The Emotional Edge: Creativity under Job Complexity and Creativity Requirements

Prior research on creativity highlights a conflicting pattern of results. Job complexity and creativity requirements, two contextual variables common in many creative environments, place demands on employees that can have positive and negative effects on employees’ creativity by influencing experience of positive affect (PA). We aim to resolve this conflict by drawing upon the job demands-resources perspective to propose that emotional intelligence (EI) is a key internal resource employees use in order to respond positively to the demands created by job complexity and creativity requirements. We argue that the EI facet of emotion regulation ability enables employees to better cope with demands, which subsequently leads to higher levels of PA. Furthermore, the EI facet of emotion facilitation ability enables employees to utilize PA for creative outcomes. We test our hypotheses through a multi-method (e.g., ability test, experience sampling, survey) and multi-source (archival, self-reported, manger reported...