Reversing the Negative Relationship between Conscientiousness and Creativity : The Mediating Role of Work Engagement

Bachelor Thesis from the year 2013 in the subject Business economics - Personnel and Organisation, grade: 1.0, University of Groningen (Faculty of Economics and Business), course: Bachelor Thesis, language: English, abstract: Based on its relevance and influence to a considerable range of fields within the business world, creativity has become a topic of growing interest. Since recent research by Chvez-Eakle, Eakle and Cruz Fuentes (2012) revealed that certain personality traits are related to creativity, the negative relationship between conscientiousness and creativity appears to be well established for individuals and groups across different contexts (Robert & Cheung, 2010). However, little is known about the underlying processes of this relationship. To address this need, the present study examines the possibility that the relationship between conscientiousness and employees' creativity is mediated by the extent to which individuals are engaged in their work. On the basis of existing literature, it is hypothesized that work engagement mediates the relationship between conscientiousness and employees' creativity. Specifically, it is argued that conscientiousness positively relates to work engagement and that in turn, work engagement positively relates to creativity. Using a large multi-source field study, the results of the correlation and regression analysis supported almost all hypotheses. Thus, work engagement was found to fully mediate the relationship. Results also revealed that conscientiousness was positively associated with work engagement and that work engagement was positively related to creativity. However, we did not find support for Hypothesis 1, which predicted conscientiousness and creativity are negatively related. Implications and suggestions for practice and future research are provided.