The Hong Kong U. of Science and Technology, Hong Kong
Considerable research has examined the role of goal orientations in creativity, often failing to distinguish between incremental and radical creativity. We contend that this oversight obscures the true relationships that goal orientations have with these two forms of creativity. Leveraging the exploration-exploitation framework, we hypothesize that a learning goal orientation fosters both incremental and radical creativity through promoting exploitation and exploration respectively, while a performance-prove goal orientation exclusively enhances incremental creativity through increasing exploitation. We first conducted a multi-wave, multi-source field study to provide a preliminary test of the hypotheses, and then a cross-lagged survey study to replicate the findings and strengthen causal inference. Results showed a positive association between learning goal orientation and radical (incremental) creativity through the facilitation of exploration (exploitation). Performance-prove goal orientation exhibited a positive relationship solely with incremental creativity, achieved through the promotion of exploitation. Our results alter extant research by demonstrating that the nature of creativity plays a pivotal role in the predictive validity of goal orientations.
