The Double-Edged Sword Effect of Illegitimate Tasks on Employee Creativity: Positive and Negative Coping Perspectives

Abstract

Purpose

The purpose of our study is to explore how employees respond to illegitimate tasks and the impact it will have on employee creativity, as well as to explore the important boundary conditions for weakening the negative impact of illegitimate tasks and enhancing its positive impact.

Methods

We collected 271 pairs of employee-supervisor valid matching data through three rounds of surveys, and conducted statistical analysis and hypothesis testing using SPSS 26.0 and AMOS 24.0 statistical analysis tools.

Results

The results show that both job crafting and work withdrawal play a mediating role between illegitimate tasks and employee creativity, and the negative mediating role of work withdrawal is stronger than the positive mediating role of job crafting; supervisor developmental feedback not only positively moderates the relationship between illegitimate tasks and job crafting but also enhances the positive mediating role of job crafting; supervisor developmental feedback not only negatively moderates the link between illegitimate tasks and work withdrawal but also weakens the negative mediating role of work withdrawal.

Conclusion

Drawing on Conservation of Resources theory and Stress-as-Offense-to-Self theory, we reveal that employees will adopt job crafting and work withdrawal in response to illegitimate tasks from positive and negative coping perspectives and how it will positively and negatively affect employee creativity, respectively. Meanwhile, we find that supervisor developmental feedback is a boundary condition for reducing the negative impact of illegitimate tasks and promoting their positive impact. In addition, we provide implications for organizations to weigh the pros and cons of illegitimate tasks and improve employee creativity.

Keywords:

• illegitimate tasks
• job crafting
• work withdrawal
• supervisor developmental feedback
• employee creativity

Ethical Statement

Our study was conducted in accordance with the Declaration of Helsinki. Our study was approved by the Ethics Committee of Minzu University of China. Informed consent was obtained from all individual participants included in the study.

Disclosure

The authors report no conflicts of interest in this work.

Additional information

Funding

Funded by the Key Projects of Beijing Research Centre for Xi Jinping Thought on Socialism with Chinese Characteristics in the New Era (No. 23LLGLB078).