Management Research Review

Developing organizational creativity and innovation: Toward a model of self-

leadership,employee creativity,creativity climate and workplace innovative
orientation
Koustab Ghosh,
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MRR
38,11
Developing organizational
creativity and innovation
Toward a model of self-leadership, employee
1126 creativity, creativity climate and workplace
innovative orientation
Received 16 January 2014
Revised 29 March 2014 Koustab Ghosh
12 June 2014
Accepted 2 November 2014 Indian Institute of Management (IIM) Rohtak, Rohtak, India

Abstract
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Purpose – The purpose of this study was to empirically examine the impact of self leadership on
employee creativity and workplace innovative orientation moderated by the creativity climate of the
organization.
Design/methodology/approach – This study as a unique approach has explored the dimension of
self-leadership in connection with employee creativity, creativity climate and workplace innovation
preparedness.
Findings – The results of structural equation modelling analysis based on the sample responses
obtained from the research, design and development units of a select number of organizations across
industries in the Indian context revealed the significant relationships among self-leadership, employee
creativity, creativity climate and workplace innovative orientation. Further, the moderating effect of
creativity climate was conducted using post hoc on employee creativity and workplace innovative
orientation.
Research limitations/implications – The major limitation of the study lies in relatively small
sample size compared to large population group, inference of causality on cross-sectional data and
absence of any qualitative analysis through the interaction with sample respondents.
Originality/value – Although the findings from this study are limited to the scope of a small number
of surveyed organizations compared to the large population, it brings out interesting insights in Indian
context for future researches in this direction, especially for exploring the linkages among
self-leadership, creativity and innovation.
Keywords Workplace innovation, Employee creativity, Creativity climate, Self-leadership
Paper type Research paper

Introduction
Innovation is increasingly recognized as a key source of sustainable competitive
advantage that organizations can use to withstand the rapidly changing business
environment. The concept of innovation has attracted the attention of numerous
scholars and practitioners from various disciplinary perspectives. Studies have
suggested that creativity and innovation in products, work processes and services are
key contributors to long-term organizational survival and success (Martin and
Management Research Review
Terblanche, 2003; Lin and Chen, 2007; Zhou and Shalley, 2008). Creativity, namely, the
Vol. 38 No. 11, 2015
pp. 1126-1148
© Emerald Group Publishing Limited
2040-8269
The author is grateful to the reviewers for their review and comments to improve the earlier
DOI 10.1108/MRR-01-2014-0017 version of this manuscript.
 ability to produce novel work, is considered to be both the starting point and the root of Creativity and
innovation (Amabile et al., 1996; Shalley and Perry-Smith, 2001). Previous studies on innovation
creativity development have mainly focused on individual factors, including
intelligence (Cropley, 1966; Sternberg and O’Hara, 1999), personality (Helson, 1996),
cognition (Runco, 1986) and methods of improving individual creativity (Amabile,
1982). In addition to personal qualities, many studies have attempted to identify work
environments and social climates that may foster or impede innovation in a working 1127
setting (Shalley et al., 2004; Wongtada and Rice, 2008).
Innovation capabilities in individuals at workplace are significant characteristics
that help an organization to establish competitive advantages, and individual
innovation provides a foundation for generating high performance in organizations
(Janssen et al., 2004; Carmeli et al., 2006). It also enables an organization to improve
its competitiveness (Schilling, 2008) and promote long-term success (Smith, 2002).
Individual innovation is defined as innovation at the individual level (Shavinina and
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Seeratan, 2003) by the exploitation and implementation of new and useful products
and procedures through the creative ideas and thoughts (Baumgartner, 2011) of
individuals. Individual innovation belongs to a general construct of high abilities,
including creativity (Shavinina and Seeratan, 2003). Several scholars suggested that
creativity (Amabile, 2000; Heye, 2006; Schilling, 2008) and self-leadership (DiLiello
and Houghton, 2006) are important antecedents of individual innovation. Creative
theorists have argued that individual’s creativity is an important antecedent and
precondition for innovation (Heye, 2006; Schilling, 2008). The higher ability of
individuals to generate new, novel and useful ideas is more likely to create his/her
own innovation (Woodman et al., 1993), which in turn contributes to group and
organizational innovation. Creativity alone is not sufficient for developing an
innovation (Anderson et al., 2004). Individuals must also have a certain level of inner
force that enables them to face the challenges in creativity (Shalley and Gilson,
2004). This internal force comes from self-leadership, which is the skill that fosters
individual innovation (Carmeli et al., 2006). Self-leadership is a primary factor that
participates and facilitates creativity and individual innovation (Houghton and
Yoho, 2005; DiLiello and Houghton, 2006; Neck and Houghton, 2006). Previous
literature also proposed that individual creativity (McLean, 2005) and
self-leadership (D’Intino et al., 2007) can be increased in the risk-taking-supported
culture. It was suggested that high congruence between a creative person and
culture may result in high level of innovative performance (Amabile, 2000; Miron
et al., 2004). The relationships among the above variables have been theoretically
suggested by Pratoom and Savatsomboon (2010). Gupta and Singh (2014) in the
Indian context empirically established the positive relationship between leadership
and creative performance behaviours for the scientists working in the public-owned
R&D laboratories. Therefore, it can be reasonably deduced that introducing the
dimension of self-leadership to the popularly studied variables in the area of
individual creativity and organizational readiness for innovation should generate
interesting and useful findings both from the academic and professional point of
view. In alignment with this logic, this study has explored empirically a
hypothesized model of self-leadership, employee creativity, creativity climate and
workplace innovative orientation in the Indian context.
 MRR Review of literature and hypothesized framework
38,11 Self-leadership
Self-leadership is a process through which people influence themselves to achieve the
self-direction and self-motivation necessary to behave and perform in desirable ways
(Manz, 1992; Manz and Neck, 1999; Manz and Sims, 2001; Houghton and Neck, 2002;
Manz and Neck, 2004). Specific behavioural and cognitive strategies related to
1128 self-leadership can be classified as:
• behaviour-focused strategies;
• natural reward strategies; and
• constructive thought strategies (Houghton and Neck, 2002; Neck and Houghton,
2006).

Behaviour-focused strategies are aimed at increasing self-awareness leading to

management of behaviours. These strategies include self-observation, self-goal setting,
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self-reward, self-correcting feedback and practice. Self-observation of one’s own

behaviour can lead to an awareness of when and why an individual engages in certain
behaviours. Based on this foundation of self-assessment, the individual can effectively
set and accept challenging specific personal goals that may lead to improved
performance through enhanced motivation (Manz and Sims, 2001; Manz and Neck,
2004). Moreover, self-rewards and self-correcting feedbacks can be used to shape and
reinforce desirable behaviours and goal attainments (Manz and Neck, 1999; Manz and
Sims, 2001; Houghton and Neck, 2002). Natural reward strategies emphasize the
enjoyable aspects of a given task or activity. Natural or intrinsic rewards follow when
incentives are built into the task itself and a person is motivated and rewarded by the
task itself, and thus generates the feelings of enhanced competence, self-control and
purpose (Manz and Neck, 1999). Natural reward strategies include efforts to incorporate
more pleasant and enjoyable features into a given task or activity, and efforts to change
perceptions of an activity by focusing on the task’s inherently rewarding aspects (Manz
and Neck, 1999; Manz and Sims, 2001). Constructive thought pattern strategies involve
the creation and maintenance of functional patterns of habitual thinking. Specific
thought-oriented strategies include reviewing the irrational beliefs and assumptions,
mental imagery of successful future performance and positive self-talk (Neck and Manz,
1996).

Employee creativity
Creativity is a complex and diffused construct that has been defined in various ways
(Shalley, 1995). Creativity can be identified with the specific characteristics of the
products (Woodman et al., 1993; Shalley, 1995; Oldham and Cummings, 1996), people
(Guilford, 1950), thought processes (Weisberg, 1992) or of the situation in which it takes
place (Csikszentmihalyi, 1990). Although this implies a lack of integration in the
research into the question (Mumford and Gustafson, 1988), there is consensus in the
literature that creativity refers to something that is both novel and, in some sense,
valuable (Ford, 1995). So, creativity is an ingredient for innovation, with the difference
that the latter comprises commercialization, and implies the successful implementation
of creative ideas (Shilling, 2006). Hence creative ideas provide a basis for innovation
emergence, but for innovation being successfully implemented, it is necessary to have in
place or to obtain a wide range of necessary resources. Therefore, creativity is linked to
 innovation, and is a major forerunner of innovation, although conceptually they appear Creativity and
to be different (Shalley and Perry-Smith, 2008). innovation
Amabile (1996) expressed that individual creativity is a function of an individual’s
domain-relevant skills (factual knowledge and technical skills in a particular knowledge
domain) and creativity-related skills (cognitive style and work style). A host of other
psychographic and demographic factors like personality (Schilpzand et al., 2011);
gender, education, background and age (Jehn, 1999); previous task-related experience 1129
(Gino et al., 2009); knowledge, skills and abilities (Janssen et al., 2004; Majchrzak et al.,
2012); and norms and values (Bechtoldt et al., 2010) were also found to facilitate
individual creativity. Amabile and Gryskiewicz (1989) found that for R&D scientists,
the most frequently mentioned feature of creative behaviour was intrinsic motivation.
This relates to being self-driven, excited by the work itself, enthusiastic, attracted by the
challenge of the problem and not being motivated only by money, recognition or
external directives. A Lithuanian study (Jaskyte and Kisieliene, 2006) supports the
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proposition that employee creativity in organizations depends on maintaining intrinsic

motivation. Individuals participate in the creative process in an interactive fashion by
developing ideas and presenting them to relevant others, and then by learning from
reactions, reworking ideas and presenting them once again (Dewett, 2004). Amabile
(1988, 1996) and Amabile et al. (1996) demonstrated that an individual’s competency in
domain knowledge and creative thinking skills are moderated by the social-
environmental working conditions. The context in which an individual employee works
influences his/her internal motivation that subsequently influences creative
achievements (Amabile, 1988, 1996; Von Krogh et al., 2000; Mumford et al., 2002; Farmer
et al., 2003).
Creativity is an individual and cultural phenomenon that allows individuals to
transform possibilities into reality (Tan, 2007). The individual’s ability and capacity to
create and develop new, novel and useful ideas about the firm’s products, practices,
services or procedure (Mumford, 2003; Shalley and Gilson, 2004) also accounts for his/
her creativity. When the ideas generated in creativity are successfully implemented, it
becomes an innovation. Creative theorists have argued that individual’s creativity is an
important antecedent and the precondition for innovation. Creativity has been
suggested as an important and key antecedent factor for individual innovation (Heye,
2006; Schilling, 2008). An individual team member having higher ability to generate
new, novel and useful ideas is more likely to create own innovation (Woodman et al.,
1993), which in turn contributes to group and organizational innovation. Shin et al.
(2012) found that creative self-efficacy significantly moderated the relationship between
cognitive team diversity and individual creativity. Kim et al. (2010) reviewed that
individual employees with a proactive personality exhibited the highest employee
creativity when aided by job creativity requirement and supervisory support. On
theoretical grounds, it is inferred that ability to create and develop new and useful ideas
increases the likelihood of creating innovation. Creativity requires absolute novelty of
the idea, whereas innovation only requires relative novelty of the idea to the unit of
adoption (Woodman et al., 1993). Therefore, adopting a new policy from another
organization to the current organization would be innovative but not creative. The
definition of creativity also includes an essential requirement for the idea or product to
be useful. Theory suggests a positive relationship between creativity and innovation.
 MRR Self-leadership and employee creativity
38,11 Self-leadership theorists have proposed that creativity and innovation are the
anticipated outcomes of individual self-leadership (Houghton and Yoho, 2005; DiLiello
and Houghton, 2006; Neck and Houghton, 2006). However, research on the relationship
between self-leadership, creativity and innovation is still at the nascent stage.
Additional research is needed to further clarify the relationship between self-leadership,
1130 creativity and innovation (Neck and Houghton, 2006; Pratoom and Savatsomboon,
2010). Furthermore, it is evident that the self-leadership skill is a significant antecedent
factor that positively affects innovative behaviour (Carmeli et al., 2006). Hence, given
self-leadership’s conceptualization as a determinant of innovation, self-leadership is
expected to have a direct effect on innovation of group members (Pratoom and
Savatsomboon, 2010). Creativity alone is not sufficient for developing an innovation
(Anderson et al., 2004). Individuals must also have a definite level of internal force that
pushes them to proceed towards facing the challenges in creative work (Shalley and
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Gilson, 2004). Self-leadership is necessary in those organizations that need continuous

innovation (Pearce and Manz, 2005). When employees are encouraged to lead
themselves in defining problems, solving problems, making decisions and identifying
opportunities and challenges both now and in the future, their creativity is encouraged.
On the other hand, if employees are not encouraged to lead themselves in critical
situations, then creativity is not encouraged (Pearce and Manz, 2005). In the recent
period of time, self-leadership has been viewed and accepted as the basis of employee
empowerment and successful implementation of self-managing work teams (Neck et al.,
1996; Anderson and Prussia, 1997; Markham and Markham, 1998; Houghton and Neck,
2002; Neck and Houghton, 2006). Thus, self-leadership is viewed as an important
organizational tool for building a social and psychological climate that encourages
creative problem-solving. In other words, an organization which encourages
self-leadership is likely to experience higher levels of creative processes among its
members that in turn enhance the potential of developing innovative thoughts and
practices at various organizational levels:
H1. Self-leadership is significantly associated with employee creativity so that:
H1a. Behaviour-focused strategies are positively associated with employee
creativity.
H1b. Natural reward strategies are positively associated with employee creativity.
H1c. Constructive thought strategies are positively associated with employee
creativity.

Creativity climate
Although the climate and culture have found interchangeability in the literature of
organizational studies and research, a few attempts have been made to distinguish
between the two as clarity to their conceptual identity. While the culture researchers
were more concerned with the evolution of social systems over time, the climate
researchers were more concerned with the impact that the organizational systems have
on its members (Denison, 1996). Denison (1996) also reviewed that the culture
researchers emphasized on the thorough understanding of the underlying assumptions,
whereas the climate researchers placed greater emphasis on the organizational
 members’ perceptions of observable practices and procedures closer to the surface of Creativity and
organizational life. Studies on work-related environmental features have been brought innovation
together under the general heading of “climate” (Patterson et al., 2004). Ekvall (1996)
defined climate as the observed and recurring patterns of behaviour, attitudes and
feelings that characterize life in an organization. Climate has also been defined as a set of
shared views regarding individuals’ perceptions of organizational policies, practices
and procedures (Patterson et al., 2004). To be specific, organizational climate is a 1131
property of the organization itself and represents employees’ descriptions of an area of
strategic focus or organizational functioning (Parker et al., 2003). Literature review
shows that there is great interest in particular on climate foci; examples include climate
for safety (Baer and Frese, 2003), ethical climate (Wimbush et al., 1997), service climate
(Schneider et al., 1998; Tsai and Wu, 2001), procedural justice climate (Naumann and
Bennett, 2002) and organizational climate, which are characterized by fairness,
innovativeness and affiliation (Bock et al., 2005).
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Creativity climate broadly has been referred as workplace atmosphere that includes
the factors of an organization’s socio-environmental context like care for employees;
enjoyable ambiance; openness of communication; emotional and functional support
provided by supervisors to their staff; employees’ willingness to share expertise, ideas
and responsibilities in the creative process; and risk-orientation. Von Krogh et al. (2000)
showed that workplace atmospheres reflecting trust and a general impression of care
facilitate employees’ communication, knowledge-sharing and creative outputs. The
study done by George and Zhou (2001) found that when supervisors provided a
supportive atmosphere for creativity, and positive mood was high, even negative mood
had a strong positive relationship with employee creativity. They explained that the
negative moods promoted problem identification and dissatisfaction with the current
situation that encouraged opportunity identification. Positive moods promote
confidence and divergent thinking. Positive moods contribute to creativity at work
when there is a supportive supervisory context and a general feeling of positive
energy in an organization. Supervisory support discriminates between high- and
low-creativity projects (Amabile et al., 1996). Support is especially salient in project goal
clarity (Shalley, 1995) and in open interactions between an employee and supervisor
(Tierney et al., 1999). Supportive supervisors show concern for an employee’s feeling
and needs; encourage employees to voice their own concerns; provide positive, primarily
informational feedback; and facilitate employee skill development (Deci and Ryan,
1987). Mumford and Gustafson (1988) found that supervisory encouragement to learn
more in a particular knowledge domain influences the occurrences of creative outputs.
What is important is that workers perceived encouragement (Amabile et al., 1996),
because it is the psychological interpretation of the socio-environmental context to an
individual. It can influence his/her creativity (Amabile, 1988). Subordinates’
self-perceptions are enhanced when the leader consults with them about important
decisions or issues (Amabile et al., 2004).
Co-workers also possess the potential to impact employee creativity (Woodman et al.,
1993). Co-workers can positively influence creativity through encouragement and
support (Amabile et al., 1996; Farmer et al., 2003). Madjar (2005) noted that before
proposing an idea, employees need the reassurance from the relevant group of people to
ensure acceptability and eliminate exclusion from the group. Immediate encouragement
and assistance from this particular work group should have the strongest impact on
 MRR creative performance. The reason might be because this group contains the people who
38,11 will use and implement the creative idea. Woodman et al. (1993) hypothesized that
individual creative performance would be enhanced by a risk-taking context. This
implies that an atmosphere reflecting a willingness to try new and different approaches
could improve creativity. Dewett (2007) found that the effect of intrinsic motivation on
creativity is transmitted through an increased willingness to take risks:
1132 H2. Creativity climate is significantly and positively associated with employee
creativity.

Workplace innovative orientation

Innovation has been defined as the successful implementation of creative ideas
within an organization (Amabile et al., 1996; Amabile et al., 2004). Innovation is very
important, especially for companies that produce technology-driven products, with
the risk of technological obsolescence (Brown and Karagozoglu, 1993) and in
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environments characterized by competitive intensity, technological and market

dynamism (Kessler and Chakrabarti, 1996). Organizations around the globe are
encountering a joint challenge that is the need to improve the performance by
capitalizing on new opportunities, and to establish or recapture competitive
advantage (Basadur and Gelade, 2006) for profitability and survival in a dynamic
competitive environment. Innovativeness of firms and organizations depends on
internal factors such as the firm’s innovative capability, size and structure, learning
and strategic orientation, and external factors such as network of partners,
communication and the industrial environment (Oskarsson, 2003) in which the
organization operates.
Workplace innovative activity can be assessed by the number of innovations, the
speed of implementation of innovations and the newness of an innovation
(Deshpande et al., 1993), as well as by relative innovative activity in comparison to
competitors. Although the terms creativity and innovation are often used
interchangeably in the management literature, employee creativity is increasingly
conceptualized as a necessary prerequisite and starting point for innovation. As
such, innovation originates from within the individual, that is from his/her new
ideas (Scott and Bruce, 1994; Zhou and George, 2001; Rickards, 2003; Shavinina and
Seeratan, 2003). Hence, it can be safely posited that individual employee creativity is
positively associated with workplace innovative activity. Organizational cultures
that stress a carefully balanced combination of both autonomy and collaboration
appear more likely to generate innovative products (Mumford, 2000). Senior
managers indirectly influence such product innovations by encouraging
intrapreneurial behaviour. They directly influence organizational process
innovation by taking a leadership approach, communicating a compelling vision
and setting up a structure and organizational culture that supports innovation
(Elenkov and Manev, 2005). Innovation is a complex process and it arises from
linkages between multiple sources (Schilling, 2008) rather from a single and
individual source. When employees produce new, novel and useful products or
procedures, they are basically providing the organization with options. Employees’
innovation allows an organization to choose from a broader array of products or
procedures for development and later implementation (Cummings and Oldham,
1997):
 H3. Employee creativity is significantly and positively associated with workplace Creativity and
innovative orientation. innovation
Theories regarding creativity climate have attempted to identify aspects of work
environments that facilitate creativity, mainly from an organizational perspective
(Amabile et al., 1996). Ekvall and Ryhammar (1999) argued that creativity climate
composes of challenge, freedom and support; in addition, it encourages openness and the
tolerance of uncertainty. By discerning the importance of environment, Amabile’s (1988) 1133
componential model of organizational creativity identified contextual components as
essential to creativity climate, such as encouragement of creativity, autonomy, freedom,
resources, pressures and organizational impediments to creativity. This theoretical
model led to the development of the “KEYS: Assessing the Climate for Creativity” as an
instrument assessing organizational creativity climate that could facilitate
interventions to promote innovation within organizations.
Woodman et al. (1993) took a similar perspective on Amabile’s view and comment
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further that an important feature of creativity, context is its ability to address the
influences across different levels which can enhance or inhibit creative behaviour in
complex social systems. In addition, by integrating psychological and sociological
descriptions of creativity, Ford (1996) proposed a theory of individual creative action
within organizational settings. He pointed out that creativity in organizational settings
could best be conceived in terms of creative actions that may be simultaneously
influenced and assessed across multiple social domains within and between levels of
analysis. Although climate perception originates from individuals, organizational
members are typically exposed to the same work environment and other proximal
influence. These perspectives regard creativity climate as employees’ shared
perceptions about the structure and practices occurring in organizations. Once a work
unit establishes a distinct character, it may result in greater homogeneity among unit
members’ attitude and values and how they perceive the organization (Seibert et al.,
2004); the same rule expands to the whole organization. With the rationale that climate
more often refers to the whole organization, this study labelled creativity climate as an
organizational-level construct. In addition, the organizational level of creativity climate
covers both the social environment and work environment that influence the work
carried out in organizations (Amabile et al., 1996):
H4. Creativity climate is significantly and positively associated with workplace
innovative orientation.
The previous research studies discussed in this section clearly supported the direct
causality between employee creativity and workplace innovative orientation
(Cummings and Oldham, 1997; DiLiello and Houghton, 2006; Schilling, 2008). At the
same time, the literature confirmed that the presence of a supportive organizational
creativity climate acted as a stimulator to individual employee creativity, and as an
enabler to workplace innovative orientation (Amabile, 1988; Von Krogh et al., 2000;
Farmer et al., 2003; Lin and Liu, 2012). Based on these previous observations, this
present study has attempted to project creativity climate as a measure of moderating
effect through employee creativity and workplace innovative orientation. The analysis
of post hoc was accordingly conducted to establish the hypothesized relationship
(Figure 1).
 MRR Constructs and measure of items
38,11 Self-leadership was measured using the revised self-leadership questionnaire (RSLQ)
developed by Houghton and Neck (2002). The RSLQ consists of in total 35 item measures
in nine distinct sub-scales representing three primary selves-leadership dimensions,
namely, behaviour-focused strategies, natural reward strategies and constructive
thought pattern strategies. The behaviour-focused dimension contained five sub-scales,
1134 namely, self-goal setting (five items), self-reward (three items), self-punishment (four
items), self-observation (four items) and self-cueing (two items). A single sub-scale
consisting of five items represents the natural rewards dimension. The constructive
thought dimension is represented by three sub-scales, namely, visualizing successful
performance (five items), self-talk (three items) and evaluating beliefs and assumptions
(four items). The RSLQ scale reported that all 35 item measures were loaded with a total
of eight factor solution set by the range of factor loadings varying between 0.68 and 0.86
through a principal component analysis technique used by Houghton and Neck (2002).
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The Cronbach’s alpha values of scale reliability were found to range from 0.70 to 0.78,
and thus were well above the acceptable limits used for organization studies and
research.
For the purpose of this research, employee creativity was operationalized as the
perceptions of the employees’ immediate or one-level-up supervisors related to creative
endeavours in the workplace. Twelve items to measure creativity were adopted from
Cheung and Wong (2010), which they borrowed originally from Young (1994). These
items measured employee’s level of problem sensitivity, idea fluency, idea generations,
originality of ideas, flexibility in producing ideas and problem solving. The Cronbach’s
alpha was reported to be 0.79 and 0.82 for the studies made by Young (1994) and Cheung
and Wong (2010), respectively.
Creativity climate was operationalized as an individual employee’s perception
towards the support; encouragement; free hand in decision-making and executing; and
exchange of ideas and information that he/she receives from the immediate supervisor,
team members and overall organization. The construct was measured using a total
number of 12 item measures adopted from Wongtada and Rice (2008), which they
borrowed originally from Fyvie and Ager (1999) and Von Krough et al. (2000). The items
measured factors like positive support from supervisor, superiors and team members;
informal interactions among various units; free flow of information inside the

Behaviour Focus

(+) (+) Workplace

Figure 1. Natural Reward
Hypothesized Self-Leadership Employee Creativity Innovative
relationship between Orientation
self-leadership,
employee creativity, Constructive (+) (+)
Thought
creativity climate
and workplace
innovative Creativity Climate
orientation
 organization; scope for trying out new ideas and tolerance for mistakes; learning Creativity and
ambience; and incentives for creative ideas and innovative solutions. The scale innovation
reliability coefficients (Cronbach’s alpha values) in all these previous studies were
reported to be significantly higher than the minimum acceptable limit including the one
in the study done by Wongtada and Rice (2008) as 0.83.
The dimension of workplace innovative orientation was operationalized as an
individual employee’s perceptions (immediate or one-level-up supervisor) as to the 1135
applicability of these characteristics in the context of his/her organization. The
construct was measured using a total number of six item measures adopted from
Wongtada and Rice (2008), which they borrowed originally from Amabile et al. (1996)
and Kickul and Gundry (2001). The items measured factors like the organization’s
proactivity to market and environmental changes; generation, support and
implementation of new ideas to business; and innovativeness compared to peer group
organizations. The scale reliability coefficients (Cronbach’s alpha values) in all these
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previous studies were reported to be significantly higher than the minimum acceptable
limit including the one in the study done by Wongtada and Rice (2008) as 0.84.

Research design and sample

In the first phase of this study, a structured questionnaire using the five-point Likert
scale was prepared and administered to 36 organizational respondents comprising
managers, deputy managers and assistant managers working in the research and
development (design, engineering client solutions) unit of one automobile and one
pharmaceutical organization, respectively, located in the northern part of India.
Purposive sampling method was used to identify the organizations keeping in mind the
objectives of this study, and further within the organizations, 36 respondents were
selected with the help of the respective human resource executives, making a total of 18
pairs of employees and their immediate supervisors. As the human resource executives
in both the organizations were explained in detail about the purpose of this research,
they selected sample respondents using judgemental sampling technique based on the
employee’s previous experience; achievements; and overall orientation towards trying
with new ideas, products and processes. Self-leadership and creativity climate
measuring items were self-rated by the employees, whereas employee creativity and
workplace innovative orientation measuring items were rated by their immediate
and one-level-up supervisors. Thus, two different sets of questionnaires were designed
and used by the researcher to avoid any possibility of common method variance. The
findings from this pilot survey validated the survey instrument for carrying out the final
survey in a more comprehensive and objective manner.
The same procedure followed in the pilot survey was adopted in the final survey by
extending to a total of 12 organizations located in different parts of India. Twelve
organizations belonged to the sectors, namely, automobile (two organizations),
advertising firm (two organizations), pharmaceutical (two organizations), paint and
chemicals (one organization), consumer electronics (two organizations) and information
and communication technology (three organizations). A total of 360 questionnaires in
two distinct sets each comprising 180 questionnaires were circulated among the
managers, deputy managers and assistant managers in the research and development
units of these 12 organizations. A total of 160 filled-in valid questionnaires (80 pairs of
boss-subordinate relationship) were received back in the form of hard/soft copy for final
 MRR data analysis. For measuring the dimensions of self-leadership and creativity climate, in
38,11 total, 80 sets of responses were obtained from the employees in the research and
development units of these 12 organizations, whereas another 80 sets of responses were
obtained from the immediate or one-level-up supervisors with respect to the measured
dimensions of employee creativity and workplace innovative orientation. The
cross-sectional analysis of data revealed that out of 160 distinct respondents, 37 were
1136 female (23 per cent) and 123 were male (77 per cent); 64 of them (40 per cent of total) had
worked for more than six years, 69 of them (43 per cent of total) had worked for more
than three years and 27 of them (17 per cent of total) had worked for more than one year
but less than three years in the same organization where they are working now. Further,
16 per cent of them were in the age group of 25-30 years, 23 per cent in the age group of
30-35 years, 27 per cent in the age group of 35-40 years, 19 per cent in the age group of
40-45 years, 8 per cent in the age group of 45-50 years and the rest 7 per cent in the age
group of 50-55 years. A total of 11 per cent of the survey respondents held a doctoral
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degree; 52 per cent had only a master’s degree in business administration; 19 per cent
had only a master’s degree in science, engineering and technology streams; 2 per cent
had only a master’s degree in arts and literature; and 16 per cent held a bachelor’s degree
in engineering, science and technology.

Analysis and findings

The descriptives, inter-correlations and scale reliability coefficients (Cronbach’s alpha)
were calculated and are presented in Table I. The values of composite scale reliability
coefficients were found to be well above the threshold limit. An exploratory factor
analysis was conducted by using the principal component method with varimax
rotation for examining the convergent validity of the research constructs. The items
were respectively loaded on the identified factors with satisfactory empirical support
(Table II). To evaluate the moderating effects of creativity climate on the relationship
between employee creativity and workplace innovative orientation, a two-way ANOVA
was used. Two treatments were selected in this study. Treatment 1 was the levels of
employee creativity and Treatment 2 was the creativity climate. Treatment 1 was
categorized into low and high levels using the mean value of the summated score of
employee creativity (EC ⫽ EC1 ⫹ EC2) as the dividing point. Treatment 2 was also
categorized into low and high levels using the mean value of the factor score of creativity
climate as the cut-off point. The dependent variable was the summated score of the
individual items measuring workplace innovative orientation.

Dimensions M SD (1) (2) (3) (4) (5) (6)

Behaviour focus (1) 4.01 0.37 (0.65)

Natural reward (2) 3.53 0.22 0.61*** (0.71)
Constructive thought (3) 3.98 0.43 0.21 0.36 (0.76)
Employee creativity (4) 4.08 0.31 0.68*** 0.41 0.61** (0.86)
Creativity climate (5) 4.00 0.52 0.21 0.13 0.29 0.64** (0.80)
Table I. Workplace innovative
Means, standard orientation (6) 4.13 0.19 0.17 0.09 0.23 0.60** 0.67** (0.78)
deviations and inter-
correlations (n ⫽ 80) Notes: ** p ⬍ 0.05; *** p ⬍ 0.01; figures in parentheses indicate Cronbach’s alpha values
 Behaviour Natural Constructive Employee Creativity Workplace innovative
Creativity and
Items focus reward thought creativity climate orientation innovation
Self-goal setting (SGS)
SGS1 0.86
SGS2 0.84
SGS3 0.81
SGS4 0.80
1137
SGS5 0.78
Self-reward (SR)
SR1 0.88
SR2 0.89
SR3 0.85
Self-punishment (SP)
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SP1 0.83
SP2 0.81
SP3 0.80
SP4 0.76
Self-observation (SO)
SO1 0.89
SO2 0.86
SO3 0.82
SO4 0.79
Self-cueing (SC)
SC1 0.80
SC2 0.76
Natural reward (NR)
NR1 0.86
NR2 0.83
NR3 0.81
NR4 0.78
NR5 0.73
Successful performance (SPF)
SPF1 0.88
SPF2 0.86
SPF3 0.90
SPF4 0.81
SPF5 0.79
Self-talk (ST)
ST1 0.84
ST2 0.81 Table II.
ST3 0.77 Exploratory factor
(continued) analysis
 MRR Behaviour Natural Constructive Employee Creativity Workplace innovative
38,11 Items focus reward thought creativity climate orientation

Evaluating beliefs and assumptions (EBA)

EBA1 0.85
EBA2 0.86
1138 EBA3 0.78
EBA4 0.80
Employee creativity
EC1 0.89
EC2 0.82
EC3 0.85
EC4 0.81
EC5 0.76
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EC6 0.88
EC7 0.77
EC8 0.80
EC9 0.74
EC10 0.87
EC11 0.83
EC12 0.75
Creativity climate
CC1 0.93
CC2 0.91
CC3 0.88
CC4 0.90
CC5 0.89
CC6 0.86
CC7 0.92
CC8 0.87
CC9 0.85
CC10 0.94
CC11 0.84
CC12 0.90
Workplace innovative orientation
WIO1 0.87
WIO2 0.86
WIO3 0.74
WIO4 0.78
WIO5 0.80
WIO6 0.81

Notes: Extraction method: principal component analysis; rotation method: varimax with Kaiser
Table II. normalization; rotation converged in 37 iterations
 Table III and Figure 2 show the moderating effects of creativity climate on the Creativity and
relationship between employee creativity and workplace innovative orientation. It is innovation
shown that organizations with a favourable creativity climate conducive to workplace
innovative orientation and a higher level of employee creativity tended to develop
higher workplace innovative orientation, while the organizations with an unfavourable
creativity climate and a lower level of employee creativity were associated with lower
workplace innovative orientation. These results suggest that if organizations develop a 1139
supportive workplace atmosphere conducive to organizational learning and innovation,
and simultaneously emphasize employee creativity, they can achieve significantly
higher levels of workplace innovative orientation that in turn may lead to a successful
product and/or process developments.
The analysis in Table IV indicated that the structural model fitted the pooled data
well with: ␹2 ⫽ 15.76, df ⫽ 3, ␹2/df ⫽ 5.25, GFI ⫽ 0.90, AGFI ⫽ 0.88; IFI ⫽ 0.96, TLI ⫽
0.95, CFI ⫽ 0.96 and RMSEA ⫽ 0.03. Standardized path coefficients provided the
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empirical acceptance or non-acceptance of the hypothesized relationship among the

variables. The acceptance of H1a and H1c established the significant and positive
relationships between self-leadership and employee creativity through behaviour focus
(0.626, ** p ⬍ 0.01) and constructive thought (0.670, ** p ⬍ 0.01), respectively; although,
H1b was not accepted, hence no significant relationship existed between natural reward
as a construct of the dimension self-leadership and employee creativity. Employee
creativity was found to have a significant positive relationship with workplace
innovative orientation (0.788, **p ⬍ 0.01); creativity climate had a positive significant

Dependent variable Variance source Sum of squares df Mean square F p

Table III.
Workplace innovative Employee creativity (A) 48.852 1 48.852 6.117 0.271 Analysis of variance
orientation Creativity climate (B) 41.603 1 22.729 3.383 0.252 for workplace
A⫻B 407.130 1 208.112 88.518 0.000 innovative
Error 523.175 236 4.479 orientation

Workplace innovative orientation

4.78

Favourable creativity climate

4.23 3.02

2.41 Unfavourable creativity climate

Figure 2.
Moderating effects of
creativity climate on
workplace innovative
orientation
Employee creativity
 MRR Path
38,11 Hypotheses Description of path coefficient Z statistics Conclusion

H1a Behaviour focus ¡ Employee creativity 0.626 2.78** H1a(⫹): S

H1b Natural reward ¡ Employee creativity 0.227 0.78 H1b(⫹): NS
H1c Constructive thought ¡ Employee creativity 0.670 23.73** H1c(⫹): S
1140 H2 Creativity climate ¡ Employee creativity 0.767 12.10** H3(⫹): S
H3 Employee creativity ¡ Workplace 0.788 44.12** H2(⫹): S
innovative orientation
H4 Creativity climate ¡ Workplace innovative 0.654 20.12** H4(⫹): S
orientation
Table IV.
Findings from the Notes: Model fit: ␹2 ⫽ 15.76, df ⫽ 3, GFI ⫽ 0.90, AGFI ⫽ 0.88; IFI ⫽ 0.96, TLI ⫽ 0.95, CFI ⫽ 0.96,
structural equation RMSEA ⫽ 0.03; tests of hypotheses are one-tailed tests; ** p ⬍ 0.01; S ⫽ supported; NS ⫽ not
model supported
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relationship with employee creativity (0.767, **p ⬍ 0.01) and workplace innovative
orientation (0.654, **p ⬍ 0.01).
To further substantiate the moderating impact of creativity climate on employee
creativity and workplace innovative orientation, regression analysis was conducted.
The findings showed that organizational creativity climate had positive significant
impact on both individual employee creativity (␤ ⫽ 0.62, p ⬍ 0.01) and workplace
innovative orientation (␤ ⫽ 0.64, p ⬍ 0.01). To verify the existence of any reverse causality,
the hypothesized relationships between self-leadership and employee creativity, employee
creativity and creativity climate, creativity climate and workplace innovative orientation
and employee creativity and workplace innovative orientation were tested in the reverse
direction using bivariate regression analysis. The results showed that individual employee
creativity did not significantly impact self-leadership constructs (behaviour focus, ␤ ⫽
0.12; natural reward, ␤ ⫽ 0.21; constructive thought, ␤ ⫽ 0.36). The reason behind this
particular finding may be attributed to the fact that the presence of these three
fundamental self-leadership constituents within an individual as inherent or
self-developed by nature, stimulates the creative potential of an individual employee
and not the vice versa. Further, employee creativity (␤ ⫽ 0.31) and workplace innovative
orientation (␤ ⫽ 0.29) were found not to have significant impact on creativity climate,
although creativity climate was found to have significant impacts on the former two as
supported by the tested structural model. It can be explained by the fact that the
creativity climate as an organizational-level variable could influence individual
employee creativity by providing the necessary support and ambience, whereas
workplace innovative orientation is a direct outcome of employee creativity aided by
creativity climate. Finally, workplace innovative orientation was found to have
significant impact on individual employee creativity (␤ ⫽ 0.53, p ⬍ 0.10), though the
latter had a causal direction to the former in the tested structural model and was
accepted at a higher magnitude and significance level. In view of poor empirical support
from the regression analysis, this particular relationship between employee creativity
and workplace innovative orientation should be ignored. The theoretical explanation
lies in the fact for new employees joining an organization with considerable reputation
for promoting creativity and innovation can influence the organizational members to
hone up their creative potential. But the fundamental and unique premise for this study
 warranted self-leadership as a major facilitator of individual employee creativity. These Creativity and
findings are consistent with the previous research studies conducted in the context, and innovation
enhanced the credibility of the proposed and empirically supported structural model
explained in the present study.

Implications and conclusion

This study empirically established that the behaviour-focused aspects of 1141
self-leadership, namely, self-observation, self-goal setting, self-reward, self-correcting
feedback and practice, can lead to the path of individual employee creativity at the
workplace. Collectively, all these factors can enhance the self-awareness of an individual
employee, which in turn would stimulate him to try out for new ways to review and
resolve the old problems. This finding is in agreement with similar projections made by
Carmeli et al. (2006) and Pearce and Manz (2005). The constructive thought pattern
aspects of self-leadership in terms of factors like systemic thinking, reviewing the
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irrational beliefs and assumptions, mental imagery of successful future performance

and positivity can generate the creative traits among the employees considerably.
Therefore, while the behaviour focus solidifies the internal self of an individual
employee, constructive thought streamlines the flow of his/her energy and effort
towards creative developments. Natural reward as part of self-leadership was not found
to have any significant impact on employee creativity probably because of the fact that
the jobs or assignments in organizations all the time do not provide with sufficient
complexity, challenge and cognitive requirements. In such situations, employees,
especially working in the research, design and development units of the organization,
feel under-valued, and if it continues for a long period, the creativity level drops
subsequently. This holds especially true in the present business environment plagued
by the global crisis. Therefore, employees with self-drive, clear focus, awareness of
personal strengths and weaknesses and high competence in domain specialization are
more likely to develop the creative thoughts and ideas intrinsically than being driven by
some external agent or considerations. Hence, it becomes imperative on the part of the
employing organizations to redesign jobs and introduce in-built challenges on periodical
basis; assess the intrinsic needs, aspirations and expectations of employees at different
levels of hierarchy; and facilitate the progress of individuals having prominent
indicators of self-leadership potential.
To fructify this individual employee creativity into organizational commercial
innovations, a supportive creativity climate inside the organization has an important
role to play. This particular aspect has been established through this study by taking
into account the moderating effects of organizational creativity climate on the
hypothesized relationship between employee creativity and workplace innovative
orientation. Therefore, the onus of developing self-leadership attributes among
individual employees lies on the individual employee’s conscious leadership
development initiatives as well as on the part of the organization by systematically
exposing the individual employee to training, mentoring, on-the-job coaching and role
modelship. The presence of organizational supportive ambience and positive creativity
climate can successfully bring out the creative performance of individual employees
(Amabile et al., 2004; George and Zhou, 2001). In view of this relationship, it can be
suggested that the top management along with the human resource executives should
create an organizational ambience of learning conducive to trying out with new ideas,
 MRR thoughts and practices. The positive association found between creativity climate and
38,11 workplace innovative orientation confirmed the contributory role of organizational
creative ambience in fostering the innovation and new venture developments. By
parallel logic, it can be argued that the positive significant association between
employee creativity and workplace innovative orientation found in this study reassured
the causal flow from creativity to innovation (Cummings and Oldham, 1997; Schilling,
1142 2008). The observed moderating relationship of creativity climate to employee creativity
and workplace innovative orientation is also in alignment with previous research
studies reported in this context (Anderson et al., 2004; Miron et al., 2004; Pratoom and
Savatsomboon, 2010).

Limitations and future research scope

As the responses to the independent and dependent variables have been obtained both
from supervisors and subordinate levels, and hence is cross-sectional by nature, the
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inference of causality is debatable. This is the major limitation of this study. Also, the
lack of any control variable(s) and small sample size were the constraints. Although
the findings from this study are limited to the scope of a small number of surveyed
organizations and respondents compared to the large population, it brings out
interesting insights in the Indian context by exploring the linkages among
self-leadership, creativity and innovation. The model suggests that the organizations
would be well-advised to encourage in developing self-leadership spirit among its
members to promote creativity and innovation at micro, meso and macro levels of the
organization. Building up of such supportive structure and ambience at the workplace
would considerably bridge the gap between creative potential and innovation outcomes.
Exploring further the relevant individual-level variables like internal locus of control,
self-efficacy, positive leadership behaviour and positive psychological contract along
with self-leadership, creativity and innovation as an extension of this present study may
add value to both academics and practitioners. To sum up, an organization with
members having the vigour of self-leadership supported by positive creativity climate
can make synergistic use of creativity and innovation for generating sustainable
competitive advantage.
Future studies should incorporate qualitative analysis as well to understand the
thoughts and interpretations of the executives or managers working in the research,
design and development units so as to cross-check the convergence or divergence that
exists between the empirical and qualitative findings. Similar studies should also be
extended to other countries to meaningfully examine and interpret the relationship
among self-leadership, creativity and organizational innovation in the context of
cultural differences. It is always worth exploring to see how the Western theory applies
to the Eastern world, and vice versa.

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Further reading
Brown, R.B. and Atalla, M.F. (2002), “Cross cultural perspectives of expatriate managers working
in Egypt”, International Journal of Cross Cultural Management, Vol. 2 No. 1, pp. 83-101.

About the author

Dr Koustab Ghosh is Faculty in the area of Organization Behaviour and Leadership at Indian
Institute of Management, Rohtak. His areas of specialization lie in leadership development,
organization theory and design and creativity management. Koustab Ghosh can be contacted at:
[email protected]

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