Zhou, J. and J. M. George (2001). "When job dissatisfaction leads to creativity: Encouraging the expression of voice." Academy of Management Journal44(4): 682-696.

Zouh and George seek to explore the role of creativity in encouraging voice. They note that job satisfaction contributes positively to employee wellbeing and, as such, is also related to higher organizational efficiency. Conversely, employee dissatisfaction is detrimental to organizational efficiency and to maintaining members or employees. The authors note that under certain circumstances, employee dissatisfaction can be channeled into creativity that relieves their dissatisfaction and improves the organization. Their research sought to identify the conditions in which dissatisfaction leads to creativity. They note two specific reasons this research is important:

  1. Dissatisfied employees can be a powerful impetus for change in an organization, but only under specific circumstances (such as they don’t quit as a result of their dissatisfaction); and
  2. It should not be expected that employees are always satisfied with their work environment.

Creativity is considered “the generation of novel and potentially useful ideas” and is “an expression of voice and on the specific conditions that may result in dissatisfaction being channeled into creative performance” (p. 683). While creativity is the creation of creative ideas by employees, innovation is the implementation of those ideas by organizations. Importantly, the pre-requisite for creativity is that organizational members must have an active and constructive response to their dissatisfaction rather than an active or passive destructive response (p. 684). Creativity is typically engaged by those with “continuance commitment – people for whom the costs of quitting are higher than the costs of staying in the organization.

Zhou and George identified three variables that encourage employees to be creative and boost confidence for creative activities. Those include:

  1. Useful feedback from coworkers – “helpful or valuable information provided but coworkers that enables an employee to make improvements on the job” (p. 685). Such feedback may be conducive to generating new and useful ideas and may signal coworkers are interested in improvements and change.
  2. Coworker helping and support – “coworkers’ assisting an employee with his or her tasks when needed by sharing knowledge and expertise or providing encouragement and support” (p. 685).
  3. Perceived organizational support for creativity – “the extent to which an employee perceives that the organization encourages, respects, rewards, and recognizes employees who exhibit creativity” (p. 686).

They offered three hypotheses and findings:

  1. “Job dissatisfaction, continuance commitment, and useful feedback from coworkers interact to affect creativity in such a way that job dissatisfaction will have the strongest, positive relationship with creativity when continuance commitment is high and coworkers provide useful feedback” (p. 685) – Supported – the strongest positive relationship between job dissatisfaction and creativity was observed when both continuance commitment and coworker useful feedback were high (p. 688).
  2. “Job dissatisfaction, continuance commitment, and coworker helping and support interact to affect creativity in such a way that job dissatisfaction will have the strongest, positive relationship with creativity when continuance commitment and coworker helping and support are both high” (p. 686) – Supported – the strongest, positive relationship between job dissatisfaction and creativity was observed when continuance commitment and coworker helping and support were both high (p. 688).
  3. “Job dissatisfaction, continuance commitment, and perceived organizational support for creativity interact to affect creativity in such a way that job dissatisfaction will have the strongest, positive relationship with creativity when continuance commitment and perceived organizational support for creativity are both high” (p. 686) – Supported – the strongest, positive relationship between job dissatisfaction and creativity was observed when continuance commitment and perceived organizational support were both high (p. 690).

When provided useful feedback enabling change, help and support from coworkers, and organizational support, dissatisfied organizational members with continuance commitment are likely to apply creativity to their situations. That said, job dissatisfaction is not necessarily a bad thing in organizations, but should not be created to foster creativity. Creativity does not necessarily mean innovation, however, but it is the first step towards innovation.