Rewarding Creativity: The Moderating Role of Personality

Rassouli-Baghi, Maryam Article Rewarding Creativity: The Moderating Role of Personality Junior Management Science (JUMS) Provided in Cooperation with: Junior Management Science e. V. Suggested Citation: Rassouli-Baghi, Maryam (2024) : Rewarding Creativity: The Moderating Role of Personality, Junior Management Science (JUMS), ISSN 2942-1861, Junior Management Science e. V., Planegg, Vol. 9, Iss. 1, pp. 1269-1285, https://doi.org/10.5282/jums/v9i1pp1269-1285 This Version is available at: https://hdl.handle.net/10419/290635 Standard-Nutzungsbedingungen: Die Dokumente auf EconStor dürfen zu eigenen wissenschaftlichen Zwecken und zum Privatgebrauch gespeichert und kopiert werden. Sie dürfen die Dokumente nicht für öffentliche oder kommerzielle Zwecke vervielfältigen, öffentlich ausstellen, öffentlich zugänglich machen, vertreiben oder anderweitig nutzen. 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This is an Open Access articl e distributed under the terms of the CC-BY-4 .0 (Attribution 4.0 I nternational ). Open Access funding provided by ZBW. ISSN: 2942-1861 Rewarding Creativity: The Moderating Role of Personality Maryam Rassouli-Baghi University of Amsterdam Abstract The aim of this paper is to find out if Openness to Experience and Extraversion have an interacting effect on the relationship between monetary rewards and originality. Therefore, in an online experiment which was set up in two parts - the first part measured participants personality level whereas the second part included a divergent thinking task, where the originality of ideas was measured - I find that Openness to Experience and Extraversion positively influence creativity. Further, it is assumed, that monetary rewards positively influence an individual’s creativity, as those individuals being rewarded for creativity performed more creative. However, analysis indicates that there is no interaction effect as assumed. As the ability of creative thinking is essential for companies and can even lead to a competitive advantage, the findings of this study provide useful insights about the relevance of personality on creativity for theory and practice. Keywords: creativity; divergent thinking, performance; personality; reward sensitivity 1. Introduction Management problems often require new views and creative insights. Especially due to current change and global competition, creativity is an important issue for managers and companies, as it contributes to discovering new opportunities (Biraglia & Kadile, 2017) and innovation in organizations (Amabile, 1998). Oldham and Cummings (1996) conclude that enhancing the creative performance of employees is necessary for organizations to achieve competitive advantage. As a result, interest has increased in identifying the conditions which may influence employee’s creativity (Madjar et al., 2002). Hence, the ability of creative thinking in management is essential, which is typically measured through creativity tests such as divergent thinking tasks (Scratchley & Hakstian, 2001). Consistent with this, J. Zhao et al. (2020) measured creative performance and proposed the use of reward systems to ensure standards. The impact of rewards on creativity has received much attention in the literature, but only little agreement on the effect of rewards (Shalley et al., 2004). According to Amabile (1996), extrinsic motivation negatively influenced creativity, whereas Eisenberger (1992) found a positive influence by demonstrating the impact of rewards on personal competencies. Additionally, in a study conducted by Joussemet and Koestner (1999) the authors also found an increased creative performance by using rewards but noticed a decreased quality of answers. In contradiction, other studies (Yoon, Sung, Choi, et al., 2015) could not find any significant relationship between rewards and creativity, which demonstrates the ongoing ambiguous and unclear impact of rewards on creative performance. Following up on these findings, there has also been a growing interest in the study of personality and its impact on creativity. For instance, Sung and Choi’s (2009) analysis of the moderating effect of extrinsic motivation on the personality-creativity relation confirmed a positive influence of extrinsic motivation on openness to experience, which resulted in greater creative performance. Herrmann and Nadkarni (2014) found out that extraversion, openness and emotional stability could be related to CEO personality and creative performance. Similar results can be stated by Harrison et al. (2019) which also propose to take firm particular situations into account, which may influence the relationship between personality traits. Other studies focused on the relation among openness, divergent thinking, and creativity in management (Scratchley & Hakstian, 2001) and found evi- DOI: https://doi.org/10.5282/jums/v9i1pp1269-1285 © The Author(s) 2024. Published by Junior Management Science. This is an Open Access article distributed under the terms of the CC-BY-4.0 (Attribution 4.0 International). Open Access funding provided by ZBW. M. Rassouli-Baghi /Junior Management Science 9(1) (2024) 1269-12851270 dence for openness as a key personality and divergent thinking as a key cognitive ability for creativity. This was also confirmed by Myszkowski et al. (2015) who claimed that personality predicts creativity and that openness to experience can be related to the divergent-exploratory part of the creative process. In contradiction to these results, Puryear et al. (2017) could not find any direct influence of personality on creativity. Although several publications have appeared in recent years documenting the impact of motivation, creativity and personality, research has proceeded only slowly in testing the effects in this relationship. Further, research in this area has resulted in almost as much contradiction as agreement. Additionally, relatively less attention has been paid to the possibility that personality characteristics might have an impact on the reward-creativity relationship. Therefore, research evidence suggests exploring the type of employees that are more likely to engage in creative behavior (Zhou & George, 2001) or how personality can lead to a specific behavior, which in turn relates to firm performance (H. Zhao et al., 2010). Further, as the effect of extrinsic motivation on creativity is contradictory, more research is needed in this area focusing on its impact on creative performance (Shalley et al., 2004) and especially on divergent thinking, in this study measured as originality. In response to the scholarly call for more research in these areas, the purpose of this study is to contribute to the ongoing discussion by reviewing existing literature to extend our understanding of the impact of personality on the rewardcreativity relationship in the strategy field. In other words, I want to test individuals’ perception of rewards, and see if specific personality traits, namely openness to experience and extraversion have a higher or lower reward sensitivity and therefore, perform more or less creative. The research question guiding this study is therefore, How does personality moderate the relationship between monetary rewards and originality? To research this, I conducted an online experiment among individuals with a (strategic) management background and tested their levels of personality as well as their ability for divergent thinking. Interestingly, this study approved openness to experience and extraversion being relevant factors for creativity, as well as financial rewards having an impact on creative performance, even though the moderating effect of personality could not be found in this sampling. This study contributes to existing literature by making a new contribution to the ongoing debate on the rewardcreativity puzzle. Research testing the impact of rewards on performance have yielded inconsistent findings (Amabile, 1996; Eisenberger, 1992) and only a few studies tested its impact on divergent thinking (Sung & Choi, 2009). However, to the author’s best knowledge, no publications can be found in the literature discussing the issue of personality as a moderating factor between extrinsic motivation and creativity. Hence, this is the first study that empirically tests the moderating role of personality on extrinsic rewards and creativity as originality. Useful insights for theoretical application can be gained, as there is no literature focusing on this research gap, although the scholarly call for research in this area is clearly defined. Further, this study has also practical implication for management. The results of this study can be useful for managers in terms of recruiting, appraisals, promotions or motivating employees, as it provides insights into the impact of personality characteristics on creativity. The section that follows presents the literature review and hypotheses underlying this study. Next, and drawing upon data from 141 participants operating in the management field, the methodology and empirical findings are presented. The study concludes with a discussion of the results, their theoretical and managerial implications, future research suggestions, and a conclusion. 2. Literature Review and Hypotheses 2.1. Creativity and the Importance of Divergent Thinking This study adopts the dominant scholarly definition of creativity using a product-based approach to creativity. Creativity is defined as the production of novel and useful ideas, solutions, or products (Amabile, 1998) and is essential in a volatile business climate, where firms compete to create or maintain their competitive advantage (Walker & Jackson, 2004). Therefore, great effort has been devoted to the study of creativity (Byron & Khazanchi, 2012; Dollinger et al., 2004; George & Zhou, 2001; Mumford, 2000; Runco, 2007). According to Barron and Harrington (1981), one way to measure creativity is through divergent thinking tests, which are often used in the literature (Chamorro-Premuzic & Reichenbacher, 2008; McCrae, 1987; Myszkowski et al., 2015). Additionally, the authors propose two factors concerning divergent thinking, namely the field-specific relevance of divergent thinking abilities and the state of knowledge regarding creativity in a given field, and the role of intelligence in divergent thinking. In regards to test instructions and test conditions, the authors claim that when divergent thinking instructions to be creative were combined with scoring procedures, the results were more significant regarding creativity. They further propose that the divergent thinking ability and traditional measures of intelligence vary widely depending on the divergent thinking test, the sample heterogeneity, and the testing conditions. However, research has identified contradictory views on differencing creativity and divergent thinking. While some authors use both concepts similarly (Silvia et al., 2008), others argue for its need to differentiate, as the former may describe several abilities of acting creative, while the latter describes a cognitive process for creative problem-solving and idea generation (Runco et al., 2008). Nonetheless, it has been noted that most of the literature uses both terms consistently. In fact, even though over the last several decades there has been a discussion regarding distinctions of concepts, this study could not find any contrasting views or research denying the importance of divergent thinking. It was Guilford (1956) who first proposed a difference between the two information processing modes divergent M. Rassouli-Baghi /Junior Management Science 9(1) (2024) 1269-1285 1271 thinking and convergent thinking, which can be understood as creative problem solving. Managers often not only have to diverge and find solutions but also converge and decide on the best solution (Myszkowski et al., 2015). Hence, while divergent thinking involves the search for a solution to a given problem for which there are multiple possible answers (Runco, 2007), convergent thinking can be understood as finding and selecting the one best response (Lubart, 2016). Additionally, the ability of divergent thinking results in an advantage to generate and construct a wide range of novel and original ideas, which builds the basis for creativity (McAuliffe, 2016). To measure creativity, divergent thinking tasks have received much more attention in the literature and are often used as they provide the most reasonable results (Runco, 2007). Tasks measuring divergent thinking consist of different open-ended questions asking for creative uses and solutions for everyday objects. The most common scoring methods used in the literature are based on originality, fluency, and flexibility. Originality represents the number of unusual or unique ideas, fluency stands for the number of ideas in general, and flexibility refers to the number of different categories implied by the ideas (Runco & Acar, 2012). The scoring method in this study will focus on originality. In a study testing how middle and senior managers’ characteristics influence decisions, Behrens et al. (2014) for instance found out that the ability of divergent thinking increases with the level of experience. In contrast to this, Ames and Runco (2005) tested the divergent thinking ability of entrepreneurs and found lower scores regarding their originality. These results could indicate that entrepreneurs rely too much on their experience resulting from their own business knowledge, instead of their skills of generating novel ideas. This may also imply the importance for managers, as their ability to creative thinking changes over time and hence their contribution to performance. Therefore, managers should not only focus on experience, but also on their skills for divergent thinking. To conclude, it seems reasonable to reinforce the assumption that divergent thinking can be seen as a key cognitive ability for creativity (Scratchley & Hakstian, 2001) and hence, that originality is essential for strategy and management. Now that we have determined the importance of creativity, the question arises as to how divergent thinking can be positively influenced or even increased. A possible answer to this question will be addressed in the next chapters. 2.2. The Influence of Rewards on Divergent Thinking Pay for performance is the most common practice used by organizations to increase employee performance and motivation (Gupta & Shaw, 2014). When employees are being rewarded for creativity, they understand they have to provide novel but also useful ideas (Sue-Chan & Hempel, 2016). Thus, scholars have identified two different types of motivation, intrinsic and extrinsic motivation, whereby an individuals’ perceived self-determination plays an essential role (Deci & Ryan, 1985). Theory indicates that intrinsic motivation can be understood as a desire to act based on enjoyment and interest (Amabile, 1998), while extrinsic motivation can be interpreted as a motivation on the result of action provided by others. In addition, Amabile (1998) claims that people are even most creative, when they feel intrinsically motivated, satisfied and challenged by the work itself. Malik et al. (2019) claim that employees with intrinsic task motivation spend their resources and time in creative efforts without the wish or expectation of getting rewarded. However, intrinsic and extrinsic motivation can appear in both, a temporary state form affected by the environment or a more stable personality trait form, relatively consistent across time and situations. Further, findings also suggest that intrinsic and extrinsic motivation can be seen as orthogonal, which indicates that individuals can be for instance motivated by both, money and personal challenge (Amabile, 1993). Nonetheless, scholars argue for its need to differentiate the types of motivation when it comes to creativity and claim that "motivating creative performance is fundamentally different from motivating routine performance" (Byron & Khazanchi, 2012, p. 809). Further, there are also different research streams when analyzing the effect of rewards on creative performance. While some authors focus more on cognitive effects and argue that rewards undermine intrinsic motivation as individuals perceive rewards as controlling which decreases creativity (e.g. Joussemet and Koestner, 1999), others take its’ behavioral effect into account and claim that rewards provide information which may guide an individuals’ goal-directed behavior which in turn results in increased creativity (e.g. Eisenberger, 1992). When testing the effect of rewards, scholars predict that rewards implying regulation or control may decrease an individuals’ perceived competence, intrinsic motivation and creative performance. A meta-analysis conducted by Byron and Khazanchi (2012) differentiates between (1) creativitycontingent rewards, which are rewards given for creativity, (2) performance-contingent rewards, which are rewards given for performance without defining a creativity criterion, and (3) completion-contingent rewards, which are rewards for completing tasks without stressing creativity as a factor for valuation. According to their results, the former seems to be the one most positively related to creativity, as it clearly directs an individuals’ effort toward creativity and hence, increases creative performance. The authors have further identified several moderators that affect the relationship between rewards and creativity, namely clear definitions for creativity criterions, positive feedback on performance, and balanced autonomy. This indicates that not only the nature of rewards is essential (Malik et al., 2015), but also the context in which the reward might be offered (Amabile & Gryskiewicz, 1989; Amabile et al., 2002; Hackman & Oldham, 1980; Oldham & Cummings, 1996) and the motivation behind (Amabile, 1998). Moving on to extrinsic motivation, the situation becomes more complex. Despite the popularity of using extrinsic motivators such as monetary rewards to enhance creativity, there M. Rassouli-Baghi /Junior Management Science 9(1) (2024) 1269-12851272 is still little agreement on the effect on creative performance (Shalley et al., 2004). According to Amabile (1996) and Deci et al. (2001), rewards undermine employee creativity. As already indicated, research proposes that individuals may perceive rewards, namely performance-contingent rewards, as negative because they feel their performance is being determined based on controlling reward mechanisms (Malik et al., 2015). Perry-Smith and Mannucci (2017) even argue that rewards might negatively affect the generation of novel ideas because they might detract from the cognitive thinking process. To test this, Kruglanski et al. (1971) asked students in an experiment to think of adequate titles for a paragraph; no further information was given about the nature of the titles. The authors noted that those promised a reward produced fewer creative answers, than others not receiving a reward. In response to this study, Eisenberger and Rhoades (2001) used the same test and asked participants to generate creative titles for a story. The main difference this time was that participants were informed that the experiment was about rewarding creative performance. Interestingly, in this study, those participants being rewarded for creativity, achieved much better results. In fact, this leads to the assumption that participants might perform better in creative tasks, as long as it is clearly defined, that the reward is given for creativity. In addition to this, research proposes that rewards only enhance creativity, when they are perceived as important (Yoon, Sung, & Choi, 2015). But there are also other studies following different approaches and proposing other views. Huo (2020) for instance, tested the effect of rewards on divergent thinking by using three different incentive schemes. The first condition was a fixed incentive regardless of the performance, for the second condition the incentive was an average amount plus additional money for each solution and the last condition provided a conceptual replication of condition one including public recognition. As a result, even though the creative performance was higher for the second condition, no significant correlation could be found between performance incentives and divergent thinking. Also, other studies (George & Zhou, 2002) tested the effect of rewarding creativity on divergent thinking and could not identify any significant correlation. In addition to the ongoing debate, Bonner et al. (2000) propose that the more complex the cognitive task, the less likely incentives may lead to improved creativity. Baer et al. (2003), tested the relationship between extrinsic rewards and creativity among employees and found a positive relationship between extrinsic rewards and creativity for simple tasks and a weak relation for more complex tasks. The results obtained by Webb et al. (2013) are in line with these propositions and add that assigning participants to easy tasks with a fixed reward leads to higher creativity, than those assigned to complex and challenging tasks or target-based pay. In contradiction, F. Li et al. (2017) report higher perceptions of rewards, the more challenging the task. This finding is also in accordance with the research of Byron and Khazanchi (2012) who claim that especially for rewards given for creative performance, task complexity plays an essential role. The authors argue that a higher task complexity is more likely to increase an individuals’ perceived competence and will also be more intrinsically motivating, which is why individuals will be more engaged and creative. In this context it should also be considered that employees might become more creative when they start feeling more confident in their work tasks, which could be a possible solution for these contradictory findings (Tierney & Farmer, 2002). While some studies reported a negative influence and other studies found no influence, Eisenberger (1992) in contrast found a positive influence on creative performance by stating that rewards have an impact on personal competencies. These results can also be approved by Joussemet and Koestner (1999) which also noted an increased performance by rewarding creativity, but a decreased quality of answers. In contradiction, Byron and Khazanchi (2010) confirm the positive influence of creativity-contingent rewards on creativity itself, but state that extrinsic rewards may harm the overall performance. Following the assumption that rewards may positively influence creative thinking, Kachelmeier et al. (2008) found evidence for the proposition that “quantity-based compensation improves quantity and that creativity-based compensation improves average creativity” (p. 343). Other studies (Eisenberger & Rhoades, 2001) proposed that specific contingency rewards for creativity may increase extrinsic motivation, while general rewards for high performance may rather increase intrinsic motivation. Additionally, it was confirmed that giving rewards for creativity for one task, also increased the creativity for subsequent tasks. Moreover, Saether (2020) conducted a study among over 300 employees testing the impact of rewards on their divergent thinking. The author assigned the participants randomly into five groups, one of which performance was not rewarded. The other groups were manipulated in terms of the amount of money and instructions that should influence their motivation and perception of justice. As a result, creativity was increased when rewards were evaluated as fair. This also shows the importance of how the perception of fairness influences creative performance among participants, which can also be translated to employees in general. However, since Saether (2020) introduces another variable, namely the time at which the reward is to be paid, I argue that it might be no longer clear whether the motivation to be creative is related to the expected reward or whether the time has a stronger influence. It may be possible that some participants would have provided more creative results, but given different timelines, measuring the impact of the reward itself becomes ambiguous. In fact, there are different views and results on the effect of rewards on performance or creativity, all stating different reasons for why or why not there might be a positive or negative outcome when using rewards. Kohn (1993) for instance claims that when organizations make use of rewards and incentives, people become even less interested in their work and wait for incentives before expending effort. M. Rassouli-Baghi /Junior Management Science 9(1) (2024) 1269-1285 1273 To conclude, even though research in this area testing the effect of monetary rewards on divergent thinking is contradictory, recent literature seems to provide more arguments for a positive influence on creativity, as long as it is clearly stated what the reward is given for. In this sense, I believe that this study will provide similar positive results. Further, this study not only wants to understand the reasons for these contradictory findings but also adds to existing literature by offering a new and different view on the rewards-creativity puzzle, which hasn’t been solved so far. In fact, I assume that based on the findings the relationship between rewards and creativity might be more complex, which leads to the assumption that other moderators are at play here and might possibly impact the perception of rewards or the ability to creative thinking and problem solving. Therefore, this study wants to explain those differences by taking personality traits into account, to test their influence. On the one hand I argue that personality might predict the creativity of individuals’ and on the other hand there might be differences in terms of how rewards are perceived and how this might impact an individuals’ performance based on his or her personality. Even though literature has mentioned their importance, no research has clarified their relationship. Therefore, in a first step, this study assumes a positive impact of rewards on creative performance. Hypothesis 1. Monetary rewards for creativity are positively related to originality. 2.3. The Influence of Personality on Divergent Thinking The study of personality is a very large field with an unmanageable number of theories, models, or measurements and there has been research in many areas testing if personality characteristics can be associated with creative achievements. Interestingly, there is a stable set of core characteristics such as broad interests, attraction to complexity or intuition pointing out how a creative personality could look like (Barron & Harrington, 1981). In contradiction, not all scholars agree with the assumption of linking personality characteristics to creative performance. Zhou (1998) criticizes the dominant view of existing research on judging ideas based on their creativity and claims that mental processes through which those ideas are developed should be stressed more in research. Additionally, the author states that contextual variables may be more effective in predicting creativity than personality. However, Amabile (1998) states that creative thinking refers to an individual’s ability to solve problems, which also depends on his or her personality. Therefore, especially the personality of CEOs, managers’ and leaders has emerged as a relevant topic in the strategic management field when examining personality traits, as their personalities can have a major influence on strategic decisions and may determine performance implications (Peterson et al., 2003). According to this, some personality traits might predict a stronger focus on tasks, flexibility or risk-taking, while other traits might enhance passivity or dominance (Herrmann & Nadkarni, 2014). Amabile (1983) claims that besides other factors, personality characteristics such as self-discipline, perseverance or independence are creativity-relevant skills and hence, related to creative thinking. In addition, Mumford (2000) predicts that creative individuals display a high degree of autonomy and are typically the ones developing new ideas. Considering that the Five Factor Model (FFM) is one of the most known and used models to measure personality, scholars have already demonstrated its generalizability, validity and reliability in various studies (Costa & McCrae, 1992a). Further, other studies (H. Zhao & Seibert, 2006) have shown that the FFM traits are important drivers of individual human behavior and performance. Hence, this model, more specifically a shorter version of it (BFI; John and Srivastava, 1999), is also used for this study to measure its relation to creativity. As Openness to Experience and Extraversion are generally predicted to have positive relationships to creative performance, this study wants to test if these results can also be achieved for divergent thinking, namely originality. Therefore, the focus lies on these two traits when testing personality and the creativity rating is based on the number of unusual or unique ideas (Runco, 2007). 2.3.1. Openness to Experience Leaders with a high level of openness are more likely to express new ideas, are more flexible and open to changes and new experiences (Judge & Bono, 2000). Further, they seek out information, are able to identify more creative solutions for problems and are better in sensing and seizing opportunities (Shane et al., 2010). Openness to experience “seems to be the most strongly tied to creativity” (Runco, 2007, p. 296) and is predicted as being a key personality for creativity (Dai et al., 2019; Harrison et al., 2019; Herrmann & Nadkarni, 2014; Nadkarni & Herrmann, 2010; H. Zhao & Seibert, 2006; H. Zhao et al., 2010). This is also confirmed by other studies testing the relationship between creativity and personality (Dollinger et al., 2004). Myszkowski et al. (2015) for instance, found that managers with high levels of openness were able to find more ideas on management problems in divergent thinking tasks than others. To test this, they asked over 100 management students and designed their own creativity measures. The experiment consisted of two tasks each for divergent and convergent thinking and they rated creativity based on fluency, which represents the number of ideas. But also, other studies have consistently identified the positive relationship between openness to experience and divergent thinking and even claim that “creativity is uniquely related to openness to experience” (McCrae, 1987, p. 1263). Furthermore, King et al. (1996) tested the relation among personality, creative ability and creative accomplishments among psychology students. The authors used the verbal component of the Torrance Test of Creative Thinking (TTCT) which consists of six different tasks such as unusual uses, or M. Rassouli-Baghi /Junior Management Science 9(1) (2024) 1269-12851274 supposing tasks. All answers were rated on two criteria, fluency and originality and as expected, openness to experience is positively related to both criteria. What the authors interestingly point out in the discussion section is the question why individuals with high levels of openness to experience give more creative answers. By trying to find an answer to this question they predict that those individuals might value creativity or novelty differently and might recognize potential situations as more creative than others. Even from another point of view, namely a neuroscience view, W. Li et al. (2015) find support for the assumption that openness might positively influence the ability of divergent thinking. In fact, the authors propose that individuals with personality characteristics such as high levels of imagination, curiosity, challenge or risk-taking are more likely to have scientific discoveries than others. They conclude with suggesting that openness plays an important role in shaping an individual’s creativity. However, besides openness being positively related to creativity, George and Zhou (2001) also found out that creative answers were highest, when those individuals had unclear ends on their jobs and unclear means. This implies that the more freedom and autonomy people have, and less structure is given in tasks, the higher the ability to develop their creativity. In fact, all these results indicate that openness to experience is a necessary personality trait in order to explore a high number of creative solutions to problems. Interestingly no literature could be found stating the opposite or presenting negative results for this trait when measuring creativity. It even seems impossible to assume different results as those presented in this study, since openness is being present as a key factor for creativity. To conclude, there is no reason to expect different results for originality in a more strategic context as I assume that individuals working strategically also rely on openness and will give creative answers. Hypothesis 2a. Openness to experience will be positively related to originality. 2.3.2. Extraversion Individuals with a high level of extraversion tend to be enthusiastic and ambitious, which results in a proactive behavior by actively engaging in tasks and trying to find novel ideas (Raja et al., 2004). In contradiction, a low level of extraversion indicates a more quiet, introverted behavior (Costa & McCrae, 1992a). However, several authors have tested the effect of extraversion on creativity, some of them also included additional variables in their analysis to test the importance of personality. According to Sung and Choi (2009, p. 944), their study indicates that “extraverts tend to seek novel ways of doing tasks and (...) confront problems instead of avoiding them” which leads them to propose a higher creative performance for extraverts. Furthermore, Gocłowska et al. (2019) tested the relation between extraversion, divergent thinking and creating novel ideas and found a positive relationship. Further, the author proposes that extraversion is, besides openness to experience, one of the creativity-related personality traits and conclude with confirming that novelty seeking is linked to extraversion and leads to greater divergent thinking. Following this assumption, Kaspi-Baruch (2019) for instance, tested the moderating effect of goal orientation on extraversion and creativity and proposed a positive relationship. The experiment was conducted online using an adapted version of the Alternative Uses Task (AUT; Guilford, 1967) to test creativity. One point was awarded for every original answer. Indeed, as the results indicate, extraverted individuals seem to be the most creative, when they are motivated and oriented toward learning. A possible limitation I see in this study is that it might not be very representative, since 80% of the participants are female and the answers could therefore be biased. In their study, Chamorro-Premuzic and Reichenbacher (2008) explored the effects of the Big Five personality traits and threat of evaluation on divergent and convergent thinking among students. Their results show that extraversion indeed predicts divergent thinking and is an important trait for creativity. This is explained by arguing that extraverted individuals might have an intrinsic motivated advantage in divergent thinking tasks and outperform their introverted counterparts, especially when they are being evaluated. However, the authors state that extraversion can be seen as facilitator for divergent thinking and is also related to actual creativity and not only to measured creativity. Nonetheless, Nadkarni and Herrmann (2010) also confirm a positive relationship between extraversion and creative thinking. In their study, the authors tested the relationship between CEO personality, strategic flexibility, and performance. They state that strategic flexibility influences creativity and hence, tested the moderating effect of it on extraversion using the NEO Five Factor Inventory. Moreover, Weiss et al. (2020) noted a strong correlation between extraversion and divergent thinking and pointed out that extraversion was the strongest trait measured in their study related to divergent thinking. Indeed, extraversion is consistently determined to have a positive relationship with creativity, regardless of whether this involves the personality of CEO’s, managers or students. It seems likely to assume that according to the incorporated literature, extraverted individuals are more likely to generate more ideas in creativity tasks and will engage proactively to perform better than others. In fact, it is also quite likely that we will find the same result for originality in this study, since this is a part of divergent thinking and no contradictory results could be found stating the opposite. Hypothesis 2b. Extraversion will be positively related to originality. M. Rassouli-Baghi /Junior Management Science 9(1) (2024) 1269-1285 1275 2.4. The Moderating Role of Personality Given the contradictory findings of the effect of rewards on divergent thinking, research should explore the reasons under which rewards have positive, negative or neutral effects on divergent thinking (Baer et al., 2003) by taking other views into account. As part of a possible solution to this puzzle, I focus on personality in this section and want to test the reward sensitivity of individuals’ personality traits, namely openness to experience and extraversion by offering a reward for creativity. With that in mind, it should be considered that individuals’ personalities have different characteristics which respond differently to motivational factors such as extrinsic rewards (Shalley et al., 2004; Shaw et al., 2003). It might be reasonable to argue, that some personalities may have a higher sensibility for rewards than others. In this context, reward sensitivity can be understood as “an incentive motivational state that facilitates and guides approach behavior to a goal” (Depue & Collins, 1999, p. 495). There are also other similar research approaches in this field testing the impact of personality on income and salaries. Hence, literature suggests that it is possible that personality may act as a moderator by interacting with rewards and how they are perceived (Wu & Zumbo, 2008). Despite extensive research, no literature was found testing this moderating effect in this relationship. Most research in this area is focused on testing the rewarding effect on creative performance by taking different variables into account, such as fairness or different forms of manipulations (Saether, 2020), to contribute to the contradictory reward-creativity puzzle. Other studies tested the effect of all five personality traits on creativity to discover specific traits related to divergent thinking (King et al., 1996) or focused on differences between intrinsic and extrinsic motivation regarding creativity (Malik et al., 2019). Therefore, related literature and results on openness to experience, extraversion, financial incentives, rewards and creative performance will be drawn together to present a status-quo in this field. 2.4.1. Openness to Experience Openness to experience involves interest in novel things, ideas or knowledge and is related to characteristics such as being imaginative or adventurous (Shi et al., 2016). Furthermore, as we have already stated, this personality trait is the closest one related to creativity (Kaufman et al., 2015; Nadkarni & Herrmann, 2010). Hence, even though its relation to creativity might be clear, testing if there is a possible interaction effect on the reward-originality relationship might reveal new insights which could contribute to this debate. An interesting study has been conducted by Sung and Choi (2009) who tested the moderating effect of intrinsic and extrinsic motivation on personality and creativity among business school students. Even though the moderator is a different one compared to my study, we find interesting implications here. Besides their proposition that extrinsic motivation might have a positive effect on creativity, the authors add that extrinsic motivation may offer a stage where individuals can behave in accordance with their personality trait. According to their study design, they argue that motivation might create a setting in which an individual’s openness to experience can be activated to enhance creative performance. Indeed, the authors’ hypothesis was supported, confirming a positive interaction effect of extrinsic motivation on openness, resulting in a greater creativity. However, what should be viewed critically is the extrinsic motivator the authors use. Most research provides monetary rewards to measure the impact of extrinsic motivation, while the experiment in this study provided gift certificates to students. In my opinion, I think it is necessary here to critically question the influence of the extrinsic motivator. Moreover, the authors talk about creative performance, but without going into more detail about what exactly is meant by this. In another study (Heineck, 2011), the author tested the relationship between personality traits and market success in the United Kingdom by taking monetary effects into account. It should be noted that although this study does not measure creativity, it still focuses on performance differences as an outcome. The author used data from the British Household Panel Survey and a fifteen-item questionnaire to capture the personality dimension. The results indicate a positive relationship between openness to experience and wages, which may also be considered for rewards. This raises the question if besides the positive relationship between openness and wages, there is also evidence for openness reacting more sensitive than other traits to rewards and payments. To test this, Vandenberghe et al. (2008) conducted a study among 967 participants to find out, which personality trait was most attracted to total rewards and its components such as variable or indirect pay, but also prestige and the quality of social relationships at work. Their results showed that openness best predicts the importance employees give to total rewards. Regarding bonus payments, the authors claim that “people who are curious and open to experience tend to ascribe greater prominence to bonuses (...)” (p. 442). Openness to experience has proven to be a trait that has a positive impact on creativity (Myszkowski et al., 2015; Runco, 2007). Besides, Sung and Choi (2009) have shown the interaction effect of extrinsic motivation on openness and creativity. Hence, if there is a positive interaction effect of extrinsic motivation on openness, it might be reasonable to assume similar results for openness interacting with rewards, by offering a similar stage for individuals’ to behave more or less creative according to their reward sensitivity. Nevertheless, there is also research proposing extraversion instead to be the personality trait most attracted to compensation (Lucas & Diener, 2001), as they argue that those individuals are more risk tolerant and engage more in social interactions. Contrary, openness to experience is linked to seeking new challenges, development and new opportunities (Barrick & Mount, 1991). In fact, I assume that it seems likely that individuals with high levels of openness, as this trait stands for making new M. Rassouli-Baghi /Junior Management Science 9(1) (2024) 1269-12851276 experiences and being open for novel ideas, might perceive extrinsic rewards as positive which in turn might increase originality. Therefore, this study predicts a higher reward sensitivity for those individuals with high levels of openness. Hypothesis 3a. Openness to experience will positively moderate the relationship between rewards and originality. 2.4.2. Extraversion Extraverted individuals are open, sociable, talkative, have positive emotions and thoughts and enjoy interaction with others (Gocłowska et al., 2019; King et al., 1996). Research also indicates that extraverted individuals might have a stronger reaction to reward-approach situations than others (Smillie et al., 2012), but more focus is paid on brain systems and connections in the literature, rather than on taking a behavioral approach. Interestingly, when it comes to defining the core features of extraversion there are contradictory findings in the literature, finding evidence for either social interaction or rewardsensitivity being the key determinants for extraversion (Ashton et al., 2002). The authors state that it might be possible that “extraverts are sociable because (a) reward sensitivity is the core of Extraversion and (b) social situations tend to be rewarding” (p. 245). In a study conducted by Speed et al. (2018), the authors tested the relationship between extraversion on reward sensitivity. Their results indicate that extraversion was associated with reward sensitivity, but only when neuroticism was low. Interesting in this study was further the approach the authors used to test the participant’s reward sensitivity. They presented two identical doors on a computer screen to the participants, asking them to select one. Additionally, the participants were told that they could either win or lose money, depending on which door they chose. Participants did not know where the reward was hidden. In my opinion, the fact that participants could also lose money is interesting, as no other studies could be found testing similar effects, but also raises the question if being rewarded and losing money can be tested equally. I wonder what specifically the study is attempting to establish with this. On the one hand, it agrees with previous findings and hypothesizes that extroverts react positively to rewards. But I wonder if the same is true for losing money. However, another critique on this study regarding its validity, is that the study has been conducted on adolescent girls only and therefore cannot be generalized. In line with these findings the American Psychological Association conducted a study (2021) on approximately 300 participants, testing possible effects of personality traits such as extraversion but also neuroticism or depression on rewardsensitivity. From a neuroscience point of view, their findings suggest that extroverts may have certain connections in their brain system that tend to perceive reward systems as a greater incentive than others. However, even though the foundation for reasoning is a different one, the results stating a higher reward-sensitivity for extraverts are similar. In returning to a behavioral approach, Gocłowska et al. (2019) focused more on the extraversion-creativity relationship and tested the effect of extraversion on novelty seeking and divergent thinking. To test the divergent thinking, the authors used two alternative uses tasks, asking for creative ideas for a "cable" and a "tin can", each to solve within two minutes. They rated the ideas based on originality and further paid every participant a monetary reward of five euros for participating in this study. Their results indicate that novelty seeking is linked to extraversion and can further lead to greater divergent thinking. A possible limitation could be seen in the short time of two minutes, given for each task, as some individuals may come up with a lot of ideas in a short amount of time, while others might need more time to generate novel ideas. Hence, I assume this might have an impact on the results. Further, Fulmer and Walker (2015) found evidence for increased creativity and productivity for high extraverted people in less structured tasks, but also state that the difference to less extraverted people is rather small. Similar results can also be approved by Sung and Choi (2009). Other studies (Stewart & Bobko, 1996) also tested the interaction effect of reward payments on the relationship between extraversion and sales performance for sales representatives and equally proposed a higher sensitivity for rewards for extraverted individuals and hence, predicted a positive effect resulting in a better performance. To conclude, various studies indicate that extraverted individuals might be more reward-sensitive and might perform better than other individuals, when it comes to competition. In this case, rewards would positively influence creative performance. Therefore, this study assumes that similar results might be found testing the moderating effect on the rewardoriginality relationship in a strategic context. Hypothesis 3b. Extraversion will positively moderate the relationship between rewards and originality. To give an overview of all the hypotheses presented above, Figure 1represents this study’s conceptual model showing the relationships being analyzed. 3. Methodology 3.1. Data collection I collected data over a period of one week using personal connections on the one hand, and by making use of these connections to find more participants. 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