The threshold effects of team promotive and prohibitive voice on team creativity

Extending the current nascent literature of the relationship between team voice and team creativity, this study investigates the “too much of a good thing” phenomenon by examining the curvilinear relationships between promotive and prohibitive team voice and team creativity through the mediating roles of task conflict and relationship conflict. Using time-lagged data from construction companies, we found that promotive team voice and prohibitive team voice each has an inverted-U shaped relationship with task conflict; promotive and prohibitive team voice each has U-shaped relationship with relationship conflict; the curvilinear effects of promotive team voice and prohibitive team voice on team creativity are mediated by task conflict and relationship conflict, respectively. In supplemental analyses, we also explored the interactive effect of these two types of voice on team creativity. Results reveal that prohibitive team voice dampens the positive effect of promotive team voice on team creativity through task and relationship conflict. We conclude with implications and future research directions.