Creative self-efficacy and intrinsic motivation for creativity can encourage employees to innovate, but their complex relationship has long puzzled researchers. Thanks to HKUST’s Yaping Gong and colleagues, we now know more about how these factors influence each other to generate creativity. Their findings will help organizations motivate and support employees to realize their creative potential.

“Creative self-efficacy—the belief that one is capable of producing creative outcomes—reflects a ‘can-do’ factor,” explain the researchers, “whereas intrinsic motivation for creativity—engaging in a creative task for its satisfaction, enjoyment, and intellectual fulfillment—represents a ‘want-to-do’ factor.” Although these two factors have been studied in isolation, an important question remains unanswered: do they influence each other mutually, or does one consistently lead to the other in fostering creativity?

The authors conducted experimental and field studies to test the relationship between creative self-efficacy and intrinsic motivation for creativity, paying attention to two potential moderators: task variability and difficulty. First, by enhancing resilience, creative self-efficacy can promote intrinsic motivation for creativity, which in turn boosts employee creativity. Task difficulty further strengthens creative self-efficacy's effect on intrinsic motivation for creativity and employee creativity (via resilience). Second, by fostering creative process engagement, intrinsic motivation for creativity can promote creative self-efficacy, which in turn boosts employee creativity. Task variability further amplifies the effect of intrinsic motivation for creativity on creative self-efficacy and employee creativity (via creative process engagement).

Their results offer two key practical insights. First, the impact of creative self-efficacy on intrinsic motivation for creativity and, subsequently, employee creativity is more pronounced than the reverse. Therefore, managers should focus on enhancing employees’ creative self-efficacy. “For instance, they can prioritize the selection of employees who have strong ‘can-do’ motivation,” the researchers advise.

Second, creative self-efficacy becomes especially important when employees are faced with highly difficult tasks. In such circumstances, managers can support employees by offering encouragement and recognition for their creative efforts. “Managers can engage in social persuasion (e.g., telling employees that they can be creative) and work to create small wins,” conclude the authors.