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Age and creativity at work
The interplay between job resources, age and
idea creativity
Carmen Binnewies
Work and Organizational Psychology, University of Konstanz,
Konstanz, Germany
Sandra Ohly
Work and Organizational Psychology, University of Frankfurt,
Frankfurt, Germany, and
Cornelia Niessen
Work and Organizational Psychology, University of Konstanz,
Konstanz, Germany
Abstract
Purpose – The purspose of this study is to examine the interplay between job resources (job control
and support for creativity from coworkers and supervisors), age and creativity at work. Job control
and support for creativity are assumed to benefit idea creativity and to moderate the relationship
between age and idea creativity.
Design/methodology/approach – A sample of 117 nurses completed questionnaire measures and
reported a creative idea they recently had at work. Three subject matter experts rated the creativity of
the ideas. Hierarchical regression analyses were used to test hypotheses.
Findings – Job control and support for creativity as well as age were unrelated to idea creativity.
However, job control and support for creativity moderated the relationship between age and idea
creativity. Age was positively related to idea creativity under high job control and negatively related
to idea creativity under low job control and low support for creativity.
Research limitations/implications – A potentially selective sample due to systematic drop-outs
and a selection effect of older nurses might limit the generalizability of our results. Future research
should examine the mechanisms that explain the moderating effect of job resources in the relationship
between age and performance.
Practical implications – Older employees’ creativity at work can be raised by fostering support for
creativity from coworkers and supervisors. Younger employees should get support to deal with a high
level of job control, because their creativity is lowest under a high level of job control.
Originality/value – Using data from multiple sources the study shows that different constellations
of job resources benefit older and younger employees’ creativity at work.
Keywords Resources, Creative thinking, Older workers, Nurses
Paper type Research paper
Creativity is an important topic in management research (Shalley et al., 2004).
Researchers defined creativity as the generation of new and useful products, practices,
services or procedures (Amabile, 1996; Shalley et al., 2004). Creativity is the
prerequisite for an organization’s innovation, effectiveness, and long-term survival and
The authors are grateful to Anneliese Westermann-Binnewies for help in data collection and to
Bing C. Lin and Sabine Sonnentag for helpful comments on earlier versions of this manuscript.
438
First publ. in: Journal of Managerial Psychology 23 (2008), 4, pp. 438-457
Konstanzer Online-Publikations-System (KOPS)
URL: http://www.ub.uni-konstanz.de/kops/volltexte/2008/5789/
URN: http://nbn-resolving.de/urn:nbn:de:bsz:352-opus-57898
facilitates an organization’s adjustment to shifting environmental conditions and to
take advantage of emerging opportunities (Oldham, 2002; Shalley et al., 2004).
Moreover, creativity can be viewed as a form of active mental health (Warr, 1987,
1994). Warr (1987, 1994) identified five types of active mental health: positive
self-regard (e.g. high self-esteem), competence (e.g. effective coping), aspiration (e.g.
goal directedness), autonomy/independence (e.g. proactivity), and integrated
functioning (i.e. states involving balance and harmony). Because creativity and
proactivity are closely related behaviors (Unsworth and Parker, 2003) and because
individuals can gain positive self-regard, a feeling of competence, and a sense of
independence by solving work problems in a creative way, creativity can be regarded
as one form of active mental health (Warr, 1987, 1994).
Accordingly, researchers and organizations should be highly interested in
identifying the factors that foster employees’ creativity in order to directly stimulate
an organization’s effectiveness and promote employee’s active mental health.
Contextual factors and especially job resources have already been shown as
important for employees’ creativity (Eder and Sawyer, 2007; Harrison et al., 2006;
Shalley et al., 2004). However, relationships between job resources and creativity still
show variability across studies and therefore researchers have called for research on
person-context interactions (Shalley et al., 2004).
As the workforce is aging rapidly in many industrial countries (Hedge et al., 2006;
Kanfer and Ackerman, 2004), it becomes an increasingly important topic to understand
how age is related to different organizational outcomes, such as creativity, and to
examine contextual factors that enable older workers to show their competency at
work.
Meta-analytic research on the relationship between age and creativity has shown
that age is unrelated to creativity (Eder and Sawyer, 2007). However, there is great
variability in the empirical relationships between age and creativity, indicating a need
to search for moderators (Eder and Sawyer, 2007). Findings on the relationship
between age and creativity are in line with meta-analytic results on the relationship
between age and job performance in general. Two meta-analyses have shown that age
and performance are uncorrelated (McEvoy and Cascio, 1989; Waldman and Avolio,
1986). Relationships between age and job performance vary widely across studies
indicating that the relationship is moderated by certain conditions (McEvoy and
Cascio, 1989; Waldman and Avolio, 1986). Several researches examined contextual
factors, such as occupational type (McEvoy and Cascio, 1989; Waldman and Avolio,
1986) or job complexity (Avolio and Waldman, 1990; Sturman, 2003) as moderators in
the relationship between age and performance. However, findings did not fully account
for variations in the age-performance relationship and also had inconclusive findings
(McEvoy and Cascio, 1989; Sturman, 2003). Therefore, researchers called for more
research on contextual moderators, such as workplace characteristics in the
relationship between age and performance (see Avolio and Waldman, 1990;
Sturman, 2003).
In our study, we addressed this gap in the literature and examined two important
job resources for creativity, namely job control and support for creativity as
moderators in the relationship between age and creativity. We focused on these two job
resources, because job control stimulates learning and the application of knowledge
and skills (Parker and Sprigg, 1999; Parker and Wall, 1998), and support for creativity
439
represents instrumental support (Scott and Bruce, 1994; Zhou and George, 2001) and a
climate of psychological safety (Edmondson, 1999). Thus, both job control and support
for creativity should provide an environment that should particularly help older
employees to overcome negative age stereotypes (Finkelstein et al., 1995) and to be
more creative at work.
Our study aims at understanding the interplay between age, job resources and
creativity at work. First, we assume that job control and support for creativity are
beneficial for the creativity of all employees (main effect). Second, we presume that
job resources moderate the relationship between age and creativity (interaction
effect). Specifically, we assume that a high level of job resources helps older
employees to maintain and strengthen their creativity at work (positive relationship
between age and creativity), whereas a low level of job resources should be
detrimental for older employees’ creativity (negative relationship between age and
creativity). Figure 1 gives an overview over the main constructs and the hypothesized
relationships in our study.
Creativity
Creativity is the production of novel and useful ideas (Amabile, 1988). Researchers
distinguished creativity, that is idea generation from innovation, that is the
implementation of these ideas (Amabile, 1988; West, 2002). Ideas are novel when “they
are unique relative to other ideas currently available in the organization” (Shalley et al.,
2004), and they are useful when “they have potential for direct or indirect value to the
organization, either in the short or long-term” (Shalley et al., 2004). Ideas can be
generated by employees in any job, and are either a part of an individual’s job, as is the
case with employees in R&D departments, or are viewed as extra-role behavior, for
example in production workers. Accordingly, Unsworth (2001) differs between jobs
with high or low creative requirements. In this study, we will focus on creativity of
nurses. In nursing jobs, creativity is not required, but nevertheless contributes to
overall organizational functioning (McMurray and Williams, 2004). When examining
creativity as an outcome variable we asked study participants to report a specific
creative idea they recently generated at work and examined predictors of the creativity
of this idea. Therefore, we investigated predictors of the quality of a creative idea as
opposed to many studies that investigated the quantity of ideas or creative behaviors
individuals show at work.
Figure 1.
Theoretical model of the
study
440
Job resources and creativity
Job resources, such as job control and support for creativity from coworkers and
supervisors are generally assumed to promote creativity for two reasons (Amabile,
1988; Woodman et al., 1993). First, job resources directly facilitate creativity because
they provide employees with direct resources for generating creative ideas. For
example, job control offers employees more action opportunities and the possibility to
learn about the task and gain task-related knowledge (Holman and Wall, 2002; Leach
et al., 2003). Support for creativity from coworkers and supervisors provides the
possibility to share and benefit from the knowledge and expertise of others (Madjar
et al., 2002, Oldham and Cummings, 1996). Second, job resources indirectly facilitate
creativity, because they promote an individual’s motivation to generate creative ideas
(Amabile, 1988; Oldham and Cummings, 1996).
The level of job control refers to how much influence a workplace offers over
sequence, time frame, and content of one’s work tasks (Jackson et al., 1993; Parker and
Wall, 1998). Job control enables employees to experiment in the workplace and thereby
allows employees to generate and enhance creative ideas at work (Frese et al., 1999;
Ohly et al., 2006). Furthermore, a high level of job control may make employees feel
more responsible for developing creative ideas in order to solve problems or to improve
work (Frese et al., 1999; Ohly et al., 2006). In addition, job control is assumed to raise
employees’ motivation to work on their tasks (Hackman and Oldham, 1976) and should
accordingly foster creativity at work (Amabile, 1988). The experience of job control in
itself is viewed as a positive experience that energizes employees and facilitates
work-related behavior (Saavedra and Kwun, 2000). Job control is associated with
positive affect (Saavedra and Kwun, 2000) and positive affect in turn is positively
related to creative problem solving (Ashby et al., 1999; Isen et al., 1987).
Previous studies clearly demonstrated that job control is positively related to
employee creativity (Ohly et al., 2006; Shalley et al., 2004). Recently, two meta-analyses
confirmed the positive relationship between job control and employee creativity (Eder
and Sawyer, 2007; Harrison et al., 2006). Therefore, we assume the following
hypothesis:
H1. Job control will be positively related to idea creativity.
Support for creativity from coworkers and supervisors, refers to the extent to which
supervisors and coworkers encourage employees to develop and refine creative ideas
(Madjar et al., 2002). Supervisors and coworkers can provide support for creativity by
showing concern for employees’ feelings or problems and by giving nonjudgmental,
informational feedback (Oldham and Cummings, 1996; Shalley et al., 2004). Receiving
support for creativity suggests that creativity is a desired behavior in the organization
that is valued by the organization and may even be rewarded (Baer and Oldham, 2006).
Thus, support for creativity should raise an individual’s motivation to develop a
creative idea. Furthermore, receiving supportive feedback involves sharing knowledge,
expertise and resources with others (Scott and Bruce, 1994; Zhou and George, 2001).
Consequently, the development of creative ideas may be directly facilitated by support
for creativity form coworkers and supervisors (Scott and Bruce, 1994).
Empirical evidence on the relationship between support for creativity and creativity
is mixed. Numerous studies found a positive relationship between support for
creativity and creativity, whereas other studies failed to support this relationship (for
441
an overview see Shalley et al., 2004). Results from the two meta-analyses on creativity
showed an overall positive relationship between support for creativity and creativity
(Eder and Sawyer, 2007; Harrison et al., 2006). Thus, we expect the following
hypothesis:
H2. Support for creativity will be positively related to idea creativity.
The role of job resources in the relationship between age and creativity
Examining the relationship between age and creativity has been of great interest to
researchers (Amabile, 1996). Simonton (1988, 1991) examined the creativity of
scientists and artists and developed a model of creative lifetime achievement
(Simonton, 1997). However, Simonton focused on extraordinary creativity and
outstanding achievements. Research on creativity in the area of management, focuses
on creativity as a behavior in the workplace that can occur every day (Amabile, 1996;
Shalley et al., 2004). Within management research on creativity, the role of age has been
largely ignored. In most studies, age is assessed and treated as a control variable.
Studies reporting relationships between age and creativity most of the times found no
relationship between age and creativity (Amabile et al., 2005; Madjar et al., 2002) or a
slightly negative relationship (Amabile et al., 2005; Zhou, 2003). Accordingly, results
from the meta-analysis of Eder and Sawyer (2007) found age and creativity to be
unrelated. Furthermore, the meta-analysis showed that the relationship between age
and creativity varied widely across studies, indicating that moderators play a role in
this relationship (Eder and Sawyer, 2007).
Regarding people’s expectations about the relationship between age and creativity,
a negative relationship is often assumed because older employees are generally
perceived and evaluated as less effective, less creative and less flexible (Finkelstein
et al., 1995; Rosen and Jerdee, 1977). These negative age stereotypes are assumed to be
held by coworkers and supervisors, and also by older employees themselves
(Rothermund and Brandsta
¨
dter, 2003). Because negative stereotypes are related to a
lower self-efficacy to perform tasks (Chung-Herrera et al., 2005; Mayer and Hanges,
2003), older employees should have a lower self-efficacy regarding their creativity at
work. Creative self-efficacy in turn is a strong predictor of employee creativity (Tierney
and Farmer, 2002).
Furthermore, older employees generally possess more working experience,
task-specific knowledge and skills and thus have developed more routines in their
jobs (Frensch and Sternberg, 1989; Quinones et al., 1995). Some scholars assume that a
long working experience and routines are detrimental for creativity, because they are
associated with habitual behaviors and a preference for solving problems in a familiar,
conventional way (Feltovich et al., 1997; Ford and Gioia, 2000; Gilson and Shalley,
2004). However, other scholars argue that experience and the associated knowledge
that includes domain-relevant skills is absolutely necessary and important for
creativity (Amabile, 1988; Weisberg, 1999). Moreover, routines that older employees
have developed can also be positive for creativity, because they free mental resources
that can be used for other tasks including creative problem solving (Ohly et al., 2006).
Consequently, contrasting assumptions can be drawn for a relationship between age
and creativity. Probably such contrasting mechanisms coexist and result into a null
correlation between age and creativity. Therefore, we do not assume a positive or
negative relationship between age and creativity.
442
Although we do not assume a direct relationship between age and creativity, we
examine potential moderators in the relationship between age and creativity. In
particular, we assume that the relationship between age and creativity depends on job
resources. Under certain circumstances older employees should be able and motivated
to bring in their experiences and potential at work and a positive relationship between
age and creativity should be observed. Under other circumstances older employees
should be hindered and demotivated to develop creative ideas at work and thus a
negative relationship between age and creativity should be found.
In our study, we examine two important job resources for creativity, namely job
control (Ohly et al., 2006) and support for creativity from coworkers and supervisors
(Scott and Bruce, 1994) as moderators of the relationship between age and idea
creativity (see also Figure 1). Specifically, we reason that age is positively related to
creativity under conditions of high job control and high support for creativity. Under
the conditions of low job control and low support for creativity age should be
negatively related to creativity.
Granting an employee a high level of job control should increase employees’
responsibility to develop creative ideas (Frese et al., 1999). A high level of job control
may indicate to the employee that he or she is believed capable of successfully fulfilling
the task and encourage him or her to take advantage of the granted job control (Frese
et al., 1999). Older employees should particularly benefit from high job control because
it should “disable” the negative age stereotype that older employees are less capable of
fulfilling their tasks and less effective in creative problem solving (Finkelstein et al.,
1995; Rosen and Jerdee, 1977). Moreover, using the freedom offered by high job control
at work means that the employee has to decide how to carry out the task and how to
effectively use the freedom to experiment when developing creative ideas (Langfred
and Moye, 2004). Older employees should benefit more from high job control, because
they have more knowledge and experience for deciding how to accomplish the task
(Griffiths, 1999). Older employees’ increased levels of domain-relevant knowledge and
skills should help them utilize their creative efforts and ideas at work, and develop
more creative ideas when job control is high (Amabile, 1988, 1996).
A low level of job control should be particularly detrimental for older employees’
creativity. A low level of job control means that few responsibilities are granted to the
employee, if at all, and that employees have to carry out tasks as prescribed (Jackson
et al., 1993). Particularly, older employees should be demotivated by a low level of job
control, because they perceive a low level of job control as controlling and as lack of
trust in their capabilities to accomplish their tasks. A low level of job control should
negatively affect older employees because it is in contrast to their increased working
experience and task-related expertise (Frensch and Sternberg, 1989; Quinones et al.,
1995). In sum, we state the following hypothesis:
H3. Job control will moderate the relationship between age and idea creativity.
The relationship between age and idea creativity will be positive under
conditions of high job control and negative under conditions of low job
control.
Support for creativity from coworkers and supervisors, is assumed to raise employees
motivation to be creative (Madjar et al., 2002; Ohly et al., 2006). Receiving a high level of
support for creativity points out that developing creative ideas is valued (Baer and
443
Oldham, 2006). Furthermore, support for creativity may create a climate of
psychological safety (Edmondson, 2003; Kahn, 1990) that may encourage employees
to propose and discuss new ideas (Binnewies et al., in press). Older employees’
creativity should be augmented by support for creativity, as older employees should
have a lower self-efficacy to be creative because of age stereotyping (Artistico et al.,
2003). Support for creativity means the recipient is believed to be capable of developing
a creative solution and that these creative ideas are valuable (Baer and Frese, 2003). By
receiving support from coworkers or supervisors, negative age stereotypes should be
disabled and older employees should feel competent and supported to solve problems
in a creative way (Tierney and Farmer, 2002). When discussing problems and creative
solutions with others, older employees may also be attributed an expert status, because
they have more expertise and knowledge due to their increased working experience
(Quinones et al., 1995). Consequently, we conjecture that a high level of support for
creativity should increase older employees’ motivation to be more creative and to bring
in their experience, knowledge and experience in order to generate creative ideas. Thus,
older employees should maintain or even strengthen creativity at work when
experiencing high support for creativity.
A low level of support for creativity should particularly decrease older employees’
creativity. A low level of support for creativity means for an employee that his or her
creative ideas are not valued or that he or she is not believed to generate creative ideas
(Baer and Frese, 2003). Under the condition of low support for creativity, older
employees may be confirmed in their own negative age stereotype and may loose
confidence in successfully generating a creative idea (Tierney and Farmer, 2002).
Consequently, older employees self-efficacy to generate creative ideas should be
diminished resulting into less creative ideas (Tierney and Farmer, 2002). Therefore, we
expect the following hypothesis:
H4. Support for creativity from coworkers and supervisors will moderate the
relationship between age and idea creativity. The relationship between age
and idea creativity will be positive under conditions of support for creativity
and negative under conditions of low support for creativity.
Method
Overview
Participants completed a questionnaire measuring job control, support for creativity
from coworkers and supervisors, and demographic information. Furthermore,
participants were asked to write down and describe a novel idea they generated at
work within the last month. To gain a measure of idea creativity the reported ideas
were rated by three subject-matter experts according to the Consensual Assessment
Technique (Amabile, 1996).
Sample and procedures
Our sample consisted of nursing staff, recruited with the cooperation of several
training institutes in Northern Germany. Former and current course participants were
asked to take part in our study and to ask colleagues for participating in our study as
well. We made no reference to creativity throughout the process of data collection, but
announced the study as examining “novel ideas at work”. Although creativity is
mostly not required or expected in nursing jobs, interviews with experts in the field
444
indicated that having novel and useful ideas is common among nurses and important
for organizational functioning as well. Previous studies also studied creativity in
nurses (Zhou, 2003). Examples from our study for highly creative ideas are the new
ways of sorting and ordering pharmaceuticals to facilitate the sequence of operations
or new ways of bedding patients with new material or by using old material in a new
way. Less creative ideas were for example small changes in the workflow or
documentation system.
Questionnaires were distributed to 274 nurses. A total of 185 questionnaires were
returned for a response rate of 67.5 percent including 176 questionnaires with usable
data. About two third (n ¼ 119) participants reported and described an idea in the
questionnaire whereas 57 participants did not report any idea. Because demographic
information from two persons was missing our final sample consisted of 117 persons.
We checked if there were systematic differences in study variables between
participants who reported an idea in the questionnaire and participants who did not.
Participants who reported an idea were older and had longer working experience.
Furthermore, among those who reported an idea were more registered nurses, more
persons working in shift work, more persons with a leadership position, and more
persons who participated in an advanced vocational training at the time of data
collection. However, persons who reported and idea and those who did not differ in the
level of job control or support for creativity from coworkers and supervisors.
Our sample included 97 women and 20 men. Among the participants were 78.6
percent registered nurses and 21.4 percent apprentices in the final stage of education.
Mean age was 34.4 years (SD ¼ 10.2 years) ranging from 19 to 60 years and mean job
experience was 12.7 years (SD ¼ 9:2 years). Approximately half of the participants
(55.6 percent) held a leadership position at work. At the time of data collection, 24.8
percent of the participants attended a course of advanced vocational training.
Participants worked in different areas of nursing, mainly in nursing the sick and the
elderly. Although the apprentices in our study are generally younger than the
registered nurses it is important to note that older apprentices are common in the
education of nurses. Accordingly, the mean age among apprentices was 25.8 years
(SD ¼ 9:6 years) ranging from 19 to 48 years. Mean age among registered nurses was
36.8 years (SD ¼ 9:1 years) ranging from 22 to 60 years. Table I provides an overview
over the distribution of main demographic variables in our sample.
Measures
Job control was assessed with a measure developed by Bu
¨
ssing and Glaser (2002). This
measure is part of larger instrument (Bu
¨
ssing and Glaser, 2002) designed to assess job
characteristics in nursing jobs and is a fully standardized questionnaire that has been
shown to have good construct and criterion validity as well as good reliability (Bu
¨
ssing
and Glaser, 2000; Ho
¨
ge and Bu
¨
ssing, 2004). The scale job control measures how much
influence the workplace offers over sequence, time frame, method and means of one’s
work tasks and consists of eight items (sample item: “At my workplace one is able to
determine how to perform one’s tasks”). Participants indicated the strength of
agreement to the items on a five-point Likert scale ranging from 1 ¼ not true to
5 ¼ totally true. Cronbach’s alpha was 0.81.
Support for creativity from coworkers and supervisor was measured with seven
items from Madjar et al. (2002). The scale comprises both support from coworkers and
445
from the supervisor and assesses the extent to with coworkers or the supervisor
support new ideas, provide useful feedback and discuss new ideas (sample items: “My
supervisor discusses with me my work-related ideas in order to improve them”, “My
coworkers other than my supervisor are almost always supportive when I come up
with a new idea about my job”). Items had to be rated on a seven-point Likert scale with
the anchors 1 ¼ not true to 7 ¼ totally true. Cronbach’s alpha was 0.88.
Age was assessed by a single item asking participants to indicate their age in years.
Idea creativity was assessed by the Consensual Assessment Technique (Amabile,
1996) using the average of three expert ratings of participants’ reported ideas. We
chose experts ratings for the operationalization of idea creativity because experts were
blind to the age of an idea’s originator. Thus, the ratings of idea creativity could not be
influenced by age stereotypes. Thereby, we overcame the problems of self-reports or
supervisor ratings when evaluating creativity (Rosen and Jerdee, 1976).
In the questionnaire, participants were asked to report and describe an idea they
generated at work during the past month. Three experts in the field of nursing rated the
ideas for a monetary reward. The experts were all registered nurses who had attended
vocational training to become teachers for nurses. Two were female and one male and
their working experience as a teacher for nurses ranged between ten and thirty years.
We adapted the rating procedure of Zhou (1998), (Zhou and Oldham, 2001) to get
creativity ratings of the reported ideas. All three experts received all participants’
descriptions of the reported ideas. To avoid ratings influenced by handwriting or
spelling mistakes by participants, the reported ideas were typewritten on a
standardized form and corrected for spelling mistakes. We provided the experts
with guidelines explaining the rating procedure including a definition of creativity and
some examples. As suggested by Zhou (1998) raters were instructed to randomly
choose 15 examples and read them without giving any ratings in order to get an insight
into the spectrum of reported ideas. Afterwards, all three experts rated each idea with
respect to its novelty, its usefulness, and its overall creativity. As recommended by
Zhou and Oldham (2001) only the rating of overall creativity was used as a measure of
the creative outcome. The ratings of novelty and usefulness were merely made to
Frequency Percent
Gender Female 97 82.9
Male 20 17.1
Leadership position No 52 44.4
Yes 65 45.6
Registered nurse No 25 21.4
Yes 92 21.4
Age 19-24 years 28 23.9
25-29 years 20 17.1
30-34 years 8 6.8
35-39 years 22 18.8
40-44 years 19 16.2
45-49 years 11 9.4
50-54 years 5 4.3
55-60 years 4 3.4
Notes: n ¼ 117
Table I.
Distribution of gender,
leadership position,
registered nurse and age
in the sample
446
ensure that both dimensions were taken into account when undertaking the overall
rating. Overall creativity was rated on a ten-point scale ranging from (1) not creative at
all to (10) extremely creative. Therefore, our measure of creativity provides a measure
of the quality of the creative ideas.
In addition, the raters were asked to take into account if the ideas were reported by
apprentices or by registered nurses. This was done to ensure that the evaluation of
creativity was made in consideration of the participants’ work context and experience
(Amabile, 1996). Knowledge and experience have been shown as crucial determinants
of creativity (Amabile, 1996; Sternberg et al., 1997). Because we were not interested in
studying the relationships between idea creativity and knowledge or experience we
controlled for these variables by giving raters the information if the reported idea was
from an apprentice or from a registered nurse. Raters were instructed to make their
judgments according to what they expected to be creative for an apprentice and for
registered nurses respectively. Experts did not have any information about the age,
gender or status of the idea’s originator to ensure that ratings were not influenced by
stereotypes or subjective theories.
To test interrater reliability we computed an intraclass correlation coefficient (ICC)
with the factor rater as fixed. The ICC was 0.89, indicating a very high interrater
reliability that confirms the internal validity of our measure (Amabile, 1996).
Control variables were additionally measured to account for possible influences of
third variables. These control variables included gender (female or male), leadership
position (yes or no) and if a participant was a registered nurse or not (yes or no).
Results
Zero-order correlations between study variables are displayed in Table II. Idea
creativity had no significant correlations with any control or predictor variables.
Hierarchical regression analyses were used to test our hypotheses. As
recommended by Cohen et al. (2003) we centered continuous predictor variables and
dummy-coded categorical predictor variables. Control variables were entered in the
first step into the regression model, job control, support for creativity from coworkers
and supervisors, and age were entered in the second step, and the interaction terms
Job control £ Age and Support for creativity £ Age were entered in the third step.
Table III displays the results of the hierarchical regression analysis predicting idea
creativity. Results of the first step of regression analysis showed that control variables
did not significantly predict idea creativity. Neither gender, leadership position nor
MSD 1 2 3 4 5 6
1 Gender
a
0.17 0.38
2 Leadership position
b
0.56 0.50 0.09
3 Registered nurse
c
0.79 0.41 0.07 0.46
**
4 Age 34.43 10.21 0.02 0.46
**
0.44
**
5 Job control 3.14 0.70 2 0.06 2 0.07 2 0.04 2 0.14
6 Support for creativity 4.26 1.32 2 0.04 0.24
*
0.15 0.04 0.14
7 Idea creativity 6.19 1.47 0.12 0.05 0.08 2 0.06 2 0.02 0.03
Notes: n ¼ 117;
a
0 ¼ female, 1 ¼ male;
b
0 ¼ no leadership position, 1= leadership position;
c
0 ¼ no, 1 ¼ yes;
*
p , 0:05;
**
p , 0:001
Table II.
Means, standard
deviations, and
intercorrelations of study
variables
447
registered nurse were significantly related to idea creativity. Results of Step 2 of
regression analysis showed that job resources did not significantly predict idea
creativity. Both job control (
b
¼ 2 0:03) and support for creativity (
b
¼ 0:02) were
unrelated to idea creativity (see Table III). Therefore, we did not find support for the
assumed relationships between job control and idea creativity (H1) and between
coworker support and idea creativity (H2). In addition, results of Step 2 of regression
analysis showed that age was also unrelated to idea creativity (see Table III). In Step 3
of the regression analysis the interaction terms Job control £ Age and Support for
creativity £ Age were entered into the regression. Results of Step 3 showed that the
interaction terms explained an additional 12 percent of the variance. Both interaction
terms Job control £ Age (
b
¼ 0:28, p , 0:01) and Support for creativity £ Age
(
b
¼ 0:19, p , 0:05) turned out to be significant predictors of idea creativity (see
Table III). In order to examine the nature of the significant interactions, we plotted the
interaction effects according to the procedure recommended by Cohen et al. (2003). The
pattern of the interaction effects can be seen in Figure 2 and in Figure 3. Examining the
interaction between job control and age on idea creativity, additional simple slope tests
showed that age was positively related to idea creativity under conditions of high job
control (
b
¼ 0:29, t ¼ 2:12, p , 0:05) and negatively related to idea creativity under
conditions of low job control (
b
¼ 20:35, t ¼ 22:84, p , 0:01). Therefore, our
hypothesis that age is positively related to idea creativity under conditions of high job
control and negatively related to idea creativity under conditions of low job control
(H3) was supported. Simple slope tests for the interaction between support for
creativity and age on idea creativity revealed that age was unrelated to idea creativity
under conditions of high support for creativity (
b
¼ 0:22; t ¼ 1:57; n:s.) and negatively
related to idea creativity under conditions of low support for creativity (
b
¼ 20:29,
t ¼ 22:26, p , 0:05). Because we found a negative relationship between age and idea
creativity under low job control, but no relationship with idea creativity under high job
Beta D R
2
D FR
2
F
Step 1 Gender 2 0.12 0.02 0.78
Leadership position 0.00
Registered nurse 0.07
Step 2 Gender 2 0.11 0.01 0.46 0.03 0.61
Leadership position 0.04
Registered nurse 0.10
Age 2 0.13
Job control 2 0.03
Support for creativity 0.02
Step 3 Gender 2 0.09 0.12 7.59
**
0.15 2.41
*
Leadership position 0.01
Registered nurse 0.10
Age 2 0.08
Job control 2 0.16
Support for creativity 0.01
Age £ job control 0.28
**
Age £ support for creativity 0.19
*
Notes: n ¼ 117;
*
p , 0:05;
**
p , 0:01
Table III.
Hierarchical regression
analysis predicting idea
creativity
448
control, our hypothesis that age is positively related to idea creativity under conditions
of high coworker support and negatively related to idea creativity under conditions of
low job coworker support (H4) was partially supported.
Discussion
This study examined the interplay between age, two job resources, namely job control
and support for creativity, and idea creativity in a sample of younger and older nurses.
Neither job control nor support for creativity was significantly related to idea
Figure 2.
Job control as a moderator
in the relationship
between age and idea
creativity
Figure 3.
Support for creativity as a
moderator in the
relationship between age
and idea creativity
449
creativity. Age was also unrelated to idea creativity, but job control and support for
creativity moderated the relationship between age and idea creativity. Age was
positively related to idea creativity under conditions of high job control, whereas age
was negatively related to idea creativity under conditions of low job control and under
conditions of low support for creativity.
The finding that job control and support for creativity were not directly related to
idea creativity was unexpected. Whereas research on support for creativity already
provided mixed empirical results (Shalley et al., 2004), research on job control has
established a positive relationship between job control and creativity (Eder and
Sawyer, 2007; Harrison et al., 2006). Our results show that support for creativity and
job control do not seem beneficial for the idea creativity of nurses. One explanation
might be that we used idea creativity, that is, the quality of an idea, as an
operationalization of creativity, as opposed to the quantitative measure of creativity
most field studies use that assesses the extent to which creative ideas are generated
(Shalley et al., 2004). Job control and support for creativity may increase the quantity of
ideas or of creative behavior, but according to our results they do not seem to increase
the quality of a creative idea. A further explanation may be that job control and
support for creativity may be necessary but not sufficient for the quality of creative
ideas. In addition to job control and support for creativity domain-specific and
creativity-relevant skills might be further necessary to take advantage of job control
and support for creativity in order to generate ideas that are viewed as highly creative
(Amabile, 1988, 1996).
Both job control and support for creativity moderated the relationship between age
and idea creativity. In our sample, older employees include employees around the age
of 45 years, whereas younger employees are about 24 years old. Under conditions of
high job control the relationship between age and idea creativity was positive, whereas
the relationship was negative under conditions of low job control. As can be seen from
the figure of the interaction effect (see Figure 2), older employees’ creativity does not
seem to differ at a high or low level of job control. A high level of job control does not
seem to foster older employees’ creativity and a low level of job control does not seem
to decrease older employees’ creativity. Older employees may have learned to be
creative at work when certain workplace characteristics, such as the level of job
control, are not favorable. Creative ideas, in this situation, could include changing the
situation at work when necessary and enlarging certain degrees of freedom. Older
employees may have the experience and the self-confidence to develop creative ideas
independent of the level of job control.
On the contrary, younger employees’ creativity largely differs under conditions of
high and low job control. However, a closer inspection of the relationship between job
control and younger employees’ creativity revealed an unexpected finding. Younger
employees seem to be most creative when experiencing low job control, whereas they
seem to be less creative in situations with high job control. As job control is sometimes
experienced as a demand (De Jonge and Schaufeli, 1998), younger employees may lack
the skills to successfully cope with this demand and to take advantage of a high level of
job control. In jobs with low job control, clear guidance on how to carry out the work
task is given, and this guidance may be a useful starting point and important for
younger employees to foster creativity. At a workplace with high control this useful
450
guidance may be missing and may result in less creative ideas among younger
employees.
With regard to the moderating effect of support for creativity, we found that age
was negatively related to creativity under conditions of low support for creativity.
Under conditions of high support for creativity, age was unrelated to creativity.
Therefore, experiencing low support for creativity from coworkers and supervisors
seems to be particularly detrimental for older employees’ creativity at work. When
older employees get little or no support for developing a creative idea they might be
discouraged to develop creative ideas and experience lower creative self-efficacy
(Tierney and Farmer, 2002). Therefore, under low support for creativity older
employees seem to stick to the routine way of solving problems and develop ideas that
are less creative.
Study limitations and future research
Our study has some limitations that have to be discussed. First, the cross-sectional
design of our study does not allow drawing any conclusions about causality. While
alternative explanations, such as reverse causation or the influence of third variables,
can be ruled out in the future by using a longitudinal design, causality can only be
demonstrated in an experimental study. However, as we cannot manipulate
participants’ age, future studies have to use a quasi-experimental design or should
try to manipulate the underlying characteristics of younger and older employees.
A second limitation might be that the expert raters knew if the idea that had to be
rated was reported by an apprentice or by a registered nurse. As apprentices in the
final stage are usually around 20 years old expert raters had indirect information about
the age of a part of our sample. However, as common in the field of nursing, our sample
of apprentices also included older persons (up to the age of 46) and our sample of
registered nurses also included very young persons. Therefore, our expert raters could
not make a firm conclusion about whether the idea from an apprentice was also the
idea from a younger person. In addition, we controlled for the occupational status of an
employee (apprentice versus registered nurse) in our analyses.
The selectivity of our sample might limit the generalizability of the results. We
examined our hypotheses in a sample of nurses where creativity is not a required part
of the formal job role. Future research will need to replicate our findings with samples
where creativity is an expected part of the work role.
One major limitation of our study is that we may have a selective sample due to
systematic drop-outs. We could only analyze relationships between job resources, age
and creativity for persons who reported an idea in the questionnaire. As mentioned
above among employees who reported an idea were older persons with longer working
experience, more persons working in shift work, holding a leadership position, and
attending an advanced vocational training. Although these systematic drop-outs limit
the generalizability of our results, we preferred these limitations in order to get a more
objective measure of creativity instead of solely relying on participants’ self-reports.
A further limitation regarding our sample is that older employees who are still
working in the field of nursing might be healthier, more skilled or have other beneficial
characteristics that enable them to stay at work while older employees who are less
healthy or skilled tend to quit (Warr, 1992). We are aware that is a major problem that
we cannot rule out in our study. However, we think that the older workforce in today’s
451
working environment may actually be selective. Managing older employees suggests
having to deal with a specific group of persons who possess certain characteristics that
have enabled them to stay in their jobs. Therefore, our study still provides knowledge
about the conditions that are beneficial for the creativity of older and younger
employees who are actually working in the field of nursing.
Results supported the assumption that the relationship between age and idea
creativity is moderated by contextual factors, specifically by job control and support
for creativity. Future research should examine the underlying mechanisms that
explain these findings. For example, research should examine if the interaction
between age and job resources on creativity can be explained by higher
domain-specific or creativity-relevant skills of older employees. If this is the case,
younger employees’ creativity, can be increased by training these skills. Furthermore,
research should investigate if the moderation between age and job resources on
creativity is (at least partially) mediated by motivation or the (de)activation of age
stereotypes (Finkelstein et al., 1995). Knowing more about how the mechanisms
between job resources, age and creativity function enables us to refine interventions
that aim at promoting the creativity of older and younger employees, according to their
needs.
Implications for management
Our study yields practical implications for the management of younger and older
employees’ creativity at work. As we examined the relationship between job resources,
age and creativity in a sample including younger and older employees, we can provide
recommendations for managing older and younger employees’ creativity.
Our study showed that low support for creativity from coworkers and supervisors
is related to a higher level of creativity in older employees. Assuming a causal link
between support for creativity and idea creativity suggests that older employees’
creativity can be raised by preventing low support for creativity from coworkers and
supervisors. Supervisors can be sensitized and trained to provide supportive,
non-controlling feedback and to create a climate of psychological safety at work
(Edmondson, 1999). Acting as a role model, supervisors may also increase coworker
support for creativity. Furthermore, supervisors can encourage employees to ask for
support in team meetings and can ensure that support for creativity is provided by
others when an employee wants to discuss creative ideas. Although our results support
the notion that only older employees benefit from support for creativity, supervisors
and organizations should be cautious in their treatment of older employees because it
can be discriminating, even if supervisors and organizations are providing additional
support for older employees. Rather supervisors and organizations should establish a
culture at work that values the creativity of all employees, and fosters support for
creativity by opening discussions for younger and older employees. This
recommendation is especially valid because high level of support does not affect
younger employees’ creativity in a negative way.
Moreover, our findings suggest that age is positively related to creativity under
high job control and negatively under low job control. However, the pattern of the
interaction effect shows that this relationship alludes to the fact that younger
employees are less creative under conditions of high job control. As job control is
particularly important for employees’ health (De Lange et al., 2004) and also for
452
performance in general (Langfred and Moye, 2004) reducing younger employees’ job
control is not an option. Rather, younger employees should seek assistance to deal with
higher levels of job control in order to be capable of generating creative ideas.
Supervisors could focus on initiating structure for their younger employees to provide
them with information about work procedures and effective ways to accomplish the
task. Their task-relevant knowledge and skills will be enhanced so that are better able
to deal with a high level of job control. As older employees seem to be able to effectively
deal with a high level of job control when generating creative ideas, older employees
could also play a mentoring role for younger employees.
Conclusion
Until today, the role of age has largely been ignored in management research on
creativity at work. However, as our workforce grows older it becomes more and more
important to identify conditions that enable older workers to bring in their knowledge
and expertise and develop creative ideas at work. Our study shows that age is not
directly related to idea creativity but that the relationship between age and idea
creativity is dependent on job resources. Thus, our study suggests that different
constellations of job resources benefit older and younger employees’ creativity at work.
Human resource management should take these differences into account in order to
promote both older and younger employees’ creativity at work.
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About the authors
Carmen Binnewies is a doctoral student in industrial and organizational psychology at the
University of Konstanz. In her master thesis she examined proactive and creative behavior at
work. Currently, her research focuses on examining recovery from work-related stress and its
relationships with different dimensions job performance. Further research interests include
proactive affect regulation at work. Her research has been published in European Journal of
Work and Organizational Psychology. Carmen Binnewies is the corresponding author and can be
contacted at: Carmen.binnewies@uni-konstanz.de
Sandra Ohly is currently assistant professor in industrial and organizational psychology at
the University of Frankfurt. She received her PhD from the Technical University of
Braunschweig. Her research focuses on creativity at work, proactive behavior and suggestion
making. She is also interested in the effects of time pressure on motivation and organizational
behavior and in emotions, organizational change and resistance to change. Her research has been
published in Journal of Organizational Behavior, Journal of Occupational and Organisational
Psychology, and European Journal of Work and Organizational Psychology.
Cornelia Niessen is assistant professor in industrial and organizational psychology at the
University of Konstanz. Prior to this, she served on the faculty at the Technical University of
Braunschweig and the Technical University of Berlin where she received her PhD. She has
published in journals such as Journal of Organizational Behavior, Ergonomics, and Safety
Science. Research topics include aging, adaptive performance, learning at work, and expertise.
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