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| How High-creativity Employee Hinders Team Creativity:A Comparative Perspective of Creativity Dispaprity |
| Ding Lin,Wang Haizhen |
| (Business School, Xi'an International Studies University, Xi'an 710128, China) |
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Abstract Individual creativity is vital for team creativity, but it is difficult for employees with high-creativity to lead the improvement of team creativity in practice.A deep analysis is warranted to explain the paradox and highlight the true value of high-creativity employees.In the research on team creativity, high-creativity employees naturally cause creativity disparity which would affect the attitude and behavior of team members, determine the team interaction process, and is the critical factor influencing team creativity.Thus, it is necessary to study the mechanism of creativity disparity’s effect on team creativity.#br#According to the social comparison theory, on the condition of status-power misalignment, creativity disparity caused by high-creativity employees brings disharmony to the hierarchy structure (team status conflict), and makes it difficult for team creativity to emerge.Because creativity disparity motivates team members to evaluate their relative position in the team by comparing their own creativity with others, the contrast effect of social comparison generates and team members compete with each other for higher status, leading to status conflicts and decreased team creativity.However, social comparison of team members with different creativity levels may also produce an assimilation effect due to team members’ evaluation of the psychological stress based on their own status change in their upward comparison with high-creativity members.According to the cognitive appraisal theory of stress, misaligned status-power provides a chance for members to change their status and high-creativity employees are more likely to be perceived as a threat (contrast effect) rather than a challenge (assimilation effect) by other team members, thus team status conflicts are intensified and team creativity is blocked.To change the dysfunction of team norms caused by status-power misalignment, the explicit intervention of the team leader is necessary.Perspective taking is an effective but neglected moderator between team members’ differences and team creativity.Leaders' perspective taking could decrease power-status misalignment, alleviate status conflicts with solutions for resolving the block effect of high-creativity employees.Thus, through the mediating effect of status-power misalignment, the indirect moderating effect of the leader’s perspective taking provides the answer to how to resolve the above negative path of "creativity disparity→status conflict→team creativity".#br#This study constructs a nested model of mediated mediation and mediated mediation, in an attempt to open a black box of how high-creativity employees inhabit team creativity, involving 106 teams from 6 enterprises in Shaanxi Province.The research results show that under the condition of status-power misalignment, creativity disparity is more likely to induce team status conflict, and team creativity is difficult to emerge; the perspective taking of the team leader could resolve this negative effect, and alleviate the negative mediating effect of status conflict on creativity disparity and team creativity by reducing the level of status-power misalignment.This research clarifies the root causes of negative team performance caused by high-creativity employees and reveals how team leaders reverse the course of events to solve the above dilemmas.The conclusions provide some inspiration for the innovation management of enterprises and teams.Moreover, motivated information processing theory proposes that team creativity is the joint contribution of individual creativity and related team processes.This study clarifies the mechanism of why and how high-creativity employees hinder team creativity, which enriches the research of motivated information processing theory, and also expands the application field of social comparison theory.#br#Implications arising from the above analysis are listed in two aspects.First, employees with high creativity can be regarded as a necessary condition rather than a sufficient condition for team creativity.Therefore, on the one hand, organizations should enhance the creativity of team members through training, reduce differences in creativity, and weaken comparative effects; on the other hand, there should be a fair and legal hierarchical structure in an organization, and the capable are superior to the mediocre, so that moral incompatibility and incompetence can be avoided, the assimilation effect of social comparison can be stimulated, and employees with high creativity can play their role.Second, organizations should encourage team leaders to empathize, break through fixed cognitive paradigms, and pay attention to team leaders' perspective taking so as to alleviate conflicts among team members.#br#
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Received: 08 January 2023
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