Reversing the Negative Relationship between Conscientiousness and Creativity

Bachelor Thesis from the year 2013 in the subject Leadership and Human Resources - Miscellaneous grade: 1.0 University of Groningen (Faculty of Economics and Business) course: Bachelor Thesis language: English abstract: Based on its relevance and influence to a considerable range of fields within the business world creativity has become a topic of growing interest. Since recent research by Chávez-Eakle Eakle and Cruz Fuentes (2012) revealed that certain personality traits are related to creativity the negative relationship between conscientiousness and creativity appears to be well established for individuals and groups across different contexts (Robert & Cheung 2010). However little is known about the underlying processes of this relationship. To address this need the present study examines the possibility that the relationship between conscientiousness and employees' creativity is mediated by the extent to which individuals are engaged in their work. On the basis of existing literature it is hypothesized that work engagement mediates the relationship between conscientiousness and employees' creativity. Specifically it is argued that conscientiousness positively relates to work engagement and that in turn work engagement positively relates to creativity. Using a large multi-source field study the results of the correlation and regression analysis supported almost all hypotheses. Thus work engagement was found to fully mediate the relationship. Results also revealed that conscientiousness was positively associated with work engagement and that work engagement was positively related to creativity. However we did not find support for Hypothesis 1 which predicted conscientiousness and creativity are negatively related. Implications and suggestions for practice and future research are provided.