From creative process engagement to performance: bidirectional support

Purpose The purpose of this paper is to explore the effect of creative process engagement on employees’ in-role performance, and does so by considering the support that employees received from and given to their supervisors. Design/methodology/approach Using data from 540 questionnaires collected in China, this paper conducts a hierarchical regression analysis to test the proposed model. Findings Creative process engagement positively affects employees’ in-role performance. However, the moderating effect of receiving support on the above relationship is not significant. Instead, it is the interaction of receiving support from and giving it to supervisors that moderates the relationship between creative process engagement and in-role performance. Research limitations/implications The study has some contributions to the conservation of resource (COR) theory. The authors find that acquiring new resources such as receiving support from supervisors is not always effective. The acquisition process of resources should be considered with the investment process of resources. According to the COR theory, people invest resources to gain resources and protect themselves from losing resources or to recover from resource loss (Halbesleben et al. , 2014). The findings of the study show that employees investing resources is not just for gaining resources. Sometimes, they invest resources such as giving support to supervisors to remain a relatively balanced relationship. Practical implications Companies can encourage employees to place more attention on creative process engagement to improve in-role performance. In addition, when offering support to employees, managers should consider whether the employees are able to give it back in response to the received support, and distribute their support to employees accordingly. Originality/value This paper explored employee’s engagement at creative process in a more novel way and clarified the relative effect of creative process engagement on in-role performance. Also, this paper was the first to pay attention to the bidirectional nature of supervisor support.