Provocateurs of creative performance. Examining the roles of wisdom character strengths and stress
| DOI | https://doi.org/10.1108/PR-10-2016-0286 |
| Published date | 05 March 2018 |
| Pages | 334-352 |
| Date | 05 March 2018 |
| Author | Masood Nawaz Kalyar,Hadiqa Kalyar |
| Subject Matter | HR & organizational behaviour,Global HRM |
Provocateurs of creative
performance
Examining the roles of wisdom character
strengths and stress
Masood Nawaz Kalyar
Department of Business Administration, GC University Faisalabad,
Faisalabad, Pakistan, and
Hadiqa Kalyar
Punjab Education Department, Faisalabad, Pakistan
Abstract
Purpose –The purpose of this paper is to empirically examine the influence of employees’character
strengths of wisdom on stress and creative work performance, assuming stress to be a potential mediator.
Design/methodology/approach –The study uses survey questionnaires to gather information. Using the
random sampling technique, the data were collected from 753 respondents from 200 organizations of
Pakistan. Structural equation modeling was used to analyze data in order to explore proposed relationships.
Findings –The findings of the study suggest a positive relationship between wisdom strengths and the
creative work performance of employees. In addition, stress was found to be negatively associated with both
wisdom strengths and creative work performance.
Research limitations/implications –The study contributes to the existing literature of human resources
and positive psychology as the results of the study provide support to develop a link in research between
creativity and personality, in general, and character strengths, in particular.
Practical implications –The findings suggest that by incorporating character strengths, firms may
develop and foster the means that can expand the bounded rationality of employees to help them promote
their creative activity and identify new and better ways to accomplish a task, thus ensuring better
performance and increasing the likelihood of human resources becoming a source of competitive advantage.
Originality/value –The study is unique in its scope and implications because it focuses on empirical
investigation of the effect of character strengths on stress and creative work performance in the Asian
context, particularly in Pakistan.
Keywords Quantitative, Creativity, Human resource management, Stress
Paper type Research paper
1. Introduction
Wisdom is one of the six virtues that humanist ideals possess. These are wisdom, courage,
humanity, justice, temperance, and transcendence. These virtues have always been seen
as a positive source of human strengths. That is why the inclusive study of virtues is
getting more attention by the researchers in the areas of psychology and organizational
behavior. Since these virtues are considered as too abstract in their nature to be studied
scientifically, the researchers have focused their attention on the components –called
character strengths[1] –through which these virtues are achieved. Character strengths –a
sub-discipline of positive psychology –are the recent threads in organizational theorizing
that focus on such human behavior that is a consequence of positivity (Peterson and
Park, 2006). According to the scholars of positive psychology, positivity is three-facet
phenomena involving positive subjective experience/state (Diener et al., 2003), positive
Personnel Review
Vol. 47 No. 2, 2018
pp. 334-352
© Emerald PublishingLimited
0048-3486
DOI 10.1108/PR-10-2016-0286
Received 26 October 2016
Revised 21 March 2017
29 April 2017
Accepted 30 May 2017
The current issue and full text archive of this journal is available on Emerald Insight at:
www.emeraldinsight.com/0048-3486.htm
JEL Classification —M10, M54, M12
The authors are thankful to Dr Suhaiza Zilani, University of Malaya (UM), Malaysia,
Dr Imran Shafique, COMSATS Institute of Information Technology, Pakistan, and two anonymous
reviewers for their valuable attention and comments in improving the paper.
334
PR
47,2
individual traits (Seligman and Csikszentmihalyi, 2000), and positive institutional experience
and traits (Bernstein,2003). Scholars like Aveyet al. (2009) and Tsai et al. (2009) focusedon the
role of positivity,whereas the area of character strengths has strong theoretical foundations;
however, to date, it is evident that empirical research aimed at determining and exploring its
association with the different realms of the performance of individuals in the organizational
workplace is limited (Avey et al., 2012).
This study is based upon and encompasses the work of Peterson and Seligman (2004)
concerning theorizing and conceptualizing character strengths. They defined character
strengths as the components of the core virtues that an individual possesses, allowing
individuals to achieve and prosper, and make their life worthwhile. Peterson and
Seligman (2004) presented character strengths as being generic and stable in the nature;
however, they also advocated that the setting and work environment of individuals might
reshape and change these traits. The comparative stability and generalizability of character
traits in various conditions is helpful in understanding the behavior and work performance
of individuals in the organizational context. As suggested by Peterson and Seligman (2004),
positive psychology must contain working bodies/institutes in which individuals are
provided by some work context that offers them “enabling conditions”to develop and
manifest character strengths because other contexts impede them. Thus, the main objective
of this research is to contribute to the literature pertaining to organizational creativity and
positive psychology by empirically exploring how character strengths and their results
might be transformed into better work performance.
More explicitly, the focus of this study concerns the roles of character strengths of
wisdom and stress with respect to the creative work performance of individuals. Creative
work performance is outcome of creativity which is a process of developing new, fresh,
novel and useful ideas, products, services, and/or procedures in order to achieve
organizational goals and set objectives (Amabile et al., 2005). Academicia ns and
practitioners of management always lament about the dearth of creative productivity by
organizational members. Some management scholars and professionals suggested that a
better and effective organizational behavior could be the solution for the lack of creative and
innovative output (De Leede and Looise, 2005). Generally, the absence of newness and the
novelty of creativity and innovation are believed to be one of the key threats to
contemporary enterprises. In addition, there is evidence that individual creativity assists the
firms to capitalize on the changing environments, maintain a sustainable competitive edge,
and ensure survival (Brownson, 2014; Kalyar and Rafi, 2012; Lengnick-Hall, 1992). Although
several empirical studies have tested the link among individual creativity, the individual,
and contextual factors (Hirst et al., 2009), this study is one of the first attempts to examine
the connection among the character strengths of wisdom of the members of an organization,
their stress levels and creative work performance.
Wisdom has received widespread attention in recent years in the literature concerning
positive psychology. An individual can hold six key virtues –wisdom, courage, humanity,
justice, temperance, and transcendence; each of which is based on various components
called character strengths (Peterson and Seligman, 2004). Wisdom is one of these virtues.
It has five underlying characteristics: perspective, judgment, originality, curiosity, and love
of learning (LOL). Wisdom consists of positive characteristics relevant to information
acquisition, interpretation, and utilization in the service of a good life. Wisdom is thought to
be a predictor of cognitive as well as behavioral outcomes, such as creativity and creative
work performance, respectively (Peterson and Seligman, 2004). Hannah and Luthans (2008)
advocated that wisdom character strengths are embedded in an individual’s self-concept
and affect one’s behavior positively via self-regulatory process, thus provide individuals
psychological resources that enable them to recognize bigger arrays of meanings about a
certain setting and, in turn, minimize their stress (Peterson and Seligman, 2004).
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Provocateurs
of creative
performance
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