Using Stretch Goals to Boost Team Creativity? The Contingent Effect of Team Resource Scarcity

Abstract

Although several studies suggest that stretch goals may foster creativity, empirical evidence supporting this positive relationship, particularly at the team level, is surprisingly scarce. Drawing on the conservation of resources (COR) theory, this study theorizes and empirically examines team resource scarcity as a critical boundary condition and team information elaboration as an underlying mechanism for understanding when and how stretch goals are likely to promote versus hinder team radical and incremental creativity. Multisource and time-lagged data were collected from 245 team leaders and their 1052 team members in Chinese high-technology firms. The results indicate that stretch goals can promote team radical creativity through team information elaboration only for teams with sufficient available resources. In contrast, for teams with high resource scarcity, stretch goals reduce team information elaboration and subsequently hinder team radical creativity. The results reveal no statistically significant association between stretch goals and team incremental creativity, irrespective of team resource scarcity levels. Our study has both theoretical and practical implications for organizations aiming to implement stretch goals to foster team creativity, especially radical creativity.