High-Performance Work Systems and Team

Creativity: the Mediating Role of Creative Team

Efficacy

Xiaoxiao Liu Mingjian Zhou

Department of Business Administration Department of Business Administration
Harbin Institute of Technology at Shenzhen Harbin Institute of Technology at Shenzhen
Shenzhen, China Shenzhen, China
SWUPL_LXX@163.com mngzmj@163.com

Jifan Ren
Department of Business Administration
Harbin Institute of Technology at Shenzhen
Shenzhen, China
renjifan@gmail.com

Abstract—We propose a cross-level model to explore the learning goal orientation. Particularly, extant research which
relationship between high-performance work system (HPWS) focuses on the linkage between creative self-efficacy and
and team creativity, mediated by creative team efficacy (CTE). employee creativity are all at individual level. However, most
Drawing on social cognitive theory, we propose: HPWS is of the creativity works are developed by team rather than a
positively related to CTE, CTE is positively related to team signal employee, so it is more important to further examining
creativity and CTE mediates the relationship between HPWS and how efficacy and creativity relate with each other at team level.
team creativity. We discuss theoretical contributions and
practical implications at the end of this study. In summary, this study contributes both the existing
creativity and HPWS literatures.
Keywords—high-performance work system; team creativity;
creative team efficacy; social cognitive theory
HPWS
I. INTRODUCTION Organizational-level
HPWS，described as “a system of HR practices designed
to enhance employees’ skills, commitment, and productivity in
such a way that employees become a source of sustainable
competitive advantage” (Datta, Guthrie, & Wright, 2005: 136),
can provide inimitability for an organization (Gong, 2010). Team-level
Research in HPWS has examined the outcomes at both
individual and organizational levels, such as employees’ Creative Team Efficacy Team Creativity
attitudes and occupational safety at individual level, and
organizational performance and collective OCB at
organizational level. Yet little research has focused on team Fig.1. Example of a figure caption.
creativity (team level) as an outcome. Additionally, a collection
of mechanisms have been examined, such as commitment,
service-oriented citizenship behavior, and internal social II. THEORETICAL BACKGROUND AND HYPOTHESE
structure, whereas no research has studied the influence of
HPWS on its outcomes through the function of efficacy. A. High-Performance Work System and Creative Team
Efficacy
Prior research has studied potential antecedents of
Based on prior research, Evans and Davis (2005) proposed
employee creativity, which is viewed as a major contributor to
the HPWS framework which comprises seven categories of
organizational competitive advantage and innovation in ever
human resource practices, including staffing, self-managing
changing situations (Amabile, 1988). These antecedents
teams, decentralized decision making, training, flexible work
include empowerment leadership, openness to experience, and
assignments, communication and compensation.
This research has been funded by NSFC(#70702010) awarded to Ming
jian, Zhou and NSFC(#71172158) awarded to Jifan, Ren.

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 Bandura recognized strong self-efficacy to be an essential
condition for creating new knowledge (Tierney, 2002). Then
Tierney (2002) first introduced creative self-efficacy (CSE).
Furthermore, Cheng and Yang (2011) proposed collective
creative efficacy (CCE) at the team level, which resembles
what Shin and Eom (2014) proposed in their study, creative
team efficacy (CTE), which is defined as shared beliefs in the
team’s capabilities to produce new and useful ideas. Based on
Cheng and Yang’s (2014) CCE model and Tierney’s (2002)
CSE model, this study proposes three factors that relate to
CTE. They are achievement motivation of all team members,
team knowledge and knowledge integration capability.
This study will use social cognitive theory that the efficacy
of judgment has influences on people’s behaviors (Cheng,
2011) to explain why HPWS has positive influence on CTE
through following cognitive processes. First, two HR practices,
participative management and the use of teams which are
related to empowerment, have been examined to affect
employees’ task motivation levels (Song, 2014). When people
perceive that their organization provides more empowerment
practices, they will have more intrinsic motivation (Evans,
2005). Since HPWS is an organizational HRM system applied
to all team members, it is helpful in increasing average team
motivation level, which is highly related to CTE. Second,
extensive training, such as training for current and future skills,
cross training as well as rotation across teams give chances to
make every individual in a team has expertise in different
areas. When team members perceive that their team has rich
task-related knowledge, they will be more confident to find
solutions from various perspectives. Third, communication
practices in HPWS, including access to all levels of operating
results, shared information, and employee suggestion systems,
will increase team members’ ability to integrate information.
Besides, empirical research has shown that team members’
perception of CTE increases as their knowledge integration
capability becomes higher (Cheng, 2014). Thus, we posit that:
Hypothesis 1: High-performance work system is positively
related to creative team efficacy.
B. Creative Team Efficacy and Team Creativity
Prior research has found that CSE relates to creativity
among individual employees (e.g., Tierney & Farmer, 2004,
2011; Gong, 2009). Although individual creativity has been
highly focused on, little research has recognized that the
creativity at team level is more important for an organization to
pay attention to. First, CTE is different from CSE because CTE
reflects shared beliefs in the team’s capabilities to produce new
ideas, CSE, however, represents individual’s self-efficacy with
regard to one’s own capabilities to be creative (Shin& Eom,
2014). Second, individual level study of the relationship
between CSE and employee creativity concentrates on
individual-level outcomes, but creative works are often the
outcomes of team cooperation (Cheng, 2014). Also, if the level
of CSE held by team members dispersed, some individuals’
creative efficacy may be impeded from transforming into team
creativity performance, resulting from not having enough
information, motivation or expertise. As a result, we
hypothesize that the average level of creative efficacy in a
whole team more effectively reflects creative performance as a
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whole. Additionally, Alice (2012) and Cheng (2014) have
examined that CTE is an antecedent of team creative
performance. Conclusively, we posit that:
Hypothesis 2: Creative team efficacy is positively related
to team creativity.
C. The Mediating Role of Creative Team Efficacy
Based on above two hypotheses, we posit that CTE is a
potential mediator between HPWS and team creativity.
Hypothesis 3: creative team efficacy mediates the positive
relationship between high-performance work system and
team creativity.
III. DISCUSSION
A. Theoretical Contributions and Practical Implications
First, this study, which first relates the HPWS with team
creativity, extends prior research in HPWS by exploring a
novel outcome of HPWS. This theoretical contribution
provides us practical guidance of how to apply organization-
level specific HRM practices to team-level development of
creativity.
Second, this study broadens extent scope of the relationship
between creative efficacy and creativity by elevating the
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