A new perspective on time pressure and creativity: Distinguishing employees' radical versus incremental creativity - Research portal of Justus Liebig University Giessen:

Journal article

A new perspective on time pressure and creativity: Distinguishing employees' radical versus incremental creativity

Authors list: Zhang, Yong; Qu, Hao; Walter, Frank; Liu, Wu; Wang, Mingxuan

Publication year: 2023

Pages: 1400-1418

Journal: Journal of Organizational Behavior

Volume number: 44

Issue number: 9

ISSN: 0894-3796

eISSN: 1099-1379

DOI Link: https://doi.org/10.1002/job.2742

Publisher: Wiley

Abstract:
The role of time pressure on individual employees' creativity remains ambiguous, with prior studies reporting positive, negative, and curvilinear relations. The present research aims to address this issue. Drawing from the attentional focus model, we (a) distinguish the consequences of time pressure for radical versus incremental creativity and (b) introduce external and internal knowledge scanning as distinct mediating mechanisms. Moreover, we cast employees' long-range and short-range planning as moderators of the indirect time pressure-creativity linkages. Time-lagged data from 203 employees and their supervisors revealed that time pressure hampered employees' radical creativity by undermining their external scanning, with long-range planning alleviating this negative indirect relationship. In contrast, we found an indirect, inverted U-shaped linkage between time pressure and incremental creativity through internal scanning. Unexpectedly, this indirect relation was not contingent on employees' short-range planning. These results offer a new theoretical perspective that helps to reconcile previous, seemingly contradictory findings on the relationship between time pressure and creativity. Moreover, our results offer practical implications for modern workplaces that require employees' creative contributions under conditions of time scarcity.

Authors/Editors

- Uni.-Prof. Dr. Frank Heiko Walter

Citation Styles

Harvard Citation style: Zhang, Y., Qu, H., Walter, F., Liu, W. and Wang, M. (2023) A new perspective on time pressure and creativity: Distinguishing employees' radical versus incremental creativity, Journal of Organizational Behavior, 44(9), pp. 1400-1418. https://doi.org/10.1002/job.2742

APA Citation style: Zhang, Y., Qu, H., Walter, F., Liu, W., & Wang, M. (2023). A new perspective on time pressure and creativity: Distinguishing employees' radical versus incremental creativity. Journal of Organizational Behavior. 44(9), 1400-1418. https://doi.org/10.1002/job.2742