壓力與創造力的關系一直是組織行為學研究的熱點話題,但研究結論并不一致。基于社會認知理論,我們假設自我效能是連接壓力與創造力的中介機制。進一步,我們認為挑戰性壓力對自我效能和創造力的影響取決于員工的分配公平感,而阻斷性壓力會對員工自我效能和創造力有顯著的破壞作用,程序公平有助于緩沖阻斷性壓力對自我效能和創造力的破壞效應。采用三階段的縱向研究設計檢驗上述假設,對來自256對上下級匹配數據的研究結果表明:挑戰性壓力對自我效能和創造力沒有顯著的直接影響;分配公平調節挑戰性壓力通過自我效能對創造力的間接效應:對高分配公平感的員工而言,挑戰性壓力通過自我效能對創造力的正向間接效應更強。阻斷性壓力通過抑制員工自我效能進而對其創造力產生顯著的負向影響。程序公平對阻斷性壓力和自我效能以及創造力之間關系的調節效應不顯著。

Owing to their distinctive nature, challenge stress and hindrance stress may have different effects on individual creativity. Drawing on social cognitive theory perspective, we conducted a longitudinal empirical study concerning with the relationship between challenge stress and hindrance stress and employees’ self-efficacy and creativity. We also examined whether these relations were moderated by distributive justice and procedure justice.Data were collected from 256 dyads of employees and their immediate supervisors in two divisions of a large enterprise. The questionnaire for employee in Time 1 included challenge stress and hindrance stress, job complexity,and demography variables. The questionnaire for employee in Time 2 included self-efficacy. Employees’ creativity was rated by their immediate supervisors in Time 3. Theoretical hypotheses were tested by hierarchal regression analysis with Mplus 6.0. Results of analyzing the matched sample showed that the relationships between challenge stress and both self-efficacy and creativity were not significant, and the relationship between hindrance stress and both self-efficacy and creativity was negative; where distributive justice was high, challenge stress was positively related to creativity via self-efficacy, whereas where distributive justice was low, this indirect relationship was not significant. The moderating effects of procedure justice on the relationship between hindrance stress and both self-efficacy and creativity were not significant. Extending previous studies, this research demonstrated that challenge stress and hindrance stress have unique influences on self-efficacy and creativity, the results clarified the relationship between stress and creativity in workplace from a new perspective. Second, by examining the mediating effect of self-efficacy, the results contributed to our understanding on the mechanism through which stress influence creativity. Finally, through investigating the moderating effect of procedure justice and distributive justice, we confirmed that there are bounded conditions of the effect of stress on employee creativity. Findings broaden understandings of the process by which and the conditions under which challenge stress and hindrance stress influence creativity. Furthermore, the results also revealed that social cognitive theory was more suitable for explaining the relationship between stress and creativity.