Individual and Work Environmental Factors that Foster Creative Behavior: Direct and Moderating Effects

With innovation emerging as one of the most important issues affecting the business circle, enhancing employee creativity is considered a necessity for any organization in order to achieve and maintain competitive advantage in a world of rapid technological change. The present paper was to examine the moderating effects between individual attributes and work environmental factors on creative behavior as well as the direct effects of them in the South Korean workplace. Based on a cross-sectional survey, this study presented following meaningful findings: (a) bisociative problem-solving style and work motivation as personal attributes, and transactional leadership and goal team climate as work environmental characteristics have a direct relationship with creative behavior (b) team participation and team goal moderate positively between bisociative problem-solving and creative behavior; (c) high transformational and transactional leadership styles are more effective for low bisociative problems solvers for creativity; and (d) for higher work motivation, innovative and goal-oriented team climate can enhance creative behavior. These findings should not only contribute to understanding of an individual’s creative behavior but also have implications for management development and team building for enhancing creativity and innovation in the work place.