Workplace pressure moderates perception of threat or opportunity and employee creativity after downsizing

2013 ◽  
Vol 41 (6) ◽  
pp. 957-969 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jing Long

I examined subjective experience of creativity after downsizing with 348 employees in high-tech companies. I found that if employees regard downsizing as an opportunity they exhibit greater creativity after downsizing than when they consider downsizing a threat. Workload pressure moderated the relationship between threat perception and self-perceived creativity in such a way that, when workload was light, employees who viewed downsizing as an opportunity experienced greater creativity than when workload was heavy. I also found a 3-way interaction between threat perception, workload pressure, and challenging work such that the 2-way interaction for creativity between threat perception and workload pressure was more significant when work was more challenging.

2018 ◽  
Vol 39 (1) ◽  
pp. 93-105 ◽  
Author(s):  
Lulu Zhou ◽  
Shuming Zhao ◽  
Feng Tian ◽  
Xufan Zhang ◽  
Stephen Chen

Purpose The purpose of this paper is to explore how visionary leadership influences employees’ creativity in R&D teams in China, and the role of employee knowledge sharing and goal orientation. Design/methodology/approach A survey was conducted on 331 professional technical engineers in R&D departments of 62 high-tech corporations in China. Hierarchical regression was used to model the relationships between visionary leadership style, employee goal orientations, knowledge sharing and employee creativity. Findings The results show that visionary leadership is positively associated with employee creativity in Chinese organizations and the relationship is positively mediated by employee knowledge sharing. Furthermore, employee “learning goal” orientation strengthens the relationship between visionary leadership and employee knowledge sharing, whereas employee “performance-avoid goal” orientation weakens the relationship between visionary leadership and employee knowledge sharing. Originality/value This study contributes to the literature on the effects of leadership on employee creativity by showing that, contrary to western organizations, where a less directive leadership style is generally recommended to enhance employee creativity, in Chinese organizations, visionary leadership is positively associated with employee creativity, but the effect is contingent on employees’ goal orientations and knowledge sharing.


2021 ◽  
Vol 13 (3) ◽  
pp. 1352
Author(s):  
Qichao Zhang ◽  
Zhenzhong Ma ◽  
Long Ye ◽  
Ming Guo ◽  
Shuzhen Liu

In today’s highly uncertain environment, the value of creativity and innovation are increasingly critical. How individuals could improve their creativity and innovation performance has become the focus of attention. Future work self as an intrinsic motivation factor plays an important role in creativity and innovation. Based on the self-consistency theory, this study integrated proactive personality and informal field-based learning (IFBL) to explore the relationship between future work self and employee creativity to increase innovation performance. It used data from 201 R&D department employees in China’s high-tech companies. The results show that future work self has a positive effect on employee creativity and that IFBL mediates the relationship between future work self and employee creativity. This process is then positively moderated by a proactive personality. This study’s results help clarify the formation mechanism of creativity from the perspective of intrinsic motivation and indicate that future work self can drive individuals’ creativity and innovation efforts, especially under the consistency of self-concept, motivation and personality. This research also emphasizes the importance of IFBL in improving individual creativity and further organizational innovation performance. Implications for theory and management to help improve creativity and innovation performance are then discussed in detail.


2020 ◽  
Vol 35 (5) ◽  
pp. 405-417
Author(s):  
Guohong Helen Han ◽  
Yuntao Bai

PurposeResearch has shown that creative self-efficacy is an important antecedent of workplace creativity, but recent research indicates that this relationship may be moderated by contextual factors. The current study investigates whether leader dialectical thinking and leader member exchange moderate the relationship between employee creative self-efficacy and employee creativity.Design/methodology/approachA survey sample of 222 employees in 43 teams from Chinese high-tech companies was collected and HLM was used to test our research model.FindingsThe positive association between employee creative self-efficacy and employee creativity was strengthened when a leader displayed a dialectical thinking style. Additional analyses failed to find support for the moderating role of leader-member exchange (LMX).Research limitations/implicationsThese findings establish leadership cognitive style as a potential boundary condition of the relationship between creative self-efficacy and employee creativity.Practical implicationsCompanies can make an active effort in recruiting and training leaders who have a dialectical mindset as they can play significant roles in facilitating employee creativity.Social implicationsTechnological advancement and innovation is important for social welfare. This paper helps to improve the efficiency of creativity processes and finally benefits the whole society.Originality/valueThis is the first introduction of the leader's dialectical thinking as a moderator of the relationship between creative self-efficacy and creativity.


2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
dean mobbs ◽  
Ellen Tedeschi ◽  
Anastasia Buyalskaya ◽  
Brian Silston

According to Hamilton’s Selfish Herd Theory, a crucial survival benefit of group living is that it provides a ‘risk dilution’ function against predation. Despite a large literature on group living benefits in animals, few studies have been conducted on how group size alters subjective fear or threat perception in humans, and on what factors drive preferences for being in groups when facing threats. We conducted seven experiments (N=3,838) to test (A) if the presence of others decreases perception of threat under a variety of conditions. In studies 1 to 3, we experimentally manipulated group size in hypothetical and real-world situations, to show that fear responses decreased as group size increased. In studies 4 to 7 we again used a combination of hypothetical, virtual and real-world decisions to test (B) how internal states (e.g. anxiety) and external factors (e.g. threat level, availability of help) affected participants’ preference for groups. Participants consistently chose larger groups when threat and anxiety were high. Overall, our findings show that group size provides a salient signal of protection and safety.


2020 ◽  
pp. 014616722096902
Author(s):  
Joy E. Losee ◽  
Colin Tucker Smith ◽  
Gregory D. Webster

Theory and research suggest that objective features of a threatening situation and individual differences influence threat responses. We examine three ways individual traits may relate to a threat response: (a) directly and independent of objective threat features, (b) indirectly through relationships with threat perception, or (c) as moderators of the relationship between objective threat features and responses. Using integrative data analysis (IDA), we aggregated data across three studies examining hurricane preparation intentions. Analysis supported two of the potential pathways. Supporting the first path, both openness and extraversion had direct, positive relationships with preparation likelihood. Supporting the second path, agreeableness, conscientiousness, and social conservatism positively related to preparation likelihood through a positive relationship with threat perception, whereas impulsivity and sensation-seeking negatively related to preparation likelihood through a negative relationship with threat perception. This work shows the pivotal role individual differences play regarding responses to uncertain threats.


2021 ◽  
Vol 13 (14) ◽  
pp. 7765
Author(s):  
Shuizheng Song ◽  
Md Altab Hossin ◽  
Xiaohua Yin ◽  
Md Sajjad Hosain

The demand for sustainable development and the advantages of industries are expediting over time with the triggering of green innovation performance (GIP). Improving a firm’s GIP, especially in manufacturing industries, can accelerate green development and mitigate the global-concerned environmental issues. Thus, to investigate GIP from its antecedent factors, we delineate the relationship between network potential, absorptive capacity, environmental turbulence, and GIP based on social network theory, organizational learning theory, and contingency theory. We tested our hypotheses based on 233 sets of questionnaire surveys from high-tech manufacturing firms in China through deploying the hierarchical regression and bootstrap method. Our empirical findings reveal that the network potential dimensions, including network position centrality (NPC), network structure richness (NSR), and network relationship closeness (NRC), significantly positively impacted the GIP. The absorptive capacity (AC) partially mediated the relationship between the network potential dimensions and GIP. Environmental turbulence (ET) as an essential mechanism not only positively moderated the relationship between AC and GIP but also enhanced the AC mediation effect. These findings indicate that manufacturing firms should continue to improve network potential and AC and respond rapidly to changes in the external environment to enhance GIP, consequently contributing to the sustainable development of the economy.


2020 ◽  
Vol 12 (12) ◽  
pp. 5128
Author(s):  
Tsung-Chun Chen ◽  
Yenchun Jim Wu

Knowledge transfer is a strategy used by high-tech companies to acquire new knowledge and skills. Knowledge can be internally generated or externally sourced. The access to external knowledge is a quick fix, but the risks associated with reliance on external sources are often overlooked. However, not acquiring such knowledge is even riskier. There have been a slew of litigations in the semiconductor industry in recent years. The acquisition and assurance of intangible assets is an important issue. This paper posits that internal R&D should take into consideration the knowledge intensity and capital investment in the industry. This study focuses on the relationship between intangible assets and financial performance. It sourced the 2004 to 2016 financial data of semiconductor companies in Taiwan for panel data modeling and examined case studies for empirical validation. This study found that the higher the R&D intensity (RDI) in the value-added component of human capital, the better the financial performance of the company. RDI has a positive influence on the accumulation of human capital and financial performance metrics, and such influence is deferred. Meanwhile, human capital is a mediating factor in the relationship between RDI and financial performance. RDI is integral to the semiconductor industry’s pursuit of business sustainability.


2016 ◽  
Vol 2016 ◽  
pp. 1-10 ◽  
Author(s):  
Claudia Calvano ◽  
Petra Warschburger

Background. Pain symptoms, associated impairment, and parental perception of threat are reported to be predictors of health care utilization (HCU) in childhood chronic abdominal pain (CAP). However, mediating variables and their interrelations have not yet been systematically studied. Objectives. This study aims to identify mediating pathways of influence between child’s abdominal pain and the number of pain-related medical visits. Methods. In a multicenter study, we recruited N = 151 parent-child dyads with children aged 6–17 years suffering from CAP. A composite measure of pain symptoms was defined as predictor and the number of pain-related medical visits as outcome variable. This relation was analyzed by serial mediation, including child- and parent-reported impairment and parental threat perception as mediators. Results. Only parental threat perception significantly linked child’s pain symptoms to the number of medical visits. Measures of impairment did not have a significant effect. Conclusions. Parental pain-related threat perception is strongly related to health care seeking in childhood CAP. Addressing threat perception might be a fruitful parent-centered approach in clinical practice.


2014 ◽  
Vol 42 (8) ◽  
pp. 1315-1323 ◽  
Author(s):  
Xu Zhang ◽  
Bei Hu ◽  
Min Qiu

We explored the mediating effect of job satisfaction in the relationship between employees' performance appraisal and their voice behavior. A questionnaire was administered to 864 employees at enterprises representing high-tech industrial clusters from 5 cities in China. Developmental performance appraisal was found to have a more positive influence on employees' voice behavior than evaluative performance appraisal did. Compared with prohibitive voice behavior, both developmental and evaluative types of performance appraisal had a more positive impact on promotive voice behavior, and job satisfaction was found to play a mediating role in the relationship between these variables.


Author(s):  
Alexander N. Bryntsev ◽  
◽  
M.A. Bykova ◽  

In the article, the authors consider the issues of the relationship between global supply chains and industrial production of semiconductors in modern conditions. Particular attention is paid to the applied value of the application of artificial intelligence technologies in industry in the light of the growth of global competition. Their specific features, strengths and weaknesses are shown. A brief macroeconomic analysis of the development of markets for robotics, the automotive industry, high-tech products, as well as modern regulations on the eve of a new technological order is given.


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