Creativity. There has been a growing consensus among crea-tivity researchers regarding the appropriateness of defining creativity in terms of an outcome, such as an idea or product (Amabile, 1988). In particular, Amabile’s (1988) definition of creativity is the “production of novel and useful ideas” (126). This makes creativity especially relevant to human resource management, and, consistent with this operationalization, that definition of creativity is adopted for this study.
Although not extensively studied in the human resource lit- erature, some research has been conducted on creativity in the workplace. For example, Rasulzada and Dackert (2009) found that organizational climate and work resources were significantly related to perceived creativity and innovation in organizations. In addition, according to Oldham and Cummings (1996) em- ployees produced the most creative work when they had crea- tivity relevant personal characteristics, e.g., when they were in- sightful, intelligent, original, inventive, resourceful, and reflec- tive. These characteristics would likely allow such individuals to think of ways to perform their work more easily and effect- tively. Therefore,