A Social-structural Analysis of Employee-Organization Relationships and Team Creativity

Presenter:     Anne S. Tsui, Arizona State University and Peking University

Date:             November 8, 2011, Tuesday, 9:00-11:30am

Place:            Zhejiang University, Hangzhou

Language:     English

Abstract:

In this study, we developed and tested the hypotheses that the mutual investment form of employment system (an employment relationship in which the employer expects a high level and broad set of contributions from employees and provides extensive and long-term inducements to employees), relative to other forms, would relate positively to work team creativity, mediated by within-team work-related communication network density. We further hypothesized that the advantages of higher communication network density would be stronger in work teams with higher task complexity. We found support for these hypotheses in a two-wave study of 233 work teams in 55 Chinese organizations. We discuss the implications of this study for future research on employment relationships.