Towards enhancing creativity in university settings: does hope of academic knowledge workers matter?

Abstract

Purpose Although a burgeoning body of literature has established the influence of hope and employee creativity, the debate on the relative importance of hope and its components of pathway and agency on its outcomes has not been clarified. Literature has it that hope and its individual components of pathway and agency have a varying magnitude of influence on its outcomes. Some scholars argue that agency and pathway components better predict its outcomes than overall hope. The current study establishes the relative importance of hope and its components on creativity using evidence from Makerere University, Uganda. Design/methodology/approach The study adopted a cross-sectional quantitative survey design to collect data from the academic staff of Makerere University. The study used usefulness analysis to establish the relative importance of the predictor variables on the dependent variable. Findings The study findings revealed that agency and hope components of hope significantly predicted creativity. Overall, hope also significantly predicted creativity. Regarding relative importance, hope turned out to be the most “useful” predictor of creativity, followed by its components of agency and pathway. Research limitations/implications The study was conducted in a public university setting located in urban areas. The findings may not be generalizable to private settings due to variations in the teacher's creative behaviour with variation in the creative environment. The study was also cross-sectional, which may not yield results of changing employee creativity over time. Further studies should establish the link between hope and creativity using a longitudinal survey to compare employee creativity using data collected at different intervals. Originality/value The value of the current study is both theoretical and empirical. Theoretically, the study findings enrich the hope theory by revealing the relative importance of hope on its outcomes over and above its components. The study also confirms the assertions of the dual pathway to creativity model by revealing that employees who are rich in hope components of agency and pathway have the cognitive flexibility to pursue creative goals and, when faced with failure, can generate alternative solutions to solve work problems.

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