Chapter 7: Is Support Always Good? Exploring whether Supervisory Support Enhances or Attenuates the Beneficial Effect of Positive Group Affective Tone on Team and Individual Creativity

This study proposes a multilevel framework to test the mechanisms and boundary conditions of the relationships between positive group affective tone (PGAT) and individual/team creativity.

Data are collected from 122 research and development (R&D) teams (including 305 members and 122 team leaders). Hierarchical linear modeling analyses and hierarchical regression analyses are performed to test hypotheses.

The results show that PGAT facilitates individual creativity via enhanced work engagement, and increases team creativity via team information exchange. Supporting the substituting perspective, we found that the positive indirect effects of PGAT on individual/team creativity were attenuated when supervisory support is high.

Although all variables were collected at the same time and the individual-level variables were collected from the same source, our findings highlight the mechanisms explaining the beneficial effects of PGAT on individual/team creativity, and how supervisory support can substitute for such effects.

In order to make the individuals and teams more creative, the organizations need to promote PGAT via the selection of appropriated leader and members or team social events. Moreover, supervisors support is particularly salient in enhancing team creativity when PGAT is low.

This study is the one of the first study to test the motivational/social mechanisms linking the relationship between PGAT and individual/team creativity, and the competing theoretical perspectives regarding how supervisory support can moderate the PGAT–creativity linkage.