هنگامی که پرداخت مبتنی بر شایستگی مربوط به عملکرد خلاقانه است : نقش تعدیل نیاز روانی کارکنان

Although competency advocates argue that competency-based pay (CBP) can facilitate the implementation of business strategies and improve organizational performance, few empirical studies on the effectiveness of CBP have been conducted in the workplace. This study examines employees’ perceptions of CBP and their creative performance, along with the moderating role of psychological needs in this relationship. A survey design with a sample of 219 Hong Kong Chinese employees from the hotel and service sectors was adopted. The results support that employee creativity is predicted by both CBP (reward for knowledge and reward for skill) and individual characteristics (need for achievement, need for power). In addition, need for power moderates the relationship between CBP (reward for knowledge and reward for skill) and employee creativity. The implications of the findings and directions for future research are discussed.

Creativity has become a critical success factor for organizations in today's rapidly changing business environment (Amabile et al., 1996, Ford and Gioia, 2000, George, 2007 and Woodman et al., 1993). Managers increasingly focus their attention and resources on enhancing employee creativity as they strive to build organizations capable of responding to dynamic competitive conditions in an effective and innovative manner (Amabile et al., 1996, Scott and Bruce, 1994 and Shalley et al., 2009). Both research (e.g., Amabile et al., 1996, George, 2007 and Shalley et al., 2004) and business practitioners (e.g., Kuhn, 2009 and Nitin et al., 2008) frequently highlight the use of competency compensation systems to foster higher levels of problem solving and employee creativity. Competency advocates (Lawler, 1994 and Zhou and Shalley, 2003) have argued that CBP can facilitate the implementation of business strategies and help build high-level creative performance organizations. Despite the widespread support of competency-based pay (CBP) systems to evaluate, reward, and promote employees (Kochanski and Risher, 1999 and Lawler and McDermottt, 2003), empirical evidence on the effectiveness of CBP is limited (e.g., Zhou and Shalley, 2003). Therefore, whether CBP can facilitate employee competence and enhance creativity in the workplace remains an open question. The current study aimed to respond to this question by examining the relationship between employee competencies and creativity in the hotel and service sectors. According to the interactional theory (Amabile et al., 1996, Oldham and Cummings, 1996 and Terborg, 1981), organization and situational factors are contingent on individual characteristics that influence creative performance. One of the practical applications of this basic tenet is CBP schemes in which pay levels are structured according to the competencies employees possess or demonstrate (Shalley et al., 2004 and Zhou and Shalley, 2003). Under such systems, pay is contingent on an individual's psychological need to perform and not simply on the specific position occupied. Interest in CBP is growing in the workplace because organizations are increasingly seeking to develop the core competencies required to implement strategic human resource plans (Dierdorff and Surface, 2008, Lawler, 1994 and Levenson et al., 2006). The increasing need for capable workers and the pressure to be more flexible and responsive to meet customers’ needs have also made job tasks in the hospitality industry more dynamic. These developments indicate that introducing compensation systems that align employee competencies with remuneration will inevitably be a key factor contributing to the achievement of the strategic goal of maintaining long-term organizational success and effectiveness. The current research, which is grounded on interactional theory, suggests that employee creativity is influenced by both personal and situational factors as well as the joint effects of such factors. This paper investigates two individual needs – the need for achievement and power – that may help to ensure that the CBP system actualizes employee competencies (Hon and Rensvold, 2006) and results in high levels of creative performance. The findings of this study support the belief in the hospitality industry that employee creativity is a complex product of personal attributes and situational effects (Hon and Rensvold, 2006 and Oldham and Cummings, 1996). Thus, one objective of this paper is to shed light on the separate and joint effects of CBP and individual characteristics in facilitating employee creativity. Moreover, in the interests of broadening management theory in the hotel service industry (Hon and Lu, 2010) so that it has global (rather than only U.S.-based) relevance and contributes to the effective management of nationally diverse workforces, it is important to understand how CBP influences employee creativity in areas outside the United States, such as Hong Kong. Research in a new cultural setting can help to assess the generalizability of interactional and creativity theories developed in Western settings (Kim et al., 2009 and Niu and Sternberg, 2002). In addition, many multinational companies such as those operating in the service sector are now relocating “knowledge-creating” jobs to East Asia (Chen et al., 2005 and Farmer et al., 2003). Thus, another goal of the present study is the cross-validation of the linkage between CBP and employee creativity in an Asian setting. The following sections review how the dimensions of CBP and employees’ psychological needs affect creative performance. After this, the interaction effects of the two individual needs on the linkage between CBP and employee creativity are discussed.

Table 2 presents the means, standard deviations, correlations, and reliability coefficients (in parentheses) of all the variables in this study. As expected, creativity was significantly correlated with CBP and the individual variables (rs range from .32 to .44). The two reward dimensions (r = .36, p < .01) and the two individual variables (r = .32, p < .01) were moderately correlated. Specifically, organizations rewarding individuals for their competence in terms of their knowledge (r = .32, p < .01) and skills (r = .41, p < .01) was related to employee creativity. In a similar vein, the personal characteristics of nAch (r = .36, p < .01) and nPow (r = .44, p < .01) were also related to employee creativity. The significant correlations reported in Table 2 provided preliminary support for the research hypotheses. To investigate the direct and interacting relationships of CBP and psychological needs on employee creativity, a complex analysis of hierarchical regression ( Table 3 and Table 4) was used to test the hypotheses for the effect of each variable on employee creativity after controlling for the three demographic variables.Scholars (Aiken and West, 1991) have suggested that hierarchical regression analysis is the most appropriate method for investigating interaction effects. Hence, it was also used to examine the main and interacting effects of CBP and individual needs. Hypothesis 1 predicted that CBP for knowledge would be positively related to employee creativity. The results in Table 3 (Model 2: β = .14, p < .05) showed that CBP associated with rewarding knowledge was significantly and positively related to employee creativity. Similarly, the results of CBP for knowledge in Table 4 (Model 5: β = .11, p < .05) were also significant. Therefore, Hypothesis 1 was supported. Hypothesis 2 predicted that CBP for skill would be positively related to employee creativity. The results reported in Table 3 (Model 2: β = .27, p < .001) and Table 4 (Model 5: β = .26, p < .001) showed that CBP for skill was significantly and positively related to employee creativity. This provided support for Hypothesis 2. Hypothesis 3 predicted that nAch would be positively related to employee creativity. The results reported in Table 3 showed that nAch was significantly and positively related to employee creativity (Model 2: β = .22, p < .01). Hypothesis 3 thus received support. Hypothesis 4 predicted that nPow would be positively related to employee creativity. The results reported in Table 4 showed that nPow was significantly and positively related to employee creativity (Model 5: β = .44, p < .001). Thus, Hypothesis 4 also received support. Hypotheses 5a and 5b predicted that nAch moderates the relationships between CBP for knowledge and employee creativity (H5a) and between CBP for skill and employee creativity (H5b). The variables were entered into the regression equation in the following steps (Aiken and West, 1991): first, the control variables; second, the two aspects of CBP and the individual need (nAch); and third, the interaction terms (nAch × reward knowledge; nAch × reward skill). Surprisingly, adding the interaction term involving nAch (Table 3, Model 3) and the two aspects of CBP did not increase any explained variance for employee creativity. Neither interaction term (nAch × two aspects of CBP) had a significant regression weight for employee creativity. Individuals with high nAch did not engage in any creative behavior when their organizations rewarded knowledge or skills. Therefore, Hypotheses 5a and 5b did not gain any support. In addition, Hypotheses 6a and 6b predicted that nPow moderates the relationships between CBP for knowledge and employee creativity (H6a) and between CBP for skill and employee creativity (H6b). The results demonstrated that the interaction of nPow with the two aspects of CBP (Table 4, Model 6) added a significant increment of explained variance for employee creativity (ΔR2 = .02, F value = 4.10, p < .05). The interaction term of nPow and reward knowledge was positively significant for employee creativity (β = .16, p < .05). However, the interaction term of nPow and reward skill was negatively related to employee creativity (β = −.15, p < .05). Hypotheses 6a and 6b thus received support. Fig. 2 and Fig. 3 graphically plot the significant interaction effects of Hypotheses 6a and 6b. The figures reveal that employee creativity was higher for individuals high in nPow than for those low in nPow and that this tendency was significantly stronger when CBP was more focused on rewarding knowledge (Fig. 2). On the other hand, although there was an upward trend for both high and low power motive employees, employee creativity was higher for individuals who had a low nPow and this tendency was significantly stronger when CBP was targeted at rewarding skill (Fig. 3).