Influence of work support on employee creativity: An empirical examination in the Peoples Republic of China

Employee creativity makes an important contribution to organizational survival and development. Hence, researchers have become increasingly interested in identifying the conditions that influence employee creativity. One of these conditions is work support for creativity. In the PRC, work support has received more considerable research attention because it is related to "Guanxi" which plays a key role in organizational behavior. Unfortunately, the mechanism surrounding the support-creativity link is not well understood. To help address this situation, we examined the mediating roles of intrinsic motivation and positive mood in the effect of support from both supervisors and coworkers on employee creativity. Using data from 233 employees in the PRC, we hypothesized and found that (1) work support from both supervisors and coworkers was positively related to employee creativity, (2) intrinsic motivation mediated these relationships, (3) positive mood mediated the relationship between the support from supervisors and creativity, but not the relationship between support from coworkers and creativity. Implications of these results for research and practice were discussed.