Abstract
Creativity behaviours can be fundamental to ongoing organisational success, but less is known around effects from combination of factors. We test organisational-based self-esteem (OBSE) on creativity behaviours and meaningful work as a mediator and perceived supervisor support as a moderator. Under conservation of resource theory, we expect the combined influence of all these factors will promote creativity behaviours, whereas, under behavioural plasticity theory, we expect the external factor (perceived supervisor support) to be especially advantageous only to employees with low OBSE only. We then test a moderated mediation model to determine a potential boundary condition using a sample of 505 New Zealand employees. We find that OBSE influences creativity behaviours and meaningful work, and that meaningful work is also related to creativity behaviours and fully mediates the influence of OBSE. Further, perceived supervisor support interacts significantly with OBSE towards meaningful work and creativity behaviours, indicating greater outcomes when support and OBSE are high. We also find a significant moderated mediated effect, highlighting the boundary condition whereby the indirect effect of OBSE on creativity behaviours (through meaningful work) increases as support strengthens. Our findings challenge OBSE related theories around the influence of external factor (perceived supervisor support) on OBSE, and we discuss our findings in light of these effects.
