From personal values to creativity: evidence from frontline service employees

Purpose – This paper seeks to examine how personal values and the way employees respond to the organization and the job impact on employee creativity. Specifically, the paper proposes a framework that argues that creativity is a function of the employee's personal values, of organizational commitment and customer orientation. Moreover, it also aims to investigate the moderating effects of commitment and customer orientation on the relationship between personal values and employee creativity. Design/methodology/approach – The conceptual model was tested empirically using data collected by questionnaire in a sample of 266 bank employees. Hierarchical multiple regression analysis is relied on to test the hypothesized model. Findings – The empirical results indicate that personal values, organizational commitment, and customer orientation are important drivers of the creativity of frontline employees. In addition, the paper also detected some moderating and mediating effects. Originality/value – The contribution of this paper is fourfold. First, the influence that personal values might have on an employee's creativity is studied. Second, a conceptual model that incorporates variables concerning how employees respond to the context in which they work is developed: organizational commitment and customer orientation. The simultaneous effects of the organizational commitment and customer orientation of frontline employees on creativity are examined, to the best of the paper's knowledge, for the first time in the literature. Third, the interaction effect between personal characteristics and commitment and customer orientation on creativity is investigated. Finally, the study also contributes to current literature by examining these issues in the context of frontline service jobs.