Creative Employee Behavior (Part II)

Creativity itself is a human perception, which is followed by action. Both the perception and the action are something new. In this definition, creativity is related to something that has not been thought or done by others. Creative personality is needed in an organization because it can support the organization to develop as well as to be more innovative and well performed. Since creativity refers to individual differences, it can lead both individual and organization into innovation. It is also the basic in which an organization can be more competitive and more dynamic.

Some studies underline that extraversion, conscientiousness, agreeableness, and openness to experience as four individual characters that support creative behavior. Extraversion is individual character of being concerned with what is outside the self. Employees who are extrovert get high satisfaction in their job result. In fact, extraversion positive significantly correlated with personal performance. It means that extroversion encourages creative employee behavior. In line with extraversion, conscientiousness significantly correlated to job performance and personal position. Good job performance and personal position of employees require creativity. In addition, agreeableness is also positive significantly correlated to creativity. In certain condition, employees who are able to admit that others can have better idea seem to be able to develop themselves. Moreover, openness to experience is considered as important in supporting creations. Employees who are open to new experience tend to have creative thinking on how to develop idea related to their job.

Some experts also reveal that creative requirement of a job is positively correlated to individual creativity. It means that the improvement of creativity will improve only if it is suitable to individual inner drives. This is an underlying concept of Self-Concept-Based Theory. The theory highlights that individual creativity will be improved and turn to be meaningful when employees feel more self engaged. The implication is the employees as individuals have to adjust their own goals with organization goals in a meaningful way. This self-concept-based theory is inline with the most popular theory of creativity, which is interactionist model. This theory mentions that employee, groups, and organization are input that will be changed in creative condition that are match with individual goals.