High Core Self-Evaluators Maintain Creativity

Abstract

We present a motivational model of abusive supervision to examine the effects that exposure to abusive supervision has on creativity. In particular, we predict that intrinsic motivation mediates the negative relation between abusive supervision, as perceived by employees, and their creativity. In addition, we examine the extent to which core self-evaluations attenuate the main effect of abusive supervision and the indirect effect of intrinsic motivation. Our results, based on multiwave, multisource data collected in China, fully support our hypotheses, address unexplored theoretical predictions, and offer new directions for mistreatment, creativity, motivation, and personality research.