Network Contacts’ Attributes and Psychological Conditions for Creative Performance

Abstract

The widespread use of digital technologies and the growth of the global economy have imposed an abundance of complex challenges, requiring employees to possess specialized knowledge and distinctive skills to tackle them. It is crucial for companies to encourage their employees to engage with a diverse range of individuals to gain varied perspectives and knowledge. In recent years, researchers have recognized the significance of employees’ social relationships for creativity and innovation and have adopted a “social network” approach to study this phenomenon. However, despite the growing interest in social networks and the social aspect of creativity, much of the work to date has focused on how the structural characteristics of individuals’ social networks are associated with their creativity. This focus on structural characteristics has often led to less attention being paid to the role of network contacts and to the psychological conditions associated with creativity. This study develops a comprehensive model examines the relationships between network contacts’ attributes in employee social networks and psychosocial conditions relevant to creativity. The theoretical and practical implications of these findings are discussed.

Keywords

social networks creativity background diversity learning goal orientation

Introduction

The advent of the internet and globalization has intensified competition in today’s economy, making employee creativity and innovation essential for success in a rapidly changing and complex business environment (Acar et al., 2024). Creativity, understood as a socially influenced process, depends on situating the creator within a network of interpersonal relationships, and, as Perry-Smith and Mannucci (2017, p. 53) note, “the notion that creativity is a social process has increasingly gained prominence,” with creators progressing when their network’s relational and structural features align with the needs of each stage of the idea journey. Recognizing that innovative ideas require access to diverse knowledge and perspectives beyond individual expertise, researchers have increasingly adopted a social network approach to studying creativity and innovation (Burt, 2021; El-Kassar et al., 2022).

This network approach provides unique insights that extend beyond traditional individual- or organizational-level analyses. Creativity in the workplace rarely occurs in isolation; it is shaped by the resources, perspectives, and knowledge employees acquire through their interactions with others (Soda et al., 2021). A network lens also captures how the characteristics of employees’ contacts—such as the diversity of their expertise or roles—shape information flow and the recombination of ideas (Carnabuci & Diószegi, 2015; Grosser et al., 2017). This perspective further highlights how access to non-redundant information and novel viewpoints—often provided by weak ties and by bridging structural holes—is associated with idea generation (Mannucci & Perry-Smith, 2022). At the same time, the interpersonal climate indexed by psychological safety supports the learning behaviors that underpin creative work (Edmondson & Bransby, 2023; Jin & Peng, 2024).

Importantly, a social network framework offers a dynamic view of creativity as a relational process in which different types of ties serve distinct functions across different stages of the idea journey—weak and diverse ties for generating novel combinations, stronger and more redundant ties for elaboration and implementation (Mannucci & Perry-Smith, 2022). Rather than focusing solely on static individual traits or broad climate factors, this approach emphasizes how patterns of interaction facilitate or hinder the emergence and development of creative ideas (Hirst et al., 2015). Furthermore, by examining the characteristics of network contacts themselves (e.g., their expertise or creative self-efficacy), researchers can assess not only whether employees are connected but also the value embedded in those connections (Grosser et al., 2017). These social resources can foster psychological safety and align with componential perspectives that foreground motivation as a driver of creative performance (Amabile & Pratt, 2016; Edmondson & Bransby, 2023).

Despite growing interest in the social foundations of creativity, my understanding of how networks translate into creative outcomes remains incomplete. Three gaps stand out. First, the psychological mechanisms that mediate the network–creativity link are underspecified. Because creativity begins with an individual’s decision to generate novel ideas—and is strongly shaped by motivational processes (S. H. Harrison et al., 2022)—clarifying these mediators is essential for interventions at both the individual and organizational level. Second, prior work has emphasized structural features of networks while comparatively overlooking the attributes and resources of one’s alters (Brass, 2022; Kilduff & Lee, 2020). Social resource theory (Burt et al., 2019; Lin, 2021) suggests that the value of a network inheres in who one is connected to, not only how those connections are arranged. Given that creativity is a relational, socially coordinated process (Sözbilir, 2018), the qualities of immediate contacts should shape creative outcomes above and beyond structure. Third, many recent studies operationalize the “social” aspect of employee creativity using proxies—for example, social-media activity—rather than direct measures of workplace interaction patterns and the concrete resources exchanged among colleagues. This reliance on proxies risks construct underrepresentation and may obscure the specific ties, alters, and resources that actually enable idea generation and realization (Ali et al., 2022; Ding et al., 2019; Mannucci & Perry-Smith, 2022).

In light of these gaps, the present study aims to develop a comprehensive model that explains how the attributes of employees’ network contacts influence the psychological conditions that foster creativity in the workplace. Specifically, it investigates (1) the psychological mechanisms through which social networks enhance creativity and (2) how the characteristics of network contacts contribute to those mechanisms. By integrating these perspectives, the study advances a more nuanced understanding of how social relationships fuel creative performance (see Figure 1 for the conceptual model).

Figure 1.

Hypothesized model.

Psychological Conditions for Creativity: Creative Self-Efficacy and Psychological Safety

Creativity is largely a function of motivational processes and begins with an individual’s deliberate choice to generate novel ideas (S. H. Harrison et al., 2022; Ma et al., 2021). Because creativity often involves approaches that are untested or unfamiliar, whether in general or within a specific organizational context, it can entail significant psychological costs and risks, including vulnerability to criticism and even threats to one’s position or career (Johnson & Proudfoot, 2024; Kim et al., 2023). As such, overcoming psychological constraints and sustaining motivation are essential for creative engagement.

However, despite the well-established role of motivation in creativity and growing recognition of its social underpinnings (Amabile & Pratt, 2016; Burt, 2021), existing research has rarely examined how social relationships shape the psychological conditions—such as motivation, creative self-confidence, perceived risk, and psychological constraints—that underlie creative behavior in the workplace. Addressing this gap by exploring psychological mediation is therefore critical to advancing our understanding of how social networks influence creativity and its outcomes.

Building on the importance of motivation and psychological processes in creativity, this study draws on contemporary extensions of the psychological engagement perspective (Bailey et al., 2017; May et al., 2004; Rich et al., 2010) to examine how social networks shape the psychosocial mechanisms that enhance employee creativity. In this tradition, engagement is energized when employees experience role meaningfulness, psychological safety, and role-specific availability—conditions articulated in Kahn’s original framework and validated in subsequent research (Kahn, 1990; May et al., 2004). Given that the meaningfulness of creativity for firm competitiveness is well established, motivation to engage in creative work hinges primarily on psychological safety and role-specific availability—perceived capacity to invest effort. Accordingly, I treat creative self-efficacy as a more specific psychological condition for creative engagement than general psychological availability, which reflects confidence to engage in one’s role broadly rather than confidence in generating and implementing novel ideas.

Creative Self-Efficacy

Employees’ confidence in producing creative ideas has been known as an important condition for creative productivity (Newman et al., 2018). Creative self-efficacy is not only a key personal attribute but also a malleable state that can fluctuate with changes in self, task, and social context-related factors (Park et al., 2020). Given that creativity in today’s business climate increasingly requires social interactions for diverse knowledge and perspectives (D. Liu et al., 2016), the formation of employees’ creative confidence is shaped by the informational resources available in their social relationships. I therefore focus on employees’ creative self-efficacy as a psychological condition for creativity; I then examine the influence of informational resources available in social networks on their creative self-efficacy.

Psychological Safety

In addition to confidence in their creative capacity, another element critical to employees’ creativity is their sense of security in discussing and developing new ideas (Edmondson & Bransby, 2023). The creative process necessitates stepping out of one’s comfort zone and taking risks without fear of negative repercussions, which Kahn (1990) refers to as psychological safety (May et al., 2004). Thus, in accordance with Kahn’s psychological safety condition, when individuals experience psychological safety in their social network (i.e., being able to express and develop new ideas without fear of negative repercussions), they will more freely initiate creativity by actively seeking out advice and feedback.

Edmondson (2018) reports significant differences in members’ beliefs about the social consequences of reporting medication errors. Members of some teams openly acknowledged them and discussed ways to avoid their recurrence; while in others, members kept their knowledge of a drug error to themselves. This finding indicates that individual perception of psychological safety—particularly where errors and learning are concerned–is influenced by one’s interactive environment. In other words, individuals are more likely to freely discuss ideas or seek advice and feedback when they feel their social contacts are supportive, rather than judgmental, of activities that are central to the creative process.

The quality of the final creative outcome may not be solely determined by the volume of informational resources provided by the social network, as the quality of interactions in the social network also plays a role. This study therefore focuses on employees’ psychological safety as another psychological condition contributing to creativity and examines the relationship between the emotional support provided by social network contacts and psychological safety.

Types of Resources From Network Contacts

Over the past decades, social network research has often been treated as research on social capital—the set of resources that inheres in relations between individual actors (Burt, 2021; Burt et al., 2019). In particular, new and diverse information from social network contacts is essential to the conception of creative ideas (Park et al., 2020). Since the ties most relevant to creativity are those that transmit ideas and foster constructive interaction, the idea network will be the type of network relationship examined in this study. The idea network is defined as one composed of colleagues who provide access to new information or insights that may stimulate the development of new ideas (Mannucci & Perry-Smith, 2022).

To explain how such networks shape creativity, this study adopts Nan Lin’s social resource theory (Lin, 2021) as its primary theoretical lens. Social resource theory conceptualizes resources—information, influence, social credentials, and reinforcement—as embedded in social networks and explains outcomes through individuals’ access to and mobilization of those resources (Zhao et al., 2025). This alignment yields precise, testable pathways by which network characteristics shape access to and mobilization of social resources, which in turn shape creative outcomes (Burt et al., 2019). Recent field evidence grounded in social resource theory further links employees’ social-resource access and mobilization to innovative behavior and objective outputs, underscoring its suitability for network-centric studies of creativity (Mannucci & Perry-Smith, 2022). While the componential theory of creativity—emphasizing expertise, creativity-relevant processes, intrinsic motivation, and work environment (Amabile & Pratt, 2016; S. H. Harrison et al., 2022) remains a foundational psychological model, its focus does not extend to explaining how specific network positions generate specific resources. Therefore, to preserve theoretical parsimony and construct–measure alignment, social resource theory provides the most appropriate framework for this study.

Within this framework, the present study focuses on two key resources that employees can access through their idea networks: non-redundant information and emotional support for development. Both of these resources are highly relevant to sparking novel ideas. I therefore propose that individuals whose idea network contacts possess diverse informational resources (i.e., heterogeneous knowledge and perspective) and developmental perspective (i.e., encourage professional growth and development) will be better psychologically equipped to exhibit creativity than individuals without these rich social assets.

Informational Resources for Creative Self-Efficacy

Background Diversity of Network Contacts

Social resource theory contends that it is the resources and attributes of one’s social network contacts that facilitate an individual’s ability to attain desired outcomes (Lin, 2021; Vacchiano et al., 2022). S. H. Harrison et al. (2022) similarly argue that people around us are an important resource for creativity. Researchers studying the link between individual creativity and social networks have been placing special emphasis on the importance of informational resources from social relationships, theorizing that creative work productivity depends on exposure to non-redundant information (Hirst et al., 2015; Mannucci & Perry-Smith, 2022).

The more diverse an employee’s social contacts, the greater the range of informational resources, such as knowledge and perspective, an employee is able to access. I refer to diversity in terms of knowledge background, measured through such variables as tenure and educational experience (Hundschell et al., 2021). Attributes such as education, work experience, and organizational tenure often function as status and expertise cues—proxies for what others believe a person knows and how their views are weighted in interaction (Bendersky & Pai, 2018; Bunderson & Barton, 2010; Guillaume et al., 2017).

Richter et al. (2012) emphasized the role of knowledge in shaping confidence in creativity, while suggesting a set of creativity-specific self-efficacy determinants. Individuals engage in a process of assessing their personal and situational resources and constraints; they subsequently rely on these assessments to yield interpretive data used in forming personal efficacy judgments (Park et al., 2020). Thus, diversity of informational resources employees can access may be an important factor contributing to their confidence in generating creative departures from established paradigms.

Hypothesis 1: The diversity of backgrounds within an idea network will have a positive relationship with an individual’s creative self-efficacy.

Emotional Resource for Psychological Safety

Learning Goal Orientation of Network Contacts

Compared to creative self-efficacy, which is a relatively cognitive-based psychological condition (Bailey et al., 2017; May et al., 2004), more affect-laden psychological safety may be enhanced by emotional aspect of social relationships. The kinds of people in a place come to define the way that place looks, feels, and behaves (Edmondson, 2018). In this respect, it is important to examine and understand how personal characteristics that may shape the interpersonal interactions for creative thinking and engaging in experimentation may be a critical factor that will determine whether the social network will provide an environment nurturing creativity.

One such characteristic may be learning goal orientation. To that end, I focus on learning goal orientation of idea network contacts as the characteristic that comes to define the environment and foster psychological safety, conducive to creativity. Goal orientation is defined as a disposition toward developing or demonstrating ability in achievement situations (Vandewalle et al., 2019). Goal orientations are shaped by one’s particular view toward growth and development, and variations in such may influence the quality of intellectual interactions. For instance, depending on goal orientations, the style of feedback may be constructive, judgmental, or critical (Bai et al., 2016).

Thus far, two distinct goal orientations (i.e., learning goal orientation and performance goal orientation) have been commonly identified, and learning goal orientation in particular has garnered significant attention in recent studies of creativity, at both the individual and team levels (Nandi & Watts, 2025). Learning goal-oriented individuals hold a developmental perspective on their ability and believe in a positive effort-mastery relationship. Social cognitive theory suggests that this orientation would facilitate fostering relationships such as mentoring (Bandura, 2001). For instance, while examining the association of mentors’ and proteges’ personal characteristics with expected outcomes, Stockkamp and Godshalk (2022) found that learning goal-oriented mentors are more prone to facilitate developmental relationships.

Previous studies have consistently found that feedback delivered in a developmental, informational manner yielded higher creativity on a subsequent task compared with a more controlling evaluation (Jiang & Gu, 2015), because developmental style reduces the perceived cost of partaking in the creative process and encourages exploration of new possibilities without fear of failure. Constructive feedback provided by learning goal-oriented network contacts is therefore likely to be perceived by a focal employee as emotional support that enhances psychological safety in the idea network.

In addition, the collective learning behaviors of social contacts may facilitate learning by creating a comfortable context and reducing psychological risks. As sensemaking is social, network contacts with high learning goal orientation will promote a cognitive frame that seeks new perspectives while alleviating risk perception in creative pursuits (Gao et al., 2024; Unsworth & Clegg, 2010). That is, the learning behavior of network contacts may encourage social learning processes (Bandura, 2001) through example, which evokes the development of supportive environment. I therefore expect that the learning goal orientation of network contacts will be positively associated with employees’ psychological safety in the idea network.

Hypothesis 2: The level of learning goal orientation within an idea network will have a positive relationship with an individual’s psychological safety.

Psychological Conditions as Mediators

Research into the psychological mechanisms for employee creativity is vital for several reasons, as it sheds light on the complex interplay between individual psychological processes and creative output within organizational settings. By understanding the psychological underpinnings of creativity, organizations can develop strategies to enhance innovation. It helps in identifying the psychological factors that drive creativity in employees and understanding these factors can help organizations foster environments that enhance creative thinking. With this regard, I propose that two psychological conditions (creative self-efficacy and psychological safety) enhanced by informational and emotional resources from idea networks will lead to a positive outcome of employees’ creative efforts.

Creative Self-Efficacy as a Mediator

Creative work is characterized by uncertainty, evaluative scrutiny, and iterative setbacks; as such, sustained engagement depends on robust motivational processes (Amabile & Pratt, 2016). Creative self-efficacy constitutes a proximal psychological resource that supports persistence and adaptive coping under such conditions (Bandura, 2001). Consistent with social-cognitive accounts, higher creative self-efficacy is associated with greater effort and reduced discouragement (Lee et al., 2019) as well as with cognition that facilitates creativity, including broader information search and enhanced memory retrieval (Haase et al., 2018; D. Liu et al., 2016).

Employees’ discussion networks shape these psychological processes by determining access to informational variety. Background diversity among discussion partners (e.g., education, function, tenure) expands exposure to non-redundant knowledge and perspectives, thereby creating conditions conducive to generating and refining novel ideas (Hundschell et al., 2021; van Knippenberg & Hoever, 2023). Field evidence indicates that such background diversity at the team/context level enriches idea inputs and innovative performance (Park et al., 2020). Meta-analytic evidence further establishes creative self-efficacy as a reliable, proximal predictor of creative performance (Haase et al., 2018), and cross-level work shows that team informational resources strengthen the creative self-efficacy–creativity relationship (Richter et al., 2012). Complementary quantitative syntheses of contextual antecedents to creativity identify motivation- and efficacy-based pathways as core mediators (Koh et al., 2019), aligning with a mechanism in which network-based informational diversity operates through creative self-efficacy to influence creative output.

Therefore, I expect that employees with a self-proclaimed capacity for creativity will be more engaged in the process and expend more effort in generating creative ideas. In turn, creative self-efficacy enhanced by diverse informational resources from idea networks will lead to higher creative performance.

Hypothesis 3: An individual’s creative self-efficacy will mediate the positive relationship between network contacts’ background diversity and creative performance.

Psychological Safety as a Mediator

Creativity is a relational process involving social coordination (Perry-Smith & Mannucci, 2017; Sözbilir, 2018). As the amount of available information rapidly grows, social interaction to obtain diverse knowledge and insights is becoming more essential for creativity (Burt et al., 2019). However, such interactions among employees may be perceived as risky for several reasons. The creative process requires employees to voice unique ideas, which may potentially be rejected; to learn from others and possibly reveal their shortcomings; and to work with unfamiliar information to generate new ideas, putting them at risk of appearing incompetent (Zhou et al., 2019).

Given these interpersonal hazards, the critical psychological condition that converts interaction into learning and idea advancement is psychological safety. Psychological safety is associated with the learning behaviors that undergird creativity (e.g., information sharing, feedback seeking) and with employees’ creative potential (Y. Liu et al., 2021). These effects likely arise because psychologically safe contexts ease the presentation and elaboration of new ideas and are linked to better learning, higher involvement, and greater discretionary effort (Edmondson & Bransby, 2023).

Regular discussion partners who exhibit a learning goal orientation (e.g., normalize mistakes, frame setbacks as experimentation, solicit feedback) signal error tolerance that fosters psychological safety, enabling risk-taking and idea elaboration associated with higher creative performance (Frazier et al., 2017; Tu et al., 2019). Converging evidence in inclusive/ethical/transparent leadership research similarly finds that psychological safety mediates the effects of social context on creative involvement and creativity at individual and team levels (Han et al., 2017). I therefore propose that emotional support within idea networks—through its enhancement of employees’ psychological safety—is positively associated with creative performance.

Hypothesis 4: An individual’s psychological safety will mediate the positive relationship between network contacts’ learning goal orientation and creative performance.

Methods

Research Setting and Participants

I tested the hypotheses in a sample of employees from two Korean information and communication technology companies. Both of them are software engineering companies that provided customized software solutions to other companies. With the rapid technological development and severe competition in the information technology industry, creativity and innovation were an important aspect of these firms’ strategy. In total, 155 employees and 21 supervisors from two companies were identified and invited to participate in the surveys for this study.

I used purposive site selection due to the requirements of whole-network data collection. Eligibility criteria were: (a) executive permission for organization-wide surveying under IRB oversight; (b) anticipated coverage ≥70% to ensure valid sociometric measures; (c) knowledge-intensive, project-based work in which employee creativity materially affects outputs; (d) stable boundaries over the field period; and (e) sufficient size/role heterogeneity. Of the six organizations initially contacted, two ICT firms met these criteria and granted access.

To test all hypotheses, I collected data from three different sources. Information on individuals’ social networks, personal attributes, creative self-efficacy, and psychological safety was assessed via paper-based questionnaires completed by participating employees. Additional information on creative performance and in-role performance was obtained via immediate supervisor ratings. Finally, background information, such as age, gender, education, and tenure, was obtained from archival records with support from the HR departments.

Measures

The network part of the survey contained the roster of employees, and the questions generally conformed to those used in prior research (Carnabuci & Diószegi, 2015).

Background Diversity

Background diversity is commonly operationalized with educational background and organizational tenure, both widely used indicators of job-related (informational) differences (Guillaume et al., 2017; D. A. Harrison & Klein, 2007). Based on the research interviews with the HR departments, five categories were represented: computer science, digital media design, business, liberal arts, and physical science. For each participant, the number of direct contacts in each category was counted, and a heterogeneity score for educational background was calculated using Blau’s (1977) index. Then, the heterogeneity score of tenure was calculated by variance in network contacts’ tenure. Finally, I averaged the two scores to get an overall level of background diversity.

Learning Goal Orientation

VandeWalle’s (1997) five-item learning goal orientation scale, adapted to the work domain, was used (α = .89). I computed a weighted network score by averaging alters’ learning goal orientation with tie weights (Grosser et al., 2017). Hence, the learning goal orientation of a network contact to whom an employee constantly turned for new ideas and insights was given more weight.

Creative Self-Efficacy

Creative self-efficacy was measured using Tierney and Farmer’s (2002) three-item instrument (α = .88).

Psychological Safety

Participants completed a modified version of Edmondson’s (1999) seven-item psychological safety scale referring to their ego network (α = .88).

Creative Performance

Employees’ creative performance was rated by their immediate supervisors using Tierney et al. (1999) nine-item employee creativity scale (α = .95).

In-Role Performance

To examine the discriminant validity of the measures of creative performance from routine, noncreative performance, I also measured in-role performance by using the adopted Williams and Anderson (1991) scale (α = .93).

To check for construct independence and to determine the discriminant validity of all the variables involved other than networks, I performed two confirmatory factor analyses (CFAs) on three independent variables (i.e., learning goal orientation, creative self-efficacy, and psychological safety) and two performance dimensions (i.e., creative performance and in-role performance) separately and the results of the analyses confirmed the convergent and discriminant validity of the measures.

Control Variables

Previous theory and research suggest that education, experience, and expertise may be associated with the extent to which individuals exhibit creativity (Mannucci & Perry-Smith, 2022) and, consequently, I treated them as control variables in all substantial analyses. In particular, I controlled for a few demographic variables that have been shown to affect creative performance, including: company, rank, education, gender, and organizational tenure. In addition, I controlled for employees’openness to experience that may be associated with the extent to which individuals engage in creativity and the idea network size and density, known to influence the amount and quality of social resources (Kwon & Adler, 2014). Notably, the significance of the focal relationships emerged only when accounting for the control variables, suggesting that these effects were conditional on the broader contextual factors captured by the controls.

Response Rate and Representativeness

Out of the 155 employees invited to participate in the study, a total of 130 completed all two critical sections (networks and individual differences) of the survey for a response rate of 84%; 80% for Company A (72 out of 90) and 89% for Company B (58 out of 65). Out of the 21 supervisors invited to participate in the study, 19 provided employee ratings for a response rate of 90%. Although very few supervisors did not provide their employee ratings, the final sample size dropped from 130 to 111 because for 19 participating employees I was unable to obtain the necessary creative performance ratings. Thus, the final response rate of the survey was 71.6% after all cases with any missing values were eliminated. This response rate compares favorably to other studies that have employed whole-network surveys (Agneessens & Labianca, 2022).

Analytical Approach

To examine the relationships between network contact attributes and employee creativity, hierarchical (block-entry) OLS regression analyses were conducted, with variables entered in theoretically determined steps. To further examine these relationships, two separate mediation analyses were conducted using the Preacher and Hayes (2008) bootstrapping procedure. For each model, indirect effects were estimated using 5,000 bootstrap resamples and 95% bias-corrected confidence intervals (CIs). An indirect effect was considered statistically significant when the CI did not include zero. Missing data were handled using listwise deletion within each analysis. Together, these analyses made it possible to examine the direct associations between network contact attributes and employee creativity, as well as the indirect effects involving psychological conditions.

Results

Table 1 presents the means, standard deviations, and bivariate correlations. The regression results are summarized in Tables 2 and 3. The stepwise analyses identified the key network contact attributes associated with employee creativity, and the subsequent bootstrapped mediation tests confirmed that their effects operated indirectly through the proposed psychological conditions.

Table 1.

Means, Standard Deviations, and Correlations Among Study Variables.

No.	Variable	M	SD	1	2	3	4	5	6	7	8	9	10	11	12
1	Company			—
2	Rank	1.74	1.09	.26**	—
3	Education	3.68	0.69	.20*	.27**	—
4	Gender			.14	.18*	.10	—
5	Organizational tenure (months)	56.97	41.19	.04	.36**	.05	.07	—
6	Openness to Experience	3.07	0.59	−.08	.15	.11	.18*	.00	—
7	Idea network density	0.54	0.22	−.19*	−.29**	−.22**	−.13	−.24**	.06	—
8	Idea network size	14.29	9.18	.14	.14	.08	.09	.02	.08	−.59**	—
9	Network contacts’ background diversity	−0.01	0.92	−.54**	−.02	−.07	−.09	−.09	.21*	−.11	.25**	—
10	Network contacts’ learning goal orientation	3.58	0.33	.18*	.14	.05	.21*	.02	.10	.06	.11	−.01	—
11	Creative self-efficacy	3.58	0.70	−.17*	.06	.12	.08	.07	.45**	−.20*	.26**	.40**	.00	—
12	Psychological safety	3.49	0.63	−.17	.12	−.04	.00	.16	.25**	−.04	.01	.14	.23**	.16	—
13	Creative performance	3.10	0.62	−.17	.07	.15	.06	.02	.10	−.26**	.36**	.37**	.20*	.38**	.27**

Note. N = 111. Entries below the diagonal are Pearson correlations. Means and standard deviations are reported for nondichotomous variables only.

p < .05. **p < .01.

Table 2.

Hierarchical OLS Regression Analyses (H1–H2).

Variables	Creative self-efficacy		Psychological safety
Variables	Step 1 (Controls)	Step 2 (Attribute)	Step 1 (Controls)	Step 2 (Attribute)
Control Variables
Company	−0.16	−0.03	−0.16	−0.20*
Rank	−0.05	−0.08	0.13	0.10
Education	0.04	0.05	−0.10	−0.10
Gender	−0.01	0.01	−0.02	−0.08
Tenure	0.04	0.07	0.08	0.08
Openness to Experience	0.44**	0.42**	0.24*	0.24**
Idea Network Density	−0.16	−0.15	−0.06	−0.14
Idea Network Size	0.16	0.10	−0.04	−0.11
Independent Variables
Network Contacts’ Background Diversity		0.22*
Network Contacts’ Learning Goal Orientation				0.27**
ΔR²		.03		.07
R ²	.32	.35	.13	.19

Note. Entries are standardized regression coefficients (β). N = 111.

p < .05. **p < .01.

Table 3.

Hierarchical OLS Regression Analyses (H3–H4).

Variables	Creative performance
Variables	Step 1 (Controls)	Step 2 (Contact attributes)	Step 3 (Mediators)
Control Variables
Company	−0.26*	−0.16	−0.09
Rank	0.09	0.05	0.05
Education	0.08	0.09	0.10
Gender	0.01	−0.01	0.01
Tenure	−0.06	−0.04	−0.06
Openness to Experience	0.05	0.01	−0.12
Idea Network Density	−0.06	−0.11	−0.04
Idea Network Size	0.37**	0.25*	0.25*
Independent Variables
Network Contacts’ Background Diversity		0.24*	0.20
Network Contacts’ Learning Goal Orientation		0.21*	0.15
Mediator
Creative Self-Efficacy			0.20*
Psychological Safety			0.15*
ΔR²		.07	.06
R²	.23	.31	.38

Note. Entries are standardized regression coefficients (β). N = 111.

p < .05. **p < .01.

Results for Creative Self-Efficacy and Psychological Safety

In Hypothesis 1 I proposed that network contacts’ background diversity will be positively related to an employee’s creative self-efficacy. As Model 2 of Table 2 indicates, this relationship is significant (β = .21, p < .05). Thus, Hypothesis 1 is supported. In Hypothesis 2 I argued that network contacts’ learning goal orientation will be positively related to an employee’s psychological safety. As Model 2 of Table 3 confirms, this relationship is significant (β = .25, p < .05). Hypothesis 2 is therefore supported.

Results of Mediators for Creative Performance

In Hypotheses 3 and 4 I proposed that two psychological conditions (i.e., creative self-efficacy and psychological safety) will mediate the positive relationship between two attributes of network contacts (i.e., background diversity and learning goal orientation) and creative performance. I tested this mediation effect using the causal steps procedure outlined by Baron and Kenny (1986) and the Preacher and Hayes (2008) bootstrap method. In the support of Hypotheses 3 and 4, Table 3 displays the results of the Baron and Kenny’s stepwise procedure and Figures 2 and 3 display the results of the bootstrapping, suggesting full mediations.

Figure 2.

Indirect association of contacts’ background diversity with creative performance through creative self-efficacy.

Figure 3.

Indirect association of contacts’ learning goal orientation with creative performance through psychological safety.

In Hypotheses 3 and 4, I proposed that creative self-efficacy and psychological safety would account for the positive relationships between two attributes of network contacts (background diversity and learning goal orientation) and creative performance. I tested these hypotheses using the regression-based criteria described by Baron and Kenny (1986), together with the Preacher and Hayes (2008) bootstrapping procedure. Indirect effects were estimated using 5,000 bootstrap resamples and 95% bias-corrected confidence intervals. As shown in Table 3 and Figures 2 and 3, the results were consistent with significant indirect effects in both models. Specifically, network contacts’ learning goal orientation showed a significant indirect association with creative performance through psychological safety, indirect effect = 0.10, 95% bias-corrected bootstrap CI [0.01, 0.25], N = 111. Network contacts’ background diversity also showed a significant indirect association with creative performance through creative self-efficacy, indirect effect = 0.03, [0.004, 0.10], N = 111. Because neither confidence interval included zero, both indirect effects were statistically significant. These findings are consistent with indirect associations through psychological safety and creative self-efficacy, respectively.

Discussion

This study sought to develop a more inclusive model that integrates the psychological and social aspects of creativity in the context of social networks. Recently, there has been growing interest in understanding the role of social networks in fostering employee creativity. However, within this perspective, there has been limited discussion of the influence of network contacts and the psychological mediating mechanisms through which they affect creative performance. In this regard, I developed a comprehensive model that explains the impact of network contacts’ attributes on psychosocial conditions leading to employee creativity.

First, departing from the structural social network perspective, I focused on the contacts’ attributes in social networks through the lens of social resources theory and explored the role of resources available to employees within their idea networks. In particular, I examined two attributes of network contacts (i.e., background diversity and learning goal orientation) as sources of social capital that support psychological conditions (i.e., creative self-efficacy and psychological safety) conducive to creativity. Consistent with this reasoning, the results of these analyses provide support for a social resources perspective (Burt et al., 2019; Lin, 2021) on employee creativity. In particular, the results support the view that creative self-efficacy is a malleable state that fluctuates with the availability of diverse information in employees’ social networks. The diversity of informational resources an employee can access for creative work may be critical to building their creative self-efficacy. In addition, network contacts’ learning goal orientations, reflecting their views on growth and development, influence the quality of intellectual interactions with the focal employee. Such developmental interactions can cultivate psychological safety—a felt permission to invest oneself at work without fear of negative interpersonal consequences.

Second, two psychological conditions for creativity (i.e., creative self-efficacy and psychological safety) were found to mediate the positive influence of network contacts’ background diversity and learning goal orientation on employee creativity. As theorized, creative self-efficacy, fostered by diverse information in social networks, appears to provide an internal, sustaining force that propels individuals to persevere in the face of the challenges native to creative work. Psychological safety, nurtured by developmental rather than judgmental interactions with network contacts, may motivate employees to discuss their ideas openly and to seek advice and feedback in service of creativity. Employee creativity is not determined solely by informational resources; the quality of network interactions also plays a critical role.

Theoretical Contributions

This paper advances an alter-centric account of creative networks by specifying which contact attributes matter and why. Rather than treating networks as undifferentiated structures, it conceptualizes background diversity as an informational resource (access to non-redundant knowledge and perspectives) and contacts’ learning goal orientation as a socioemotional cue (i.e., error tolerance, feedback seeking) that shapes the quality of idea-relevant exchanges. This reframing enriches social resources theory by locating the micro-foundations of “who provides what” within employees’ idea networks (cf. Burt et al., 2019; Lin, 2021), offering a more precise basis for theorizing how network composition translates into creative work.

The model also clarifies the psychological pathways through which these resources become creative output. By distinguishing creative self-efficacy and psychological safety as proximal, complementary mediators, it moves beyond blanket appeals to “learning” or “support” and specifies an informational route (diverse backgrounds cultivating capability beliefs for creative tasks) and a socioemotional route (learning-oriented contacts fostering a sense of interpersonal safety). In linking these routes to engagement-relevant conditions, the study integrates social resources and psychological engagement perspectives, thus connecting external social inputs to internal readiness for creative action (e.g., Albrecht et al., 2023).

Conceptually, I propose a parsimonious account—two alter (contact) attributes and two mediating states—but it adds explanatory power beyond basic structure (size, density). It sharpens predictions about when networks foster creativity by stressing who is in the idea network and its climate, not just the number of ties. Methodologically, I measure contacts’ attributes within each person’s network and link them to domain-specific psychological states. This directs future work to assess who contacts are and what they contribute—not only where they sit—and to model the immediate states that carry network effects. The framework also points to boundary conditions and dynamic questions—for example, how task novelty, evaluation pressure, tie strength, or hierarchy modulate the two routes; how employees selectively activate different contacts across phases of the idea journey; and how creative self-efficacy and psychological safety co-evolve over time—thereby setting an agenda for multilevel and longitudinal tests that further refine the theory.

Managerial Implications

The results of this study also have some practical implications. First, the results echo prior network research that has stressed that diversity in social networks can positively influence creativity. The results suggest that when enhancing employee creativity, it may not be best to maintain homogeneous idea networks or seek new information or insights from people who share a similar background. While interacting more with people who have similar perspectives and language may feel natural, my results suggest that the failure to cultivate network contacts with diverse backgrounds is detrimental to creativity, because such contacts are likely to provide the diverse perspectives and knowledge required to develop more creative ideas. One way to achieve this is to encourage employees to avoid homogeneous idea networks by promoting cross-boundary interactions among employees with different educational backgrounds and tenure.

In addition, organizations should promote developmental, rather than judgmental, feedback and interactions that provide a safe environment to encourage creative activities. As the results suggest, employees are better psychologically equipped for creativity when their idea networks provide not only informational advantages but also a safe place to obtain advice and feedback needed to generate and develop creative ideas. One way to achieve this is to promote understanding and support for taking the risks inherent in the creative process, as exploration of new possibilities without fear of failure is necessary for developing creative ideas. In particular, the developmental perspective of managers, who often occupy central positions within idea networks, may be critical for promoting employees’ creative risk-taking.

Limitations

This study has several limitations that are worth noting. One limitation of this research is its cross-sectional research design, which prevents strong inferences about causality between the attributes of network contacts and the creativity of the focal individual. Given the cross-sectional design of the study, it is difficult to unambiguously refute the possibility that generating and suggesting creative ideas may also affect one’s social network. Another weakness of this research is its reliance on supervisor ratings of creative performance. Even though I was able to demonstrate convergence between supervisor rated creative performance as well as discriminant validity between creative performance and non-creative and routine performance, concerns still linger with respect to the validity of the measures employed. Third, the significance of the focal relationships emerges only when control variables are included, which highlights the importance of these contextual factors but also suggests that the robustness of my findings should be interpreted with caution. Finally, because site selection was purposive—based on organizational permission, expected survey coverage, and the presence of creativity-intensive work—the sample comprised two organizations within a single industry (software engineering). This narrow scope may limit the generalizability of the findings; results could differ in organizations and industries with different structures or task characteristics.

Conclusion

In summary, this research provides a richer understanding of the complex interplay between social networks and individual differences as they relate to creativity. The concepts and findings presented in this study extend the creativity literature by looking beyond social network structure alone and highlighting the role of one’s social network contacts and the psychological conditions relevant to creativity. As shown in this study, social resources derived from the attributes of network contacts were positively associated with psychological conditions relevant to creativity.

Footnotes

ORCID iD

Wonseok Choi

Funding

The author received no financial support for the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.

Declaration of Conflicting Interests

The author declared no potential conflicts of interest with respect to the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.

Data Availability Statement

Data sharing not applicable to this article as no datasets were generated or analyzed during the current study.

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