Impact of role ambiguity and role conflict on employee creativity

Abstract

Exactly how role stress and various performances of individuals are related has received considerable attention, in which stress has been found to affect individual creativity. However, exactly how role stress and employee creativity are related has seldom been examined empirically. By extending the results of literature, this study proposes five hypotheses on how role ambiguity and role conflict (via self-efficacy and job satisfaction) affect employee creativity directly and indirectly. Survey data from 202 employees of Taiwanese companies reveal not only a direct and negative link between role ambiguity and creativity, but also a direct and positive link between role conflict and creativity. The survey results further demonstrated that both self-efficacy and job satisfaction serve as partial mediators between role conflict and creativity. However, only job satisfaction (and not self-efficacy) is a partial mediator between role ambiguity and creativity. Implications of the findings of this study and possible directions for future research are also discussed.