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Procedia Social and Behavioral Sciences 24 (2011) 889–895

7th International Strategic Management Conference

Promoting Creativity Among Employees Of Mature

Industries: The Effects Of Autonomy And Role Stress On
Creative Behaviors And Job Performance
Hülya Gündüz Çekmecelio÷lua*, Ayúe Günselb
a
Kocaeli University, Umuttepe, Kocaeli 41380, Turkey
b
Kocaeli University, Umuttepe, Kocaeli 41380, Turkey

Abstract

Creativity arises as a critical competency for 21st-century organizations, to lead or adapt to change. However, scant
research has investigated the antecedents of employee creativity and creative behaviors in general among the
employees of mature industries in particular. This research concentrates on the contextual factors to enlighten this
issue. The findings reveal that autonomy has a positive impact on both creative behaviors and job performance while
role ambiguity has opposing effects on both of them. Moreover the results indicate that autonomy also has a reducing
effect on role stress. So this paper underlines the need to reconceptualize the mechanisms by which contextual factors
influence creativity, and ultimately job performance; and suggest how managers of mature industries can promote
creativity.

Keywords: Autonomy; creativity; role stress; role ambiguity; role conflict.

© 2011 Published by Elsevier Ltd. Open access under CC BY-NC-ND license.

© 2011 Published by Elsevier Ltd. Selection and/or peer-review under responsibility 7th International
Selection and/or peer-review under responsibility of 7th International Strategic Management Conference
Strategic Management Conference

1. Introduction

In today`s complex business environments, it is certain that firms delivering the same products and
services in the same way will not long survive in general at the mature phase of industry life cycle in
particular [1]. So creativity is often presented as an imperative for long-term organizational success and
survival (e.g. [2], [3], [4](. Thus individual creativity workplace has been of growing concern for
researchers and practitioners [5], [3], [6], [7]. Many studies have focused on the personal drivers of such
as the role of personality and cognitive style while the others have considered the role of contextual

* Corresponding author. Tel.: +0-000-000-0000 ; fax: +0-000-000-0000 .

E-mail address: author@institute.xxx .

1877–0428 © 2011 Published by Elsevier Ltd. Open access under CC BY-NC-ND license.
Selection and/or peer-review under responsibility of 7th International Strategic Management Conference
doi:10.1016/j.sbspro.2011.09.020
890 Hülya Gündüz Çekmecelioğlu and Ayşe Günsel / Procedia Social and Behavioral Sciences 24 (2011) 889–895

factors, defined as dimensions of the work environment that potentially effect an employee's creativity
but that are not part of the individual [8]. Following the latter approach we have concentrated on the
contextual factors including autonomy and role stress.

According to many recent studies, both autonomy (e.g. [9], [6], [10], [7]) and role stress (e.g. [6], [11],
[7]) play an import role on creativity and job performance. Moreover, as the degree to which an employee
has freedom, independence, and discretion in carrying out the tasks of the job [12] autonomy also plays a
key role in the experience of stress and ultimately job performance [13]. Previous research has long
examined the link between autonomy and role stress or autonomy and creative behaviors and job
performance separately, revealing a gap in respect of a comprehensive model.

In this concept, this paper aims to offer a holistic model for autonomy, role stress, creativity and job
performance. To reach this aim, this paper is arranged in five parts. A literature review on the concepts of
creativity, autonomy and role stress follows this section. Interrelations among given concepts are
discussed in the next section. This is followed by the methodology applied to explore the hypotheses and
the data analyze by AMOS 16.0 and SPSS 15.0 for Windows software statistical package program.
Finally, the conclusions are set out together with some recommendations for executives and future
research.

2. Literature Review

2.1.Creativity

Innovation is an important phenomenon to ensure a firm's survival and growth [14]. There is
widespread consensus that ‘innovation is power and success’ [15]. However, firms need creative
employees to initiate organizational innovation. Not surprisingly creativity is recognized as a critical
competency for 21st-century organizations, to lead or adapt to change [16]. Creative employees are more
likely to discover customers’ hidden needs, to develop a good rapport with customers, and to solve their
service problems creatively and effectively, ultimately creating a superior experience [17], [18]. Thus,
creativity refers to the implementation of creative ideas in an organizational context [2], [3], [4].
Creativity is the development of ideas about practices, procedures, products, and/or services that are (a)
novel and (b) potentially useful to an organization ([8]).

Notwithstanding the importance of creativity and creative behavior among employees, the literature
provides relatively little empirical knowledge regarding the characteristics of organizations that enhance
or hinder the development and emergence of creativity. This gap is quite significant due to the fact that
different tasks may require different skills, motivations, and cognitive strategies [7]. A majority of the
previous studies have focused on the personal drivers of such as the role of personality and cognitive style
while the others have considered the role of contextual factors, defined as dimensions of the work
environment that potentially effect an employee's creativity but that are not part of the individual [8]. This
argument takes its roots from Cognitive Evaluation Theory, which implies that creativity does not happen
inside people's heads but in the interaction between a person's thoughts and a socio-cultural context’ [19].
Contextual factors are classified as informational when individuals perceive them as encouraging
autonomy and promoting competence [20]. Following the latter approach we have concentrated on the
contextual factors including autonomy and role stress.

2.2. Autonomy
 Hülya Gündüz Çekmecelioğlu and Ayşe Günsel / Procedia Social and Behavioral Sciences 24 (2011) 889–895 891

Autonomy is basically described as the independence or freedom, as of the will or one's actions. It is
the degree to which an employee has freedom, independence, and discretion in carrying out the tasks of
the job [12]. Indeed creativity and innovation are nurtured by cultures that are driven by strong, shared
values. Employees need to feel empowered to offer creative thinking. They want to know that all ideas
would be heard and respected. This recognition results with increased self-confidence and increased
creativity [9]. So autonomy is identified as a determinant of employee creativity and ultimately job
performance [10]. Accordingly:
H1:Autonomy is positively related to employee creativity
H2:Autonomy ,s positively related to job performance

As the degree to which an employee has control in carrying out the tasks of the job [12] autonomy also
plays a key role in the experience of stress. For example Iverson, et al. [21] identify an imbalance
between the demands placed on individuals and their ability to control those demands as critical to
workplace stress. Control over work enables individuals to balance the demands placed on them,
consequently reducing role stress. Accordingly:
H3: Autonomy is negatively related to role stress.

2.3.Role Stress

Managing role stress is important since counterproductive results such as job dissatisfaction, low
performance and decrease in creativity may occur when it remains unresolved. Based on Role Theory,
researchers have focused on role conflict and role ambiguity as the two key determinants of role stress
(eg. [22], [23], [24], [7]). Role conflict refers to ‘the degree of incongruity or incompatibility of
expectations associated with a role. It is an evaluation related with the lack of information needed to
perform a role effectively. Role ambiguity is an employee’s uncertainty about others’ expectations; it
occurs when an employee perceives an incompatibility between expectations of two or more role set
members, such as managers, customers and co-workers [24], [7].

The perceived incompatible job expectations (role conflict) and the uncertainty about the others`
expectations (role ambiguity) makes it difficult, for the worker to meet concurrently [25]. Moreover,
Coelho et al. [7], argue that these stressors makes it difficult for employees to decide how best to
accomplish their tasks. Accordingly, role stress is expected to constrain employee creativity, and reduce
employee performance . Accordingly:
H4: Role stress is negatively related to employee creativity
H5: Role stress is negatively related to job performance

According to the literature there are many studies supporting the relationships among autonomy and
role stress (e.g. [26], [27], [7]); autonomy and job performance (e.g. [6], [28], [29], [30], [31]); autonomy
and creativity (e.g.[9], [6], [7]), stress and job performance (e.g. [24], [32], [33]; [11]). For example De
Ruyter et al. [27] indicated the role-stress reducing effect of autonomy; Crank et al. (1993) found that
lower stress was reported for executives with greater autonomy and those who perceived that they had
control over the task related processes. Grawitch et al. [6] stated that autonomy was related to creativity
and the higher performance of individuals in problem solving groups. Recently Coelho et al. [7] argued
the relationships between autonomy, role stress and creativity of front line employees. These empirical
findings point out that these concepts should be considered in a holistic approach. So our research model
is given below:
892 Hülya Gündüz Çekmecelioğlu and Ayşe Günsel / Procedia Social and Behavioral Sciences 24 (2011) 889–895

H1 Creativity
Autonomy
H2

H3a

H3b
Role Stress H4a
H5a
Role Job Performance

H4b
Role Conflict
H5b

Fig. 1. The research model

3. Methodology

The purpose of this paper is to describe and analyze the mutual relationships among autonomy, role
stress, creativity and job performance from both theoretical and empirical views. In order to empirically
investigate the hypothesis, firms located around Kocaeli and Yalova operated in manufacturing industries
were surveyed. Three firms were chosen because of their availableness. Tools such as e-mail, letter and
and face to face interviews are used for gathering data. A total of 247 questionnaires among 350 has
returned. All constructs were measured with existing scales. All items were measured on a seven point
Likert-type scale where 1=strongly disagree and 7=strongly agree. Data is submitted to path analyze
using AMOS 16.0.
The mean age of the participants were 33.27(s.d.=5.58); the proportion of women, 20%, and married
69,5%. Of the participants, %37 had university educations and %3 had master education.
• Autonomy: Autonomy was measured using three items from Amabile et al.`s [3] autonomy
scale
• Role Stress: Role stress was measured using six three items from Rizzo et al.`s [34] role stress
scale.
• Creativity: Creativity was measured using five items from Amabile et al.`s [3] creativity scale.
• Job performance: To measure the job performance, this study used Kirkman and Rosen`s [35]
job performance scale that consists of four items.

3.1. Measure Validity and Reliability

We evaluated the reliability and validity of our constructs using confirmatory factor analysis (CFA).
By using AMOS 4.0, we investigated all constructs (involving 18 question items) in one CFA model by
use of all surveys (N=247). One item from the creativity scale tended to cross-load on other factors. An
examination of this items revealed that deleting it would not deteriorate the content validity of the
creativity. Therefore, we dropped one of the creativity items. After the elimination of this item, the
resulting measurement model was found to fit the data reasonably well: Ȥ2(111) = 279,5, comparative fit
 Hülya Gündüz Çekmecelioğlu and Ayşe Günsel / Procedia Social and Behavioral Sciences 24 (2011) 889–895 893

index (CFI) = .91, incremental fit index (IFI) = .92, Tucker-Lewis Index (TLI) = .90, Ȥ2/df = 2.52, and
root-mean-square error of approximation (RMSEA) = 0.071, providing support for convergent validity.
The factor loadings values of the question items were estimated between 0.59-0.92.
Table 1 reports the reliabilities of the multiple-item, reflective measures, along with construct
correlations and descriptive statistics for the scales. Table 1 shows that except role conflict all of our
variabls were correlated to each other; while role conflict was only related with role ambiguity. More over
table 1 demonstrates that all the composite reliability values (shown in parathesis) were beyond the
threshold levels. So we have come to the conclusion that our measures have adequate discriminant and
convergent validity.

Table 1. Means, standard deviations, correlations and reliabilities.

Role Role Job
Mean St.D. Autonomy Creativity
ambiguity conflict performance
Autonomy 3,2510 ,87934 (0,87)
Role
2,1984 1,19157 -,144* (0,76)
ambiguity
Role conflict 2,5938 1,10803 -,115 ,350** (0,85)
Creativity 3,8006 ,59338 ,164** -,177** -,118 (0,88)
Job
4,1194 ,52081 ,138** -,253** -,103 ,488** (0,90)
performance

3.2.Hypothesis testing

In order to test the hypothesis, we performed a structural equation modeling analysis. Table 2
demonstrates the relationships among autonomy, role stress, creativity and job performance. The results
indicate that autonomy directly and positively effects both creativity (ȕ:0,143; p<0,05) and job
performance (ȕ:0,143; p<0,05), supporting H1 and H2. We also found that autonomy was negatively
related to the role ambiguity dimension of role stress, partly supporting H3. Among the role stressors only
role ambiguity influenced negatively both creativity (ȕ:-0,203; p<0,01) and job performance (ȕ:-0,304;
p<0,01), again partly supporting H4 and H5 . However, we could not find any statistical association
between (i) autonomy and role conflict, (ii) role conflict and creativity, (iii) role conflict and job
performance.
Table 2: Path analyses (SEM)

Path ȕ
Autonomy ÆCreativity ,143* H1
supported

Autonomy ÆJob performance ,196* H2

supported

Autonomy Æ Role ambiguity -,178* H3 partly

Autonomy Æ Role conflict -,015 supported

Role ambiguityÆ Creativity -,203** H4 partly

Role conflict Æ Creativity -,013 supported

Role ambiguity Æ Job performance -,304** H5 partly

Role conflict ÆJob performance -,037 supported
*
p < .05, **p < .01
894 Hülya Gündüz Çekmecelioğlu and Ayşe Günsel / Procedia Social and Behavioral Sciences 24 (2011) 889–895

4. Conclusion

Creativity is an important subject for both academicians and practitioners. This paper attempts to
generate a holistic model for the antecedents of creativity in the organizational context based on the role
theory and to enhance the existing literature by revealing the interrelationships among autonomy, role
stress, creativity and job performance.
The findings of the study demonstrated that autonomy, role stress, creativity and job performance
scales which are developed in Western countries, are appropriate for an emerging economy and eastern
country; Turkey. Measures demonstrated high validity and reliability, and model results were quite
similar with the empirical studies completed in developed and western countries.
The findings showed that autonomy was positively and directly related with both employee creativity
and job performance. In other words providing freedom, independence, and discretion in carrying out the
tasks of the job to the employee results with increased self-confidence, motivation and will that ultimately
leads to higher levels of creativity and performance. Also the findings revealed that the influence of
autonomy on job performance (ȕ=0,196, p<0.05) is higher than its influence on creativity (ȕ=0,143,
p<0.05). This means that in the way of empowering the employees, performance will be increased more
than the creativity. Indeed this may be because of the interrelationships among the creativity and job
performance; the creativity in addition to autonomy may also be an important stimulator of the job
performance. This arises as an important subject for the future research.
Moreover the results demonstrated that autonomy has a reducing effect on the role ambiguity
dimension of role stress. This means that having a power to control over work enables employees to
balance the demands and ambiguities placed on them which in turn decrease the role ambiguity level they
experience.
Suprisingly this study provides no empirical evidence in support of the relationships between (i)
autonomy and role conflict, (ii) role conflict and creativity, (iii) role conflict and job performance. This
interesting result considering role conflict may be caused by the internal dynamics of the mature
industries. In mature industries, there are clear and well-established hierarchical systems. So employees
may not need to face incompatible job expectations of managers, customers and co-workers.
The findings of this study cannot be taken as definite evidence because several limitations to the study
results deserve commentary. First, this study is conducted on big firms. Second, these results reported
here emerge from a local area; results may differ for SMEs located on different areas that are operating in
different cultural, environmental and political conditions. Third, the sample is composed of employees of
the firms operating in manufacturing industries in general mature industries in particular; results may
differ for different industries at different stage of the life cycle. Despite these limitations, this study
provides important implications from theoretical and practical perspectives. This study indicates that
autonomy has direct and positive influences both on creativity and job performance while it is has a
negative effect on role stress. In addition, the role ambiguity dimension of the role stress is found to be
negatively related to creativity and job performance

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