Creativity-oriented HRM and organizational creativity in China

Purpose - The purpose of this paper is to develop a measurement of creativity-oriented HRM systems that improve organizational creativity. This paper also aims to explore the mechanisms between them by investigating the mediating role of innovative culture and the moderating role of customer orientation. Design/methodology/approach - The study uses a sample of 82 knowledge-intensive companies with 780 respondents consisting of 145 HR professionals, 512 core knowledge workers and 123 top managers in China. Exploratory factor analysis, confirmatory factor analysis and regression analysis are used to validate the measure of creativity-oriented HRM systems and test hypotheses. Findings - This study finds that creativity-oriented HRM systems are composed of three dimensions, which are creative skill-enhancing practices, intrinsic motivation-enhancing practices and empowerment-enhancing practices. These practices significantly improve organizational creativity through innovative culture. Furthermore, customer orientation moderates the effect of innovative culture on organizational creativity in such a way that the positive relationship is stronger when customer orientation is high. Originality/value - This study contributes to the strategic human resource management literature by developing and validating a measure of creativity-oriented HRM systems. Moreover, it also explores the mechanism between creativity-oriented HRM systems and organizational creativity based on a complementary perspective of innovativeness, which underlines the important mediating effect of innovative culture. More importantly, the authors propose the significance of absorbing knowledge and information from customers and put forward the moderating role that customer orientation plays, especially in an emerging country context such as China.