Dual Influencing Paths of Time Pressure on Employee Creativity

Yu, Weina
Wang, Zhanhao

Department of Industrial and Organizational Psychology, School of Business, Shandong Normal University

The authors gratefully acknowledge the financial support from the National Science Foundation of China (71802118) to Weina Yu. All errors are their own.

Weina Yu, Department of Industrial and Organizational Psychology, School of Business, Shandong Normal University, No. 1 Daxue Road, Jinan, Shandong 250358, P.R. China [email protected]

Received March 27, 2021

revised June 25, 2022

Accepted July 9, 2022

International Journal of Stress Management 29(4):p 360-371, November 2022. | DOI: 10.1037/str0000267

We explored dual influencing paths of time pressure on employee creativity drawing upon transactional theory of stress. A longitudinal test on 342 dyads of supervisor–employee with three time points was conducted. Leaders assessed employee creativity and employees evaluated their time pressure, job burnout, job crafting, and temporal leadership which were aggregated into a team-level variable. Results indicate time pressure was negatively and indirectly related to employee creativity via job burnout. Results also supported the positive and indirect effect of time pressure on creativity via job crafting. Further, mediation roles of job burnout and job crafting in relationship between time pressure and creativity are moderated by promotion regulatory focus and temporal leadership. Our findings hold the key to understanding relationship between time pressure and creativity, and have practical implications about how to unleash employee creativity under time pressure.