The Influence of Performance-Contingent Rewards on Proactive and Responsive Creativity: Dual-Path Mediating Effects of Work Motivation

Creativity has become prevalent in the routine work of knowledge employees in contemporary enterprises. From the perspective of ambidexterity, drawing upon expectancy theory and self-determination theory (SDT), the present study highlights the driver behind proactive and responsive creativity. Using two-stage longitudinal data collected from 373 knowledge employee-supervisor dyads in information and manufacturing companies in China, the results show that: (1) performance-contingent rewards have an inverted U-shaped influence on proactive creativity and a U-shaped influence on responsive creativity; (2) performance-contingent rewards have an inverted U-shaped influence on autonomous and controlled motivation; (3) autonomous motivation has a positive influence on proactive creativity, but controlled motivation has a negative influence on responsive creativity; (4) autonomous and controlled motivation play a partly mediating mechanism in the non-linear effects of performance-contingent rewards on proactive and responsive creativity, respectively. Managers should enhance the ambidextrous ability to deal with proactive and responsive creativity and establish an applied and dynamic policy of performance-contingent rewards intensity to drive ambidextrous creativity.