1. PROBLEM SOLVING - DEMAND
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SPECIAL EVENTS
ASSIGNMENT BOARD
Having studied the concepts behind demand, it’s time to apply them to real
decisions. With a small group, work through each of the following problem
solving activities - but, in all you do, make sure that the concepts are used
appropriately to arrive at your answers.
A. Demand at the Grocery Store
2. Use the Weis flyer (or other provided store flyer) to locate examples of each
of the following demand concepts. Cut out the portion of the flyer (picture
or actual ad) that provides the appropriate example, post it on the given
paper, and write a brief explanation on the paper of how it exemplifies the
concept. When each have been completed, staple the the posted examples
together as a packet. (15 points total - accurate examples & complete
explanations)
1. Change in price of a substitute
2. 2. Change in price of a complement
3. Diminishing marginal utility
4. Change in income (inferior vs. normal goods)
5. Greater concern for health
2. B. Sell More Tickets - For the Same Price
Your group has become the officers for the Econ Club. You are selling
tickets ($10) for an upcoming fundraising dance and sales are not what you
hoped. How can you sell more tickets without dropping the price of the
ticket? Create a plan that can be used to increase sales considering the
concepts of demand. Explain your plan in a paragraph as a group and be
able to share the idea.
We propose that problem-solving demand (PSD) is an important job attribute for employees'
creative performance. Applying job design theory, we examined the relationship between PSD
and employee creativity. The theorised model was tested with data obtained from a sample of
270 employees and their supervisors from three Chinese organisations. Regression results
revealed that PSD was positively related to creativity, and this relationship was mediated by
creative self-efficacy. Additionally, intrinsic motivation moderated the relationship between PSD
and creative self-efficacy such that the relationship was stronger for individuals with high rather
than low intrinsic motivation. We discuss our findings, implications for practice, and future
research.
We propose that problem-solving demand (PSD) is an important job attribute
for employees’ creative performance. Applying job design theory, we examined
the relationship between PSD and employee creativity. The theorised model
was tested with data obtained from a sample of 270 employees and their
supervisors from three Chinese organisations. Regression results revealed that
4. (Oldham & Cummings, 1996; Unsworth, Wall, & Carter, 2005). These
studies illustrate that the cognitive requirements of a job, in combination
with individual characteristics, predict creative performance.
Extending previous research, the present study seeks to understand how
and when a job’s problem-solving demands influence employee creativity.
Drawing upon job design theory (Hackman & Oldham, 1975) and research
(Dean & Snell, 1991; Wall, Corbett, Clegg, Jackson, & Martin, 1990), this
study introduces and applies the concept of problem-solving demand (PSD)
to examine its influence on employee creativity. PSD refers to the extent to
which a job requires employees to actively utilise their knowledge and skills
to “diagnose and solve problems” at work (Wall et al., 1990, p. 208),
thereby challenging employees to develop new solutions to problems
stretching their knowledge and skill bases. PSD is a specific aspect of job
complexity (Campbell, 1988; Dean & Snell, 1991). Job complexity refers to
the level of stimulating and challenging demands associated with a particular job (Valcour, 2007) and
encompasses many different facets. Complex
jobs may require individuals to juggle different tasks, learn a great deal of
procedural knowledge, as well as engage in challenging problem-solving to
provide solutions to applied problems. It is this latter aspect, involving fluid
cognitive functioning (Horn & Noll, 1997), that we are most interested in,
since it captures the extent to which the job requires the individual to
develop new and useful solutions to problems. In our view, PSD differs
from the extent to which employees are motivated to engage in creative
processes. Such “creative engagement” refers to an employee’s motivation
to develop creative problem solutions, while PSD pertains to the extent to
which the job design “stretches” the individual to develop skills and new
solutions to problems.
PSD provides employees with opportunities to apply their skills and
7. Gustafson, 1988).
According to Amabile (1996), when tasks are complex and intellectually
demanding, employees are likely to experience “interest, involvement, curiosity, satisfaction, or
positive challenge” (p. 115). This, in turn, leads to
creativity. The positive relationship between complex job demands, such as
job complexity, and creativity has received some empirical support in extant
literature (see Shalley et al., 2004, for a review). PSD (Jackson, Wall, Martin,
& Davids, 1993; Wall et al., 1990; Wall, Jackson, & Mullarkey, 1995) is
defined as the extent to which individuals perceive their work to be challenging, exposing them to
novel and unexpected events. PSD also relates to
whether the job requires the individual to apply job-specific accumulated
knowledge as well as adopting new approaches to develop solutions to problems. More importantly,
however, we propose that PSD stands out as a
particularly important job attribute for creativity within a work context where
creativity is not explicitly required. It is arguable that creativity is not a
natural option in such a context. Employees may prefer familiar and routine
options and forsake novel creative options (Ford, 1996). While we acknowledge employees’
motivation as important in influencing their response to
challenging situations, we expect that on average PSD will “jolt” employees
out of their routines and point them in new directions (Csikszentmihalyi,
1993). When PSD is high, employees have to deal with problems that they
have not encountered before. In order to diagnose and solve these new
problems, employees are prompted to seek new information, knowledge, and
skills. Thus, PSD provides opportunities for employees to be open to possibilities and to let go of
their usual ways of doing things. At the same time, the
Creativity
Problemsolving demand
Creative
self-efficacy
10. Theorists have suggested that self-efficacy constitutes an indispensable
dimension of the motivational process important for individual creativity
(Bandura, 1997; Ford, 1996). As Bandura stated, “Effective personal functioning is not simply a
matter of knowing what to do and be motivated to
do”. Rather, one needs to have efficacy beliefs which “activate cognitive,
motivational and affective processes that govern the translation of knowledge and abilities into
proficient action” (1997, pp. 36–37). Only when individuals are confident about their ability to be
creative will they engage in the
activities leading to creative performance (Bandura, 1997; Ford, 1996) .
Tierney and Farmer (2002) provide two reasons why creative self-efficacy
may be related to employee creativity. First, they argue that creative selfefficacy constitutes a
motivational mechanism important for creativity. Creative performance involves challenges, risks,
and potential failures. It is
important for one to be persistent in the face of difficulties (Amabile, 1983).
When individuals have high levels of creative self-efficacy, they hold a
strong belief in their ability to be successful in spite of difficulties. This
belief will help them to set creative goals, to be persistent, and to put in
more effort in their creative endeavors (Bandura, 1997). Second, creative
self-efficacy also serves as a cognitive mechanism important for creativity.
Creativity requires creativity relevant processes as well as domain-relevant
knowledge (Amabile, 1983, 1996). When individuals have high levels of
creative self-efficacy, they will sustain effort at seeking work-related information (Bandura, 1997),
leading to a better understanding of work-related
knowledge. Furthermore, individuals who hold a strong belief in their creativity abilities will not be
satisfied with ordinary and routine ideas or solutions (Ford, 1996). Rather, they will put in more
effort to use cognitive
resources (e.g. knowledge, memory, analytic skills) to come up with unique
ideas. This is consistent with the notions of “divergent thinking” and
breaking “mental set”, which are inherent in creativity relevant processes
(Amabile, 1983). Such notions are consistent with research evidence that
creative self-efficacy is positively related to creativity (Tierney & Farmer,
14. Association of Applied Psychology.Republic of China satisfied the preceding requirements and were
invited to
participate in this study. In meetings with Human Resources (HR) managers
of each of the companies, the first and second authors explained the aims of
the study and asked them to identify individual work units within the
company for possible participation in the research. We made it clear that we
were not focusing specifically on work units with high creative performance,
but instead examining job-related characteristics across all or most functional areas of the business.
Units were selected in order to be representative
of the organisation as a whole.
Employees in the identified units were informed of this survey through
the HR department of each company before the questionnaires were distributed. A survey
coordinator was assigned by each HR department to
help the first author distribute questionnaire packages to respondents.
Separate questionnaires were administered to subordinates and supervisors.
Subordinate questionnaires were distributed to 320 employees while
supervisor questionnaires were distributed to 60 immediate supervisors of
the subordinates. Employees completed a questionnaire that included
measures of PSD, creative self-efficacy, intrinsic motivation, and demographics variables. Separately,
each supervisor was asked to rate the creativity of an average of five subordinates. A cover letter
attached to each of
the questionnaires informed respondents of the purpose of the survey.
Respondents were assured of the confidentiality of their responses and their
personal ID (provided at the top right hand corner of the questionnaire)
would only be used to match their responses to the ratings provided by
their supervisors.
Completed and usable questionnaires from 270 supervisor–subordinate
dyads were received. This represented a response rate of 84 per cent for
subordinates and 90 per cent for supervisors. Of the 270 respondents, 66
17. Association of Applied Psychology.tively, i.e. intrinsic motivation to know (three items), to
accomplish things
(three items), and to experience stimulation (four items). The CFA results
confirmed that three first-order latent variables loaded onto one secondorder latent factor (c
2
= 97.39, df = 32, p < .001, CFI = .97, TLI = .96, RMSEA
= .08). Consequently, we combined the three subscales to create a composite
index for intrinsic motivation. The scale’s alpha reliability is .94.
Creativity. A 13-item scale developed by Zhou and George (2001) was
used to measure creativity. Supervisors rated the creative performance for
each of their subordinates who participated in the survey. A sample item is:
“This employee is a good source of creative ideas”. Response options ranged
from (1) “not at all” to (5) “to a great extent”. The scale’s alpha reliability is
.96. Since supervisors rated more than one employee, there was a risk that the
creativity rating scores received by individual employees were dependent on
rater identity. Following Dansereau and Yammarino (2000), we conducted
within and between analysis (WABA) (Dansereau, Alutto, & Yammarino,
1984) to test the assumption of independence of creativity ratings that each
supervisor provided for multiple subordinates. The E ratio (tests of practical
significance) for creativity was .96, less than 1.0, and therefore indicated that
the variation within groups was significantly greater than the variation
between groups. Furthermore, the corrected F-test (tests of statistical signifi-
cance) was statistically nonsignificant (1/F = .28). Together, these WABA
results supported the assumption of independence for creativity and the
appropriateness of conducting the analysis at the individual rather than the
group level.
Control Variables. We controlled for education level and job tenure,
because both reflect individual knowledge level (Tierney & Farmer, 2002),
19. acceptance (Bentler & Bonett, 1980), whereas for RMSEA, a value of .08 or
less is indicative of a good model fit (Browne & Cudeck, 1993).
To test for mediation (Hypothesis 2b), we followed procedures suggested
by Baron and Kenny (1986). According to Baron and Kenny (1986), the
following conditions must be met to demonstrate a mediating effect: (1)
independent variable (PSD) must be related to mediator (creative selfefficacy); (2) independent
variable (PSD) must be related to dependent variable (creativity); (3) mediator (creative self-efficacy)
must be related to
dependent variable (creativity); and (4) independent variable (PSD) must
have no effect on dependent variable (creativity) when mediator (creative
self-efficacy) is held constant (full mediation) or should become significantly
smaller (partial mediation).
Hypothesis 3b proposes moderated mediation. To test for this possible
relation, we followed the procedures described by Muller et al. (2005),
Edwards and Lambert (2007), and Preacher et al. (2007). Specifically, we
examined four conditions: (1) significant effect of PSD on creativity; (2)
significant interaction effect between PSD and intrinsic motivation in predicting creative self-efficacy
and creativity; (3) significant effect of creative
self-efficacy on creativity; and (4) indirect effect of PSD on creativity signifi-
cantly differs at high and low levels of intrinsic motivation.
RESULTS
We compared the fit of our hypothesised four-factor model to a number of
nested alternative models: (1) a three-factor model where two motivational
constructs, intrinsic motivation and creative self-efficacy were loaded on one
factor; (2) a two-factor model where all self-report variables, PSD, intrinsic
motivation, and creative self-efficacy were loaded on one factor; and (3) a
one-factor model where all variables loaded on one factor. The fit indices
indicate that our hypothesised four-factor model fit the data best (c
2