A study on the role of extrinsic rewards in enhancing employees’ creativity in the Kingdom of Bahrain

Abstract

In today’s competitive business environment, enhancing employees’ creativity has become a major ingredient for the success of organizations and the economic growth of a country. Accordingly, an enormous amount of money and effort was dedicated by practitioners to introduce reward systems aiming to enhance employees’ creativity. Nevertheless, there was no consistent pattern of improvement in the global innovation ranking of the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) countries, and the Kingdom of Bahrain in particular. Moreover, the findings of the literature were inconsistent regarding the reward-creativity relationship. As such, there is a need to understand the relationship between extrinsic rewards for creativity and employees’ creativity. This research empirically investigates the relationship between extrinsic rewards for creativity and employees’ creativity, as it sheds light on the mediating role of intrinsic motivation for creativity and the moderating effects of goal orientations and locus of control, aiming to enrich the understanding of the mentioned relationship. A conceptual model was developed and validated. Data was collected using a survey targeting employees working in primary public schools in the Kingdom of Bahrain. The findings of the research suggest that extrinsic rewards hinder employees’ creativity for employees who are mastery goal-oriented. Extrinsic rewards also have a negative effect on the creativity of employees who have an internal locus of control as well as employees who have an external locus of control. Furthermore, this research finds that the mediating effect of intrinsic motivation and the moderating effect of performance orientation are both insignificant. The research offers multiple theoretical contributions and practical implications. It provides a deeper understanding of the reward-creativity relationship by investigating conditions and mechanisms that have not been studied earlier. Moreover, this study is the first of its kind in the Kingdom of Bahrain and the GCC, it therefore provides a novel contribution by understanding the reward-creativity relationship in the identified context for the first time. It establishes the theoretical ground for research in the context of the Kingdom of Bahrain and the GCC, as it provides a conceptual framework, it identifies and tests moderating and mediating conditions. Furthermore, this research provides a validated conceptual model for practitioners of the education sector in the Kingdom of Bahrain and the GCC, who can use it as a guide when planning reward systems. Guiding practitioners in the Kingdom of Bahrain and the GCC towards the conditions that leads to employees’ creativity is capable of enhancing creativity and innovation in the Kingdom of Bahrain and the GCC countries.