Reexamining the relationship between extrinsic rewards and creativity: a study from the creative process engagement perspective

Abstract

Empirical findings concerning the effects of extrinsic rewards on employee creativity have been controversial and have focused mainly on the theoretical mechanism of intrinsic motivation. Although intrinsic motivation is a primary impetus for creativity, generating creative outputs is a process that requires a sequence of creative endeavors. Drawing from the componential theory of creativity, this study proposes a positive relationship between extrinsic rewards and creativity via creative process engagement. Additionally, two types of employee characteristics, i.e. person-job fit and cognitive flexibility, are important contingency factors affecting the reward–creativity relationship. Our empirical analyses of data collected from 228 supervisor-subordinate dyads demonstrate the mediating role of creative process engagement in the reward–creativity relationship. Moreover, employees with high levels of person-job fit and cognitive flexibility are found to have the highest levels of creative process engagement and, in turn, the greatest creativity when motivated by extrinsic rewards for creativity. These findings have several theoretical and managerial implications related to reward–creativity research and practice.

Keywords:

• Extrinsic rewards
• creativity
• creative process engagement
• person-job fit
• cognitive flexibility

Conflict of interest

The authors declare that they have no conflict of interest.

Data availability statement

The data that support the findings of this study are openly available in the online supplement at https://osf.io/qwdv4/?view_only=c98259dcd4064a36b26851e851f2756b.

Notes

1 We provided a table with studies using employee samples examining the relationship between ERC and creativity on the online supplement (https://osf.io/djvz9/?view_only=7a8c80a7bf724231b55f4621c368d572).

2 To capture the extent to which employees perceived that creativity was recognized and rewarding by the organization, we used a perceptual measure including both tangible (e.g., financial incentives) and intangible rewards (e.g., recognition) with the “degree” anchor, which is consistent with previous research on extrinsic rewards for creativity (e.g., Baer et al., 2003; George & Zhou, 2002; Li et al., 2017; Malik et al., 2015).

Additional information

Funding

This research was funded by the National Natural Science Foundation of China (72110107002; 71974021; 72132003; 72202096).