While the benefits of mindfulness on employee well-being have been demonstrated in the literature, the findings on its effects on employee creativity were mixed. Although it is argued that mindful individuals have higher cognitive capacity for creativity, the positive influence on creative performance was not consistently observed in studies. Taking a motivational perspective, this study aimed to delineate the effects of mindfulness on creativity by investigating the moderating effects of intrinsic and extrinsic motivation. Moreover, radical creativity and incremental creativity were incorporated as distinct outcome variables, representing different types of creativity. We tested the hypotheses in two quasi-experiment studies. Results supported that employees’ motivation moderate the relationship between mindfulness and radical creativity, but not incremental creativity. The hypotheses of main effects of mindfulness were not supported. Specifically, the relationship between mindfulness and the two types of creativity was either insignificant or negative. We discussed the theoretical and practical implications of our findings for mindfulness and creativity literature.
