- Email: [email protected]
Big five personality traits as predictors of employee creativity in probation and formal employment periods
Personality and Individual Differences xxx (xxxx) xxxx
Contents lists available at ScienceDirect
Personality and Individual Differences journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/paid
Big five personality traits as predictors of employee creativity in probation and formal employment periods ⁎
Xiang Yao , Rui Li Shool of Psychological and Cognitive Sciences and Beijing Key Laboratory of Behavior and Mental Health, Peking University, Beijing, 100871, China
A R T I C LE I N FO
A B S T R A C T
Keywords: Creativity Formal employment period Openness to experience Personality Probation period
This study investigate how five factor model (FFM) personality traits predict employee creativity in probation and formal employment periods. An examination of two subsamples of employees working in research and development department shows that: 1) Openness to experience and conscientiousness correlate with creativity in both job stages; 2) agreeableness correlates with creativity in probation periods; (3) extraversion correlates with creativity in formal employment periods. The findings add new knowledge about how personality predicts creativity at different job stages.
1. Introduction 1.1. Theoretical background Employees show creativity by generating “new and potentially valuable ideas concerning new products, services, manufacturing methods, and administrative processes” (Zhou & George, 2001, p.682) that promote organizational innovation and effectiveness (Amabile, 1996). Because creativity is so essential in school and at the workplace, its antecedents have long intrigued researchers (Hunter, Bedell & Mumford, 2007). The five-factor model of personality (FFM) is commonly used to study how creativity relates to personality (Puryear, Kettler & Rinn, 2017). Results have shown that creativity is correlated with openness to experience (Chamorro-Premuzic & Reichenbacher, 2008; King, McKee Walker & Broyles, 1996) and extraversion (Aguilar-Alonso, 1996; King et al., 1996). Although many studies have investigated the link between FFM personality and creativity (e.g., De Caroli & Sagone, 2009; King et al., 1996), the relationship between personality and employee creative behavior needs to be further enriched in workplace. Organizational performance, business success and company longer-term survival are increasingly determined by employee creativity (Anderson, Potočnik & Zhou, 2014). Most of the studies examining the link between FFM personality and creativity in work settings restricted their focus to single trait (e.g., openness to experience, Strickland & Towler, 2011; Williams, 2004), or used ability tests to measure employee creativity (e.g., Furnham, Crump, Batey & Chamorro-Premuzic, 2009) that fail to represent real problem-solving or idea implement behavior.
⁎
Moreover, several empirical studies of FFM and employee creativity in work settings were restricted to formal employee samples (Furnham et al., 2009; Shalley & Zhou, 2008) and overlooked the essential probation period that precedes formal employment. However, we suggest that personality traits play different roles during the two job stages. According to trait activation theory, the distinct characteristics of the two job stages perceived by employees serve to activate traits in different ways (Woods, Lievens, De Fruyt & Wille, 2013), resulting in different associations of personality traits with employee creativity. Organizations use probation periods to test employee fit, so employees tend to adjust their behavior to ensure that they will obtain continuation contracts (Pfeifer, 2010; Riphahn & Thalmaier, 2001). In the formal employment period, they are fulltime employees, with more job security and established relationships with coworkers, so their personality traits will have different relationships with their behavior. For example, extraversion is correlated with performance in formal employment stage but not in probation stage (Thoresen, Bradley, Bliese & Thoresen, 2004). Therefore, we need more field evidence from business organizations to examine how FFM traits affect employee creativity in probation and formal employment periods. 1.2. Hypotheses Among FFM factors, openness to experience indicates intellectual curiosity, imagination, liberal attitudes, and originality (Costa & McCrae, 1992) typical of imaginative, independent thinking individuals who prefer the variety and depth of experience essential in creative processes. Openness to experience strongly and positively correlates
Corresponding author. E-mail addresses: [email protected] (X. Yao), [email protected] (R. Li).
https://doi.org/10.1016/j.paid.2020.109914 Received 2 April 2018; Received in revised form 10 February 2020; Accepted 11 February 2020 0191-8869/ © 2020 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
Please cite this article as: Xiang Yao and Rui Li, Personality and Individual Differences, https://doi.org/10.1016/j.paid.2020.109914
Personality and Individual Differences xxx (xxxx) xxxx
X. Yao and R. Li
agreeableness should correlate with creativity in probation stages: H4. : Agreeableness will be positively related to creative behavior in probation periods.
with creative self-beliefs and outcomes (Karwowski & Lebuda, 2016; Puryear et al., 2017). It enhances creative thinking by allowing individuals to generate novel combinations of ideas and concepts (Mednick, 1962) and is correlated with creativity, although the findings were outside organizational settings (King et al., 1996; Sung & Choi, 2009). Although probation and formal employment periods differ in job certainty levels, we predict that openness to experience will be positively associated with creative behavior in both periods, leading to our first hypothesis: H1. : Openness to experience will be positively correlated with creative behavior in probation (H1a) and formal employment periods (H1b).
Neuroticism indicates tendencies to be anxious, defensive, insecure, and emotional (Costa & McCrae, 1992). It includes withdrawal and volatility subcomponents, and has mixed relationships, sometimes positive (Martindale, 1999), negative (Chamorro-Premuzic & Reichenbacher, 2008), or nonsignificant (King et al., 1996) relationships with creativity often depending on domains. Emotional instability has been shown to contribute to creativity in domains requiring intuition, subjectivity, and emotion expression, but not in domains requiring logical, objective, and formal forms of expression (Ludwig, 1998). We studied employees who design and develop new products. Their work requires dedication, persistent effort, logic, objectivity, and formal expression. Employees who have high withdrawal and volatility levels will lack such qualities. Moreover, high neuroticism is associated with an avoidant approach, in which people select activities, tasks and strategies to minimize threat of failure (Woods et al., 2013), so they are less likely to seek novel task approaches. Thus, we expect neuroticism to negatively affect creativity in both job stages: H5. : Neuroticism will be negatively related to creative behaviors in probation (H5a) and formal employment periods (H5b).
Conscientiousness, another FFM characteristic, refers to self-discipline, goal-setting, and personal reliability (Costa & McCrae, 1992), but previous studies have generated inconsistent findings regarding its effect on creativity. Highly conscientious individuals tend to be reliable and self-controlled, to focus on desires to achieve, obey rules, and conform to norms, and are less likely to show creative behaviors (Raja, Johns & Ntalianis, 2004). Individuals who lack conscientiousness tend to disregard instructions, avoid order, act impulsively, and are therefore more likely to identify novel and useful conceptions of ideas, task approaches, and problem solving (Batey, Chamorro-Premuzic & Furnham, 2010). However, persistence, a main characteristic of conscientiousness, has been shown to enhance innovation in workplaces that encourage or champion ideas (Howell & Higgins, 1990). We argue that organizations normally consider creative behavior as a performance indicator reflecting both mental ability and problem-solving skills to fully implement creative ideas. Conscientiousness strongly and positively correlates with job performance across various jobs and occupations (Barrick, Mount & Strauss, 1993; McHenry, Hough, Toquam, Hanson & Ashworth, 1990). Scientist are higher on conscientiousness than nonscientist (Kline & Lapham, 1992). Therefore, conscientiousness should benefit creativity in both probationary and formal employment job stages. H2. : Conscientiousness will be positively related to creative behavior in probation (H2a) and formal employment periods (H2b).
3. Methods 3.1. Samples and procedures We collected responses from 507 employees who design and develop new products in four Chinese mobile communication companies. The employees need to turn creative ideas into products and apply for patents to complete their work, so creativity is crucial to their work performance, and the companies are ideal sites for our study. Our data included a subsample of 202 employees in probation periods and 305 employees in formal employment periods. Participants voluntarily agreed to participate. The first subsample included 305 formal employees (223 male) from 403 initially sampled respondents, a response rate of 75.7%. Participants averaged 28.7 years-old (SD = 3.91). They had worked for an average of 33.4 months (SD = 29.35) in their current positions and an average of 61.9 months (SD = 47.93) in their organizations. The second subsample included 202 probationary employees (116 male) from 366 initially sampled respondents. They averaged 26.52 years-old (SD = 2.98) and had held their jobs for an average of 4.47 months (SD = 1.95). The sampling procedure consisted of two time waves to alleviate potential common method biases caused by transient mood states and memory accessibility. At time 1, one month before the annual performance review, participants in the formal employment subsample assessed their creative ability and personality. At time 2, one month after time 1, supervisors rated participants’ creative behavior. For job candidates in the probation period subsample, time wave 1 occurred after they passed their job interview. At that time, they assessed their personality. Time 2 occurred about three months later for those who were recruited for formal employment by their companies. At that time, their supervisors rated their creative behavior. Probation periods commonly last three months in China.
Extraversion indicates tendencies to be active, energetic, exhibitionistic, expressive, and gregarious. Highly extraverted individuals tend to be active and passionate risk-takers (Costa & McCrae, 1992) who think divergently to stimulate excitement and sensation, with positive effects on creativity (Batey et al., 2010). Risk-taking behaviors are the key mechanism for promoting creativity. Probation and formal job stages mostly differ in job certainty levels, so we concur that extraversion should correlate with creative behavior, but only in formal employment stages. In probation periods, extraverts may be overwhelmed by new information-intensive situations and avoid risk-taking actions that would compromise job certainty. In formal employment stages, they have gone beyond the need to adapt and can seek creative, novel ways to perform in relatively familiar working conditions. H3. : Extraversion will be positively related to creative behavior in formal employment periods. Findings are mixed regarding the relationship between agreeableness and creativity. Agreeableness was found to positively predict creativity for individuals who lack extrinsic motivation (Sung & Choi, 2009). Agreeableness have weak omnibus correlation with creativity (Puryear et al., 2017). Agreeable individuals tend to be courteous, trusting, and cooperative (Costa & McCrae, 1992), so that they are more likely to resolve interpersonal conflicts and seek information through intragroup processes. Thus, agreeableness is important during probation periods that may feature strong process conflict (Jehn & Mannix, 2001). Agreeableness promotes more harmonious workplaces in probation periods, so that employees can focus on creative activities rather than on interpersonal conflicts. In formal employment, however, individuals have adapted to their surroundings and confront fewer conflicts, so agreeableness has less impact on creativity. Accordingly,
3.2. Measures Creative ability. In the subsample of employees in formal employment stages, we used two three-minute tasks that are widely-used divergent thinking tests to measure creative ability. In the “just suppose” task, participants are asked to imagine walking on air or flying and then to list as many problems that they can imagine confronting as possible. In the “unusual uses” task, participants list as many unusual 2
Personality and Individual Differences xxx (xxxx) xxxx
X. Yao and R. Li
4.1. Employees in formal employment
uses as possible they can imagine for a cardboard box. Following advised procedure (Torrance, 1966), the tasks were scored for fluency, flexibility, and originality. Fluency was calculated by counting the number of responses. Flexibility was scored by classifying responses into categories and then counting them. Originality was scored by assessing the rarity of responses: answers that appear in fewer than 5% of overall answers were coded 2; answers in fewer than 5% to 10% were coded 1; other ranges were coded 0. Two trained coders first worked independently on 20% of the data. They reached 0.91 and 0.98 agreement regarding flexibility for the two tasks and 0.85 and 0.88 regarding originality. They resolved disagreements through discussion before further coding. The inter-correlations were significant (rfluencyflexibility=0.88; rfluency-originality=0.61; rflexibility-originality =0.53; p <0.01 for all correlations). Finally, we transformed the three scores into zscores to standardize them and obtain a summarized measure of creative ability. Personality. We used the 40-item FFM personality marker from Saucier (1994) to measure extraversion, agreeableness, conscientiousness, neuroticism, and openness to experience. Participants rated how accurately they were described by each item on a seven-point Likert scale (1 = extremely inaccurate, 7 = extremely accurate). Sample items for each of the dimensions are as follows: “Talkative” (for extraversion), “Sympathetic” (for agreeableness), “Organized” (for conscientiousness), “Moddy” (for neuroticism), “Imaginative” (for openness). Scores on each scale were averaged to create indexes of the five personality traits. Cronbach's alpha for extraversion was 0.75; for agreeableness was 0.72; for conscientiousness was 0.77; for neuroticism was 0.75; and for openness to experience was 0.76. Creative behavior. Supervisors assessed employees’ creative behavior on a 13-item scale from Zhou and George (2001). A sample item states, “Suggests new ways to achieve goals or objectives.” Responses were made on a seven-point Likert scale (1 = not at all characteristic, 7 = very characteristic). The average score of the 13 items was the measure of creative behavior. Cronbach's alpha for the scale was 0.92.
Table 1 shows descriptive statistics, correlation analysis, and partial correlation results for the subsample of formal employment. Creative ability was correlated with creative behavior (r = 0.17, p <0.01). As predicted, openness to experience (H1b), conscientiousness (H2b), and extraversion (H3) were positively related to creative behavior (r = 0.21, p <0.01; r = 0.16, p <0.01; r = 0.13, p <0.05, sequentially). Even when we controlled for creative ability, we found openness to experience (H1b), conscientiousness (H2b), and extraversion (H3) to be positively related to creative behavior (rpartial = 0.20, p <0.01; rpartial = 0.14, p <0.01; rpartial = 0.11, p <0.05, respectively). Agreeableness and neuroticism were not significantly correlated with creative behavior, which contradicts H5b. Table 2 shows results of hierarchical regression analysis to formally test H1b, H2b, H3, and H5b. As control variables, we entered demographics in the first step and creative ability in the second step. In the third step, we added each of the hypothesized five personality traits respectively. We excluded one outlier by the criteria of 3 standard deviations. Table 2 shows that when we controlled for age, sex, educational level, and creative ability, openness to experience had a significant main effect on creative behavior (β = 0.20, p <0.01), explaining an additional 3.9% of variance (H1b). Conscientiousness had a significant main effect on creative behavior (β = 0.15, p <0.05) and explained an additional 2.1% of the variance (H2b). Extraversion had a significant main effect on creative behavior (β = 0.12, p <0.05) and explained an additional 1.3% of the variance (H3b). Therefore, H1b, H2b, and H3b were supported. In addition, neuroticism had a nonsignificant main effect. 4.2. Employees in probation periods Table 3 shows descriptive statistics, correlation analysis, and partial correlation results for the subsample of probationary employees. Openness to experience (H1a), conscientiousness (H2a), and agreeableness (H4) were positively correlated with creative behavior (r = 0.33, p <0.01; r = 0.18, p <0.05; r = 0.17, p <0.05, respectively), but extraversion was not significantly correlated with creative behavior. Neuroticism was negatively but not significantly correlated with creative behavior, contradicting H5a. After controlling for age, sex, and education levels, the partial correlations showed that openness to experience (H1a), conscientiousness (H2a), and agreeableness (H4) were positively correlated with creative behavior (rpartial = 0.31, p <0.01; rpartial = 0.17, p <0.05; rpartial = 0.18, p <0.05, respectively). Table 2 shows results of the formal tests supporting H1a, H2a, and H4. As before, in Step 1, we entered demographics as control variables. The subsample had no measure of creative ability. In Step 2, we added
4. Results We predicted that openness to experience, conscientiousness, and extraversion would be positively correlated with creative behavior for employees in formal employment stages. In contrast, we predicted that openness to experience, conscientiousness, and agreeableness would be positively correlated with creative behavior for employees in probation periods. To test the hypotheses, we separated the two subsamples. We examined H1b, H2b, H3, and H5b with the first subsample and examined H1a, H2a, H4, and H5a with the second subsample.
Table 1 Descriptive statistics and correlation analysis in the formal employment subsample (n1=305).
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10
Age Sex Education Extraversion Agreeableness Conscientiousness Neuroticism Openness Creative behavior Creative ability
M
SD
1
2
3
4
28.67 0.27 3.29 4.59 5.75 5.43 2.93 5.17 3.23 −0.01
3.91 0.44 0.58 0.85 0.64 0.75 0.85 0.74 0.69 2.47
.02 −0.04 −0.05 .07 .21** −0.13* −0.02 .01 .08
−0.03 .09 .14* −0.07 −0.02 −0.08 −0.01 −0.06
.01 .05 .02 −0.12* .05 .06 .05
.32** .28** −0.30** .39** .13* .10
5
6
7
8
9
.27**
.24** .48**
−0.24** −0.47** −0.43**
.28** .30** .38** −0.27**
.11* .08 .14** −0.05 .20**
.50** −0.51** .36** .11 .03
−0.49** .45** .16** .04
−0.38** −0.08 −0.05
.21** .12*
.17**
Note: Sex: 0 = male, 1 = female; Education: 1 = middle school, 2 = college, 3 = bachelor, 4 = above bachelor. The lower triangular correlation matrix (below the diagonal) is the normal Pearson correlation coefficients. The upper triangular correlation matrix (above the diagonal) is the partial correlation analysis, controlling for age, sex, educational level, and creative ability,. ⁎ p < .05. ⁎⁎ p < .01 (two-tailed). 3
Personality and Individual Differences xxx (xxxx) xxxx
X. Yao and R. Li
Table 2 Hierarchical regressions results for personality traits on creative behavior. Openness to experience → Creative behavior
Conscientiousness → Creative behavior
In the formal employment subsample, with control for creative ability (n1=304) Control variables Age −0.006 −0.032 Sex −0.001 −0.004 Education .032 .039 △ R2 .003 .003 Creative ability .138* .162⁎⁎ △ R2 .026⁎⁎ .026⁎⁎ Personality traits △ R2 .200⁎⁎ .147* .039⁎⁎ .021* In the probation period subsample (n2=202) Control variables Age .070 .067 Sex −0.077 −0.130 Education −0.021 .015 △ R2 .029 .029 Personality traits .314⁎⁎ .170* △ R2 .094⁎⁎ .028*
each of the hypothesized five personality traits. Table 2 shows significant effects on creative behavior: openness to experience (β = 0.31, p <0.01) explaining an additional 9.4% of the variance; conscientiousness (β = 0.17, p <0.05) explaining an additional 2.8% of variance; and agreeableness (β = 0.18, p <0.05) explaining an additional 3.2% of variance. Extroversion and neuroticism had nonsignificant main effects.
Agreeableness → Creative behavior
Extroversion → Creative behavior
Neuroticism → Creative behavior
−0.011 −0.027 .037 .003 .161⁎⁎ .026⁎⁎
−0.001 −0.026 .042 .003 .150* .026⁎⁎
−0.012 −0.016 .035 .003 .161⁎⁎ .026⁎⁎
.086 .007
.115* .013*
.054 .003
.087 −0.141* .011 .029
.092 −0.118 .022 .029
.079 −0.123 .015 .029
.179* .032*
.064 .001
.101 .010
in our sample had relatively low neuroticism (M = 2.93 for employees in formal stages; M = 2.72 for employees in probation periods), perhaps because the organization had excluded highly neurotic individuals from employment. However, an undergraduate sample from King et al. (1996) also found neuroticism to have a nonsignificant relationship with creativity (e.g. M = 3.86 on a 7-point scale). Thus, we recommend future investigations for the neuroticism-creative behavior relationship.
5. General discussion 5.1. Theoretical contributions Organizational researchers have long used laboratory studies to empirically examine relationships between personality and creative behavior (e.g., Feist, 1998; Sung & Choi, 2009), but have provided inadequate field evidence. In this study, we use supervisor-rated creative behavior to build a model of FFM personality and creativity in probation and formal employment stages. We find that in probation stages, openness to experience, conscientiousness, and agreeableness are positively related to creative behavior. In formal employment stages, openness to experience, conscientiousness, and extraversion are positively related to creative behavior. Our data add new knowledge about how personality predicts creativity at different job stages. Our results suggest that neuroticism is not significantly related to creative behavior, but Puryear et al. (2017); Table 7) indicated that emotional stability is also unrelated to creativity. Our finding of a nonsignificant relationship may have occurred because the individuals
We contribute to the creativity literature by showing that personality traits may have different relationships with creative behavior at different job stages. Puryear et al.'s (2017) meta-analysis showed a positive omnibus correlation between extraversion and creativity (r = 0.14), but we showed that extraversion is nonsignificantly correlated with creativity in probation stages. Our organizational samples replicate studies showing that openness to experience is positively correlated with creative ability (Feist, 1998). We studied employees working in high-technology organizations, where creative behavior is essential for job performance, accordingly our results support Thoresen et al. (2004)) finding that conscientiousness is strongly correlated with job performance. Thus, we can assert that openness to experience and conscientiousness are positively associated with creative behaviors, at least in organizations requiring high
Table 3 Descriptive statistics and correlation analysis in the probation period subsample (n2=202).
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9
Age Sex Education Extraversion Agreeableness Conscientiousness Openness Neuroticism Creative behavior
M
SD
1
2
3
4
27.27 0.42 2.82 4.91 5.81 5.56 5.34 2.72 4.35
4.02 0.50 0.49 0.67 0.60 0.67 0.71 0.75 0.78
−0.19** −0.04 .17* .03 .17* .11 −0.17* .12
−0.03 −0.07 .11 .03 −0.15* .00 −0.14*
.02 .06 .04 .14* −0.07 .02
.30** .30** .41** −0.31** .05
5
6
7
8
9
.27**
.24** .48**
−0.24** −0.47** −0.43**
.28** .30** .38** −0.27**
.03 .18* .17* .31** −0.10
.59** .47** −0.36** .17*
.40** −0.51** .18*
−0.20** .33**
−0.12
Note: Sex: 0 = male, 1= female; Education: 1 = middle school, 2 = college, 3 = bachelor, 4 = above bachelor. The lower triangular correlation matrix (below the diagonal) is the normal Pearson correlation coefficients. The upper triangular correlation matrix (above the diagonal) is the partial correlation analysis controlling for age, sex, educational level, and creative ability,. ⁎ p < .05. ⁎⁎ p < .01 (two-tailed). 4
Personality and Individual Differences xxx (xxxx) xxxx
X. Yao and R. Li
creativity. Third, we provide new insights into the role of personality at different job stages. That is, agreeableness relates to creative behavior, but only in probation periods; extraversion relates to creative behavior only in formal employment periods. We argue that the difference occurs partially because the two stages have different levels of job certainty and conflict management preferences. The findings have implications for personnel recruitment and training. For example, organizations might promote creativity by encouraging employees to display FFM personality aspects at appropriate job stages.
psychology, 78, 715–722. Batey, M., Chamorro-Premuzic, T., & Furnham, A. (2010). Individual differences in ideational behavior: Can the big five and psychometric intelligence predict creativity scores. Creativity Research Journal, 22, 90–97. Chamorro-Premuzic, T., & Reichenbacher, L. (2008). Effects of personality and threat of evaluation on divergent and convergent thinking. Journal of Research in Personality, 42, 1095–1101. Costa, P., & McCrae, R. (1992). Professional manual: Revised neo personality inventory (NEO-PI-R) and neo five-factor inventory (NEO-FFI). Odessa FL Psychological Assessment Resources. De Caroli, M., & Sagone, E. (2009). Creative thinking and big five factors of personality measured in italian schoolchildren. Psychological Reports, 105, 791–803. Feist, G. (1998). A meta-analysis of personality in scientific and artistic creativity. Personality and Social Psychology Review, 2, 290–309. Furnham, A., Crump, J., Batey, M., & Chamorro-Premuzic, T. (2009). Personality and ability predictors of the “consequences” test of divergent thinking in a large nonstudent sample. Personality and Individual Differences, 46, 536–540. Howell, J., & Higgins, C. (1990). Champions of technological innovation. Administrative Science Quarterly, 35, 317–341. Hunter, S., Bedell, K., & Mumford, M. (2007). Climate for creativity: A quantitative review. Creativity Research Journal, 19, 69–90. Jehn, K., & Mannix, E. (2001). The dynamic nature of conflict: A longitudinal study of intragroup conflict and group performance. Academy of Management Journal, 44, 238–251. Karwowski, M., & Lebuda, I. (2016). The big five, the huge two, and creative self-beliefs: A meta-analysis. Psychology of Aesthetics, Creativity, and the Arts, 10, 214. King, L., McKee Walker, L., & Broyles, S. (1996). Creativity and the five-factor model. Journal of Research in Personality, 203, 189–203. Kline, P., & Lapham, S. L. (1992). Personality and faculty in british universities. Personality and Individual Differences, 13, 855–857. Ludwig, A. (1998). Method and madness in the arts and sciences. Creativity Research Journal, 11, 93–101. Martindale, C. (1999). Biological bases of creativity. In Handbook of creativity, 137–152. McHenry, J. J., Hough, L. M., Toquam, J. L., Hanson, M. A., & Ashworth, S. (1990). Project a validity results: The relationship between predictor and criterion domains. Personnel Psychology, 43, 335–354. Mednick, S. (1962). The associative basis of the creative process. Psychological Review, 69, 220–232. Pfeifer, C. (2010). Work effort during and after employment probation: Evidence from German personnel data. Jahrbücher für Nationalökonomie und Statistik, 230, 77–91. Puryear, J., Kettler, T., & Rinn, A. (2017). Relationships of personality to differential conceptions of creativity: A systematic review. Psychology of Aesthetics, Creativity, and the Arts, 11, 59–68. Raja, U., Johns, G., & Ntalianis, F. (2004). The impact of personality on psychological contracts. Academy of Management Journal, 47, 350–367. Riphahn, R., & Thalmaier, A. (2001). Behavioral effects of probation periods: An analysis of worker absenteeism. Jahrbucher fur Nationalokonomie und Statistik, 221, 179–201. Saucier, G. (1994). Mini-markers: A brief version of Goldberg’s unipolar big-five markers. Journal of Personality Assessment, 63, 506–516. Shalley, C. E., & Zhou, J. (2008). Organizational creativity research: A historical overview. In J. Zhou, & C. E. Shalley (Eds.). Handbook of organizational creativity (pp. 95– 123). New York: Taylor and Francis. Strickland, S., & Towler, A. (2011). Correlates of creative behaviour: The role of leadership and personal factors. Canadian Journal of Administrative Sciences, 28, 41–51. Sung, S., & Choi, J. (2009). Do big five personality factors affect individual creativity? the moderating role of extrinsic motivation. Social Behavior and Personality, 37, 941–956. Thoresen, C., Bradley, J., Bliese, P., & Thoresen, J. (2004). The big five personality traits and individual job performance growth trajectories in maintenance and transitional job stages. Journal of Applied Psychology, 89, 835–853. Torrance, E. (1966). The torrance tests of creative thinking. norms, technical manual. research edition. Verbal and Figural Tests (Forms A and B). Williams, D. (2004). Personality, attitude, and leader influences on divergent thinking and creativity in organizations. European Journal of Innovation Management, 7, 187–204. Woods, A., Lievens, F., De Fruyt, F., & Wille, B. (2013). Personality across working life: The longitudinal and reciprocal influences of personality on work. Journal of Organizational Behavior, 34, 7–25. Zhou, J., & George, J. (2001). When job dissatisfaction leads to creativity: Encouraging the expression of voice. Academy of Management journal, 44, 682–696.
5.2. Limitations and future directions A major limitation of our study is that it lacks a longitudinal design to observe within-subject changes from probation to formal employment periods. We purposely chose the between-subject design to prevent supervisor participants from ascertaining our research purposes when they completed the same assessment questionnaire twice. The design is inevitably limited, because variances between the two subsamples are intertwined with other factors. However, we tried to alleviate concerns about confounding factors by collecting our data in identical settings. Therefore, despite the limited study design, we are confident that the samples and measures provided reliable results. Another limitation is that personality may be more related to production-based and self-reported creativity measures than to ideation and externally rated measures (Puryear et al., 2017). The creative behavior scale we used was externally rated and mainly assessed creative ideation. Thus, the method effect needs further research. We have two recommendations for future research. First, our study shows that the pattern of the relationship between personality and employees’ creative behavior differs between probation stage and formal employment stage. We recommend future research investigate the moderation effect of job tenure on the relationship between FFM personality and creativity. Considering the possible information loss by using categorical variables, continuous measurement for job tenure, such as month of employment is recommend. Second, we also recommend future investigations for the relationship between neuroticism and creative behavior, the findings for this relationship are still mixed. We suggest future research using a sample of workers who perform emotional labor, such as online call center servers. Funding This Paper was funded by The National Natural Science Foundation of China (no: 31671121, 31200792). References Aguilar-Alonso, A. (1996). Personality and creativity. Personality and Individual Differences, 21, 959–969. Amabile, T. M. (1996). Creativity in context. Boulder, CO: Westview Press. Anderson, N., Potočnik, K., & Zhou, J. (2014). Innovation and creativity in organizations: A state-of-the-science review, prospective commentary, and guiding framework. Journal of management, 40, 1297–1333. Barrick, M. R., Mount, M. K., & Strauss, J. P. (1993). Conscientiousness and performance of sales representatives: Test of the mediating effects of goal setting. Journal of applied
5
Contents lists available at ScienceDirect
Personality and Individual Differences journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/paid
Big five personality traits as predictors of employee creativity in probation and formal employment periods ⁎
Xiang Yao , Rui Li Shool of Psychological and Cognitive Sciences and Beijing Key Laboratory of Behavior and Mental Health, Peking University, Beijing, 100871, China
A R T I C LE I N FO
A B S T R A C T
Keywords: Creativity Formal employment period Openness to experience Personality Probation period
This study investigate how five factor model (FFM) personality traits predict employee creativity in probation and formal employment periods. An examination of two subsamples of employees working in research and development department shows that: 1) Openness to experience and conscientiousness correlate with creativity in both job stages; 2) agreeableness correlates with creativity in probation periods; (3) extraversion correlates with creativity in formal employment periods. The findings add new knowledge about how personality predicts creativity at different job stages.
1. Introduction 1.1. Theoretical background Employees show creativity by generating “new and potentially valuable ideas concerning new products, services, manufacturing methods, and administrative processes” (Zhou & George, 2001, p.682) that promote organizational innovation and effectiveness (Amabile, 1996). Because creativity is so essential in school and at the workplace, its antecedents have long intrigued researchers (Hunter, Bedell & Mumford, 2007). The five-factor model of personality (FFM) is commonly used to study how creativity relates to personality (Puryear, Kettler & Rinn, 2017). Results have shown that creativity is correlated with openness to experience (Chamorro-Premuzic & Reichenbacher, 2008; King, McKee Walker & Broyles, 1996) and extraversion (Aguilar-Alonso, 1996; King et al., 1996). Although many studies have investigated the link between FFM personality and creativity (e.g., De Caroli & Sagone, 2009; King et al., 1996), the relationship between personality and employee creative behavior needs to be further enriched in workplace. Organizational performance, business success and company longer-term survival are increasingly determined by employee creativity (Anderson, Potočnik & Zhou, 2014). Most of the studies examining the link between FFM personality and creativity in work settings restricted their focus to single trait (e.g., openness to experience, Strickland & Towler, 2011; Williams, 2004), or used ability tests to measure employee creativity (e.g., Furnham, Crump, Batey & Chamorro-Premuzic, 2009) that fail to represent real problem-solving or idea implement behavior.
⁎
Moreover, several empirical studies of FFM and employee creativity in work settings were restricted to formal employee samples (Furnham et al., 2009; Shalley & Zhou, 2008) and overlooked the essential probation period that precedes formal employment. However, we suggest that personality traits play different roles during the two job stages. According to trait activation theory, the distinct characteristics of the two job stages perceived by employees serve to activate traits in different ways (Woods, Lievens, De Fruyt & Wille, 2013), resulting in different associations of personality traits with employee creativity. Organizations use probation periods to test employee fit, so employees tend to adjust their behavior to ensure that they will obtain continuation contracts (Pfeifer, 2010; Riphahn & Thalmaier, 2001). In the formal employment period, they are fulltime employees, with more job security and established relationships with coworkers, so their personality traits will have different relationships with their behavior. For example, extraversion is correlated with performance in formal employment stage but not in probation stage (Thoresen, Bradley, Bliese & Thoresen, 2004). Therefore, we need more field evidence from business organizations to examine how FFM traits affect employee creativity in probation and formal employment periods. 1.2. Hypotheses Among FFM factors, openness to experience indicates intellectual curiosity, imagination, liberal attitudes, and originality (Costa & McCrae, 1992) typical of imaginative, independent thinking individuals who prefer the variety and depth of experience essential in creative processes. Openness to experience strongly and positively correlates
Corresponding author. E-mail addresses: [email protected] (X. Yao), [email protected] (R. Li).
https://doi.org/10.1016/j.paid.2020.109914 Received 2 April 2018; Received in revised form 10 February 2020; Accepted 11 February 2020 0191-8869/ © 2020 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
Please cite this article as: Xiang Yao and Rui Li, Personality and Individual Differences, https://doi.org/10.1016/j.paid.2020.109914
Personality and Individual Differences xxx (xxxx) xxxx
X. Yao and R. Li
agreeableness should correlate with creativity in probation stages: H4. : Agreeableness will be positively related to creative behavior in probation periods.
with creative self-beliefs and outcomes (Karwowski & Lebuda, 2016; Puryear et al., 2017). It enhances creative thinking by allowing individuals to generate novel combinations of ideas and concepts (Mednick, 1962) and is correlated with creativity, although the findings were outside organizational settings (King et al., 1996; Sung & Choi, 2009). Although probation and formal employment periods differ in job certainty levels, we predict that openness to experience will be positively associated with creative behavior in both periods, leading to our first hypothesis: H1. : Openness to experience will be positively correlated with creative behavior in probation (H1a) and formal employment periods (H1b).
Neuroticism indicates tendencies to be anxious, defensive, insecure, and emotional (Costa & McCrae, 1992). It includes withdrawal and volatility subcomponents, and has mixed relationships, sometimes positive (Martindale, 1999), negative (Chamorro-Premuzic & Reichenbacher, 2008), or nonsignificant (King et al., 1996) relationships with creativity often depending on domains. Emotional instability has been shown to contribute to creativity in domains requiring intuition, subjectivity, and emotion expression, but not in domains requiring logical, objective, and formal forms of expression (Ludwig, 1998). We studied employees who design and develop new products. Their work requires dedication, persistent effort, logic, objectivity, and formal expression. Employees who have high withdrawal and volatility levels will lack such qualities. Moreover, high neuroticism is associated with an avoidant approach, in which people select activities, tasks and strategies to minimize threat of failure (Woods et al., 2013), so they are less likely to seek novel task approaches. Thus, we expect neuroticism to negatively affect creativity in both job stages: H5. : Neuroticism will be negatively related to creative behaviors in probation (H5a) and formal employment periods (H5b).
Conscientiousness, another FFM characteristic, refers to self-discipline, goal-setting, and personal reliability (Costa & McCrae, 1992), but previous studies have generated inconsistent findings regarding its effect on creativity. Highly conscientious individuals tend to be reliable and self-controlled, to focus on desires to achieve, obey rules, and conform to norms, and are less likely to show creative behaviors (Raja, Johns & Ntalianis, 2004). Individuals who lack conscientiousness tend to disregard instructions, avoid order, act impulsively, and are therefore more likely to identify novel and useful conceptions of ideas, task approaches, and problem solving (Batey, Chamorro-Premuzic & Furnham, 2010). However, persistence, a main characteristic of conscientiousness, has been shown to enhance innovation in workplaces that encourage or champion ideas (Howell & Higgins, 1990). We argue that organizations normally consider creative behavior as a performance indicator reflecting both mental ability and problem-solving skills to fully implement creative ideas. Conscientiousness strongly and positively correlates with job performance across various jobs and occupations (Barrick, Mount & Strauss, 1993; McHenry, Hough, Toquam, Hanson & Ashworth, 1990). Scientist are higher on conscientiousness than nonscientist (Kline & Lapham, 1992). Therefore, conscientiousness should benefit creativity in both probationary and formal employment job stages. H2. : Conscientiousness will be positively related to creative behavior in probation (H2a) and formal employment periods (H2b).
3. Methods 3.1. Samples and procedures We collected responses from 507 employees who design and develop new products in four Chinese mobile communication companies. The employees need to turn creative ideas into products and apply for patents to complete their work, so creativity is crucial to their work performance, and the companies are ideal sites for our study. Our data included a subsample of 202 employees in probation periods and 305 employees in formal employment periods. Participants voluntarily agreed to participate. The first subsample included 305 formal employees (223 male) from 403 initially sampled respondents, a response rate of 75.7%. Participants averaged 28.7 years-old (SD = 3.91). They had worked for an average of 33.4 months (SD = 29.35) in their current positions and an average of 61.9 months (SD = 47.93) in their organizations. The second subsample included 202 probationary employees (116 male) from 366 initially sampled respondents. They averaged 26.52 years-old (SD = 2.98) and had held their jobs for an average of 4.47 months (SD = 1.95). The sampling procedure consisted of two time waves to alleviate potential common method biases caused by transient mood states and memory accessibility. At time 1, one month before the annual performance review, participants in the formal employment subsample assessed their creative ability and personality. At time 2, one month after time 1, supervisors rated participants’ creative behavior. For job candidates in the probation period subsample, time wave 1 occurred after they passed their job interview. At that time, they assessed their personality. Time 2 occurred about three months later for those who were recruited for formal employment by their companies. At that time, their supervisors rated their creative behavior. Probation periods commonly last three months in China.
Extraversion indicates tendencies to be active, energetic, exhibitionistic, expressive, and gregarious. Highly extraverted individuals tend to be active and passionate risk-takers (Costa & McCrae, 1992) who think divergently to stimulate excitement and sensation, with positive effects on creativity (Batey et al., 2010). Risk-taking behaviors are the key mechanism for promoting creativity. Probation and formal job stages mostly differ in job certainty levels, so we concur that extraversion should correlate with creative behavior, but only in formal employment stages. In probation periods, extraverts may be overwhelmed by new information-intensive situations and avoid risk-taking actions that would compromise job certainty. In formal employment stages, they have gone beyond the need to adapt and can seek creative, novel ways to perform in relatively familiar working conditions. H3. : Extraversion will be positively related to creative behavior in formal employment periods. Findings are mixed regarding the relationship between agreeableness and creativity. Agreeableness was found to positively predict creativity for individuals who lack extrinsic motivation (Sung & Choi, 2009). Agreeableness have weak omnibus correlation with creativity (Puryear et al., 2017). Agreeable individuals tend to be courteous, trusting, and cooperative (Costa & McCrae, 1992), so that they are more likely to resolve interpersonal conflicts and seek information through intragroup processes. Thus, agreeableness is important during probation periods that may feature strong process conflict (Jehn & Mannix, 2001). Agreeableness promotes more harmonious workplaces in probation periods, so that employees can focus on creative activities rather than on interpersonal conflicts. In formal employment, however, individuals have adapted to their surroundings and confront fewer conflicts, so agreeableness has less impact on creativity. Accordingly,
3.2. Measures Creative ability. In the subsample of employees in formal employment stages, we used two three-minute tasks that are widely-used divergent thinking tests to measure creative ability. In the “just suppose” task, participants are asked to imagine walking on air or flying and then to list as many problems that they can imagine confronting as possible. In the “unusual uses” task, participants list as many unusual 2
Personality and Individual Differences xxx (xxxx) xxxx
X. Yao and R. Li
4.1. Employees in formal employment
uses as possible they can imagine for a cardboard box. Following advised procedure (Torrance, 1966), the tasks were scored for fluency, flexibility, and originality. Fluency was calculated by counting the number of responses. Flexibility was scored by classifying responses into categories and then counting them. Originality was scored by assessing the rarity of responses: answers that appear in fewer than 5% of overall answers were coded 2; answers in fewer than 5% to 10% were coded 1; other ranges were coded 0. Two trained coders first worked independently on 20% of the data. They reached 0.91 and 0.98 agreement regarding flexibility for the two tasks and 0.85 and 0.88 regarding originality. They resolved disagreements through discussion before further coding. The inter-correlations were significant (rfluencyflexibility=0.88; rfluency-originality=0.61; rflexibility-originality =0.53; p <0.01 for all correlations). Finally, we transformed the three scores into zscores to standardize them and obtain a summarized measure of creative ability. Personality. We used the 40-item FFM personality marker from Saucier (1994) to measure extraversion, agreeableness, conscientiousness, neuroticism, and openness to experience. Participants rated how accurately they were described by each item on a seven-point Likert scale (1 = extremely inaccurate, 7 = extremely accurate). Sample items for each of the dimensions are as follows: “Talkative” (for extraversion), “Sympathetic” (for agreeableness), “Organized” (for conscientiousness), “Moddy” (for neuroticism), “Imaginative” (for openness). Scores on each scale were averaged to create indexes of the five personality traits. Cronbach's alpha for extraversion was 0.75; for agreeableness was 0.72; for conscientiousness was 0.77; for neuroticism was 0.75; and for openness to experience was 0.76. Creative behavior. Supervisors assessed employees’ creative behavior on a 13-item scale from Zhou and George (2001). A sample item states, “Suggests new ways to achieve goals or objectives.” Responses were made on a seven-point Likert scale (1 = not at all characteristic, 7 = very characteristic). The average score of the 13 items was the measure of creative behavior. Cronbach's alpha for the scale was 0.92.
Table 1 shows descriptive statistics, correlation analysis, and partial correlation results for the subsample of formal employment. Creative ability was correlated with creative behavior (r = 0.17, p <0.01). As predicted, openness to experience (H1b), conscientiousness (H2b), and extraversion (H3) were positively related to creative behavior (r = 0.21, p <0.01; r = 0.16, p <0.01; r = 0.13, p <0.05, sequentially). Even when we controlled for creative ability, we found openness to experience (H1b), conscientiousness (H2b), and extraversion (H3) to be positively related to creative behavior (rpartial = 0.20, p <0.01; rpartial = 0.14, p <0.01; rpartial = 0.11, p <0.05, respectively). Agreeableness and neuroticism were not significantly correlated with creative behavior, which contradicts H5b. Table 2 shows results of hierarchical regression analysis to formally test H1b, H2b, H3, and H5b. As control variables, we entered demographics in the first step and creative ability in the second step. In the third step, we added each of the hypothesized five personality traits respectively. We excluded one outlier by the criteria of 3 standard deviations. Table 2 shows that when we controlled for age, sex, educational level, and creative ability, openness to experience had a significant main effect on creative behavior (β = 0.20, p <0.01), explaining an additional 3.9% of variance (H1b). Conscientiousness had a significant main effect on creative behavior (β = 0.15, p <0.05) and explained an additional 2.1% of the variance (H2b). Extraversion had a significant main effect on creative behavior (β = 0.12, p <0.05) and explained an additional 1.3% of the variance (H3b). Therefore, H1b, H2b, and H3b were supported. In addition, neuroticism had a nonsignificant main effect. 4.2. Employees in probation periods Table 3 shows descriptive statistics, correlation analysis, and partial correlation results for the subsample of probationary employees. Openness to experience (H1a), conscientiousness (H2a), and agreeableness (H4) were positively correlated with creative behavior (r = 0.33, p <0.01; r = 0.18, p <0.05; r = 0.17, p <0.05, respectively), but extraversion was not significantly correlated with creative behavior. Neuroticism was negatively but not significantly correlated with creative behavior, contradicting H5a. After controlling for age, sex, and education levels, the partial correlations showed that openness to experience (H1a), conscientiousness (H2a), and agreeableness (H4) were positively correlated with creative behavior (rpartial = 0.31, p <0.01; rpartial = 0.17, p <0.05; rpartial = 0.18, p <0.05, respectively). Table 2 shows results of the formal tests supporting H1a, H2a, and H4. As before, in Step 1, we entered demographics as control variables. The subsample had no measure of creative ability. In Step 2, we added
4. Results We predicted that openness to experience, conscientiousness, and extraversion would be positively correlated with creative behavior for employees in formal employment stages. In contrast, we predicted that openness to experience, conscientiousness, and agreeableness would be positively correlated with creative behavior for employees in probation periods. To test the hypotheses, we separated the two subsamples. We examined H1b, H2b, H3, and H5b with the first subsample and examined H1a, H2a, H4, and H5a with the second subsample.
Table 1 Descriptive statistics and correlation analysis in the formal employment subsample (n1=305).
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10
Age Sex Education Extraversion Agreeableness Conscientiousness Neuroticism Openness Creative behavior Creative ability
M
SD
1
2
3
4
28.67 0.27 3.29 4.59 5.75 5.43 2.93 5.17 3.23 −0.01
3.91 0.44 0.58 0.85 0.64 0.75 0.85 0.74 0.69 2.47
.02 −0.04 −0.05 .07 .21** −0.13* −0.02 .01 .08
−0.03 .09 .14* −0.07 −0.02 −0.08 −0.01 −0.06
.01 .05 .02 −0.12* .05 .06 .05
.32** .28** −0.30** .39** .13* .10
5
6
7
8
9
.27**
.24** .48**
−0.24** −0.47** −0.43**
.28** .30** .38** −0.27**
.11* .08 .14** −0.05 .20**
.50** −0.51** .36** .11 .03
−0.49** .45** .16** .04
−0.38** −0.08 −0.05
.21** .12*
.17**
Note: Sex: 0 = male, 1 = female; Education: 1 = middle school, 2 = college, 3 = bachelor, 4 = above bachelor. The lower triangular correlation matrix (below the diagonal) is the normal Pearson correlation coefficients. The upper triangular correlation matrix (above the diagonal) is the partial correlation analysis, controlling for age, sex, educational level, and creative ability,. ⁎ p < .05. ⁎⁎ p < .01 (two-tailed). 3
Personality and Individual Differences xxx (xxxx) xxxx
X. Yao and R. Li
Table 2 Hierarchical regressions results for personality traits on creative behavior. Openness to experience → Creative behavior
Conscientiousness → Creative behavior
In the formal employment subsample, with control for creative ability (n1=304) Control variables Age −0.006 −0.032 Sex −0.001 −0.004 Education .032 .039 △ R2 .003 .003 Creative ability .138* .162⁎⁎ △ R2 .026⁎⁎ .026⁎⁎ Personality traits △ R2 .200⁎⁎ .147* .039⁎⁎ .021* In the probation period subsample (n2=202) Control variables Age .070 .067 Sex −0.077 −0.130 Education −0.021 .015 △ R2 .029 .029 Personality traits .314⁎⁎ .170* △ R2 .094⁎⁎ .028*
each of the hypothesized five personality traits. Table 2 shows significant effects on creative behavior: openness to experience (β = 0.31, p <0.01) explaining an additional 9.4% of the variance; conscientiousness (β = 0.17, p <0.05) explaining an additional 2.8% of variance; and agreeableness (β = 0.18, p <0.05) explaining an additional 3.2% of variance. Extroversion and neuroticism had nonsignificant main effects.
Agreeableness → Creative behavior
Extroversion → Creative behavior
Neuroticism → Creative behavior
−0.011 −0.027 .037 .003 .161⁎⁎ .026⁎⁎
−0.001 −0.026 .042 .003 .150* .026⁎⁎
−0.012 −0.016 .035 .003 .161⁎⁎ .026⁎⁎
.086 .007
.115* .013*
.054 .003
.087 −0.141* .011 .029
.092 −0.118 .022 .029
.079 −0.123 .015 .029
.179* .032*
.064 .001
.101 .010
in our sample had relatively low neuroticism (M = 2.93 for employees in formal stages; M = 2.72 for employees in probation periods), perhaps because the organization had excluded highly neurotic individuals from employment. However, an undergraduate sample from King et al. (1996) also found neuroticism to have a nonsignificant relationship with creativity (e.g. M = 3.86 on a 7-point scale). Thus, we recommend future investigations for the neuroticism-creative behavior relationship.
5. General discussion 5.1. Theoretical contributions Organizational researchers have long used laboratory studies to empirically examine relationships between personality and creative behavior (e.g., Feist, 1998; Sung & Choi, 2009), but have provided inadequate field evidence. In this study, we use supervisor-rated creative behavior to build a model of FFM personality and creativity in probation and formal employment stages. We find that in probation stages, openness to experience, conscientiousness, and agreeableness are positively related to creative behavior. In formal employment stages, openness to experience, conscientiousness, and extraversion are positively related to creative behavior. Our data add new knowledge about how personality predicts creativity at different job stages. Our results suggest that neuroticism is not significantly related to creative behavior, but Puryear et al. (2017); Table 7) indicated that emotional stability is also unrelated to creativity. Our finding of a nonsignificant relationship may have occurred because the individuals
We contribute to the creativity literature by showing that personality traits may have different relationships with creative behavior at different job stages. Puryear et al.'s (2017) meta-analysis showed a positive omnibus correlation between extraversion and creativity (r = 0.14), but we showed that extraversion is nonsignificantly correlated with creativity in probation stages. Our organizational samples replicate studies showing that openness to experience is positively correlated with creative ability (Feist, 1998). We studied employees working in high-technology organizations, where creative behavior is essential for job performance, accordingly our results support Thoresen et al. (2004)) finding that conscientiousness is strongly correlated with job performance. Thus, we can assert that openness to experience and conscientiousness are positively associated with creative behaviors, at least in organizations requiring high
Table 3 Descriptive statistics and correlation analysis in the probation period subsample (n2=202).
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9
Age Sex Education Extraversion Agreeableness Conscientiousness Openness Neuroticism Creative behavior
M
SD
1
2
3
4
27.27 0.42 2.82 4.91 5.81 5.56 5.34 2.72 4.35
4.02 0.50 0.49 0.67 0.60 0.67 0.71 0.75 0.78
−0.19** −0.04 .17* .03 .17* .11 −0.17* .12
−0.03 −0.07 .11 .03 −0.15* .00 −0.14*
.02 .06 .04 .14* −0.07 .02
.30** .30** .41** −0.31** .05
5
6
7
8
9
.27**
.24** .48**
−0.24** −0.47** −0.43**
.28** .30** .38** −0.27**
.03 .18* .17* .31** −0.10
.59** .47** −0.36** .17*
.40** −0.51** .18*
−0.20** .33**
−0.12
Note: Sex: 0 = male, 1= female; Education: 1 = middle school, 2 = college, 3 = bachelor, 4 = above bachelor. The lower triangular correlation matrix (below the diagonal) is the normal Pearson correlation coefficients. The upper triangular correlation matrix (above the diagonal) is the partial correlation analysis controlling for age, sex, educational level, and creative ability,. ⁎ p < .05. ⁎⁎ p < .01 (two-tailed). 4
Personality and Individual Differences xxx (xxxx) xxxx
X. Yao and R. Li
creativity. Third, we provide new insights into the role of personality at different job stages. That is, agreeableness relates to creative behavior, but only in probation periods; extraversion relates to creative behavior only in formal employment periods. We argue that the difference occurs partially because the two stages have different levels of job certainty and conflict management preferences. The findings have implications for personnel recruitment and training. For example, organizations might promote creativity by encouraging employees to display FFM personality aspects at appropriate job stages.
psychology, 78, 715–722. Batey, M., Chamorro-Premuzic, T., & Furnham, A. (2010). Individual differences in ideational behavior: Can the big five and psychometric intelligence predict creativity scores. Creativity Research Journal, 22, 90–97. Chamorro-Premuzic, T., & Reichenbacher, L. (2008). Effects of personality and threat of evaluation on divergent and convergent thinking. Journal of Research in Personality, 42, 1095–1101. Costa, P., & McCrae, R. (1992). Professional manual: Revised neo personality inventory (NEO-PI-R) and neo five-factor inventory (NEO-FFI). Odessa FL Psychological Assessment Resources. De Caroli, M., & Sagone, E. (2009). Creative thinking and big five factors of personality measured in italian schoolchildren. Psychological Reports, 105, 791–803. Feist, G. (1998). A meta-analysis of personality in scientific and artistic creativity. Personality and Social Psychology Review, 2, 290–309. Furnham, A., Crump, J., Batey, M., & Chamorro-Premuzic, T. (2009). Personality and ability predictors of the “consequences” test of divergent thinking in a large nonstudent sample. Personality and Individual Differences, 46, 536–540. Howell, J., & Higgins, C. (1990). Champions of technological innovation. Administrative Science Quarterly, 35, 317–341. Hunter, S., Bedell, K., & Mumford, M. (2007). Climate for creativity: A quantitative review. Creativity Research Journal, 19, 69–90. Jehn, K., & Mannix, E. (2001). The dynamic nature of conflict: A longitudinal study of intragroup conflict and group performance. Academy of Management Journal, 44, 238–251. Karwowski, M., & Lebuda, I. (2016). The big five, the huge two, and creative self-beliefs: A meta-analysis. Psychology of Aesthetics, Creativity, and the Arts, 10, 214. King, L., McKee Walker, L., & Broyles, S. (1996). Creativity and the five-factor model. Journal of Research in Personality, 203, 189–203. Kline, P., & Lapham, S. L. (1992). Personality and faculty in british universities. Personality and Individual Differences, 13, 855–857. Ludwig, A. (1998). Method and madness in the arts and sciences. Creativity Research Journal, 11, 93–101. Martindale, C. (1999). Biological bases of creativity. In Handbook of creativity, 137–152. McHenry, J. J., Hough, L. M., Toquam, J. L., Hanson, M. A., & Ashworth, S. (1990). Project a validity results: The relationship between predictor and criterion domains. Personnel Psychology, 43, 335–354. Mednick, S. (1962). The associative basis of the creative process. Psychological Review, 69, 220–232. Pfeifer, C. (2010). Work effort during and after employment probation: Evidence from German personnel data. Jahrbücher für Nationalökonomie und Statistik, 230, 77–91. Puryear, J., Kettler, T., & Rinn, A. (2017). Relationships of personality to differential conceptions of creativity: A systematic review. Psychology of Aesthetics, Creativity, and the Arts, 11, 59–68. Raja, U., Johns, G., & Ntalianis, F. (2004). The impact of personality on psychological contracts. Academy of Management Journal, 47, 350–367. Riphahn, R., & Thalmaier, A. (2001). Behavioral effects of probation periods: An analysis of worker absenteeism. Jahrbucher fur Nationalokonomie und Statistik, 221, 179–201. Saucier, G. (1994). Mini-markers: A brief version of Goldberg’s unipolar big-five markers. Journal of Personality Assessment, 63, 506–516. Shalley, C. E., & Zhou, J. (2008). Organizational creativity research: A historical overview. In J. Zhou, & C. E. Shalley (Eds.). Handbook of organizational creativity (pp. 95– 123). New York: Taylor and Francis. Strickland, S., & Towler, A. (2011). Correlates of creative behaviour: The role of leadership and personal factors. Canadian Journal of Administrative Sciences, 28, 41–51. Sung, S., & Choi, J. (2009). Do big five personality factors affect individual creativity? the moderating role of extrinsic motivation. Social Behavior and Personality, 37, 941–956. Thoresen, C., Bradley, J., Bliese, P., & Thoresen, J. (2004). The big five personality traits and individual job performance growth trajectories in maintenance and transitional job stages. Journal of Applied Psychology, 89, 835–853. Torrance, E. (1966). The torrance tests of creative thinking. norms, technical manual. research edition. Verbal and Figural Tests (Forms A and B). Williams, D. (2004). Personality, attitude, and leader influences on divergent thinking and creativity in organizations. European Journal of Innovation Management, 7, 187–204. Woods, A., Lievens, F., De Fruyt, F., & Wille, B. (2013). Personality across working life: The longitudinal and reciprocal influences of personality on work. Journal of Organizational Behavior, 34, 7–25. Zhou, J., & George, J. (2001). When job dissatisfaction leads to creativity: Encouraging the expression of voice. Academy of Management journal, 44, 682–696.
5.2. Limitations and future directions A major limitation of our study is that it lacks a longitudinal design to observe within-subject changes from probation to formal employment periods. We purposely chose the between-subject design to prevent supervisor participants from ascertaining our research purposes when they completed the same assessment questionnaire twice. The design is inevitably limited, because variances between the two subsamples are intertwined with other factors. However, we tried to alleviate concerns about confounding factors by collecting our data in identical settings. Therefore, despite the limited study design, we are confident that the samples and measures provided reliable results. Another limitation is that personality may be more related to production-based and self-reported creativity measures than to ideation and externally rated measures (Puryear et al., 2017). The creative behavior scale we used was externally rated and mainly assessed creative ideation. Thus, the method effect needs further research. We have two recommendations for future research. First, our study shows that the pattern of the relationship between personality and employees’ creative behavior differs between probation stage and formal employment stage. We recommend future research investigate the moderation effect of job tenure on the relationship between FFM personality and creativity. Considering the possible information loss by using categorical variables, continuous measurement for job tenure, such as month of employment is recommend. Second, we also recommend future investigations for the relationship between neuroticism and creative behavior, the findings for this relationship are still mixed. We suggest future research using a sample of workers who perform emotional labor, such as online call center servers. Funding This Paper was funded by The National Natural Science Foundation of China (no: 31671121, 31200792). References Aguilar-Alonso, A. (1996). Personality and creativity. Personality and Individual Differences, 21, 959–969. Amabile, T. M. (1996). Creativity in context. Boulder, CO: Westview Press. Anderson, N., Potočnik, K., & Zhou, J. (2014). Innovation and creativity in organizations: A state-of-the-science review, prospective commentary, and guiding framework. Journal of management, 40, 1297–1333. Barrick, M. R., Mount, M. K., & Strauss, J. P. (1993). Conscientiousness and performance of sales representatives: Test of the mediating effects of goal setting. Journal of applied
5