Principal investigator: Viviane Pires Ribeiro
Paper Title: Creativity for workplace well-being
Authors: Erik G. Helzer and Sharon H. Kim
Location of the Intervention: Global
Sample Size: Not included
Main theme: Others
Main Variable of Interest: Creativity
Type of Intervention: Study of the role of creativity in workplace well-being.
Methodology: Conceptual model
The literature on organizational creativity tends to focus on creative outcomes, such as new ideas or useful solutions to challenging problems—that is, effective ways to maximize creativity for the benefit of the organization. However, Helzer and Kim (2019) consider another function of creativity in the workplace, namely, as a resource that can promote well-being in the face of flexible stress response. The central theoretical claim developed in the study is that creative engagement with daily stressors can promote psychological health and well-being by facilitating a flexible stress response.
Evaluation Context
Creativity, or the production of ideas that are new and useful, has transitioned from a buzzword to a necessary competency in many of today's most competitive organizations. It's no longer a question of investing in employee creativity, but rather how much. The topic of creativity at work has also attracted the attention of many academic researchers. Typically, research on creativity in organizations has largely focused on studying situational factors that promote or hinder creative thinking. This strong interest in understanding how to facilitate (or avoid suppressing) creative outcomes reflects the significant role creativity plays in organizational success, enabling individuals and teams to navigate challenging circumstances.
To date, however, there is still a lack of clear understanding of how the appraisal process unfolds. Typically, research on organizational stressor appraisals simply attempts to capture the end result of the appraisal – that is, the final meaning assigned to any specific stressor and how that meaning relates to downstream coping. In contrast, the upstream process, which involves the dynamic construction of meaning from ambiguous stressors, is much less understood. Thus, Helzer and Kim (2019) contribute to this area of research by developing a conceptual model, suitable for organizational contexts, for understanding appraisal.
The authors chose to focus on the potential of creativity to shape the stress response in the workplace for two reasons. First, the current pace and pressures of contemporary professional life consistently constitute one of the greatest sources of stress, making it a timely and important variable of interest for researchers and practitioners. The impact of physical and mental illnesses on employees and those connected to them (e.g., families, coworkers, etc.) is a consequence that should not be overlooked. Second, stressful environments can be detrimental to creativity. While some research has examined the positive consequences of stress, other research has shown that stress imposes limitations on cognition and problem-solving by narrowing attention and restricting information processing. In short, stress can impair clear thinking, which, in turn, will make creative tasks difficult to complete.
Intervention Details
Just as creativity is used to solve problems and innovate in the realm of workplace performance, Helzer and Kim (2019) propose that creativity can be used to address the problem of adaptation and response to workplace stressors. The authors' view is that creativity, if effectively implemented, can allow for a flexible response to unexpected or undesirable circumstances, enabling people to spontaneously generate alternative interpretations, options, and responses to stressors that may not be apparent to them in less creative states of mind. This view departs from a traditional focus on whether stress is "good" or "bad" for creative thinking and instead questions how creativity can alter the impact of stressors on workers' problem-solving abilities to improve health. Viewed in this way, creativity is a potential source of strength and resilience in the face of stress, rather than merely a performance-related outcome provided by ideal work environments.
To develop this proposal, Helzer and Kim (2019) draw on research and theory encompassing a range of academic perspectives, including organizational behavior, health and clinical psychology, and personality and social psychology. The authors adopt this integrative approach in the hope of advancing research and thinking about creativity beyond its traditional boundaries and outside the usual disciplinary boxes that may limit the understanding of the full range of outcomes that creativity can foster.
Methodology Details
By connecting existing research in management and organizations with complementary findings in clinical and health psychology, Helzer and Kim (2019) explore a relevant alternative view of the importance of creativity in organizational life. In support of this view, the authors present a process model (and supporting data) that explains how creativity can enable a flexible response to stress, such that, when in a creative state, people can spontaneously generate alternative interpretations, options, and responses to stressors that may not be apparent to them in a less creative state.
Result
The study conducted by Helzer and Kim (2019) progressed as follows. First, the authors describe what stress is and how it affects well-being. They review a stress response appraisal model that has predominated in the literature on stress and coping and has been applied in several organizational studies of workplace well-being. They highlight how appraisal, or the meaning one assigns to potential sources of stress in life, shapes one's psychological response to stress. They further develop a process model to capture the cognitive sequence through which potential stressors in life or work result in psychological distress, as well as an alternative pathway in which potential stressors can be reappraised to lessen their psychological impact.
Next, the authors reviewed the literature on creativity to specify what creativity is and the broad mechanisms that have been shown to promote it. They considered both trait and state perspectives on creativity, which describe the manifestation of creativity at different time scales. Then, they returned to the crucial point of their argument, showing how creativity can play an important role in the reappraisal process, drawing parallels between reappraisal and cognitive flexibility as studied in the literature on creativity. Specifically, the authors argue that creativity can be a cognitive resource that allows people to engage with potential stressors in a more flexible way; that is, to generate alternative appraisals of the meaning and imagined consequences of the stressor.
Finally, the authors discuss avenues for future research. First, they consider moderators, as well as the role of organizations in promoting creativity for well-being, both through direct and indirect channels. Next, they examine how mindfulness can play an important role in enabling people to engage creatively with stressors under the same conditions that might normally limit creative thinking. Finally, they speculate on how engaging creativity for well-being can contribute to the long-term health and well-being of workers.
Lessons in Public Policy
Concern for workplace well-being has come a long way from early attempts to maintain physical safety (i.e., preventing injury and death) to more recent employer initiatives addressing work-life balance and overall stress management. As researchers and practitioners begin to contemplate future approaches to employee well-being, Helzer and Kim (2019) offer the process model as a possible avenue for further exploration. Specifically, the model advances a theoretical explanation of cognitive reappraisal that articulates a role for creativity in promoting flexible engagement with potential stressors to improve well-being. More generally, the study advocates for the reconceptualization of a resource for “work” (i.e., creativity) to improve a “life” outcome (well-being).
Initiating a discussion on the role of creativity in workplace well-being, the authors hope to make the following contributions. First, to encourage researchers and practitioners to expand their operational definition of creativity to encompass applications and outcomes that are considered outside the traditional function that creativity is believed to serve in the workplace. Certainly, the value of creativity in generating ideas and solutions for organizational performance should not be minimized; however, the authors argue that these benefits can be leveraged to address other issues important to workers, such as stress management. Related to this point, the study emphasizes the interconnectedness between well-being and work. Often, well-being is considered a special or separate topic in work-related research; however, they argue that well-being is more closely linked to topics such as creativity than existing research might suggest.
References
HELZER, Erik G.; KIM, Sharon H. Creativity for workplace well-being. Academy of Management Perspectives, v. 33, no. 2, p. 134-147, 2019.
