Positive Impact, Creativity, and Innovative Behavior at Work: The Mediating Role of Basic Needs Satisfaction.

In recent research, a growing body of empirical evidence suggests that prosocial impact at work can play a significant role in enhancing creativity and innovativeness. Drawing from self-determination theory, we hypothesized that basic psychological needs and benevolence satisfaction could serve as a mediating factor in the relation between an employee's perceived social impact and innovative work behavior and creativity, thus illuminating the manner in which the contentment of psychological needs fosters inventive proclivities within the organizational milieu. Results from a study in Greece and Canada (N = 528) showed that both perceived social impact and prosocial motivation are positively associated with innovative work behavior and creativity while autonomy and competence satisfaction mediate the relation between perceived social impact and the work outcomes examined within this study. Moreover, prosocial motivation was found to moderate the relation between benevolence satisfaction and innovativeness. Findings extend prior research on the role of prosociality on creative behavior at work and provide supporting evidence for the organizations that encourage and support employees' initiatives to make a positive difference in the lives of others.

"Here's Some Money, Your Work's So Worthy?" A Brief Report on the Validation of the Functional Meaning of Cash Rewards Scale.

In the present research, we validated a new scale developed from self-determination theory (SDT) to assess the functional meaning of cash rewards offered in the workplace. According to SDT, rewards can take on different meanings based on the way they are perceived by individuals. In a series of three studies in different socioeconomic contexts, we replicated the two-factorial structure of the scale measuring respectively workplace cash rewards' informative and controlling meanings. In Study 1, we validated the English version of the scale by exploring and then confirming its two-factor structure with two English-speaking employee samples. We further replicated its two-factor structure in a French-speaking employee sample of employees in Study 2 and in a Greek-speaking employee sample in Study 3, allowing us to validate its French and Greek version. Results from our three studies show how distinct meanings attributed to cash rewards, i.e., informative or controlling, relate differently to autonomous and controlled forms of motivation based on SDT. These findings suggest that workplace cash rewards differently influence employees' motivation depending on whether they are perceived as informative or controlling, thus providing empirical evidence for the theoretical and practical implications of SDT's concept of functional meaning of cash rewards. Our research contributes to the assessment and understanding of employees' experience of workplace cash rewards and provides empirical evidence that the concept of the functional meaning of cash rewards is a distinct concept from other money-related concepts such as subjective pay satisfaction, performance-contingent rewards, and financially contingent self-worth.