Relationships Between Work Team Climate, Individual Motivation, and Creativity

Creativity of employees is a major focus of research in the organization sciences. In this study we examine the relationships between both micro (intrinsic and extrinsic motivation) and molar (team climate) variables with manager-rated creativity of R&D employees. Specifically, we hypothesize that (a) extrinsic motivation has a direct relationship with creativity, (b) intrinsic motivation is more strongly related to creativity when extrinsic motivation is low compared to when it is high, (c) team collaborative and competitive climates have direct effects on creativity as well as indirect effects through individual motivation, and (d) intrinsic motivation mediates relationships of the climate variables with creativity, which in turn is moderated by extrinsic motivation. Data were collected from R&D engineers and their managers at a large high-tech company headquartered in Taiwan. Results indicate that a collaborative team climate has a direct positive relationship with creativity as well as one that operates through intrinsic motivation, which in turn was moderated by employee’s extrinsic motivation level. A competitive team climate positively related to extrinsic motivation, but extrinsic motivation did not directly relate to creativity. However, extrinsic motivation did have strong relationships with creativity when intrinsic motivation was low. Results suggest that perhaps the different types of motivation relate to different types of creativity (incremental versus radical). Managerial and theoretical implications of results are discussed as are the study’s limitations.