Journal of Creative Behavior - 2016 - Xu - The Influence of Openness To Experience On Perceived Employee Creativity The

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S E N XU
X UE T IN G J I A N G
I A N J. W A L S H
The Influence of Openness to Experience on Perceived

Employee Creativity: The Moderating Roles of
Individual Trust
ABSTRACT
In this paper, we explain the influence of co-worker trust on the effect of employees’ openness to experience
on their perceptions of their own creativity. We surveyed 199 working professionals in Ireland and found that
openness to experience was positively associated with both employees’ perceptions of their radical creativity
and incremental creativity. In addition, the relationship between openness to experience and incremental cre-
ativity was negatively moderated by cognition-based trust in his or her co-worker. In conclusion, we discuss
the theoretical and managerial implications of our findings and highlight directions for future research.
Keywords: employee creativity, openness to experience, co-worker trust.
Openness to experience represents the extent to which an individual is imaginative, curious, and broad-
minded (McCrae, 1987). It has long been theorized as an important individual trait that influences
employee creativity (for reviews, see Shalley, Zhou, & Oldham, 2004; Zhou & Shalley, 2003). However,
empirical evidence for this proposed relationship was not incontrovertible (Baer, 2010; Baer & Oldham,
2006; George & Zhou, 2001; Hammond, Neff, Farr, Schwall, & Zhao, 2011; Raja & Johns, 2010). In our
study, we seek to elaborate and specify the conditions under which openness to experience affects employ-
ees’ perceptions of their own creativity. Specifically, we draw upon recent creativity research and explore the
multidimensionality of employee creativity (Madjar, Greenberg, & Chen, 2011; Unsworth, 2001). We
attempt to examine how employees’ openness to experience relates to both radical and incremental creativ-
ity. In addition, researchers have suggested that individual and contextual forces interactively shape
employee creativity (Woodman, Sawyer, & Griffin, 1993; Zhou & Hoever, 2014). Since co-worker relation-
ships are known to shape employee creativity (e.g., Madjar, Oldham, & Pratt, 2002; Oldham & Cummings,
1996), we also direct our attention to co-worker trust as one of contextual factors that might influence the
relationship between employees’ traits and their perceptions of their creativity in the workplace.
Our study intends to make two theoretical contributions. First, it provides greater clarity about the rela-
tionship between openness to experience and employee creativity. To our knowledge, it is the first study to
simultaneously explore the effect of openness to experience on both radical and incremental creativity. It
substantiates the growing body of literature differentiating the mechanisms of radical creativity and incre-
mental creativity in the workplace (e.g., Madjar et al., 2011). Second, we respond to a recent call for
research to focus on contextual factors under which specific personality dimensions influence creativity in
the workplace (Anderson, Potocnik, & Zhou, 2014). Since existing research linking individual trust with cre-
ativity is still in its early stages (George & Zhou, 2007; Gong, Kim, Zhu, & Lee, 2013), our paper enriches
current scholarly understanding on how trust in peer relationships influences employee creativity at work.
THEORIES AND HYPOTHESES

THE RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN OPENNESS TO EXPERIENCE AND EMPLOYEE CREATIVITY
While prior research on employee creativity has generally measured it as a unitary construct (Shalley
et al., 2004), scholars have recognized that it may take multiple forms (Unsworth, 2001), sometimes produc-
ing minor adaptations and in other instances, more radical breakthroughs (Mumford & Gustafson, 1988).
142 The Journal of Creative Behavior, Vol. 52, Iss. 2, pp. 142–155 © 2016 by the Creative Education Foundation, Inc. Ó DOI: 10.1002/jocb.138
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Journal of Creative Behavior
Recently, scholars have differentiated between two types of creativity: radical and incremental (e.g., Madjar
et al., 2011). Radical creativity refers to ideas that “differ substantially from an organization’s existing prac-
tices” (Madjar et al., 2011, p. 731). For example, the introduction of instant messaging was a fundamental
breakthrough in communication as it was a qualitatively different form of communication than the tech-
niques it replaced. In contrast, incremental creativity refers to ideas that “imply few changes in framework
and offer only minor modifications to existing practices and products” (Madjar et al., 2011, p. 731). An
instance of incremental creativity can be seen in the attempts to modify industrial equipment, such as boil-
ers and heaters, for domestic purposes. Since radical creativity and incremental creativity are quite distinct
from one another, these two types of creativity may be developed through different processes and mecha-
nisms. A few recent studies have identified several antecedents to radical and incremental creativity (Gilson,
Lim, D’Innocenzo, & Moye, 2012; Gilson & Madjar, 2011; Madjar et al., 2011). These studies have found
that various contextual factors such as creative co-workers, resources (Madjar et al., 2011), and supportive
supervision (Gilson et al., 2012) could affect these two types of creativity. However, less is known about
how traits influence radical and incremental creativity. Although scholars have suggested that individual
traits may influence creativity, this argument has not been consistently supported by empirical evidence
(e.g., Shalley et al., 2004). We speculate that previous researchers could not find conclusive evidence on this
argument partially because they did not fully consider the multidimensionality of creativity.
Our interest in traits led us to look at “Big Five” personality dimensions (e.g., Barrick & Mount, 1991; Bar-
rick, Mount, & Judge, 2001), in particular, at openness to experience, and to examine its potential influence
upon employee creativity. Psychologists have identified the importance of openness to experience in encour-
aging individual creativity. McCrae (1987) found that openness to experience is strongly related to two indi-
cators of creativity: divergent thinking and creative personality. He suggested that highly open individuals
might be more likely to participate in projects that require imagination and cognitive skills. Their great flex-
ibility fosters the production of creative ideas, and they are also proactive in trying to gain unique experi-
ences. Two meta-analysis studies in psychology empirically confirmed the positive association between
openness to experience and individual creativity in general (Feist, 1998; Ma, 2009).
Unfortunately, no clear consensus exists on the impact of openness to experience on employee creativity
in organizational settings (for reviews, see Shalley et al., 2004; Zhou & Shalley, 2003). Some studies suggest
that openness to experience may be positively associated with employee creativity (Hammond et al., 2011;
Raja & Johns, 2010), while others suggest that open employees may show their creative potential only under
specific working conditions, such as positive feedback valence, or heuristic tasks (Baer, 2010; Baer & Old-
ham, 2006; George & Zhou, 2001).
Up until now, management researchers have primarily examined employee creativity as a unidimensional
construct (for a review, see Shalley et al., 2004), and relatively few studies have explored its multidimension-
ality. Therefore, we did not know whether openness to experience affects multiple types of employee creativ-
ity or just radical or incremental creativity only (Shalley et al., 2004).
We propose that openness to experience may positively affect both radical creativity and incremental cre-
ativity. Employees with high levels of openness to experience may become easily bored with routine proce-
dures in their organizations. They are inherently enthusiastic toward accepting novel assignments, or making
adaptations in existing practices to enhance their effectiveness. Specifically, they tend to seek challenging
work to satisfy their natural curiosity. Therefore, these employees hold great potential in making fundamen-
tal changes on current work procedures through radical creativity. In addition, enacting minor adaptations
would also be attractive to employees who are open to experience if radical changes are unnecessary at work.
Even if these employees are assigned to do routine work, their imaginative nature may still drive them to
search for small changes.
Hypothesis 1a: Employees’ openness to experience will be positively related to their perceptions of
their radical creativity at work.
Hypothesis 1b: Employees’ openness to experience will be positively related to their perceptions of
their incremental creativity at work.
THE MODERATING ROLES OF INDIVIDUAL TRUST

The interactionist perspective (Woodman et al., 1993) suggests that employee creativity is an outcome of
a complex interaction between individual and situational factors (Anderson et al., 2014). Specifically, work
143
Openness to Experience and Employee Creativity
contexts may encourage or discourage employees to manifest their inherent creative potential (Shalley et al.,
2004). We suggest that creativity of employees who are open to experience may be contingent upon certain
characteristics of their work contexts. In this study, we identify one potentially influential factor: employees’
trust in their co-workers.
Trust represents a fundamental ingredient in social interactions, and it can influence an employee’s
acceptance of information given by others (e.g., George & Zhou, 2007; Gong et al., 2013). In general, trusted
co-workers can enable employees who are open to experience to process information, solve problems, make
decisions, and take risks. Since individual trust has both cognitive and affective foundations, we examined
two primary forms of individual trust: cognition- and affect-based trust (McAllister, 1995). We propose that
these two types of trust can provide a comprehensive explanation of how individual trust might affect the
relationship between openness to experience and both forms of creativity.
Cognition-based trust refers to the extent to which focal employees have positive expectations of their
co-workers’ competence and responsibility (McAllister, 1995). It serves as an “uncertainty reducer” in facili-
tating communications between employees and their co-workers (Colquitt, LePine, Piccolo, Zapata, & Rich,
2012; Zhu & Akhtar, 2014). Cognition-based trust enables employees who are open to experience to believe
that co-workers could help them complete their work effectively. This form of individual trust may moder-
ate how these employees who are open to experience develop radical and incremental creativity.
Cognition-based trust in a co-worker may encourage employees who are open to experience to make
attempts at radical creativity. Since radical creativity entails a substantial departure from existing work pro-
cedures and techniques, it is usually associated with high levels of uncertainty and risk. When employees
who are open to experience recognize a need for radical creativity and search for new approaches and solu-
tions to their problems, they are likely to seek help from others to reduce uncertainty and risk. Cognition-
based trust may facilitate communications between employees who are open to experience and their trusted
co-workers (McAllister, 1995). Such employees may believe that their co-workers can provide developmental
feedback (Zhou, 2003), sharp critiques, problem-solving (Madjar et al., 2002, 2011), job autonomy (Zhou,
2003), and access to social networks (Zhou, Shin, Brass, Choi, & Zhang, 2009). All of these resources can
help facilitate the development of radically creative solutions with more certainty and security (Madjar et al.,
2002, 2011). When employees who are open to experience have less cognition-based trust in their co-work-
ers, they are less inclined to put themselves in situations where these valuable resources for creative thinking
would become available to them.
However, cognition-based trust may attenuate attempts at incremental creativity among employees who
are open to experience, because their beliefs about trusted peers’ competence may induce them to rely on
the peers in ways that resemble “free-riding” behaviors (Tsai, Chi, Grandey, & Fung, 2012; Zhu, Newman,
Miao, & Hooke, 2013). Compared with radical creativity, incremental creativity involves relatively minor
adaptations that can be easily understood and replicated. When employees who are open to experience cog-
nitively trust their co-workers’ unique ideas, these peers become a potential source for quick solutions to
minor problems that do not depend on their own intensive efforts (e.g., Tsai et al., 2012). In the absence of
cognition-based trust, employees who are open to experience may hesitate to depend upon their co-workers’
expertise to make minor adaptations at work. Such employees might be inclined to work independently,
using their own capabilities and resources to pursue opportunities for incremental creativity.
Hypothesis 2a: Cognition-based trust in a co-worker positively moderates the positive relationship
between openness to experience and employees’ perceptions of their radical creativity at work, such
that the relationship is stronger for individuals with higher levels of cognition-based trust.
Hypothesis 2b: Cognition-based trust in a co-worker negatively moderates the positive relationship
between openness to experience and employees’ perceptions of their incremental creativity at work,
such that the relationship is stronger for individuals with lower levels of cognition-based trust.
Affect-based trust refers to the extent to which focal employees expect their co-workers to express care
and concern toward them (McAllister, 1995). Affect-based trust builds mature interpersonal connections
and it serves as a social exchange facilitator that encourages emotional investment and promotes emotional
attachment (Colquitt et al., 2012; Zhu & Akhtar, 2014). However, we suggest that affect-based trust would
be unlikely to influence the relationship between openness to experience and incremental creativity. Incre-
mental creativity involves adaptions that are more minor in nature and thus would require employees to
take relatively smaller risks. It might be expected that employees who are open to experience have the confi-
144
dence to pursue incremental creativity on their own, making additional expectations for emotional care and
concern from their co-workers less important.
In contrast, affect-based trust may relieve employees’ anxiety toward taking more substantial risks associ-
ated with radical creativity. Although affect-based trust does not seem to have a direct connection with radi-
cal creativity, employees who are open to experience may feel a heightened confidence in taking risks when
they have affect-based trust in a co-worker. In situations characterized by strong affect-based trust, employ-
ees who are open to experience would be particularly comfortable soliciting and responding to feedback
from their co-workers. Even when constructive feedback may involve some amount of criticism, these
employees may welcome it in light of their positive emotional connections with their co-workers. Therefore,
affect-based trust can provide employees a sense of security, stimulating them to process information and
pursue radically creative solutions (Madjar et al., 2002). We thus hypothesize:
Hypothesis 3: Affect-based trust in a co-worker positively moderates the positive relationship between
openness to experience and employees’ perceptions of their radical creativity at work, such that the
relationship is stronger for individuals with higher levels of affect-based trust.
METHOD
SAMPLE AND PROCEDURES
We distributed surveys to 225 working professionals in Ireland during their participation in a part-time
master’s degree program in an Irish business school. A total of 207 participants (92%) completed the survey.
We dropped eight cases in which participants failed to identify their co-workers. Our usable sample
(N = 199) included individuals who worked in a wide range of industries such as engineering, financial ser-
vices, health care, consulting, manufacturing, government, and non-profit organizations. The mean age of
our respondents was 33.6 years (SD = 5.5), and 66% of them were male. On average, respondents had
worked for 5.4 years in their current jobs and 4.0 years with the co-workers they identified.
MEASURES
Perceived radical creativity and incremental creativity
We used seven-point Likert-type scales for most of our constructs, ranging from 1 (strongly disagree) to
7 (strongly agree). We used Madjar et al.’s (2011) three-item scale (a = .85) to assess radical creativity.
Respondents were asked to evaluate their own radical creativity at their current jobs. For example, “I
demonstrate originality in my work” is a sample of an item on our survey. Similarly, we used Madjar et al.’s
(2011) three-item scale (a = .80) to assess incremental creativity. A sample item used to test incremental
activity is: “I use previously existing ideas or work in an appropriate new way.” We chose to study employ-
ees’ perceptions of their creativity for three reasons. First, in order to increase the generalizability of our
findings, we surveyed employees with a wide range of backgrounds instead of focusing on employees at a
specific type of organizations or industries. While this diversity can help us ensure that our findings do not
owe to distinctive characteristics of a particular industry, it also makes it less feasible to measure creativity
using a measure of actual creative performance that would apply across industries, organizations and occu-
pations. Second, scholars have suggested that employees have the potential to be reliable informants of their
own creativity. Compared to their supervisors or peers, employees themselves can be more reliable evalua-
tors of whether their new ideas are fundamental breakthroughs or minor adaptations (Ng & Feldman,
2012). Also, employees’ perceptions of creativity could more accurately reflect creative habits as some
employees may shield such behavior from their supervisors and peers (Ng & Feldman, 2012). Third, empiri-
cal evidence in early studies have also supported that employees themselves could be an effective source in
assessing their own creativity (e.g., Gilson et al., 2012; Janssen, 2000; Shalley, Gilson, & Blum, 2009). For
example, Janssen (2000) found that self-rated employee creativity is significantly correlated to supervisor-
rated employee creativity. Ng and Feldman’s (2012) meta-analysis also found that the positive effective size
of openness to experience is not significantly larger for self-reported employee creativity than for non-self-
reported employee creativity.
Openness to experience
Having deleted one item due to a low factor loading (.35, “I have difficulty understanding abstract
ideas”), we used three items (a = .75) in Donnellan, Oswald, Baird, and Lucas’s (2006) four-item scale to
measure openness to experience. A sample item of this evaluation is, “I have a vivid imagination.”
145
Cognition- and affect-based trust

Each participant assessed cognition-based trust by using McAllister’s (1995) six-item scale (a = .87). A
sample item of this evaluation is, “This person approaches his/her job with professionalism and dedication.”
Similarly, the participants assessed affect-based trust by using McAllister’s (1995) five-item scale (a = .90). A
sample item of affect-based trust is, “I can talk freely to him/her about difficulties I am having at work and
know that he or she will want to listen.” To reduce the risk of leniency bias (Podsakoff, MacKenzie, Lee, &
Podsakoff, 2003), we asked respondents to consider the co-worker with whom they were most recently in
contact prior to taking the survey, whether it was via email, phone call, or personal interaction.
Control variables
We also included several control measures that could have systematically influenced our results. First, we
controlled for conscientiousness, as it is another Big Five personality trait that has previously been shown to
affect employee creativity (e.g., George & Zhou, 2001). We measured conscientiousness by using Donnellan
et al.’s (2006) four-item scale (a = .65). A sample item used to measure conscientiousness is, “I get chores
done right away.” Second, we controlled for intrinsic motivation, as it has been widely recognized as an
important driver of employee creativity (Shalley et al., 2004). We measured intrinsic motivation by using
Guay, Vallerand, and Blanchard’s (2000) four-item scale (a = .90). A sample item of intrinsic motivation is,
“I think that this work is interesting.” Finally, in accordance practices in prior studies of employee creativity
(e.g., George & Zhou, 2007; Madjar et al., 2002), we included four demographic variables: gender (0 = male,
1 = female), country of origin (1 = Ireland, 2 = other), age (in years), and organizational tenure (in years).
ANALYTICAL PROCEDURES
Before testing our hypotheses, we conducted confirmatory factor analyzes (AMOS 18.0) with maximum
likelihood estimation procedures to ascertain the credibility of our constructs. First, we assessed whether
radical and incremental creativity could be measured distinctively and allowed the items of these constructs
to be loaded on one-factor and two-factor models. As empirical evidence has found a strong correlation
(above .6) between affect- and cognition-based trust (e.g., Colquitt et al., 2012; McAllister, 1995; Zhu &
Akhtar, 2014), we conducted a similar analysis to assess the distinctiveness of affect- and cognition-based
trust. We then examined whether the hypothesized factor model for our theoretical framework fits our data.
We tested our hypotheses by using hierarchical moderated regression analyzes. We treated radical and
incremental creativity as dependent variables, and entered predictor variables sequentially in the regression
analyzes based on four analytic models.
RESULTS
Table 1 shows descriptive statistics and correlations associated with all variables included in our study.1
Results indicated that the two pairs of theoretically related constructs demonstrate considerable discriminant
validity. First, the two-factor model of perceived radical and incremental creativity (v2 = 14.53; df = 8;
CFI = .99; TLI = .98; RMSEA = .06; SRMR = .04) showed a significant chi-square difference (Dv2 = 153.82,
df = 1, p < .001) and a better model fit than the one-factor model (v2 = 168.35; df = 9; CFI = .68;
TLI = .47; RMSEA = .30; SRMR = .16). Second, the two-factor model of affect- and cognition-based trust
(v2 = 69.70; df = 41; CFI = .98; TLI = .97; RMSEA = .06; SRMR = .04) also showed a significant chi-square
difference (Dv2 = 227.94, df = 1, p < .001) and better model fit than the one-factor model (v2 = 297.64;
df = 42; CFI = .83; TLI = .77; RMSEA = .18; SRMR = .09). Given the strong correlation between openness
to experience and radical creativity, we further assessed the distinctiveness between these two variables. The
two-factor model (v2 = 20.39; df = 8; CFI = .97; TLI = .95; RMSEA = .09; SRMR = .04) showed a
significant chi-square difference (Dv2 = 77.51, df = 1, p < .001) and better model fit than the one-factor
model (v2 = 97.90; df = 9; CFI = .81; TLI = .69; RMSEA = .22; SRMR = .11).
In addition, we examined all of the variables in our theoretical model. We found that the measurement
model, which included control variables, showed satisfactory fit indices (v2 = 578.58, df = 432; p < .001;
1
We found that cognition-based trust, radical creativity, and incremental creativity were relatively high in their means and nega-
tively skewed. We used the reversed square root transformation of these variables to conduct correlation and multiple regression
analyzes over again. We did find virtually identical results based on transformed and non-transformed data, Given that the
transformed variables are relatively hard to explain in practice, we reported our correlation and multiple regression results based
on the original non-transformed data. The results based on the transformed variables are available by request. We appreciated
an anonymous reviewer for pointing out this observation and giving us clear guidance.
146
TABLE 1. Means, Standard Deviations (SD), Reliability Coefficients, and Correlations
Mean SD 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11
1. Openness to 5.08 1.14 .75
experience
2. Affect-based 4.50 1.45 .07 .90
trust
3. Cognition-based 5.29 1.18 .11 .68*** .87
trust
4. Radical creativity 5.21 1.15 .61*** .18* .11 .85
5. Incremental 5.70 0.84 .18* .16 .25** .44*** .80
creativity
6. Intrinsic 4.73 1.33 .06 .29*** .26** .19* .34*** .90
motivation
7. Conscientiousness 5.18 1.34 .11 .15 .16 .10 .15 .17 .65
8. Relationship 3.95 3.28 .01 .07 .04 .06 .04 .02 .07
length
9. Gender 0.33 0.47 .04 .01 .01 .04 .02 .04 .14 .06
(0 = male)
10. Country 1.41 0.47 .11 .05 .05 .06 .04 .09 .01 .06 .08
(1 = Ireland)
11. Age 33.52 5.46 .02 .02 .02 .09 .08 .09 .04 .07 .25*** .06
12. Tenure 5.37 4.35 .05 .02 .02 .10 .00 .04 .07 .07 .13 .15* .45***
Note. N = 199. Reliabilities are in italic on the diagonal. One item related to openness to experience was dropped due to a low factor loading.*p < .05.
**p < .01. ***p < .001.
147
CFI = .95; TLI = .94; RMSEA = .04; SRMR = .05). In addition, we found that all items significantly loaded
on their corresponding latent variables (p < .001). Taken together, we concluded that the variables in our
study exhibited adequate construct validity to proceed with our analysis.
We summarized our hierarchical moderated regression results in Table 2 and 3. Model 1 includes the
control variables. Model 2 includes the main effect of openness to experience. Model 3 includes the main
effect with two moderators: cognition- and affect-based trust. Model 4 includes the cross-product interac-
tion between openness to experience and each of the two moderators. By following Aiken and West’s (1991)
advice, we centered the independent variables and moderators on their respective means to reduce the risk
of multicollinearity.
H1a and H1b predicted that employees’ openness to experience would be positively related to their per-
ceived radical creativity and incremental creativity, respectively. As shown in Tables 2 and 3 (Model 2), these
hypotheses were supported (b = .50, p < .001; b = .14, p < .01). H2a suggested that cognition-based trust
positively moderates the positive relationship between openness to experience and perceived radical creativity.
Table 2 (Model 4) showed that this hypothesis was not supported. H2b predicted that cognition-based trust
negatively moderates the positive relationship between openness to experience and perceived incremental cre-
ativity. As shown in Table 2 (Model 4), the moderating effect was significant (b = .16, p < .05; DR2 = .022,
p < .05). We performed the simple slope tests to further specify the moderating effect of cognition-based
trust. The simple slopes tests can demonstrate whether the gradients of either a low level or a high level mod-
erator differ from zero, or depart significantly from the horizontal plane. By using Dawson’s (2014) approach,
we tested the regression coefficients corresponding to a low (one standard deviation below the mean) and
high (one standard deviation above the mean) level of cognition-based trust. As seen in Figure 1, when cog-
nition-based trust was low, openness to experience was strongly and positively related to incremental creativ-
ity (t = 10.81; p < .001); whereas when cognition-based trust was high, openness to experience was still, but
very slightly positively related to incremental creativity (t = .03; p = .974). Thus, H2b was supported. H3 sug-
gested that affect-based trust moderates the positive relationship between openness to experience and radical
creativity. As shown in Table 3 (Model 4), this moderating effect was not supported.2
COMMON METHOD VARIANCE

Because we used a single data source, common method variance may inflate or deflate the hypothesized
relationships in our study. We applied the CFA marker variable technique (Williams, Hartman, & Cavazotte,
2010) to assess the potential impact of common method variance. We used the length of the reported co-
worker relationship as a marker variable because this variable captures the maturity of the reported relation-
ship. We believe that the relationship length fits well with the criteria of a marker variable (Williams et al.,
2010). On one hand, the relationship length is theoretically unrelated to our five primary constructs. As
shown in Table 1, the correlations between relationship length and the five primary variables were fairly
low. On the other hand, the trust literature suggested that the relationship length increases the likelihood of
judgments of trust (Mayer, Davis, & Schoorman, 1995). Accordingly, examining the impact of the relation-
ship length can capture the extent to which other unknown sources of common method variance may affect
the statistical results of this study.
Referring to the three-phase procedure outlined by Williams et al. (2010), we first generated five models:
Model 1 is a full CFA model including the five primary constructs; Model 2 is the baseline model that adds
the marker variable to Model 1, but forces the correlations between the marker variable to each of the latent
variables as zero; Model 3 adds the paths between the marker variable and each indicator of the constructs
under the assumption that the factor loadings are constrained to have the same value; Model 4 is an alterna-
tive model to Model 3 that allows the method factor loadings to be different from each other; finally, Model
5 follows the structure of Model 3 or Model 4 (depending on which model better fits to the data) and fixes
the correlation values among the primary constructs based on Model 2. If Model 5 does not fit better than
2
To further explore the effect of affect-based trust, we conducted a supplementary analysis to examine whether affect-based trust
has a U-shaped relationship with each type of self-reported employee creativity. Guided by Aiken and West (1991), we followed
four-step multiple hierarchical regression analysis to test the U-shaped relationship. In step 1, we entered six control variables.
In step 2, we entered affect-based trust and openness to experience. In step 3, we added affect-based trust squared to the equa-
tion. In step 4, we entered the interaction effect between affect-based trust and openness to experience and the interaction
between squared affect-based trust and openness to experience. We did not find a significant quadratic effect on either radical
creativity (b = .03, n.s.), or incremental creativity (b = .13, n.s.). We owe this point to an anonymous reviewer. The results in
details are available by request.
148
TABLE 2. Hierarchical Regression Results for the Moderating Effect of Cognition-Based Trust in the Relationship between Openness to Experience and
Employee Creativity
Model 1 Model 2 Model 3 Model 4
A B A B A B A B
Step 1: Control variables (b)
Gender .01 .03 .00 .02 .00 .03 .00 .03
Country .03 .05 .01 .03 .01 .04 .01 .04
Age .07 .16† .05 .13 .04 .17 .04 .10
Tenure .05 .10 .06 .10 .06 .08 .06 .06
Intrinsic motivation .17* .30*** .18** .30*** .15* .26** .15* .27***
Conscientiousness .05 .10 .09 .11 .09 .10 .08 .11
Step 2: Main effect variables (b)
Openness to experience .50*** .14* .51*** .15* .50*** .18**
Step 3: Moderator variable (b)
Cognition-based trust .09 .17* .09 .19**
Step 4: Cross-product variable (b)
Cognition-based trust 9 Openness .04 .16*
to experience
R2 .04 .18 .29 .14 .30 .16 .30 .18
F 1.48 4.23** 11.02*** 4.30*** 8.97*** 4.57*** 8.88*** 4.71***
DR2 0.24 0.019 .01 .03 .00 .02
DF 65.28*** 4.26* 2.19 5.71* 0.38 5.12*
Note. N = 199. A: radical creativity; B: incremental creativity.†p < .1. *p < .05. **p < .01. ***p < .001.
149
150
TABLE 3. Hierarchical Regression Results for the Moderating Effect of Affect-Based Trust in the Relationship between Openness to Experience and
Employee Creativity
Model 1 Model 2 Model 3 Model 4
A B A B A B A B
Step 1: Control variables (b)
Gender .01 .03 .00 .02 .00 .02 .00 .02

Country .03 .05 .01 .03 .01 .04 .01 .04
Age .07 .14† .05 .13 .04 .13 .04 .13
Tenure .05 .10 .06 .10 .06 .09 .07 .09
Intrinsic motivation .17* .30*** .17** .30*** .19* .28*** .13* .28***
Conscientiousness .05 .10 .09 .11 .09 .11 .09 .10
Step 2: Main effect variables (b)
Openness to experience .50*** .14* .51*** .15* .52*** .14*
Step 3: Moderator variable (b)
Affect-based trust .17** .08 .17** .08
Step 4: Cross-product variable (b)
Affect-based trust 9 Openness .05 .02
to experience
R2 .04 .12 .29 .14 .31 .14 .32 .14
F 1.48 4.23** 11.02*** 4.30*** 10.88*** 3.90*** 9.73*** 3.46**
DR2 .24 .02 .03 .01 .00 .00
DF 65.28*** 4.26* 7.37** 1.16 0.67 0.11
Note. N = 199. A: radical creativity; B: incremental creativity.†p < .1. *p < .05. **p < .01. ***p < .001.
FIGURE 1. The moderating effect of cognition-based trust (Cog-trust) on the relationship between
openness to experience (openness) and incremental creativity.
Model 3 or Model 4, it suggests that method variance has not unduly influenced the support for the
hypothesized relationship. Results showed that Model 5 was not a better fit than Model 3: Dv2 (10,
N = 199) = 8.06 (p > .05). Second, we conducted reliability decomposition that separates the observed val-
ues of total reliability into substantive and method portions. Results demonstrated that the CFA marker
variable accounted for less than 0.2% of the total reliability value of each of the main five constructs. The
third phase is a sensitivity analysis that examines the effects of sampling errors on the estimates of method
variance due to the marker variable. The findings showed that the method factor loading produced a small
change in the values of the factor correlations. The significance of factor correlations was still consistent with
the previous models. In summary, we concluded that common method variance did not unduly influence
the statistical support for our hypotheses.
DISCUSSION
Drawing upon the interactionist perspective (Woodman et al., 1993), we proposed that co-worker trust
could moderate the relationships between openness to experience and employees’ perceived radical creativity
and incremental creativity at work. We found that openness to experience positively related to both radical
creativity and incremental creativity. Also, cognition-based trust in a co-worker negatively moderated the
effect of openness to experience on incremental creativity.
THEORETICAL IMPLICATIONS
Our study has three major theoretical implications. First, we found support for the relationships between
openness to experience and employees’ perceptions of two forms of employee creativity. This finding pro-
vides evidence for the main effect of openness to experience on employee creativity, which has been less
clearly supported in prior studies of creativity in work contexts (e.g., Baer, 2010). Few researchers have
examined whether a given personality trait influences multiple types of employee creativity (Unsworth,
2001). Our study might be the first to investigate the distinctive effects of personality on two types of cre-
ativity. Future research could further examine how radical creativity and incremental creativity are influ-
enced by other individual traits (Anderson et al., 2014).
A second theoretical implication of our study relates to cognition-based trust. Although cognition-based
trust can enable helping behavior (e.g., Colquitt et al., 2012) and reduce uncertainty for creative employees,
overreliance on cognition-based trust may weaken its positive influence on work performance. Unfortu-
nately, scholars have given little attention to how cognition-based trust influences employee creativity (for
an exception, see George & Zhou, 2007). In this study, we found that employees’ cognition-based trust in a
co-worker was positively related to their perceptions of incremental creativity. This finding implies that cog-
nition-based trust is generally beneficial for employees in terms of fostering the generation of creative ideas.
We also found that cognition-based trust negatively moderated the positive relationship between openness
to experience and perceptions of incremental creativity. When cognition-based trust is low, openness to
experience has a strong positive relationship with incremental creativity. When cognition-based trust is high,
the existing positive main effect almost disappears. This interesting finding sheds light on the “dark side” of
151
trust, lending credence to a recent study identifying that cognition-based trust negatively moderates the rela-
tionship between positive group affective tone and team creativity (Tsai et al., 2012). Future research should
consider the potential negative effects of previously assumed positive antecedents and mechanisms in specific
research contexts (Anderson et al., 2014).
Third, we examined the indirect effect of co-workers on employee creativity. Prior research concentrated
on creative co-workers (e.g., Madjar et al., 2011) or combined co-workers with supervisors as a group (e.g.,
Madjar et al., 2002). In contrast, we responded to calls for research on whether particular co-workers serve
as supportive resources for employee creativity (Madjar et al., 2002). By asking focal employees to nominate
one of their most recently contacted co-workers, we reduced the potential threat of leniency bias (Podsakoff
et al., 2003) as early research led respondents to rate co-workers with whom they have close relationships
(e.g., Chen, Takeuchi, & Shum, 2013). In light of the effects of person-context interactions on employee cre-
ativity (Zhou & Hoever, 2014), future research should distinguish the influence of different types of co-
workers on employee creativity based on work assignments, job designs, and organizational characteristics.
PRACTICAL IMPLICATIONS
Our findings suggest that openness to experience is an important trait that influences employee creativity
in the workplace. Given that openness to experience related positively to perceptions of both radical creativ-
ity and incremental creativity, it may be beneficial for managers to consider the openness to experience of
their employees when designing jobs. Our findings also underscore the importance of co-workers in influ-
encing employee creativity. In contrast to previous studies identifying that creative co-workers serve as role
models by encouraging employees’ incremental creativity (Madjar et al., 2011), we suggest that overreliance
on co-workers can sometimes inhibit employees with high levels of openness to experience from developing
higher levels of employee creativity. This point does not suggest that organizations should discourage social-
ization practices that facilitate social interactions between peers. Rather, organizations should design these
practices in ways that encourage employees to forge meaningful relationships without developing excessive
dependence on their peers.
LIMITATION AND FUTURE RESEARCH

Our results suggest that one of three posited moderators produced a significant effect, and we believe
that this finding can provide valuable insights for future studies. We assume that there are at least three sets
of variables influencing our results. Our analyzes show that intrinsic motivation, one of our primary control
variables, has positive effects on both radical creativity and incremental creativity. There may be some inter-
relationships between openness to experience and intrinsic motivation, and future research could fully
explore the potential interaction of these factors. Second, employee creativity may also be influenced by the
nature of employees’ work and the functional orientation of their departments or subunits. Given our
research design, we were unable to fully capture the extent to which industry or workplace characteristics
influence the effect of openness to experience on perceptions of radical and incremental creativity. We sug-
gest that future research on this topic would benefit research designs that involve the collection of data from
a diverse range of organizational and work settings. Third, other individual-level factors may facilitate or
hinder open-minded employees to perform creatively. For example, employees’ mood states may interact
with work contexts to influence employee creativity (e.g., George & Zhou, 2007; Madjar et al., 2002). The
exploration of these potential antecedents represents promising research avenues to further reconcile the
inconsistent findings of how openness to experience influences employee creativity.
The design of this research opens three additional research directions. First, the cross-sectional data of
our study precludes any causal conclusions. Longitudinal studies or experiments would produce more
definitive statements about causality. Second, although our study defines individual trust as a dyadic phe-
nomenon, we only measure trust in a co-worker from the trustor’s perspective. Trust can also be measured
from the trustee’s perspective. As trust may influence creativity in both trustors and trustees, future research
might include measures of trust from both sides to validate the effect of individual trust on employee cre-
ativity.3 Third, this study makes important inroads toward understanding how openness to experience influ-
ences employee creativity. Given that openness to experience is a broad personality trait, researchers could
explore how multiple facets of openness to experience affect employee creativity. To illustrate, Perrine and
Brodersen (2005) found that undergraduate students’ openness to experience had six facets and each facet
3
We would like to thank an anonymous reviewer for providing this suggestion.
152
had distinct impacts on students’ artistic creativity and scientific creativity. Future research could investigate
the extent to which these six facets of openness to experience influence radical creativity and incremental
creativity under specific work conditions.
In addition, our study primarily relied on self-reported measures of radical creativity and incremental cre-
ativity. Although self-reported measures of creativity were widely used in early studies and common method
variance did not affect our statistical conclusions, we cannot fully rule out the possibility that our respondents
evaluated themselves positively. We believe that collecting data from multiple sources (e.g., self, peers, supervi-
sors) to measure employee creativity might lend additional credence to the findings of this study.
Finally, it would be interesting to explore how individual trust influences employee creativity in specific
national cultures. Future studies could identify cultural contexts in which affect- and cognition-based trust
jointly influence employee creativity. For example, Chua, Morris, and Ingram (2009) found that the interac-
tion between the two types of individual trust were more significant for Chinese managers than for Ameri-
can managers. Given that contemporary job designs are increasingly team-oriented with increasing amounts
of cross-cultural collaboration, culture-oriented studies would make substantial and meaningful contribu-
tions to scholarly understanding of trust and creativity.
CONCLUSION
Individual traits have long been recognized as determinants of employee creativity. However, empirical
evidence is far from conclusive. As Zhou and Shalley (2003) noted, “Individual differences variables still can-
not reliably and potently predict actual creative performance across situations in the workplace. . . . It is
advisable that the person-situation interaction perspective be used as a guiding principle in future field stud-
ies” (p. 203). Recently, Anderson et al. (2014) reiterated that research should explore a broader range of
work contexts that influence the complex relationship between personality traits and creativity in organiza-
tional settings. Our study is one of the only empirical attempts to elaborate and specify the extent to which
co-worker trust encourages or discourages employees who are open to experience to exhibit creativity. We
hope that this study can encourage future researchers to develop a more comprehensive understanding of
how individual traits influence employee creativity.
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Sen Xu, Nanjing University

Xueting Jiang, Ian J. Walsh, University of Massachusetts Amherst
Correspondence concerning this article should be addressed to Sen Xu, School of Business, Nanjing University, AnZhong Building,
JinYin Street, Nanjing 210093, China. E-mail: xushen@nju.edu.cn
154
AUTHOR NOTE
Sen Xu, School of Business, Nanjing University; Xueting Jiang, Isenberg School of Management, University of Massachusetts
Amherst; Ian J. Walsh, Isenberg School of Management, University of Massachusetts Amherst.
This paper was developed from the doctoral dissertation at University College Dublin, which Sen Xu successfully defended in 2013.
An early version of this paper appeared in the Academy of Management Proceedings in abbreviated form in 2014. We thank Jean
Bartunek, Donald Bergh, Raymond Friedman, Patrick Gibbons, Kenneth Law, Nora Madjar, Federica Pazzaglia, Karan Sonpar, and
Qun Tan for their help in the development of this paper. Sen Xu also wishes to acknowledge and thank the National Natural
Science Foundation of China (project no. 71272106) for providing research support.
155

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The Influence of Openness to Experience on Perceived

THEORIES AND HYPOTHESES

THE MODERATING ROLES OF INDIVIDUAL TRUST

Cognition- and affect-based trust

COMMON METHOD VARIANCE

Gender .01 .03 .00 .02 .00 .02 .00 .02

LIMITATION AND FUTURE RESEARCH

Sen Xu, Nanjing University

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