When working hard pays off: testing creativity hypotheses

Purpose – This study seeks to suggest and test an important moderator, organizational encouragement, which plays between working hard, and two outcome variables, creativity and performance. This study also aims to test the traditional inferences and conclusions in the creativity literature in order to generalize them into the corporate communications/public relations (PR) setting. Design/methodology/approach – The dataset includes 148 survey returns from Korean practitioners in corporate communications and/or PR. Path analysis and multi‐group analysis are utilized for analyses. Findings – The findings provide evidence that the effect of working hard on performance can significantly be intensified when the practitioner is encouraged to work creatively in the organization. Some of the findings also confirm the general view of the traditional notion from the creativity literature. Research limitations/implications – The results indicate that when an employee is working hard is better related to the performance goal when the employee is encouraged to take risks and to work in a creative manner. Limitations are concerned with the fact that, in the Korean public relations setting, little knowledge was known about the variables. Practical implications – Without any effort, simply being creative cannot guarantee successful outcomes. Organizational encouragement is very important in the workplace to encourage creative outcomes and better performance. Originality/value – This study investigates and determines the role of the organizational determinant of creativity as a moderator in the combination of a mediating variable and working hard. The study area of corporate communications lacks discussion of creativity.