition, the design was balanced, where men (n = 189) and women (n = 178) were equally distributed across the three conditions. Gender and age had no effects and are not discussed further.

Procedure. To conduct the experiment, participants came to the laboratory of the university’s faculty and were seated in individual cubicles and these cubicles were equipped with a computer. Participants were randomly assigned to one of the three leader regulatory focus conditions (leader promotion focus vs. leader prevention focus vs. no leader regulatory focus) and were then presented with a scenario describing a work domain situation. The participants were exposed to a work situation in a particular company and asked to take the role of an employee in that situation. The scenario describes a high-tech company that operates in a highly competitive market where changes in the competitive position of the company put enormous pressure on the company.

been exposed to within the video message. One group was exposed to a video and short written text with a promotion-focused leader, the second group was presented with a prevention-focused leader and the last group was assigned to a leader without a regulatory focus. Thus, the video message and written text highlighted leader regulatory focus manipulated in either a promotion-focused, prevention-focused or no regulatory-focused way.

After the leader regulatory focus manipulation, participants’ regulatory motivational inclination of eagerness and vigilance were assessed after which they were presented an ill-defined problem of the organization: “We are facing major challenges concerning the fierce competition of applications on mobile devices.” The leader asked the participants, in their role as employee, to explore this problem and further define it. The participants could do that by restating the problem in different ways. The restatement of problems is a method that helps people understand and make sense of problems by thinking about goals, interests, constraints, paths to solutions, etc. To make clear what problem restatements are and what exactly was expected from the participants, they were presented the following example of what problem restatements are using a non-related problem:

Problem: Mice are in my basement Restatements:

How can we, get rid of the mice? How can we, build a better mouse trap? How can we, not be bothered by the mice?

automatically directed to a questionnaire including manipulation checks and several demographic questions. Finally, the participants were exposed to a debriefing on the experiment and subsequently thanked and payed for their participation.

Manipulations

Measures

Leader regulatory focus manipulation checks. In the experimental conditions, participants were asked to indicate which type of leader they were exposed to at the beginning of the experiment. Participants could choose between (1) “Eager – strives for advancements – inspired by ideals and takes risks” (promotion leader condition), (2) “Vigilant - prevents losing - avoiding negative outcomes and avoids risks” (prevention leader condition) and (3) “Founder – manager at a R&D department and considers starting a joint venture” (no leader regulatory focus leader). The intent was to check whether the participants within the leader promotion focus condition would indicate that they were assigned to a leader which was eager and strived for advancements, whereas the participants within the leader prevention focus condition would indicate that they were assigned to a leader which was vigilant and would avoid taking risks. The participants within the no leader regulatory condition should have indicated that they were exposed to a founder, who considered to start a joint venture.

Mediating variables

cautious about going down the wrong road; (3) To attain my goals in this situation, I am vigilant and play it safe.

Dependent variables

Problem restatements as opportunities and threats. The problem restatements were individually coded by three raters, who were blind to condition and used a coding scheme that was developed for this study. The coding scheme consisted of the list of participants and the problem restatements they had produced. The raters were provided with the definitions of problem restatements expressed as opportunities and problem restatement expressed as threats. Based on that, they indicated how many problem restatements were presented in terms of opportunities and how many in terms of threats for each participant. Agreement among the three raters was good (intraclass correlation ‘opportunities’ = .95 and ‘threats’ = .70).

Results

N= 367; * p < .05; ** p < .01; a = coded as 1 = promotion focus, 2 = prevention focus and 3 = no regulatory focus.

Table 1. Means, standard deviations, and zero-order Pearson correlations for all variables in this Study.

Testing for direct effects. To examine the effect of leader regulatory focus (leader promotion focus vs. leader prevention focus vs. no leader regulatory focus) on the mediating variables of eagerness and vigilance and the dependent variable of problem restatement in terms of opportunities and threats, a one-way MANOVA was conducted. Table 2 shows that the effect is significant at the multivariate level. At the univariate level, the effect was significant for the two mediator variables (i.e. eagerness and vigilance) and for the dependent variable opportunities, whereas no significant effect of leader regulatory focus on threats was found.

Hypothesis 1 stated that leader promotion focus results in higher levels of eagerness in employees than leader prevention focus. As can be seen in Table 2, participants within the leader promotion focus condition were more eager than participants with a prevention focus or no regulatory focus leader.

Hypothesis 4 stated that leader prevention focus results in higher levels of vigilance in employees than leader promotion focus. As can be seen in Table 2, participants within the leader prevention focus condition were more vigilant than participants with a promotion focus or no regulatory focus leader.

Table 2. Multivariate F, Univariate F’s, η2, Means, and Standard Deviations of Measures of Dependent Variables as a Function of Leader Regulatory Focus (N = 367).

Focus Promotion (n = 118) Prevention (n = 123) No focus (n = 126) Multivariate F (8, 722) Univariate F (2, 367) Partial η 2 _{M SD M SD M SD} Responses 12.21*** 1. Opportunities 12.41*** .06 9.99 4.25 7.48 3.69 9.05 3.94 2. Threats .55 .00 1.98 1.49 2.19 1.64 2.05 1.52 3. Eagerness 15.47*** .08 5.48a 0.84 4.77b 1.26 5.20a 0.78 4. Vigilance 28.18*** .13 4.19a 1.24 5.15b 0.94 4.37a 0.98

Note. Within each row, means with different superscripts differ at p < .05 minimally.

* p < .05. ** p < .01. *** p < .001.

The multiple mediation model concerning the problem restatements of employees in terms of opportunities is shown in Figure 2. The specific indirect effects indicated that eagerness (indirect effect = 0.23, SE = 0.09, 95% CI: [ 0.09, 0.44]) is a significant mediator and vigilance (indirect effect = -0.05, SE = 0.12, 95% CI: [-0.30, 0.16]) is not a significant mediator. However, it was also not hypothesized that vigilance would lead to the identification of problems in terms of opportunities, which means that hypotheses 1, 2 and 3 are fully supported.

Figure 2. Effect of Leader Regulatory Focus on the definition of ill-defined problems in terms of opportunities

through the mediators of eagerness and vigilance. Path coefficients represent unstandardized regression weights. * p < .05, ** p < .01, *** p < .001. a Leader prevention focus = -1; Leader promotion focus = +1.

Figure 3. Effect of Leader Regulatory Focus on the definition of ill-defined problems in terms of threats through

the mediators of eagerness and vigilance. Path coefficients represent unstandardized regression weights. * p < .05, ** p < .01, *** p < .001. a Leader prevention focus = -1; Leader promotion focus = +1.

General discussion

This study examined and identified the relationship between leader regulatory focus and employees’ identification and definition of problems they face. Results show that leader regulatory focus induces a state of regulatory focus within employees and influence them in how they define ill-defined problems. This is an important finding as it suggests that leaders play a crucial role in how employees structure ill-defined in the initial phase of the creativity process through the goals they set, the messages they convey and the behaviors they show towards employees. Where research has established that problem construction and definition are crucial for the quality and originality of the ideas generated within problem-solving (Reiter-Palmon & Illies, 2004), this study is the first to demonstrate the crucial role and influence of managers in this respect by applying leader regulatory focus. Extending the existing and well-developed research on regulatory focus theory (Brendl & Higgins, 1996; Higgins, 1997; Liberman et al., 1999), applying and further developing this theory on leadership processes (Kark & Van Dijk, 2007; Sue-Chan et al., 2012; Wu et al., 2008), this research found that leader promotion focus induces a state of eagerness within employees, which motivates employees to

identify ill-defined problems in terms of opportunities. In contrast, leader prevention focus was found to induce a state of vigilance within employees, albeit that that this state of vigilance did not lead employees to identify and define ill-defined problems in terms of threats.

Theoretical and Managerial implications

This study contributes to the existing research literature on leadership, leader regulatory focus, and creative problem solving in several ways. First, previous research showed that regulatory focus theory can be applied within leadership processes (Kark & Van Dijk, 2007) and established the relationship of leader regulatory focus with employee creativity (Wu et al., 2008) and employee performance (Sue-Chan et al., 2012). This study adds to the limited amount of leader regulatory focus studies, proposing and demonstrating that leaders can influence employees through the goals they set, the message they convey and the behavior they show in the initial phase of the creativity process. I provided theoretical logic and experimental evidence that leader regulatory focus influences subordinates on how employees identify and define ill-defined problems in terms of opportunities or threats. Furthermore, this research contributes to a more comprehensive understanding of the explanatory process mechanisms underlying the influence of leadership on employees’ problem definition by identifying eagerness and vigilance as clarifying mediating motivational inclinations.

experimental studies rather than survey studies in leadership. Experiments constitute only for less than five percent of the thousands of studies conducted in leadership (Brown & Lord, 1999; Dipboye, 1990). In this way, this study has the advantage to determine causality by manipulating leader regulatory focus and investigating its effects on employee motivation (i.e., eagerness, vigilance) and problem definition. As such, this study adds to the existing literature by having developed a successful manipulation of leader regulatory focus that induces either a state of eagerness or a state of vigilance within employees. Moreover, I not only developed a way to manipulate leader regulatory focus but it also contributes to existing creativity literature by creating a measurement to assess problem restatements in terms of opportunities and threats. Finally, this study forms a basis for future research in connecting leader regulatory focus and creativity. This should eventually lead to investigating and examining the influence of leader regulatory focus on creativity.

The present study has also implications from a managerial point of view. Organizations are nowadays faced with increased global competition and rapid technological changes. These technological changes and competition among organizations increases uncertainty and contributes to the need for enhanced creative performance by employees (Dess & Picken, 2001). Managers must be aware that they are an endorsement of the organization, where they are influencing the creative outcome by the way they present themselves, the way they behave and set goals for their subordinates. As this study showed, by setting promotion or prevention goals, leaders induce a regulatory motivational state (i.e., eagerness, vigilance) in employees that influence them in how they approach and define ill-structured problems. More importantly, this paper shows that when leaders are required to obtain opportunities, maximal goals must be proposed towards their employees to motivate and facilitate them in discerning opportunities when faced with ill-defined problems. Whereas, minimal goals should be highlighted in situations where averting threats is important to obtain safety and security.

Strengths, limitations and future research

intentions, behaviors could be measured. Thus, future research should further build on this study, where emphasis should be put on further development of situational and contextual factors influencing the creativity process.

Second, this study theorized and tested the mediating role of eagerness and vigilance in the definition and identification of problems by employees. However, future research should also consider the role of mood as an alternative mediating or even a moderating alternative mechanism which could influence the creativity process. Leader regulatory focus could induce different moods within employees, which could further influence the identification and definition of opportunities and threats in ill-structured problems. As has been found in previous research, positive and negative moods may be related with creativity through influencing different cognitive pathways of cognitive flexibility and persistence (e.g., De Dreu, Baas, & Nijstad, 2008; Isen, Daubman & Nowicki, 1987; Murray, Sujan, Hirt & Sujan, 1990; Clore, Schwarz & Conway, 1994). Through leadership, different situations could be differently framed in terms of goals, needs and the message leaders convey towards their employees at every time. In this way, mood could potentially be an alternative mediating mechanism, but also an important moderating mechanism concerning the mood and motivation of an employee in different situational contexts. Hence, where positive moods of employees could potentially strengthen the relationship between leader regulatory focus and the definition of ill-defined problems, negative moods could weaken this relationship. As Wu et al. (2008) describe, leaders shape the regulatory focus that employees’ experience within work settings. This implies that the mood of employees strongly depends on the situational context and this is affected in different situation at work through role modeling, despite the employees’ chronic regulatory focus.

instructions were provided, interclass-correlations were good and the raters did not have any stake in influencing the results, this study relied on subjective problem restatement ratings of judges. Although using this type of method is common in rating these type of answers, it could be that ratings are biased and that the developed measurement is not well-developed enough in determining whether the problem restatements are stated in terms of opportunities or threats. Thus, future research should further develop the assessment of measuring opportunities and threats, and determine and develop measurements on how opportunity vs. threats problem definitions are related to creativity.

Conclusion

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