A Social–structural Perspective on Employee– Organization Relationships and Team Creativity

We develop a social–structural perspective on the relationship between employee–organization relationships (EORs) and team creativity. We argue that the mutual investment EOR approach, in which employers expect high levels of employee contributions and offer extensive inducements, will be associated with higher team creativity relative to other EOR approaches. We also advance the argument that this relationship will be mediated by team member work-related communication density and that the mediated relationship will be stronger when team members’ tasks are complex. We find support for the model in a two-wave study of 1,807 employees in 229 teams in 55 Chinese high-technology organizations. We discuss the implications for future employment relationship research and practice.