Is stress always bad? The role of job stress in producing innovative ideas

Drawing from activation theory and conservation of resources (COR) theory, we propose that there is a curvilinear (inverted U-shaped) relationship between job stress and creativity, and that this curvilinear effect will be moderated by thriving, which is a key to acquiring work or non-work knowledge to mitigate pressure. We conducted two studies: a lab experiment with 90 students from a university in eastern China and a questionnaire survey of 218 supervisor–subordinate dyads from a large state-owned enterprise in northern China. The results show that participants achieve higher performance on creative tasks when they have a moderate rather than low or high level of job stress. In addition, when thriving is high, employees can maintain a high level of creativity through knowledge acquisition and learning, regardless of how stressed they feel at work. Implications and directions for future research are discussed.