| Existing literature on creative deviance has focused exclusively on theoretical development of the construct. Empirically, very little work has been done to test the construct. The dissertation intends to fill in this gap by developing the nomological network for creative deviance. Drawing on self-determination and leadership theories, my dissertation asks the following three questions: 1) How to operationalize creative deviance at individual level? 2) What will make people engage in creative deviance? 3) How does creative deviance render people more creativity or deviance? To answer these questions, three studies were carried out to (1) develop the measurement of creative deviance, (2) build the antecedent model, and (3) develop the outcome model.;In Study 1, which is designed to develop the measurement, I conducted semi-structured interviews with managers, employees, and directors of human resource management departments in two advertising firms. After distilling these qualitative insights and according to the definition of creative deviance, I developed items with a panel of three judges, including a researcher of creativity, a researcher of workplace deviance, a Design Director of the advertisement company. To gain empirical evidence on structural validity of the items that would be used in the later formal survey using the Chinese sample, I pre-tested them using 79 respondents in China. Results validated the measurement.;In Study 2, which is to develop and test the antecedent model, I investigated the motivational mechanisms for creative deviance based on self-determination (SDT) and self-efficacy (SET) theories. Results from 146 matched data over a 3-month time-lagged survey supported that intrinsic motivation and creative self-efficacy toward rejected ideas mediate the effect of autonomy on creative deviance. I also tested the indirect effect of intrinsic motivation on the condition of job involvement for creative deviance in the second stage of the mediation. The results supported the hypotheses.;In Study 3, which is to develop and test the outcome model, I posit that creative deviance is positively related to five leader responses: punishing, rewarding, forgiving, ignoring and manipulating. Using 226 leader-employee dyads from two advertising firms in China, I examined how leaders' responses to creative deviance affect employees' subsequent creative deviance and creative performance. Results demonstrated that creative deviance was positively related to five leader responses: punishing, rewarding, forgiving, ignoring and manipulating. As hypothesized, rewarding, manipulating, and punishing conveyed the effect of creative deviance on creative performance, while forgiving, ignoring and manipulating conveyed the effect of creative deviance on subsequent creative deviance. Supportive supervision for creativity moderated the relationships between creative deviance and rewarding, as well as between creative deviance and forgiving.;By developing measurement at the individual level and testing the above two models for nomological network, my research sheds light on the micro-level knowledge of creative deviance and facilitates related research in the field of organizational behavior. Implications for theory and managerial practices, limitations, and directions for future research are discussed.;Keywords: creative deviance, creativity, deviance, leadership, intrinsic motivation. |
