Fostering Creativity: Adopting Mindfulness as an Innovative Approach to Managing Employee Stress

The purpose of this dissertation was to assess how the management adoption of mindfulness affects employee stress and creativity, and to evaluate the strategies in which mindfulness is cultivated. The following research questions were evaluated: What are the effects of employee mindfulness on stress and creativity? What are the most effective strategies managers can implement to influence the effects of mindfulness on stress and creativity? This study utilized a realist synthesis to conduct a systematic literature review of 25 studies examining the variables of mindfulness, stress, and creativity. The analysis and synthesis of evidence discovered four key findings: 1) mindfulness developed a cognitive flexibility that influenced how employees appraised workplace stress and perceived their jobs; 2) mindfulness was shown to be an effective strategy for fostering employee creativity through stress reduction; 3) mindfulness was shown to be a potential strategy in motivating employees to be creative through job satisfaction and work engagement; and 4) mindfulness is in the early phases of adoption and being customized to meet the needs of the organization. The diffusion of innovation theory, appraisal theory of stress, and the componential theory of creativity were used to evaluate the study findings and develop a conceptual framework which presented how employee mindfulness is a competency that can be managed. The management implications for this study included: 1) reviewing current stress-management practices; 2) assessing mindfulness as an innovation; 3) implementing mindfulness as an intervention; and 4) utilizing mindfulness as a competency. A new analytical framework was provided, which future researchers can utilize to examine the effect of mindfulness on stress and creativity, and the role that cognitive flexibility might have across these relationships.