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emulate common features of their peers’ creative work or from the employees’ decision to neither pursue nor present their most original ideas for fear of being judged negatively Diehl
and Stroebe [1987]. Furthermore, the exchange of creative ideas among a group of employees could lead to free riding Alchian and Demsetz [1972]. This can occur if individuals copy
others’ ideas in their work or decrease their efforts to produce high-quality work for fear of being copied by their peers.
The conflicting arguments described above suggest that the introduction of an ISSC could lead to either an increase or a decrease in the quality of creative work,
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as stated in the following hypotheses:
Hypothesis 1a: The introduction of an information sharing system recording creative work ISSC will lead to an increase in the quality of the employees’ creative work.
Hypothesis 1b: The introduction of an information sharing system recording creative work ISSC will lead to a decrease in the quality of the employees’ creative work.
2.2. Effect on Employee Engagement
Prior research suggests that two key antecedents of employee engagement i.e., investment of an individual’s complete self into hisher work are the individual’s sense that hisher work is
meaningful and valuable and the sense that heshe is capable of performing this work Kahn [1990], Rich, Lepine, and Crawford [2010]. ISSCs have the potential to enhance a worker’s
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To achieve a high level of creativity in any particular domain, an individual needs domain-relevant skills, creativity-relevant skills, and task motivation Amabile [1988]. We could argue that an ISSC is likely to help the individual acquire better domain-relevant
skills and to increase the individual’s task motivation. However, it is unclear whether such a system would have a positive effect on creativity-relevant skills. Therefore, we might see an increase in the value of creative work due to greater domain-relevant skills or
task-relevant tacit knowledge but a decrease in the novelty of creative work due to free-riding behavior, inability to acquire creativity-relevant skills, and convergence on a few ideas. When measuring the quality of creative work, we will distinguish
between the value of the work reflecting domain-relevant skills and its novelty reflecting creative-relevant skills.
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sense of value by increasing the outreach of the worker’s creative work, the expected impact this work could have on others, and the worker’s potential to be recognized by superiors and peers.
These non-pecuniary benefits could increase employees’ overall level of effort in conducting their creative work. These systems also have the potential to develop an individual’s abilities and
confidence in those abilities to produce creative work. Furthermore, creative activities tend to require a more active and extensive search for information. An ISSC that could stimulate greater
participation in creative activities could increase employee efforts in information acquisition and processing, regardless of the quality of their creative work.
However, ISSCs could unintentionally increase individuals’ fears of being singled out, evaluated, and embarrassed in front of their peers, leading to an overall loss of confidence Diehl and
Stroebe [1987], Toubia [2006]. Free riding could also lead individuals to withdraw from investing in producing high-quality creative work, resulting in a decrease in the value of their
work. These two unintended effects would most likely reduce employee engagement. Given the unclear effect that ISSC would have on engagement, we split our second hypothesis as follows.
Hypothesis 2a: The introduction of an information sharing system recording creative work ISSC will lead to an increase in employee engagement.
Hypothesis 2b: The introduction of an information sharing system recording creative work ISSC will lead to a decrease in employee engagement.
2.3. Effect on Financial Performance
