Relationships Between Work Team Climate

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JOMXXX10.1177/0149206316638161Journal of ManagementZhu et al. / Team Climate, Motivation, and Creative Performance

research-article2016

Journal of Management
Vol. XX No. X, Month XXXX 1–22
DOI: 10.1177/0149206316638161
© The Author(s) 2016
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Relationships Between Work Team Climate,
Individual Motivation, and Creativity
Yu-Qian Zhu
National Taiwan University of Science and Technology

Donald G. Gardner
University of Colorado Colorado Springs

Houn-Gee Chen
National Taiwan University

Creativity of employees is a major focus of research in the organization sciences. In this study
we examine the relationships between both micro (intrinsic and extrinsic motivation) and molar
(team climate) variables with manager-rated creativity of R&D employees. Specifically, we
hypothesize that (a) extrinsic motivation has a direct relationship with creativity, (b) intrinsic
motivation is more strongly related to creativity when extrinsic motivation is low compared to
when it is high, (c) team collaborative and competitive climates have direct effects on creativity
as well as indirect effects through individual motivation, and (d) intrinsic motivation mediates
relationships of the climate variables with creativity, which in turn is moderated by extrinsic
motivation. Data were collected from R&D engineers and their managers at a large high-tech
company headquartered in Taiwan. Results indicate that a collaborative team climate has a
direct positive relationship with creativity as well as one that operates through intrinsic motivation, which in turn was moderated by employee’s extrinsic motivation level. A competitive team
climate positively related to extrinsic motivation, but extrinsic motivation did not directly relate
to creativity. However, extrinsic motivation did have strong relationships with creativity when
intrinsic motivation was low. Results suggest that perhaps the different types of motivation relate
Acknowledgments: The authors are appreciative of the many constructive comments offered by the anonymous
reviewers and the action editor, J. Craig Wallace. The authors also thank the following individuals for their contributions to this study: Gary Klein, James J. Jiang, Eldon Li, Ja-Shen Chen, Ling-Ling Wu, and Matthew Metzger.
The first author is grateful for the support from the Ministry of Science and Technology of Taiwan (Grant No. NSC

102-2410-H-011-030). The third author is grateful for the funding provided by the Ministry of Science and Technology, Taiwan, under project NSC 103-2410-H-002-107-MY3.
Corresponding author: Donald G. Gardner, College of Business, University of Colorado Colorado Springs, 1420
Austin Bluffs Parkway, Colorado Springs, CO 80918, USA.
E-mail: dgardner@uccs.edu

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Journal of Management / Month XXXX

to different types of creativity (incremental versus radical). Managerial and theoretical implications of results are discussed as are the study’s limitations.
Keywords: creativity; motivation; team climate

Creativity in organizations has been the focus of much research in the organization sciences
(e.g., Anderson, Potocnik, & Zhou, 2014; George, 2007; Montag, Maertz, & Baer, 2012). This
increased research attention given to creativity has not been misplaced from an applied perspective. In the face of rapid technological advances and the internationalization of business,
the development of creative and innovative products and services has become a key driver of
growth, performance, and valuation in organizations today (Cefis & Ciccarelli, 2005).

Anderson et al. (2014) provided a comprehensive review of theory-based research on
creativity and innovation in organizations, and called for more research on the interaction of
the social (team) context and individual differences, with multilevel research designs (the
team-individual interface). Similarly, George (2007) highlighted the need to concurrently
study both individual (micro) and group (molar) influences on creativity because molar
effects stem, in part, from internal processes within individual group members in the context
of their group membership and their interactions with others. Indeed, the team context in
which employees are embedded may play a central role in stimulating individual creativity
(Hirst, van Knippenberg, Chen, & Sacramento, 2011; Shalley & Gilson, 2004). Thus, managing creativity requires not only the identification of employees with creative potential but
also an understanding of how the team context influences the creativity of individuals who
have different types of motivation (Hirst, van Knippenberg, & Zhou, 2009).
Anderson et al.’s (2014) review of the effects of team level variables on individual creativity does not explicitly discuss two important team climate variables in organizational
research: collaboration and competition. Team members oftentimes are motivated to engage
simultaneously in both competition and collaboration (Loch, Galunic, & Schneider, 2006).
On the one hand, motivation to satisfy needs for relatedness may lead to a collaborative team
climate; on the other hand, individual performance-based rewards motivate team members to
compete, producing a competitive team climate (Gagné & Deci, 2005). Unfortunately, the
effects (good or bad) of this intrateam competition and collaboration on individual team
members’ creativity remains an empirical question.
In this study we examine the independent and combined effects of micro (motivation) and

molar (team climate) factors on the creativity of employees, employing self-determination
theory (SDT; Gagné & Deci, 2005) as a foundation. We seek to answer the following questions: First, at the individual level, what are the direct and interactive effects of intrinsic
motivation and extrinsic motivation on individual creativity? Second, at the team level, what
are the effects of collaborative and competitive team climates on individual creativity, after
controlling for effects of intrinsic and extrinsic motivation?
This research contributes to the creativity literature in two ways. First, it explores the
direct and interactive relationships of intrinsic and extrinsic motivation with creativity, in a
real work organization in which creativity is a core value. Second, we offer a more complete
account of how two opposing team contextual factors, intrateam collaboration and competition, operate on team members’ motivational states and, subsequently, their creativity. In
sum, this study sheds light on the psychological processes through which team climate

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influences individual creativity and addresses a notable gap in creativity research (Anderson
et al., 2014).

Theoretical Background and Hypotheses
Effects of Intrinsic and Extrinsic Motivation on Creativity
A lack of consensus in the conceptualization and measurement of creativity has led to
inconsistencies in results from creativity research (Montag et al., 2012). Thus, it is important
to clearly define creativity. Following Anderson et al. (2014), Montag et al. (2012), and
Somech and Drach-Zahavy (2013), we define creativity as individual behaviors that give rise
to ideas that are novel and useful. Implicitly these ideas are tangible enough to be evaluated
for potential enactment, but in this research, we do not explicitly consider the outcome effectiveness of those novel ideas (Montag et al., 2012).
SDT proposes that any factors in the work environment that satisfy basic human needs for
autonomy, competence, and/or relatedness will enhance intrinsic motivation and subsequent
task performance (Gagné & Deci, 2005). This is especially true for jobs that require complex,
heuristic thought processes (like R&D), as opposed to simpler, programmed types of jobs
(Gagné & Deci, 2005). Several recent studies provide insights into the relationship between
intrinsic motivation and task performance. For example, a meta-analysis of effects of intrinsic motivation on job/task performance finds support for basic SDT propositions (Cerasoli,
Nicklin, & Ford, 2014). Intrinsic motivation positively relates to all types of performance but
especially so for qualitative (complex, including creative) types versus quantitative (simple).
This is because intrinsic motivation affects the choice to perform a particular task, the effort
expended to achieve success on the task, and persistence at the task after achieving initial
success (Cerasoli et al., 2014). Similarly, another meta-analysis estimated that the population
correlation between intrinsic motivation and creative outcomes is .30 (de Jesus, Rus, Lens, &

Imaginario, 2013). Other research also supports the direct relationship between intrinsic
motivation and creativity in field settings (e.g., Leung, Chen, & Chen, 2014), and we expect
to replicate that finding in our study.
Propositions about the direct effects of extrinsic motivation on creativity are more complicated. Performance-contingent rewards create extrinsic motivation, but there is not a consensus about how extrinsic motivation affects creativity (Shalley, Zhou, & Oldham, 2004).
One of the key questions about the effects of external rewards on creativity concerns the
nature of the contingency between rewards and creativity (Cerasoli et al., 2014). According
to SDT, when external rewards are obtained only through successful performance of a specified behavior, extrinsic motivation increases and intrinsic motivation decreases (Gagné &
Deci, 2005). This enhances performance levels on simple tasks and decreases performance
levels on complex tasks, like creative ones, that are otherwise intrinsically motivating (Gagné
& Deci, 2005).
However, it has also been argued that extrinsic rewards can create intrinsic motivation
(Kasof, Chen, Himsel, & Greenberger, 2007). SDT explicitly considers situations in which
extrinsic rewards can satisfy needs for autonomy through the process of internalization
(Gagné & Deci, 2005).1 Similarly, Eisenberger and Shanock (2003) proposed that rewards
satisfy needs for autonomy and competence primarily when the reward is made directly contingent on specific types of performance, like creativity, and the recipient is aware of the

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Journal of Management / Month XXXX

contingency. Contingent rewards can satisfy needs for autonomy, as the recipient can choose
whether or not to attempt the task; additionally, receipt of contingent rewards can signify task
success and satisfy needs for competence (Eisenberger & Shanock, 2003). The learned industriousness theory (Eisenberger & Shanock, 2003) assumes that individuals learn which
dimensions of current performance are rewarded and generalize that learning to new activities. Thus, to the extent that employees perceive that creativity is one of the dimensions that
affect overall performance ratings, there may be a positive correlation between receipt of
extrinsic rewards and creativity.
Montag et al. (2012) advanced the proposition that when creative behaviors are an expectation for job performance, then extrinsic motivators will enhance creativity. Some professions, like R&D, require “professional creatives” (Unsworth, 2001), with creativity being an
expected and vital part of job performance. In this study we examine the relationships
between extrinsic motivation and creativity with a sample of R&D engineers for whom creativity was an expected and rewarded part of their jobs. Thus, we propose the following:
Hypothesis 1: Extrinsic motivation is positively related to individual creativity.

How intrinsic and extrinsic motivation combine to affect performance has been a major
focus of research (e.g., Amabile, 1993; Eisenberger & Shanock, 2003; Gagné & Deci, 2005)
since cognitive evaluation theory, a predecessor to SDT, was proposed (Deci, 1971). Since
then, SDT (Gagné & Deci, 2005) has evolved to explicitly address the direct and interactive
effects of intrinsic and extrinsic motivation on performance. SDT proposes that the more
one’s behavior is controlled by external rewards, creating greater extrinsic motivation, the
less that intrinsic motivation will drive task performance. In a meta-analysis of 183 samples

that included over 200,000 participants, Cerasoli et al. (2014) found that the relationship
between intrinsic motivation and performance was highest when extrinsic motivation was
low and lower (but still positive and significant) when extrinsic motivation was high.
Conversely, when extrinsic motivation is high, it displaces intrinsic motivation as a driver of
performance; the intrinsic motivation to performance relationship becomes weaker (a corruption effect; Deci, 1971).
Cerasoli et al. (2014) point out the fact that in the “real world” it is rarely the case that
either employees are intrinsically motivated or they are extrinsically motivated but not both;
most employees have some combination of both types of motivation. There are few studies
that have measured both types of motivation in employees for whom creativity is a major
expectation for their jobs, a void that this study addresses. Based on SDT and Cerasoli et al.’s
results, we examine the following hypothesis:
Hypothesis 2: Intrinsic motivation and extrinsic motivation interact such that the relationship
between intrinsic motivation and creativity is stronger when extrinsic motivation is low than
when extrinsic motivation is high.

Team Climate and Individual Creativity
We hypothesize above that microlevel (individual) factors affect creativity (viz., intrinsic
and extrinsic motivation). However, these micro processes do not operate in a vacuum. In
most organizations, employees are organized into work groups and teams (the molar level;

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George, 2007). It is likely that team factors affect individual variables, like motivation, and
subsequently, creativity (Kozlowski & Ilgen, 2006). Knowing which team factors affect the
creativity motivation of employees would be useful for managers responsible for enhancing
the creativity of their subordinates. However, there is still much to learn about team context
effects on individual creativity (Anderson et al., 2014; George, 2007). To address this gap,
we develop hypotheses about how collaborative and competitive team climates affect creativity directly and indirectly through individual motivation, based on the social relationships
inherent in team work.
Each team member has a perception of the level of competition between members in the
team, and when members of the same team have similar perceptions of intrateam competition, it can be said that there is an intrateam competitive climate (cf. Brown, Cron, & Slocum,
1998). In a purely competitive climate, team members are in a situation where they are trying
to outperform each other to obtain extrinsic rewards. The motivation of members is not so
much to perform well as it is to perform better than other members of the group. Inasmuch as
this might displace the motivation to perform because of satisfaction of needs for autonomy,
competence, and/or relatedness—and increases the desire to perform at a high level so as to

secure a limited amount of rewards—this suggests that the direction of causality is from
competition to extrinsic motivation. Thus, we hypothesize that a highly competitive team
climate creates a situation where extrinsic motivation is high as well:
Hypothesis 3: Intrateam competitive climate is positively related to team members’ extrinsic
motivation.

There has been a considerable amount of research on the effects of competition on intrinsic
motivation (e.g., Deci, Betley, Kahle, Abrams, & Porac, 1981; Eisenberger & Thompson, 2011;
Epstein & Harackiewicz, 1992; Reeve & Deci, 1996), with differing conclusions. On the one
hand, SDT predicts that the higher the level of competition, the less likely team members will
attribute their task behaviors to their internal drive, resulting in less intrinsic motivation (Deci
et al., 1981; Reeve & Deci, 1996). On the other hand, competition can satisfy needs for autonomy, as one’s decision to compete or not is largely attributable to the self (Eisenberger &
Shanock, 2003). The results from competing may also satisfy the fundamental need for competence, if feedback is available (Reeve & Deci, 1996; Vallerand & Losier, 1999). The
competition→intrinsic motivation relationship is stronger when individuals compete to demonstrate their competence, rather than only to obtain extrinsic rewards (Vallerand & Losier, 1999).
Consistent with this, an experiment by Eisenberg and Thompson (2011) found that individuallevel competition had positive effects on both intrinsic motivation and creative performance.
Noteworthy in this experiment was that participants were skilled at the creative task (music), as
opposed to the novice children and young adults (students) studied in much prior research on
creativity (e.g., Conti, Collins, & Picariello, 2001; Shalley & Oldham, 1997). Given that competition addresses needs for autonomy as well as competence, we hypothesize the following:
Hypothesis 4: Intrateam competitive climate is positively related to team members’ intrinsic
motivation.

We define collaboration in teams as the intentional sharing and receiving of personal
effort, knowledge, and resources with other team members to achieve common goals (cf.

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Journal of Management / Month XXXX

Dillenbourg, Baker, Blaye, & O’Malley, 1995). Similarly, intrateam collaborative climate
describes the shared perception among team members that interpersonal collaboration is
descriptive of the team. Collaboration is expected to have a positive effect on intrinsic motivation (Amabile, 1998). Positive interactions of team members can lead to the satisfaction of
the need for relatedness, which in turn leads to intrinsic motivation. Furthermore, the ideas,
information, and viewpoints exchanged during collaboration enrich one’s knowledge base
(cf. Carmeli, Dutton, & Hardin, 2015) and thus positively affect one’s self-perceived competence. From an SDT perspective, we would expect intrateam collaborative climate to have a
moderately strong relationship with intrinsic motivation:
Hypothesis 5: Intrateam collaborative climate is positively related to individual intrinsic
motivation.

A collaborative team climate does not explicitly, by itself, include extrinsic rewards for
collaborating. Thus, we do not expect a relationship between intrateam collaboration and
extrinsic motivation.
There has not been much research that has examined the direct contributions of a collaborative work climate on creativity over and above effects of individual motivation.
However, we believe that there is evidence that such an effect exists because collaboration
between team members will generate more task-related information than would be possessed by the average member of the team (e.g., Carmeli et al., 2015). In addition, there can
be synergistic effects when diverse ideas are united or when creative material in one
domain inspires or compels fresh thinking in another (Uzzi & Spiro, 2005). These collaborative structural preconditions suggest that creativity is not only the work of individuals
but also the consequence of a social system of actors that amplify one another’s creativity
(George, 2007; Gilson & Shalley, 2004). For example, Carmeli et al. (2015) found that
relational information processing, an active level of interpersonal behavior that seeks colleagues’ inputs and reactions to employees’ work, which is conceptually related to collaboration, had a significant relationship with employee creative behaviors. A meta-analysis
concluded that there is a positive relationship between “open” team environments, where
members are encouraged to participate in discussions, and creativity (Ma, 2009). Other
research also supports the proposition that collaboration has direct positive effects on creativity (e.g., Hon, Bloom, & Crant, 2014).
This is an important research question because if collaboration affects creativity only
through intrinsic motivation, then any number of management practices that bolster intrinsic
motivation might be as effective (e.g., job enrichment) and perhaps more feasible. We adopt
a multisource view of antecedents of creativity (George, 2007) and expect that intrateam collaborative climate directly enhances team members’ creativity over and above any effects
associated with intrinsic and extrinsic motivation, for the reasons discussed above.
Hypothesis 6: Intrateam collaborative climate is positively related to individual creativity after controlling for intrinsic and extrinsic motivation.

There are mixed results with respect to effects of a competitive team climate on individual creativity. Navaresse, Yauch, Goff, and Fonseca (2014) found that “rewards distribution rules that generate intra-group competition seemed not to directly improve or impair

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Zhu et al. / Team Climate, Motivation, and Creative Performance

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individual creative behavior” (p. 439). Similarly, Cerne, Nerstad, Dysvik, and Skerlavaj
(2014) found no direct relationships between a competitive team climate (“performance
climate”) and either creativity or knowledge-hiding behaviors. In contrast, several researchers have hypothesized and found positive relationships between competition and creativity,
particularly for male participants (Baer, Vadera, Leenders, & Oldham, 2014; Conti et al.,
2001). Shalley and Oldham (1997) found support for the hypothesis that competition can
increase creativity if the social interactions with others provide information about creativity competence, satisfying one of the needs from SDT. Harvey (2014) proposed that at the
team level of creativity, conflicting ideas are a necessary prerequisite for creative synthesis, enhancing team-level creativity. To the extent that team members are trying to outperform one another in a competitive climate, conflicting ideas might be generated and
proactively defended when team members suggest different solutions to problems requiring creativity. This collision of ideas might enhance creativity at both the team and individual levels.
While this research alludes to a potential positive effect of competition on creativity,
none of it has considered the direct effects of a team competitive climate on individual
creativity after controlling for any effects of competition on motivation. We propose a
positive, direct relationship between a competitive environment and creativity. If team
members perceive a high level of competition, and the generation of creative ideas is a
common goal for all group members, it seems reasonable to propose that team member
creativity will be enhanced as each member tries to outperform the others on the dimension
of creativity. This in turn might stimulate the search for and acquisition of knowledge that
forms the building blocks for effective job performance, including creativity. Thus we
hypothesize the following:
Hypothesis 7: Intrateam competitive climate is positively related to individual creativity after controlling for intrinsic and extrinsic motivation.

A summary of the theoretical arguments and study hypotheses is presented in Figure 1.
When the “pieces” (Hypothesis 1 to Hypothesis 7) are combined into a whole, they illustrate
a moderated-mediation model in which we hypothesize direct effects of team competitive
and collaborative climates on creativity and indirect effects partially mediated by intrinsic
motivation, which is itself moderated by extrinsic motivation. Following Hayes’s (2013)
recommendation on moderated-mediation hypothesis development, we summarize the proposed moderated-mediation effects as follows:
Hypothesis 8: The indirect positive relationship between collaborative climate and creativity
through intrinsic motivation will be stronger when extrinsic motivation is low than when it is
high.
Hypothesis 9: The indirect positive relationship between competitive climate and creativity through
intrinsic motivation will be stronger when extrinsic motivation is low than when it is high.

In analyses we report below, we test each of the main hypotheses as well as the overall
moderated-mediation hypotheses illustrated in Figure 1. The moderated-mediation analysis
facilitates a better understanding of the conditions under which intrinsic motivation mediates
the effects of team climate on creativity (Hayes, 2013).

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Journal of Management / Month XXXX

Figure 1
Summary of Hypotheses

Method
Sample and Procedure
We tested our hypotheses with data collected from employees in R&D departments from
an Infotech 100 company headquartered in Taiwan. The company emphasizes innovation and
creativity, with innovation listed as one of the company’s four core corporate values.
Employees were expected to be creative and were held accountable for their creativity as part
of the annual performance review process, along with several non-creativity-related performance dimensions.
Participants included software, systems, and hardware engineers and their managers from
the Taipei headquarters office. Team members worked closely with each other as they shared
similar roles within their project teams. In addition, their annual monetary bonuses were
substantially affected by overall team performance (on average, about 34% of their bonuses
was based on overall team performance).
Approximately 100 R&D teams were invited by mail to participate in the survey in
exchange for a small cash coupon. A total of 247 engineers and 55 functional managers
agreed to participate from two strategic business units, resulting in a team response rate of
55%. After deleting missing data, we had a final sample of 54 teams and 238 members. The
engineers were 83.2% male, averaged 3.1 years of organizational tenure, possessed either
bachelors (42.9%) or masters (52.1%) degrees, and were 36 years old on average. Managers
were 83.3% male and averaged 6.06 years of tenure. The teams had an average size of 7.04
members (range 3-17), with a standard deviation of 3.30 (87% of the teams had between 3
and 11 members). Our final sample averaged 4.4 respondents per team, with an average
response rate per team of 72.7% (the range was 33% to 100%).

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Two different surveys were used. Engineer-participants answered questions about their
perceptions of within-team competition and collaboration as well as their intrinsic and extrinsic motivation for work. The participants’ managers assessed their subordinates’ creativity at
work. Surveys were given to the team manager, who distributed them to his or her members,
who then returned their completed surveys to their managers in sealed envelopes, with no
identifying information on them. Managers wrote a code on the envelopes upon receipt from
each employee and then filled out individual creativity ratings on a separate form, using the
code on the envelopes to identify the ratee.

Measures
Constructs were operationalized with previously validated measures. Unless otherwise
indicated, all measures used a Likert-type scale anchored 1 (strongly disagree) to 7 (strongly
agree). Scales were translated into Mandarin Chinese from English and utilized a translation–
back translation procedure to enhance the accuracy of the translation (Brislin, 1980).
Intrateam collaborative climate. The availability of measures of collaboration at the
functional team level is limited. Our measure of intrateam collaborative climate combined
items from several published studies into one measure (Aram & Morgan, 1976; Baggs, 1994;
Lin, Wang, Tsai, & Hsu, 2010; Singh & Avital, 2007; see appendix). We believe this tactic
leverages the construct validity evidence from the four studies from which the items were
drawn.
Intrateam competitive climate. Intrateam competitive climate was measured using the
within-school competition scale from Mael and Ashforth (1992). The original scale was
modified to fit the working context. One item was removed because we were not interested
in the specific causes of competition. After performing confirmatory factor analyses, another
item from the original scale was removed due to its low factor loading. The final six-item
scale focuses on perceived rivalry and social comparisons (see appendix).
Intrinsic motivation. Intrinsic motivation was assessed with Grant’s (2008) four-item
scale, which is based on SDT. It opens with the question, “I go to work every day because . . .”
and then asks respondents to rate their motivations: (a) “I enjoy the work itself,” (b) “It’s
fun,” (c) “I find the work engaging,” and (d) “I enjoy it.”
Extrinsic motivation. Extrinsic motivation was measured using four items adapted from
Manolopoulos (2006), which was based on prior extensive surveys of employee self-ranked
extrinsic motivations. It opens with the statement, “I go to work every day for . . .” and then
allows respondents to rate their motivations for (a) the salary, (b) promotion opportunities,
(c) the bonuses, and (d) job security.
Employee creativity. Montag et al. (2012) differentiated creative performance behaviors—
the set of interdependent observable and unobservable activities that occur in response to a nonalgorithmic task or project and that purportedly constitute the creative process—from creative
outcome effectiveness—the extent to which the outcomes (idea, prototype, product, etc.) of a
nonalgorithmic task or project completion are judged by relevant stakeholders to be both novel

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Journal of Management / Month XXXX

and useful. This research focused on manager-rated creative performance behaviors as the primary dependent variable, as opposed to creative outcome effectiveness. We used Farmer, Tierney, and Kung-Mcintyre’s (2003) four-item creativity scale, for two major reasons. First, it was
developed and tested to reliably assess R&D creativity. Second, it reflects creative behaviors that
fit the Chinese view of employee creativity. Participants were rated on the following items: (a)
seeks new ideas and ways to solve problems, (b) generates ideas revolutionary to the field, (c) is
a good role model for innovation/creativity, and (d) tries new ideas and approaches to problems.
This primarily reflects the idea generation stage of the creativity process (Montag et al., 2012).
Control variables. Several potentially confounding variables were measured and used as
control variables in analyses. Reward structure (the percentage of the reward that is individual based vs. team based) is a team contextual factor that might affect motivation (Beersma,
Hollenbeck, Humphrey, Moon, Conlon, & Ilgen, 2003). Consistent with prior research that
measures pay mix as a ratio (Zenger & Marshall, 2000), team reward structure was assessed
with a single item reported by the manager: “In my team, [a number between 1 and 100]%
of compensation is determined by individual performance, and [a number between 1and 100
that sums to 100 with the previous number]% of compensation is determined by team performance.” Team size (Yong, Sauer, & Mannix, 2014), education and job level (Chusmir &
Koberg, 1986), and tenure with the company (Gilson & Shalley, 2004) were also measured
and used as statistical control variables.

Analyses
The proposed model is multilevel in nature, with constructs reflecting both the individual
and team levels. To control for team-level variables, hierarchical linear modeling was used to
test the proposed model (Figure 1). Following Zhang, Zyphur, and Preacher’s (2009) recommendation on testing cross-level mediation, we group-mean centered the Level 1 predictors
and introduced the subtracted means at Level 2 (Kreft & de Leeuw, 1998) and then grandmean-centered the Level 2 predictors (across all groups).
Confirmatory factor analyses were used to test the fit of the proposed measurement model.
The results indicated that the five-factor structure fit the data well: χ2(199) = 459.12, comparative fit index (CFI) = 0.94, and root mean square error of approximation (RMSEA) = 0.07.
Compared to the hypothesized model, an alternative model in which indicators of extrinsic
motivation and intrinsic motivation were forced to load on a single latent factor fit the data
significantly worse: χ2(203) = 850.79, CFI = 0.86, RMSEA= 0.12, as did a second alternative
model in which indicators of intrateam competitive climate and intrateam collaborative climate were forced to load on a single factor: χ2(203) = 748.39, CFI = 0.89, RMSEA= 0.11.
To support the aggregation of individual responses for intrateam collaboration and competitive climates, we calculated three indicators of interrater agreement and reliability. First,
average interrater agreement, rwg, measures the amount of agreement among a single group of
judges, such as team members (James, Demaree, & Wolf, 1984). Second, Intraclass Correlation
1 (ICC1) reflects the significance of between-group variances (James, 1982), and third,
Intraclass Correlation 2 (ICC2) estimates the reliability of the group means within the sample
of means. For intrateam competitive climate, median rwg(j) was .91, ICC1 was .24, and ICC2
was .58. For intrateam collaborative climate, median rwg(j) was .97, ICC1 was .14, and ICC2

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Table 1
Means, Standard Deviations, Correlations, and Sample Reliabilities for the Measures
Variable
Individual level
1. Agea, b
2. Gender
3. Job level
4. Education
5. Tenure
6. Competition
7. Collaboration
8. Extrinsic motivation
9. Intrinsic motivation
10. Creativity
Team level
1. Pay structure
2. Team size
3. Competitive climate
4. Collaborative climate

M

SD

1

2

3

4

5

6

7

8

9

10

1.53
1.12
2.89
2.50
3.15
3.62
5.88
5.30
5.14
3.23

0.51
0.38
1.22
0.59
2.43
0.95
0.81
1.07
1.06
0.74

–.10
.43**
–.14*
.44**
.00
–.06
–.01
.01
.16*

–.04
–.02
–.00
.03
–.10
–.01
–.08
–.11

.24**
.50**
.03
–.01
.06
.14*
.43**

–.17*
.06
.06
.00
.06
.18**

.24**
–.16*
–.03
–.06
.10

(.72)
–.28**
.14*
.00
–.01

(.92)
.11
.29**
.09

(.93)
.35*
.10

(.85)
.19**

(.90)

.66
7.04
3.60
5.88

0.16
3.28
0.62
0.47

.13
–.01
–.06

–.05
.08

–.42**

aIndividual-level

measurement internal consistency reliability estimates (coefficient alphas) are on the diagonal.
1 = 20-29, 2 = 30-39, 3 = 40-49, 5 = 50-59, 6 = 60 and above; gender, 1 = male, 2 = female; job level, 1 = assistant engineer,
2 = engineer, 3 = senior engineer, 4 = principle engineer; education, 1 = associate degree, 2 = 4-year college, 3 = master’s degree, 4 =
doctoral degree; tenure = number of years with the company.
*p < .05.
**p < .01 (two-tailed tests).
bAge,

was .42. The ICC1 and rwg(j) values are consistent with prior research involving aggregation
(e.g., Woehr, Loignon, Schmidt, Loughry, & Ohland, 2015). The ICC2 values are somewhat
low (below .60), which we attribute to the small average team size (4.4 team members; Bliese,
1998). ICC2 values are a function of ICC1 values and group size (Bliese, 1998), and ICC2
tends to underestimate the true reliability in small teams (Snijders & Bosker, 1999). Our relatively low ICC2 values are comparable to ICC2 values reported in other studies that had small
team sizes (e.g., .43 in Chen & Bliese, 2002; .35 in Erdogan, Liden, & Kraimer, 2006; .37 in
Hofmann & Jones, 2005). Low ICC2 values limit the ability to detect relationships involving
group-level variables as it attenuates observed relationships (Bliese, 1998); similarly, Hofmann
and Jones (2005) argued that unreliability at the group level increases Type II errors. Thus,
analyses reported below are conservative in light of that possible attenuation.

Results
The means, standard deviations, intercorrelations, and sample reliability estimates (coefficient alphas) for the measures are presented in Table 1.

Tests of Hypotheses
Hypothesis 1 proposes that extrinsic motivation is positively related to creativity. As
shown in Table 2, with age, job level, education, and experience controlled at the individual

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Journal of Management / Month XXXX

Table 2
Results for Tests of Hypotheses 1 and 2
Hypothesis 1: Creativity
Variable
Level 1a
Age
Job level
Education
Tenure
Intrinsic motivation
Extrinsic motivation
Intrinsic × Extrinsic Motivation
Level 2b
Pay structure
Team size
R2

Hypothesis 2: Creativity

Coefficient

SE

Coefficient

SE

.06
.29***
.01
.05
.14*
–.00

.07
.08
.07
.08
.06
.06

.04
.31***
–.01
.07
.63***
.52**
–.84**

.07
.08
.07
.08
.18
.19
.30

–.15
.13
.14

.10
.10

–.15
.13
.18

.10
.10

Note: Standardized coefficients reported.
238.
bn = 54.
*p < .05.
**p < .01.
***p < .001 (one-tailed tests).
an =

level, and pay structure and team size controlled at the team level, intrinsic motivation has a
statistically significant positive relationship with manager-rated creativity (as expected), but
extrinsic motivation does not (β = –.00, ns). Thus, Hypothesis 1 received no support.
Hypothesis 2 states that extrinsic motivation interacts with intrinsic motivation in such a
way that the relationship between intrinsic motivation and creativity is stronger for employees low in extrinsic motivation versus high. The interaction of employees’ intrinsic and
extrinsic motivation is statistically significant (β = –.84, p < .01; see Table 2). Figure 2 illustrates the pattern of this interaction. The relationship between intrinsic motivation and creativity is substantially positive when extrinsic motivation is low and is slightly negative
when extrinsic motivation is high (supporting Hypothesis 2). For participants who are low in
extrinsic motivation, high intrinsic motivation significantly increased their creativity.
However, for participants high in extrinsic motivation, high levels of intrinsic motivation did
not lead to higher creativity.
Hypothesis 3 proposes that intrateam competitive climate is positively related to team
members’ extrinsic motivation. To test for this hypothesis, we conducted an intercept-asoutcome model where team-level competitive climate was regressed on individual extrinsic
motivation at Level 1. Intrateam competitive climate has a statistically significant positive
relationship with team member’s extrinsic motivation (β = .13, p < .05), after controlling for
intrinsic motivation (β = .34, p < .001), supporting Hypothesis 3. Hypothesis 4 states that
intrateam competitive climate is positively related to team member’s intrinsic motivation;
however, this hypothesis was not supported as the hypothesized relationship is not statistically significant (β = –.04, ns), after controlling for extrinsic motivation (β = .33, p < .001).

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Zhu et al. / Team Climate, Motivation, and Creative Performance

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Figure 2
Illustration of Intrinsic Motivation by Extrinsic Motivation
Interaction on Creativity

Hypothesis 5 states that intrateam collaborative climate is positively related to intrinsic motivation and is supported by a statistically significant β of .25 (p < .001), after controlling for
extrinsic motivation (β = .33, p < .001).
Finally, Hypotheses 6 and 7 state that there are direct relationships between intrateam collaborative and competitive climate, and individual creativity. These hypotheses were tested
with an intercept-as-outcomes multilevel model, and the results are summarized in Table 3.
The results show that with intrinsic and extrinsic motivation and the control variables statistically controlled, and with both climate variables in the model, intrateam collaborative climate has a positive and significant direct relationship with team members’ creativity, while
intrateam competitive climate does not. Thus, Hypothesis 6 received support while Hypothesis
7 did not.

Tests for Moderated Mediation
Hypotheses 8 and 9 posited that effects of team climate on creativity through intrinsic
motivation would be moderated by extrinsic motivation. We tested the moderated mediation
relationships following Zhang et al.’s (2009) recommendations on testing cross-level mediation, as well as Hayes’s (2013) recommendations on moderated mediation (conditional process analysis). Because the relationship between competitive climate and individual creativity
(Hypothesis 7) was not statistically significant, we did not examine it for moderated mediation. Thus, we examined only Hypothesis 8, but we do control for competitive climate. The
results of the test are reported in Table 4. Collaborative climate’s relationship with individual
creativity through intrinsic motivation as moderated by extrinsic motivation (Hypothesis 8)
is supported. Collaboration has statistically significant relationships with the dependent

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Journal of Management / Month XXXX

Table 3
Results for Tests of Hypotheses 6 and 7
Dependent Variable: Creativity
Variable
Level 1a
Age
Job level
Education
Tenure
Intrinsic motivation
Extrinsic motivation
Level 2b
Collaborative climate
Competitive climate
Team size
Pay structure
R2

Coefficient

SE

.06
.29***
.01
.05
.14*
–.00

.07
.08
.07
.08
.06
.06

.20*
.02
.12
–.13

.11
.11
.10
.10
.14

Note: Standardized coefficients reported.
238.
bn = 54.
*p < .05.
**p < .01.
***p < .001 (one-tailed tests).
an =

variable (creativity; Step 1) and mediator (intrinsic motivation; Step 2), and the interaction of
the mediator with the moderator (extrinsic motivation; Step 3) is statistically significant after
all of the other variables are in the equation, and controlling for the opposing team climate
and control variables. Using the response surface technique, a three-dimensional graph of the
interaction between intrinsic motivation, extrinsic motivation, and creativity is presented in
Figure 3. This graph shows that amotivation (when both intrinsic and extrinsic motivation are
low) leads to the lowest creativity, and high intrinsic or high extrinsic motivation (with the
other motivation low) leads to highest levels of creativity. High intrinsic motivation by itself
seems to lead to a slightly higher level of creativity than does high extrinsic motivation by
itself. Finally, high levels or medium levels of both motivations simultaneously lead to
medium levels of creativity.

Discussion
We address several research gaps raised by Anderson et al. (2014) and George (2007) in
the current study. First, we used SDT as a conceptual framework for explaining “how and
why intrinsic motivation mediates the effects of various factors (e.g., contextual characteristics) on creativity” (George, 2007: 444). Second, we explicitly evaluated extrinsic motivation’s utility in enhancing creativity both directly and in combination with intrinsic motivation.
Third, we theoretically considered effects of team contextual factors (collaborative and

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Zhu et al. / Team Climate, Motivation, and Creative Performance

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Table 4
Test for Moderated Mediation: Collaboration→Intrinsic Motivation→Creativity,
Moderated by Extrinsic Motivation
Step 1: Creativity
Variable
Level 1a
Age
Job level
Education
Tenure
Intrinsic motivation
Extrinsic motivation
Intrinsic × Extrinsic Motivation
Level 2b
Team size
Pay structure
Competitive climate
Collaborative climate
Average intrinsic motivation
Average extrinsic motivation
R2

Step 2: Mediator

Coefficient

SE

Coefficient

.06
.29***
.01
.05
.14*
–.00

.07
.08
.07
.08
.06
.06

.01
.07
.08
–.16*
.31***

.07

.12
–.13
.02
.20*

.10
.10
.11
.11

–.15*
.00
.07
.29***

.07
.07
.08
.08

Step 3: Creativity

SE

Coefficient

SE

.08
.10
.09
.10

.04
.31***
–.01
.07
.63***
.52***
–.84**

.07
.08
.07
.08
.18
.19
.30

.16
–.12
–.02
.12
.13
.07

.11
.10
.12
.12
.13
.12
.18

Note: 1. Standardized coefficients reported.
an = 238.
bn = 54.
*p < .05.
**p < .01.
***p < .001 (one-tailed tests).

Figure 3
Three-Dimensional Graph of the Interaction Between Intrinsic Motivation and
Extrinsic Motivation, and Creativity

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Journal of Management / Month XXXX

competitive climate) on creativity, exploring factors other than intrinsic motivation as sources
for creativity. We used SDT as a conceptual framework to derive theory-based hypotheses
about direct and interactive individual- and team-level effects on creativity but also build on
other research (e.g., Eisenberger’s learned industriousness theory).
We hypothesized that extrinsic motivation would directly relate to creativity (Hypothesis
1) as well as moderate the relationship between intrinsic motivation and creativity such that
the relationship was stronger for employees low in extrinsic motivation versus high
(Hypothesis 2). Tests of the direct relationship provided no support for Hypothesis 1, but the
interaction was statistically significant (supporting Hypothesis 2). It appears that extrinsic
motivation can contribute to creativity but that the relationship needs to be considered in light
of an individual’s intrinsic motivation. When extrinsic motivation is low, there is a strong
positive relationship between intrinsic motivation and creativity, as predicted from SDT.
When extrinsic motivation is high, however, higher intrinsic motivation does not contribute
to more creativity; there is no additive effect.
Perhaps the most interesting aspect of the interaction occurs when extrinsic motivation is
high and intrinsic motivation is low, which results in high creativity levels. For these employees, extrinsic motivation did not undermine intrinsic motivation; it appears to compensate for
it. If Figure 2 were rearranged, it would show a strong positive relationship between extrinsic
motivation and creativity when intrinsic motivation is low and a slight negative one when
intrinsic motivation is high. Employees who were not intrinsically motivated by the nature of
their work but who were highly extrinsically motivated received high creativity ratings. It is
worth noting that there is still a positive direct relationship between extrinsic motivation and
creativity even when intrinsic motivation is at its average (zero because of standardization of
coefficients; see Table 2), providing some weak support for Hypothesis 1.
Speculating on these findings, we know that motivation affects innovative performance
via two main pathways: through the quantity of effort (e.g., time spent) and through the character of that effort (e.g., the quality of cognitive effort; Sauermann & Cohen, 2010). While
intrinsic motivation is reported to be related to both the quality and quantity of efforts
(Cerasoli et al., 2014; Sauermann & Cohen, 2010), extrinsic motivation primarily enhances
the quantity of effort and persistence (Eisenberger & Thompson, 2011). Task persistence in
turn is positively related to creativity (Lucas & Nordgren, 2015; Sauermann & Cohen, 2010).
R&D engineers high in intrinsic motivation likely have already exerted high levels of effort
and persistence, and thus additional extrinsic motivation is unlikely to appreciably increase
them (i.e., a ceiling effect). However, engineers who have only low intrinsic motivation may
expend limited effort and give up easily, resulting in poor performance. Because extrinsic
motivation can increase task effort (Eisenberger & Thompson, 2011), engineers with low
intrinsic motivation will more dramatically increase their effort when offered performancebased rewards, spending more time thinking about and trying different solutions and subsequently improving their creativity.
In contrast, high extrinsic motivation may introduce divergence in creative behaviors
when intrinsic motivation is also high. While intrinsic motivation drives engineers to do what
they personally think of as novel and useful (perhaps unexpected; Montag et al., 2012; or
radical creative behaviors; Litchfield, Gilson, & Gilson, 2015), extrinsic motivation drives
engineers to do what their managers think is novel and useful (expected or incremental creative behaviors) because managers control rewards. Because creativity is quite subjective in

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nature (Montag et al., 2012), intrinsic and extrinsic motivations may diverge in their effects
on creativity (Gilson, Lim, D’Innocenzo, & Moye, 2012). Engineers who are highly rated by
their managers receive higher rewards and are extrinsically motivated; if those engineers are
simultaneously highly intrinsically motivated, it may cause them to divert their efforts away
from behaviors desired by managers to those that result from intrinsic motivation, decreasing
their manager-rated creativity. Research does suggest that when people are engaged in intrinsically motivating tasks, extrinsic incentives, and presumably the different behaviors that
lead to them, have diminished effects (Woolley & Fishbach, 2015). In our study, this may
have diminished employees’ creativity ratings.
Our results may pro