overcome the job stress induced by a creativity requirement.
Although features of work environment may influence the effects
of a creativity requirement on employee outcomes (Amabile et al.,
1996; Zhou and Shalley, 2003), current literature have yet to
explore the mediating role of job stress and the moderating
role of work context under which job requirement for creativity
would affect employee service performance. Hence, the mechanism
underlying the relationship between job creative requirement and
service performance remains a black box. To enrich the creativity
theory and realize the mediating mechanism between job creativity
requirement and service performance, the third objective of the
current study is to test a model centered on job-induced stress to
determine the effect that job creativity requirement has on service
performance.
Lastly, although the service sector has emerged as a major contributor
to gross domestic product (GDP) in many industrialized
and transitional economies such as China, the literature is framed
primarily by the study of manufacturing organization (Bowen et al.,
1989). However, a number of differences between the manufacturing
sector and the service sector that limit the extent to which
findings in the former generalize to the latter (Batt, 2002). For
example, difference in the role of customers in the production
process is an example. In this study, we used a multilevel framework
that examined employee service performance as a function
of a job creativity requirement, mediated by the job stress induced
by such a requirement. In this way, we extend the creativity and
job stress literature into the domain of service performance, and
provide practical suggestions to managers by identifying the crosslevel
environmental factors under which service performance may
increase or decrease in Chinese context.