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Organizational identification
perceptions and millennials’
creativity: testing the mediating
role of work engagement and the
moderating role of work values
Li Hui
Hohai Business School, Hohai University - Jiangning Campus, Nanjing, China and
Jiangsu Provincial Collaborative Center of World Water Valley and
Water Ecological Civilization, Nanjing, China
Wang Qun
Human Resource Management, Changzhou Institute of Technology,
Changzhou, China and
Jiangsu Provincial Collaborative Center of World Water Valley and
Water Ecological Civilization, Nanjing, China
Sajjad Nazir and Zhao Mengyu
Hohai Business School, Hohai University - Jiangning Campus, Nanjing, China
Muhammad Ali Asadullah
Department of Business Administration, Air University, Islamabad, Pakistan, and
Sahar Khadim
Department of Business Administration, Air University, Multan, Pakistan
Abstract
Purpose –Millennial-generation employees need to stimulate their creativity to produce innovative ideas,
services and products for organizations to flourish and succeed. The main purpose of this research was to
discover the mechanism through which organization identification influences employees’creativity in the
Chinese organizational context. Particularly, we proposed the mediating role of work engagement and the
moderating role of work values in the relationship.
Design/methodology/approach –A questionnaire survey was utilized to collect the data from 281
employees working in China. Hierarchical regression was utilized to analyze the data.
Findings –The findings reveal that organizational identification significantly influences the creativity of
millennial employees; work engagement plays a positive mediating role between organizational identification
and employee creativity. Moreover, work values of millennial generation employees, specifically utilitarian
orientation, intrinsic preferences, interpersonal harmony and innovation orientation have a positive
moderating effect between work engagement and employee creativity.
Originality/value –This study recognizes and analyzes the mechanism underlying the influence of
organizational identification and recommends that work engagement is a crucial mediator of the complicated
relationship between organizational identification and employee creativity. Consequently, this study is the key
Organizational
identification
and millennials’
creativity
The authors would like to thank Editors and two anonymous reviewers for their constructive and
helpful comments and suggestions. This study was supported by the National Social Science Fund of
China (No 18BGL129).
Funding: This research was funded by the National Social Science Fund of China, grant number: No-
18BGL129 and Scientific Research Fund for Universities by the Chinese Ministry of Education, grant
number: (2018B30214 & 2018B47914).
The current issue and full text archive of this journal is available on Emerald Insight at:
https://www.emerald.com/insight/1460-1060.htm
Received 30 April 2020
Revised 17 July 2020
Accepted 2 September 2020
European Journal of Innovation
Management
© Emerald Publishing Limited
1460-1060
DOI 10.1108/EJIM-04-2020-0165
effort for millennial employees’work values and engagement to explore employee creativity in Chinese cultural
context and also suggests important theoretical and practical implications.
Keywords Organizational identification, Work engagement, Employee creativity, Work values, Millennial
generation, China
Paper type Research paper
1. Introduction
The Internet and smart industry are both crucial elements of modern businesses, and these
are an effective way for organizations to develop sustainability and maintain a highly
competitive position in the market by enhancing their employees’creativity (Asif et al., 2019;
Tse et al., 2018). The organizations value their employees due to creativity contributing to
innovative ideas, services and products (Benedek et al., 2019;Wang et al., 2018). Therefore,
discussion on strategy to facilitate creativity is a key issue for management scholars and
organization leaders (Zhu et al., 2018). Employees from the millennial generation currently
comprise the backbone of the Chinese workforce. They may play a pivotal role in helping an
organization achieve innovation and competitive advantage (Asif et al., 2019;Tan et al., 2019).
This requires managers to train their millennial employees because fostering employees’
creativity is essential for maintaining a competitive position. The scholars have investigated
different antecedents of creativity (Tan et al., 2019;Zhang and Zhou, 2019) such as
transformational leadership, ethical leadership, teamwork, employee empowerment and
engagement (Tan et al., 2019;Younas et al., 2018).
Unfortunately, organizational identification has received little attention despite its
potential to improve employee involvement and creativity. Organizational identification is
vital for an organization because it represents the employees’willingness to define
themselves as part of their organization (Aghaz and Hashemi, 2014;Zappal
aet al., 2019). This
psychological relationship enhances employees’sense of belonging to the organization
(Benedek et al., 2019;Gozukara and Simsek, 2015) that even goes far beyond their formal
contract, and they demonstrate favorable working behaviors (Cornwell et al., 2018;Porck
et al., 2020) including employees’work engagement (Benedek et al., 2019;Gozukara and
Simsek, 2015;Nazir et al., 2018). Work engagement is a state of well-being, and the employees
achieve this state by being optimistic, fulfilled and motivated while performing job duties
(Kuwabara et al., 2018;Navajas-Romero et al., 2019;Sheikh et al., 2019). Dedication, vigor and
absorption are fundamental characteristics of employee engagement. Dedication indicates
that the employee is fully involved in the work and feels proud, inspired and challenged.
Vigor represents employees’feeling fully energized, resilient and able to perform consistently
in difficult situations (Kahn et al., 2018;Lam et al., 2018;Sheikh et al., 2019). Absorption means
that a person is happily concentrating on his/her work and finding it difficult to detach
himself/herself (Chaudhary et al., 2017).
This study postulates that organizational identification enhances employees’engagement
and creativity. Particularly, this study offers a theoretical explanation for the mediating role
of work engagement between employees’perceptions of organizational identification and
their creativity using social identity theory (SIT). SIT explains that employees construct their
self-concept through relations, affiliation and association with a social group (Ashforth and
Mael, 1989;Brown, 2017;Pan et al., 2019;Zappal
aet al., 2019). This identification with the
organization stimulates employees to perform their job tasks efficiently (Takao, 2016). The
pride of feeling part of an organization positively affects employees’cognitive abilities and
emotions (Nwanzu and Babalola, 2019), and they devise creative solutions (Zappal
aet al.,
2019;Zhang et al., 2018a,b). Hence, organizational identification enhances employees’work
engagement that further enhances their creativity.
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However, the effect of work engagement on employees’creativity may be conditional to
the characteristics of a work environment, particularly, the work values. Work values are
essential to investigate this particular relationship for an important reason. The work values
serve the function of evaluative standards, which are necessary for employees to identify
what is right when making job-related decisions. Additionally, the work values also define
employees’needs and preferences (e.g. financial value, a prestigious position and the intent to
improving their capabilities (Lin et al., 2015b;Sonnentag et al., 2019) associated with the work
environment (Al-zoubi, 2016;Sonnentag et al., 2019). Some scholars affirm that work values
are a general goal that employees want to attain because they are an organizing construct
that determines individuals’priorities in the workplace (Al-zoubi, 2016). The influence of
work values on employees’creativity has already been examined in the existing research
(Yet-mee et al., 2008). However, the way these work values interact with employees’work
engagement to determine their creativity still remains unexplored. Hence, this study
investigates the moderating role of work values between work engagement and employees’
creativity. This is also important to examine such relationship because the individuals
characterizing different birth year and shared social experiences (Queiri et al., 2014) may
differ in work values. This research explores these relationships in the context of Chinese
millennial employees for an important reason that their desire for flexibility and pay is higher
as compared to the employees of generation X(Al-zoubi, 2016;Lin et al., 2015a,b). Further,
Chinese cultural and social values are different from those of western countries. The scholars
have developed five dimensions to assess Chinese millennials’work values (Hou et al., 2014).
These dimensions include utilitarian orientation (i.e. valuing monetary rewards), intrinsic
preference (i.e. valuing work satisfaction and significance), interpersonal harmony(i.e.
developing cordial relations in their workplace), innovative orientation (i.e. challenging
traditional norms and bring novelty and creativity to the workplace and long-term
orientation (i.e. valuing occupational and individual prospects in the future (Al-zoubi, 2016;
Lin et al., 2015a).
Many studies have explored the concept of employee creativity, mainly focusing on
factors like supervisory behavior, skill variety, work performance and compensation (Younas
et al., 2018). Several researchers also mention psychological factors, such as self-efficacy,
internal motivation and goal-directed behavior (Zhu et al., 2018), but the results are very
limited. Therefore, this paper focuses on studying work values and work engagement as the
internal drivers of employee creativity using positive psychology theory. In positive
psychology, a positive state of mind is an essential factor that can affect cognition and
behavior, compared with intellectual capacity, physical ability and social resources (Hefferon
and Boniwell, 2011). Organizational identification makes it much easier to predict an
employees’behavior, which is a reflection of positive recognition and emotion (Cornwell et al.,
2018;Tas
¸kıran, 2017). This paper begins with employees’organizational identification,
exploring the relationship between organizational identification and employee creativity. As
a positive experience, work engagement can reflect employees’working attitudes.
Engagement influences the strength and positive emotion, which has the benefit of
encouraging creativity (Gu et al., 2020;Sonnentag et al., 2019). Therefore, work engagement is
used as an intermediate variable when studying the relationship between organizational
identification and work creativity. Work values also have a significant effect on employees’
working behavior (Riketta, 2005;Sonnentag et al., 2019). The main objective of this research is
to explore the relationship between the millennial generation’s creativity, work engagement
and work values. The results could benefit managers by showing how to foster employees’
organizational identification, work engagement and creativity. The proposed research
framework is shown in Figure 1.
Organizational
identification
and millennials’
creativity
2. Literature and hypothesis development
2.1 Organizational identification and employee creativity
According to social exchange theory, social-exchange behaviors take effect between
employees and their organization, even against different cultural backgrounds. Social
exchange within an organization can be described not only as an exchange of employees’
work for reward but also as an exchange of the spirit of innovation for recognition within an
organization’s culture (Gozukara and Simsek, 2015). An organization cannot develop without
contributions from its employees. Meanwhile, the weight of an employees’contribution has a
close relationship with his/her organizational behavior. Employees show creative behavior,
no matter which position they are in or what kinds of psychological feature and mental
demand they have (Soda et al., 2017). Behavioral inducement is necessary for an organization
if it wants its employees to stimulate their creative behavior (Li et al., 2019a,b) and is also the
key to maintaining a long-term relationship between employees and organization (Gouldner,
1960;Liu et al., 2016;Zhao et al., 2019). The important foundation of a long-term relationship is
shaping employees’organizational identification in such a way that they strongly agree with
the values, mission and vision of the organization.
Organizational identification includes two aspects. One is the sense of belonging to the
organization, and the other is the employee’s awareness of their role in the organization
(Abdullah et al., 2017;Cornwell et al., 2018;Lu et al., 2018;Riketta, 2005). Organizational
identification is considered a key psychological state which can reflect the potential
relationship between employee and organization. It can be used to explain and predict
employees’attitudes and behavior in the workplace (Aghaz and Hashemi, 2014;Bednar et al.,
2019;Cornwell et al., 2018). The employees who identify strongly with an organization can
link their career close to the organization’s future and consider the organization’s interest as
their own (Yasir and Majid, 2019). Employees who strongly identify with an organization are
more likely to make suggestions to their managers and to devote more effort and knowledge
to improving organizational efficiency (Ghosh, 2015;Kim et al., 2018;Zhao et al., 2019). There
are two ways to achieve employee creativity. One way is direct motivation, for example,
supporting creativity, job promotion and personal reward. The other way is organizational
identification, which can encourage employees’willingness to enhance their abilities (Lee
et al., 2019). Organizational identification can guide employees’behavior in directions that
benefit the organization. A strong organizational identification can help employees build a
close sense of sharing in the organization’s outcome and overcome unhappiness in their work.
This strong bond with an organization emboldens employees to instigate actions that
contribute to the organization’s long-term success. Employees start engaging voluntarily in
Organizational
identification
Work
engagement
Employee
creativity
Work values
·utilitarian orientation
·intrinsi c preference
·interpersonal harmony
·innovative orientation
·long-term orientation
Figure 1.
Hypothetical
framework
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pro-organizational behaviors (Brammer et al., 2015;Zhao et al., 2019). Additionally, when
employees identify strongly with an organization, they stop worrying about job security
(Younas et al.,2018), become more innovative when finding new ways to perform their tasks
(Bednar et al.,2019;Lee and Yang, 2015;Nazir et al., 2019) and more willing to participate in
challenging tasks and take more risks (Nazir et al.,2020). They exercise their cognitive
abilities to increase their knowledge, which enhances creativity (Zhan et al., 2018). This
shows that organizational identification promotes employee creativity. Thus, we
hypothesized that:
H1. Organizational identification has a positive effect on employee creativity.
2.2 Organizational identification and work engagement
Previous research indicates that employees’behavior is most likely to benefit the
organization if they identify with it. In such a situation, employees’attitudes towards the
organization will improve, and they will focus on their job in depth (De Roeck et al., 2016;
Gozukara and Simsek, 2015). Particularly, employees’sense of belonging to the organization
makes them feel like an important part of the organization (Abdullah et al., 2017;Nwanzu and
Babalola, 2019). Some studies have supported a positive association between employees’
perceptions of organizational identification and commitment (D
avila, 2012;Chan, 2006). The
construct “commitment”is very closely related to the construct of work engagement (Klein
et al., 2009). For instance, commitment belongs to ‘state engagement’which itself is a sub-
dimension of employee engagement (Macey and Schneider, 2008). This study also theorized a
positive association between employees perceptions of organizational identification and
employee engagement because employees are more likely to engage with their organization
when they identify themselves with the organization(De Roeck et al., 2016;Schaufeli et al.,
2002;Zhao et al., 2019).
Social identity theory proposes that, when employees have a strong relationship with their
organization, they are motivated to do their best for the organization (Brown, 2017;Pan et al.,
2019). In turn, the strong psychological bond reinforces their willingness to put in the
maximum effort (Brammer et al., 2015) and enhances their level of engagement (Abdullah
et al., 2017;Wang and Tseng, 2019). Previously, researchers found that organizational
identification makes employees highly motivated to cooperate with colleagues (He et al., 2013;
Kuwabara et al., 2018). Therefore, highly motivated employees prefer to do extra work
voluntarily rather than just performing their essential duties (KESEN, 2016;Kim and Park,
2017). They are more actively involved in setting goals and work harder to attain these goals.
Organizational identification has a positive effect on work engagement because it enables
employees to internalize the success of an organization as their success (Karanika-Murray
et al., 2015). Employees with a high degree of identification feel gratified when engaged in
their work because they believe organizational success is beneficial for their development
(KESEN, 2016) and that belief is beneficial for the development of both employees and the
organization (He et al., 2013;Li et al., 2019b). In such a situation, employees improve their
working methods and enhance their work engagement, to make more significant
contributions to repay the organization. Thus, we hypothesized that:
H2. Organizational identification has a positive effect on work engagement.
2.3 The mediating role of work engagement between organizational identification and
employee creativity
Employee creativity requires employees to devote uncertain amounts of extra time and
energy, but the outcome is unpredictable (Cornwell et al., 2018;Enwereuzor et al., 2018). The
sense of belonging and agreement causes employees to evaluate their work considering the
Organizational
identification
and millennials’
creativity
organization’s interest. Employees prefer to link their interests with the organization as
mutual interest and seek to develop trust in enhancing their creativity for the organization
(Tse et al., 2018). Employees are familiar with their position as well as the work content, and
they know its deficiencies well; many excellent ideas for improvement would emerge if their
creativity were motivated (Enwereuzor et al., 2018;Zhu et al., 2018). Employees like to
participate in creative strategies, as long as they perceive the strategies to be beneficial for the
organization (Carmeli et al., 2013;Fern
andez-Mart
ınez et al., 2019). Higher work engagement
is observed when employees strongly agree with the organization, based on social exchange
theory that generates the motivation of repaying the organization (Li and Sandino, 2018).
Higher work engagement can motivate employees to show positive working emotions and to
work for longer without a break (Gupta and Sharma, 2016;Yasir and Majid, 2019), as well as
inspiring higher cognitive activity.
Strong organizational identification empowers employees to engage more, develop
creative solutions and adopt flexible reasoning to counter challenging situations. Work
engagement acts as a strategic driver to increase employee creativity (Ismail et al., 2019;
Sonnentag et al., 2019). Engaged employees become more productive and implement
innovative techniques to exceed the desired outcomes. They enjoy performing their job duties
and always strive to overcome challenging situations (Karanika-Murray et al., 2015;
Kuwabara et al., 2018;Sonnentag et al., 2019). Highly engaged employees often feel joy,
enthusiasm and interest in their work, which then enlarges their repertoires of thoughts and
actions. Moreover, it enriches their resources by expanding their suggestions and actions
(Ismail et al., 2019). These positive emotions and cognitive states are beneficial because
employees can focus their intellect and enhance their creativity. Thus, we hypothesized that:
H3. Work engagement mediates the positive relationship between organizational
identification and employee creativity.
2.4 The moderating role of work values
Work values represent the beliefs that guide employees’behavior and work evaluation (Al-
zoubi, 2016). Work values are considered key factors to improve employees’attitudes and
behavior in the workplace (Lin et al., 2015a,b). A recent study has shown that work values
moderate the relationship between an individual’s psychology and his/her behavior as an
employee (Hou et al., 2014). Theorists (Meyer and Allen, 1991;Meyer et al., 1998) advocate the
moderating role of work values between different types of psychological and social
interactions due to the individual differences among employees based on their work values
(Meyer and Allen, 1991;Yet-mee et al., 2008;Elmas-atay, 2017). Similarly, work values (Ros
et al., 1999) which act as guiding principles for individuals also moderatnig psychological and
social interactions because they help individuals in coping with the distinct nature of
challenges they face. While presenting a theory of fundamental values, Ros et al. (1999)
explained that work values possess motivational significance, and the individuals attribute
their fundamental values to their work and use them as a vehicle for achieving their desired
goals (e.g. job outcomes). Since showing a higher level of creativity is one of the employees’
desired goals, work values may act as a significant motivational factor. Hence, this study
sought theoretical support from the theory of fundamental work values (Meyer and Allen,
1991;Meyer et al., 1998) to hypothesize the moderating role of work values between work
engagement and employee creativity.
In one aspect, work values reflect employees’beliefs, skills, recognition and preferences
(Elmas-atay, 2017;Hou et al., 2014). On the other hand, work values reflect the degree of
agreement between the value achieved from the work and employees’value orientation.
Employees’behavior matches work values when their values align with the work values
of the organization (Allan et al., 2019;Lin et al., 2015a,b). The millennial generation’s
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work values have different characteristics compared to other generations. Millennials prefer
a pluralistic career, show more interest in the future and enjoy facing challenges (Li and
Sandino, 2018); they think significantly about equality, individuality and achievement
(Burkus, 2011). As a result, millennial workers are very creative and innovative, usually
generating new suggestions and innovative ideas (Tang, 2015). Hou et al. (2014) explored the
development of the millennial generation’s work values within a Chinese cultural context and
demonstrated that the millennial generation’s work values include the following: utilitarian
orientation, intrinsic preference, interpersonal harmony, innovative orientation and long-
term orientation (Allan et al., 2019;Lin et al., 2015a,b).
Employees whose values have a utilitarian orientation will pursue the maximum benefit
for themselves at work. They focus on financial rewards and think about whether their work
can meet their material requirements (Hou et al., 2014;Winter and Jackson, 2016). Such
employees want more monetary rewards, and short-term compensation is an efficient way to
meet their requirements. Employees with utilitarian-oriented work values are not willing to
exploit their creativity if they are not rewarded for creative work (Wang, 2018). The risk
associated with creative work behavior stops them from utilizing their creativity (Zhang et al.,
2012); they maintain the status quo and avoid creativity or innovation (Zhan et al., 2018),
which means they will lose enthusiasm for developing their creativity.
Employees with intrinsic preferences value autonomy at work; flexible work time
decreases such employees’boredom and enhances their interest in work, thus increasing their
creativity (Andolsek and Stebe, 2004;Lin et al., 2015b); they always believe their work is
valuable and important, which ultimately increases their interest in it, leading them to derive
more satisfaction from it (Wang et al., 2010). Moreover, the creativity that makes a task more
comfortable and more efficient can give employees a greater sense of achievement and has
the potential to further increase their creativity (Fong et al., 2018).
Millennial workers who value interpersonal harmony tend to respect each other in the
workplace and should perceive that their leaders are approachable (Li and Hou, 2012). When
they feel that all team members respect and have good relations with each other, millennial
workers can get the support they require from others, and the resources they can access has a
positive correlation with the hard work they do (Lin et al., 2015a,b). Such interpersonal
harmony can help employees focus on work more closely and motivate their potential
creativity (Dong et al., 2016), which, in turn, continuously drives them to develop and enhance
their creativity and to gather the support they need (Du et al., 2018). Also, for employees who
value interpersonal harmony, their further devotion to work can lead to knowledge sharing
among members of the organization (Dong et al., 2016). Knowledge sharing is a core condition
of creativity, and a higher level of knowledge-sharing can promote better communication
among an organization’s members and stimulate knowledge development (Xiao and Cooke,
2018). The spark between thinking and development can increase employees’knowledge and
skills, create new ideas and has a positive effect on employees’creativity (Lee et al., 2019).
Millennial workers with an innovative orientation take risks by being creative and open-
minded because they accept challenges and hate monotonous work (Fong et al., 2018;Xiao
and Cooke, 2018). They have the advantage of accepting new ideas and exert more effort to be
creative and to acquire new knowledge and skills when facing a challenge (Zhu et al., 2018).
These employees tend to be more confident and aggressive, which means they have a higher
chance of making innovation and solving work-related problems.
Employees with long-term orientation value expect more chances to be promoted to higher
positions. They focus on the potential of the work and have considered their career plans.
They are concerned about their position and also an organization’s future. Such employees
focus more on long-term benefits at work (Hou et al., 2014). On the other hand, they are usually
more motivated to be creative and achieve more for the organization. Their creativity and
achievement can attract leaders’attention, leading to rewards from managers, even from the
Organizational
identification
and millennials’
creativity
organization (Xiao and Cooke, 2018;Yang et al., 2019). As a result, with such values,
employees have a higher chance of career development and more career choices. Therefore,
the long-term orientation value is beneficial for the positive promotion of creativity caused by
work engagement. Thus, we hypothesized that:
H4. Work values moderate the relationship between work engagement and employee
creativity such that:
H4a. Utilitarian orientation moderates the relationship between work engagement and
employee creativity such that the relationship weakens at a higher level of
utilitarian orientation.
H4b. Intrinsic preference moderates the relationship between work engagement and
employee creativity such that the relationship strengthens at the higher level of
intrinsic preferences.
H4c. Interpersonal harmony moderates the relationship between work engagement and
employee creativity such that the relationship strengthens at the higher level of
interpersonal harmony.
H4d. Innovative orientation moderates the relationship between work engagement and
employee creativity such that the relationship strengthens at the higher level of
innovative orientation.
H4e. Long-term orientation moderates the relationship between work engagement and
employee creativity such that the relationship strengthens at the higher level of
long-term orientation.
3. Research methodology
3.1 Context
As discussed earlier, most studies related to organizational identification, work engagement
and creativity have been carried out in western organizational context only. The
organizational identification perceptions and creativity are influenced by indigenous and
organizational culture. However, there is an existing gap to develop an understanding of how
such mechanisms come into play across different cultural settings. The key objective of this
research is to examine employees’experiences of organizational identification, engagement,
work values and creativity in a nonwestern cultural context, particularly in China. Hence, the
data for this research were collected from Chinese millennial generation employees engaged
in public, private and multinational organizations in China. Preliminary research in this area
has indicated that multinational organizations are more likely to implement HRM systems
than smaller local organizations in the Asian context (Yousaf et al., 2013). Thus, the data were
collected from millennial employees serving in the public, private sector and multinational
organizations in China. The data for this study were collected from millennial employees
because they are distinguishable from Xgeneration workers for some important reasons.
First, millennial workers are very creative and innovative, usually generating new
suggestions and innovative ideas (Tang, 2015). They are future-oriented, adventurous as
they enjoy facing challenges and prefer pluralistic careers (Li and Sandino, 2018). Second,
they have the advantage of accepting new ideas and exert more effort to be creative and to
acquire new knowledge and skills when facing a challenge (Zhu et al., 2018). Third, their risk-
taking tendency (Fong et al., 2018;Xiao and Cooke, 2018) to achieve short-term benefits is also
higher (Zhou et al., 2018). Hence, they have a greater desire for flexibility as compared to the
employees of other age groups, including generation X, generation Yand baby boomers (Al-
zoubi, 2016;Lin et al., 2015a,b). Third, from the leadership perspective, the millennial workers
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value interpersonal harmony and try to maintain a closer relationship with their leaders (Li
and Hou, 2012). Fourth, the millennial workers possess completely distinct values as
compared to the workers of other generations. For example, they prefer equality,
individuality and achievement (Burkus, 2011). Their work values included utilitarian
orientation, intrinsic preference, interpersonal harmony, innovative orientation and long-
term orientation (Allan et al., 2019;Lin et al., 2015a,b).
3.2 Design and procedure
All the respondents who participated in this survey were full-time professional employees
working in managerial or nonmanagerial level. Furthermore, the original questionnaire was
translated from English to Chinese and then back to English by two lingual experts both in
English and Chinese, the method proposed by Brislin (1993). Respondents were selected
randomly from HR department records in each organization and therefore invited to
participate in this survey. The questionnaires were distributed to the respondents through
research teams, and instructions were given on how to fill the questionnaire and hand over
the filled questionnaires to the distributing team members the next day. Data were collected
in two different waves in four weeks’time-lagged using convenient sampling technique
(Ansari et al., 2007). In T1, respondents were requested to assess organizational identification,
work values and demographic information. Four weeks later, in T2, they were asked to
evaluate work engagement and creativity. Both sets of questionnaires were coded to make
sure that the responses of the same respondents could match. All the respondents were
assured that their identity and responses would remain confidential and anonymous. Finally,
we collected the data from major IT, manufacturing and service sector organizations
operating in the territory of Jiangsu, Henan, Zhejiang and Shanghai provinces.
A total of 450 questionnaires were distributed, and 281 useable questionnaires were
received. Thus, the response rate was 62.66%. 56% of the respondents were female and 44%
of the respondents were male. Moreover, 37% of the respondents hold bachelor’s degrees,
while 56% of the respondents hold a postgraduate degree or higher. Mostly millennial
generation employees have less than 10 years of employment experience in the organization.
Moreover, only 9% of the respondents were employed for more than 10 years with their
organizations. Most millennials are common employees or managers at lower levels,
especially those born after 1985. 35% of the respondents engaged in private sector
organizations, 26% of the respondents engaged in public sector organizations and 39% of the
respondents engaged in multinational sector organizations.
3.3 Measures
3.3.1 Organizational identification. Organizational identification was measured using a 5-
items global scale developed by Mael and Ashforth (1992). The sample item is: “When
someone criticizes the organization I work for, it feels like a personal insult.”The responses
for this scale were obtained on a 5-point Likert scale ranging from strongly disagree (1) to
strongly agree (5). The reliability (Cronbach
α
) of this scale is 0.89.
3.3.2 Work engagement. Work engagement was measured using a 9-items Utrecht Work
Engagement Scale (UWES) developed by Schaufeli et al. (2002). This scale has been used
previously in the Chinese context (Wang et al., 2015). The UWES consisted of three
dimensions, which included vigor, dedication and absorption. The sample item for vigor
included, “at my job; I feel strong and vigorous.”The sample item for the dedication was “Iam
enthusiastic about my job.”The sample item for absorption is “I get carried away by my
work.”The responses for this scale were obtained on a 5-point Likert scale ranging from
strongly disagree (1) to strongly agree (5). The overall reliability (Cronbach
α
) of this scale
is 0.936.
Organizational
identification
and millennials’
creativity
3.3.3 Employee creativity. Employee creativity was measured using a 13-items scale
developed by Zhou and George (2001). This scale was extensively used in the Chinese
organizational context. The sample item included: “I often come up with new ways to achieve
my work goals.”The responses for this scale were obtained on a 5-point Likert-type rating
scale ranging from strongly disagree (1) to strongly agree (5). The reliability (Cronbach
α
)of
this scale is 0.943.
3.3.4 Work values. The millennial generation’s work values were measured using a 20-
items scale developed by Hou et al. (2014). This scale has five sub-dimensions, which include
(1) utilitarian orientation, (2) intrinsic preference, (3) interpersonal harmony, (4) innovative
orientation and (5) long-term development. The sample item of utilitarian orientation is: “How
important is increasing compensation for you?”The sample item of long-term orientation is:
“How important is a desirable career perspective for you?”The sample item of intrinsic
preference is: “My current job suits my interests.”The sample item of interpersonal harmony
was: “I respect my colleagues.”The sample item of innovative orientation was: “I like
challenging work.”The overall reliability (Cronbach
α
) of this accumulative scale is 0.934,
while the reliability (Cronbach
α
) of each subdimension was 0.818 (utilitarian orientation),
0.819 (intrinsic preference), 0.90 (interpersonal harmony), 0.879 (innovative orientation) and
0.928 (long-term development) respectively. The responses for this scale were obtained on a 5-
point Likert-type rating scale ranging from very unimportant (1) to very important (5). The
values of Cronbach
α
are greater than 0.7, indicating a high level of reliability (George and
Mallery, 2010).
3.3.5 Control variables. The demographic variables were also introduced in the model to
control their potential effect on the dependent variable. The demographic variables included
gender, education level, tenure, position level and type of organization as controlled variables
in this research, as all of them possibly affect employee creativity.
4. Analysis and findings
4.1 Common method bias
To avoid the effect of common method bias, the control of common method biases was
considered when designing the questionnaire. Firstly, the questionnaire surveys were
answered anonymously. Also, to achieve psychological separation, the language in the
questions was modified to be as neutral as possible to cover the research target and variables.
Secondly, Harman single factor analysis has been utilized to examine the order of severity for
common method biases (Chang et al., 2010;George and Mallery, 2010). The results indicate
that the first principal component only takes 31.835% of the variance, which is not critical.
Therefore, the order of severity for common method biases is not significant, and basically, it
does not affect the reliability of the constructs.
4.2 Confirmatory factor analysis (CFA)
The factor analysis was used to determine the validity of scales (Bartlett, 1950;Taherdoost
et al., 2014). The statistical values of Kaiser–Meyer–Olkin (KMO) and Bartlett test (Podsakoff
et al., 2003;Taherdoost et al., 2014) revealed that the KMO values for organizational
identification, work engagement, employee creativity and work values are all greater than
0.8, while Bartlett test was significant with p-values greater than 0.01. This means all scale
items were suitable for factor analysis. Secondly, factor analysis was performed. The results
also indicated that the factor loadings of all items were greater than 0.60. Consequently, no
serious issue was reported with the validity and reliability of all scales.
Confirmatory factor analysis (CFA) was performed to determine the validity of the study
variables and test for common method bias (Podsakoff et al., 2003). The CFA model was
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evaluated with the help of a combination of different fit indices. We tested five alternative
CFA models (Table 1). The values of chi-square, degrees of freedom, modification indices (CFI
and TLI) and RMSEA demonstrate that the 4-factor CFA model revealed the best model fit
(see Table 1) and observed no serious issue with validity. The confirmatory factor analysis
findings demonstrate that the 4-factor model (organizational identification, work
engagement, employee creativity and work values) fits the data very well (
χ
2
5998.12,
df 5539,
χ
2
/df 51.85, RMSEA 50.063, CFI 50.96, TLI 50.94) and was significantly
superior than one-factor model (
χ
2
53959.31, df 5679,
χ
2
/df 55.83, RMSEA 50.132,
CFI 50.75, TLI 50.68), demonstrating that common method bias is not a serious issue in the
present study.
4.3 Descriptive statistics and correlation matrix
The mean value, standard deviation and correlation coefficient for all variables presented in
Table 2. Descriptive analysis indicates that organizational identification has a positive
correlation with employee creativity (r50.329, p< 0.01), and work engagement (r50.329,
p< 0.01). For all five aspects of work values, employee creativity has a positive correlation
with intrinsic preference (r50.251, p< 0.01), interpersonal harmony (r50.279, p< 0.01),
innovative orientation (r50.271, p< 0.01) and long-term development (r50.288, p< 0.01),
but creativity was not positively correlated with utilitarian orientation (r50.121, p> 0.05).
The descriptive statistics confirmed the significant correlation between organizational
identification, work engagement, employee creativity and work values. Such confirmation
provides primary indications to support the proposed hypotheses in this study.
Model
χ
2
Df
χ
2
/
df Δ
χ
2
(Δdf) CFI TLI RMSEA
4-factor baseline model (work
engagement, work values (a second-order
construct), organizational identification
and creativity each used as four separate
latent variables factor)
998.12 539 1.83 0.96 0.94 0.063
3-factor model (work values and
creativity loaded on a single factor while
organizational identification and work
engagement used as two separate
factors)
2459.66 651 3.77 528.27
***
(3) 0.85 0.79 0.095
3-factor model (work engagement and
creativity loaded on a single factor,
organizational identification and work
values as two separate factors)
2988.27 721 4.14 744.89
***
(3) 0.80 0.73 0.099
2-factor model (work engagement, work
values, and creativity loaded on a single
factor while organizational identification
as a separate factor)
2273.55 699 3.25 490.31
***
(7) 0.83 0.76 0.105
One factor model (work engagement,
work values, organizational
identification and creativity loaded on a
single factor)
3959.31 679 5.83 2457.73
***
(10) 0.75 0.68 0.132
Note(s): N5281, ***p< 0.001
Table 1.
Alternative model test
results
Organizational
identification
and millennials’
creativity
Variable Mean SD 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8
1. Organizational identification 3.833 0.722 1
2. Work engagement 3.615 0.601 0.517** 1
3. Employee creativity 3.595 0.597 0.430** 0.671*** 1
4. Utilitarian orientation 4.090 0.675 0.191* 0.121 0.210** 1
5. Intrinsic preference 3.978 0.684 0.325** 0.251** 0.299** 0.399** 1
6. Interpersonal harmony 4.256 0.658 0.369** 0.279** 0.336** 0.459** 0.605*** 1
7. Innovative orientation 3.844 0.752 0.260** 0.271** 0.398** 0.294** 0.615*** 0.646*** 1
8. Long-term orientation 4.355 0.639 0.294** 0.288** 0.271** 0.488** 0.486** 0.723*** 0.557** 1
Note(s): *p< 0.05; **p< 0.01; ***p< 0.001
Table 2.
Descriptive statistics,
correlation coefficients
among study
variables (N5281)
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4.4 Hypothesis testing
Hierarchical regression was used to test the proposed hypotheses. The regression results
exhibited in Table 3 suggest that organizational identification (β50.448 p< 0.001) has a
significant positive effect on employee creativity, which means hypothesis H1 is supported.
The results also revealed that organizational identification (β50.510 p< 0.001) has a positive
effect on work engagement hence supporting the hypothesis H2. As to model 2, the regression
coefficient of organizational identification and employee creativity is significant but
decreases when the mediating variable, work engagement, is intervened into the model. The
regression coefficient decreases from (β50.448 p< 0.001) to (β50.130 p< 0.05), which
indicates that the effect of organizational identification on employee creativity could decrease
with the consideration of work engagement. Thus, work engagement can be considered to
play a partial mediation role between organizational identification and employee creativity.
Hence, hypothesis H3 is supported.
4.5 Moderation results
Hypotheses H4a,H4b,H4c,H4d and H4e work values dimension (utilitarian orientation,
intrinsic preference, interpersonal harmony, innovative orientation and long-term
orientation) moderates positively between work engagement and employee creativity. The
hierarchical regression analysis results for moderation are presented in Table 4. The
interaction of work engagement with all five dimensions of work values (utilitarian
orientation, intrinsic preference, interpersonal harmony and innovative orientation)
demonstrated in model 6 (F517.809, p< 0.01), model 8 (F518.832, p< 0.01), model 10
(F517.809, p< 0.01) and model 12 (F521.525, p< 0.01) are significant. Moreover, the
standardized coefficients for those intersections are also significant (model 6: β50.080,
p< 0.01; model 8: β50.087, p< 0.01; model 10: β50.079, p< 0.01; model 12: β50.043,
p< 0.01). The results indicate that utilitarian orientation, intrinsic preference, interpersonal
harmony and innovative orientation have a significant positive moderation relationship
between work engagement and employee creativity. Thus, hypotheses H4a,H4b,H4c and
H4d are supported. Model 14 shows that long-term orientation does not moderate positively
between work engagement and employee creativity. Because the change of overall
explanatory power is not significant with the consideration of long-term development and
the influence coefficient of its interaction term is not significant (β50.023, p> 0.05), even the
overall influence coefficient of its intersection is significant (F518.044, p< 0.01). Thus,
hypothesis H4e was not supported in this study.
Model
Employee creativity Work engagement
Model 1 Model 2 Model 3
Gender 0.040 0.003 0.060
Education level 0.092 0.081 0.018
Length of time employed 0.122 0.101 0.033
Position level 0.057 0.072 0.024
Type of enterprise 0.051 0.023 0.045
Organizational identification 0.448*** 0.130* 0.510***
Work engagement 0.625***
Fvalue 6.580*** 20.646*** 9.780***
R
2
0.210*** 0.490*** 0.284***
adj R
2
0.178 0.466 0.255
ΔR
2
–0.280*** –
Note(s): *p< 0.05; ***p< 0.001
Table 3.
Hypothesis results:
main effects of
organizational
identification,
engagement and
creativity
Organizational
identification
and millennials’
creativity
Model Model 4 Model 5 Model 6 Model 7 Model 8 Model 9 Model 10 Model 11 Model 12 Model 13 Model 14
Gender 0.093 0.014 0.068 0.004 0.008 0.010 0.014 0.004 0.065 0.001 0.009
Education level 0.077 0.077 0.072 0.090 0.085 0.099 0.094 0.110 0.105 0.091 0.087
Length of time employed 0.045 0.087 0.090 0.082 0.084 0.085 0.086 0.103 0.098 0.089 0.084
Position level 0.019 0.077 0.076 0.059 0.065 0.072 0.075 0.087 0.092 0.085 0.080
Type of enterprise 0.031 0.015 0.015 0.011 0.012 0.013 0.013 0.005 0.022 0.012 0.008
Work engagement 0.687** 0.671** 0.657** 0.651** 0.642** 0.637** 0.618*** 0.608** 0.661** 0.652**
Utilitarian orientation 0.026** 0.020**
Intrinsic preference 0.124** 0.095**
Interpersonal harmony 0.160** 0.136**
Innovative orientation 0.242*** 0.231**
Long-term orientation 0.100** 0.091**
Work engagement 3
utilitarian orientation
0.080**
Work engagement 3
intrinsic preference
0.087**
Work engagement 3
interpersonal harmony
0.079**
Work engagement 3
innovative orientation
0.043**
Work engagement 3long-
term orientation
0.023
Fvalue 0.561 19.730** 17.809** 20.761** 18.832** 21.490** 17.809** 24.189** 21.525** 20.384** 18.044**
R
2
0.019 0.479 0.493 0.491 0.513 0.493 0.512 0.496 0.532 0.487 0.493
adj R
2
–0.454 0.457 0.468 0.474 0.477 0.479 0.475 0.506 0.463 0.460
ΔR
2
––0.014** –0.022** –0.019** –0.036** –0.006
Note(s): **p< 0.01; ***p< 0.001
Table 4.
Moderation analysis
results for work values
EJIM
The simple slope test in Figure 2 also proved that work engagement had a weaker impact
on employee creativity when utilitarian orientation is high than low. The simple slope test in
Figure 3 demonstrated that work engagement had a stronger effect on employee creativity
when intrinsic preference is high as compared to low. Furthermore, Figure 4 shows that the
influence of work engagement on employee creativity is stronger when interpersonal
harmony is high. Finally, a simple slope test in Figure 5 confirmed that work engagement had
a stronger effect on employee creativity when innovative orientation is high as compared
to low.
4.6 Post-hoc analysis to test the differences between managerial and nonmanagerial
millennial employees
The data for this study were collected from two different groups of millennial employees,
including managerial and nonmanagerial employees. We performed post hoc analysis to
examine the possible differences among both groups in the directly as well as indirectly
hypothesized relationships. Overall, the statistics demonstrated the hypothesized
relationships were significant for both managerial as well as nonmanagerial employees.
However, the values of beta coefficients confirmed that the relationships were more
pronounced for managerial employees as compared to nonmanagerial employees. Further,
the moderation effects significantly differed across both groups (Table 5).
5. Discussion
Employees’creativity is very crucial for organizations to succeed and remain competitive in
the current business environment. The key purpose of this study was to investigate the
relationship between some important employee level constructs (including organizational
identification, work engagement and employee creativity) and the characteristics of the work
1
1.5
2
2.5
3
3.5
4
4.5
5
Low Engagement High Engagement
Creavity
Low ulitarian orientaon
High ulitarian orientaon
1
1.5
2
2.5
3
3.5
4
4.5
5
Low Engagement High Engagement
Creavity
Low intrinsic preference
High intrinsic preference
Figure 2.
The interaction effect
between work
engagement and
utilitarian orientation
on creativity
Figure 3.
The interaction effect
between work
engagement and
intrinsic preference on
creativity
Organizational
identification
and millennials’
creativity
environment (i.e. work values). Particularly, this study tested a mediation mechanism to
explain how organizational identification can enhance employees’creativity through work
engagement. This study revealed that work engagement significantly mediates the
relationship between employees’perceptions of organizational identification and employee
creativity. Similarly, this study also examined a moderating mechanism to explain the
1
2
3
4
5
Low Engagement High Engagement
Creavity
Low Interpersonal Harmony
High Interpersonal Harmony
1
1.5
2
2.5
3
3.5
4
4.5
5
Low Engagement High Engagement
Creavity
Low Innovave Orientaon
High Innovave Orientaon
Hypothesized
relationships
Managerial millennial employees
Beta coefficients (standard error)
p-values
Nonmanagerial millennial employees
Beta coefficients (standard error)
p-values
H1:OI-EC 0.249 (0.046) 0.000 0.169 (0.079) 0.0348
H2: OI-WEM 0.387 (0.078) 0.000 0.584 (0.078) 0.000
WE-EC 0.266 (0.051) 0.000 0.634 (0.108) 0.000
H3: indirect/
mediation effects:
OI→WE→EC
0.102 (0.034)
95% confidence interval at 1000
bootstrapping samples
(upperbound 50.042,
lowebound 50.173)
0.370 (0.108)
95% confidence interval at 1000
bootstrapping samples
(upperbound 50.154,
lowebound 50.575)
H4: Moderation effects
a. UO*WE 0.043 (0.069) 0.529 0.078 (0.047) 0.104
b. IP*WE 0.126 (0.076) 0.098 0.112 (0.047) 0.020
c. IH*WE 0.106 (0.072) 0.145 0.079 (0.044) 0.078
d. IO*WE 0.075 (0.065) 0.245 0.116 (0.049) 0.021
e. LTO*WE 0.177 (0.100) 0.080 0.061 (0.041) 0.143
Note(s): OI, organizational identification; WE, work engagement; EC, employee creativity; UOV, utilitarian
orientation value; IPV, interpersonal orientation value; IHV, interpersonal harmony; IO, innovative orientation;
LTO, long-term orientation
Figure 4.
The interaction effect
between work
engagement and
interpersonal harmony
on creativity
Figure 5.
The interaction effect
between work
engagement and
innovative orientation
on creativity
Table 5.
Group differences in
the hypothesized
relationships
EJIM
conditions under which the relationship between work engagement and employee creativity
varies across different levels of work values. The study found that utilitarian orientation,
intrinsic preference, interpersonal harmony and innovative orientation are significant
moderators of the relationship between work engagement and employee creativity. However,
long-term orientation does not significantly moderate this relationship. While testing these
relationships, this study contributed to the existing literature on employee creativity from
multiple perspectives.
6. Theoretical contribution
First, this study found a positive effect of organizational identification on employee
creativity. This finding implies that a stronger perception of organizational identification
enhances employees’creativity. This finding also complies with the existing notion that the
stronger the sense of belonging to the organization, the higher the creative ability an
employee will have (Porck et al., 2020;Sonnentag et al., 2019;Wu and Chen, 2018). Based on
this finding, this study proposed that higher perceptions of organizational identification can
link employees with an organization’s interest by encouraging positive attributes, including
creativity. Hence, the findings and theory of this study support that organizational
identification is an essential element for enhancing employees’creativity. Second, this study
also found that organizational identification is positively related to work engagement. This
finding also implies that the greater the perceptions of organizational identification, the
higher an employee will be engaged in the work. This study supports the view that employees
with high work engagement are more likely to show creativity by offering innovative ideas
(Shuck et al., 2017). Generally, these findings confirm the view of social exchange theory that
employees may exchange a stronger perception of organizational identification with
creativity and work engagement behaviors, which are very constructive for organizational
sustenance. These findings also offer an important implication that employees with greater
organizational identification are motivated to continuously engage in job tasks and use their
creativity to boost organizational performance (Zhang et al., 2018a,b).
Third, this study also found that work engagement significantly mediates the relationship
between organizational identification and employee creativity. This finding supports the
strengthening role of work engagement between organizational identification and employee
creativity. This finding also implies that employees are likely to show greater creativity if
their perceptions of organizational identification significantly enhance their work
engagement. This result complies with some previous studies which reported that an
employee with greater organizational identification is more likely to engage in work that
further enhances his/her creativity to perform a job (Cornwell et al., 2018;Sonnentag et al.,
2019). Thus, this study also confirmed an indirect relationship between organizational
identification and employee creativity via work engagement. Especially, this study supports
the perspective of social exchange theory that the relationship between organizational
identification and creativity may be realized as an exchange process (Brammer et al., 2015;
Cornwell et al., 2018;Shuck et al., 2017) as the employees exchange organizational
identification with higher work engagement and greater creativity. This finding is also
consistent with some previous studies (Tavares et al., 2016;Zhang et al., 2018a,b) which
reported that organizational identification has a positive impact on work engagement and
further work engagement has a positive influence on employee creativity.
The fourth main contribution of this study to the existing research on employee creativity
is to examine the moderating role of each sub-dimension of work values between work
engagement and employee creativity. Although previous studies have examined the role of
work values in various employee-level outcomes (Li et al., 2015) yet there is limited empirical
evidence about the moderating role of work values between work engagement and employee
Organizational
identification
and millennials’
creativity
outcomes. Hence, this study contributed to the existing stream of research on employee
creativity by testing the moderating role of each sub-dimension of work values to explain the
boundary conditions under which the relationship between work engagement and employee
creativity varies. By testing the moderating role of sub-dimensions of work values between
work engagement and employee creativity, this study explains that work engagement alone
may be insufficient to predict employee creativity. Instead, a focus on values prevailing in the
work environment as a boundary condition is equally important to determine the level of
increase in employee creativity resulting from work engagement.
While testing the moderating role of each sub-dimension of work values, this study found
that the relationship between work engagement and employee creativity weakens when
utilitarian orientation is high (Figure 2). On the other hand, the relationship between work
engagement and employee creativity becomes stronger when intrinsic preference (Figure 3),
interpersonal harmony (Figure 4), and innovative orientation (Figure 5) are high as compared
to the condition when intrinsic preference, interpersonal harmony, and innovative orientation
are low. Further, this study found that long-term orientation does not moderate the
relationship between work engagement and employee creativity. These results demonstrate
significant differences in the moderating effect of each sub-dimension of work value between
work engagement and employee creativity. Particularly, the lack of statistical support related
to the moderating role of long-term orientation (Hypothesis 4e) is a novel finding for this
study. Perhaps, the reason lies in the millennial generation’s higher risk-taking orientation for
short-term benefits (Zhou et al., 2018).
Overall, the findings of this study imply that though millennial workers tend to be more
creative in today’s knowledge rather creativity-based economies (Akhtar et al., 2019;
Brammer et al., 2015), yet work values are essential for employee creativity as a boundary
condition for employees’jobs (Lin et al., 2015a,b). An intrinsic preference, however, makes it
easier for employees to gain a sense of achievement by devoting extra energy to their work,
which can encourage employees to be creative (KESEN, 2016). Employees who value
interpersonal harmony prefer to help each other in the workplace and to seek innovative
solutions, which can develop an environment where knowledge is shared, thus promoting the
power of creativity (Carmeli et al., 2013;Tan et al., 2019). Creativity guidance can motivate
employees’creativity and their desire to enhance creativity (Cennamo, 2018;Zhu et al., 2019).
Finally, a long-term orientation has no significant moderating effect between work
engagement and creativity, which disproves the hypothesis. Some Chinese traditions, such
as outlook and relationship structures, might be the reason for this result (Benedek et al., 2019;
Froese, 2013). Employees may think they could embarrass their boss by showing superior
ability, but such a belief could block the employees’long-term development.
7. Managerial implications
This study provides valuable implications for organizational managers. First, organizations
should pay ample attention to employees’perceptions of organizational identification to
encourage employee creativity. Particularly, managers must pay attention to take care of
employees’needs (to strengthen their perceptions of organizational identification). This is
important for addressing employees’financial and career-relevant needs to develop a sense of
belonging (Froese, 2013;Gu et al., 2020). This also strengthens employees’engagement, and
they feel more interested in performing a specific job when their benefits are attached to the
organization’s interest (McKersie et al., 2019). Second, the positive association between
organizational identification and work engagement found in the current study implies
managers to focus on the practices (e.g. personalized care) which increase millennial
employees’work engagement (Bakker et al., 2016). Third, the positive association between
work engagement and employee creativity implies that organizational managers may
EJIM
emphasize those human resource management practices which enhance millennial
employees’engagement in their jobs if they want their employees to bring creative
solutions. Forth, the organization members may pay attention to maintain a work
environment that characterizes those features which value the intrinsic needs of
employees, interpersonal harmony and challenging work opportunities for boosting
employees’creativity. Specifically, a high-quality supervisor subordinates exchange
relationships (Karanika-Murray et al., 2015), which encourage interpersonal harmony in a
working environment that may be beneficial for encouraging self-motivated creativity (Lee
et al., 2019).
Finally, this study implies that managers may retain their focus on those work values
which enhance the role of work engagement in employee creativity (as a significant
interaction of work engagement with three work environment features including intrinsic
preferences, interpersonal harmony and innovative orientation was found significant and
positive). Similarly, they may discourage the work values which have either no effect (long-
term orientation) or decrease (e.g. utilitarian orientation) the impact of employee engagement
on millennial employees’creativity. Similarly, managers may use certain screening checks
while hiring new employees to determine if the personal values of a millennial employee
match with the favorable work values prevailing in the organization. Work values are usually
considered as a fundamental motivation and not easy to modify (Cennamo, 2018;Lee et al.,
2017), but the organization’s culture can drive them, and long-term influences from the
organization’s socialization measures and culture can have a particular effect on employees’
work values (He et al., 2013;Liu et al., 2016;Yasir and Majid, 2019). Therefore, an organization
needs to pay attention to developing a culture from the premise of respecting employees’
work values (Liu et al., 2016;Winter and Jackson, 2016). Consequently, leaders should
recognize work values to attract, inspire, motivate and retain efficient employees in the
organization.
8. Limitations and future research recommendations
This study has also offered certain limitations. First, the data for this study were collected
from millennial employees working in multinational (MNCs), private and public sector
organizations. However, this study may also be replicated by conducting comparative
research by collecting data from employees of different generations working with different
types of organizations (e.g. public, private and MNCs). Second, this study examined the
moderating role of work values between work engagement and employee creativity.
However, work values may also moderate the relationship between organizational
identification and work engagement as well as between organizational identification and
employee creativity. Hence, the researchers may advance this work by testing the moderating
role of work values between work engagement and organizational identification perceptions
as well as between organizational identification and employee creativity. Third, although this
study used a time-lag research design for collecting data, this study may be replicated using
an experimental research design as well. Fourth, this study was conducted in the context of
China. However, the data may also be collected from diverse national settings to make an
international level comparison, particularly between the millennial workers of competing
economies like India vs China. Fifth, this study used a global scale for measuring
organizational identification; the several aspects of organizational reality may not have been
analyzed. This limitation may be overcome by using a multi-dimensional scale for measuring
organizational identification to capture the broader aspects of organizational reality. Finally,
this study used a quantitative research design to investigate the hypothesized relationships.
However, a qualitative research design may be more fruitful insights about the reality of the
work environment characterizing different work values.
Organizational
identification
and millennials’
creativity
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Further reading
Abdullah, N.H., Wahab, E. and Shamsuddin, A. (2019), “Creative self-efficacy, innovative work
behaviour and job performance among selected manufacturing employees”,Journal of Social
Sciences Research, Vol. 5 No. 2, pp. 291-297.
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business-level model of shared vision, competitive intensity, and service performance”,Journal
of Management Studies, Vol. 57 No. 2, pp. 177-209.
Zhao, H., Kessel, M. and Kratzer, J. (2013), “Supervisor-subordinate relationship, differentiation, and
employee creativity: a self-categorization perspective”,Journal of Creative Behavior, Vol. 48
No. 3, pp. 165-184.
Corresponding author
Sajjad Nazir can be contacted at: sajjadnazir@hotmail.com
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