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Investigating employee creativity Employee

polychronicity
through employee polychronicity and employee
creativity
and employee resilience: a glimpse
of nurses working in the
health-care sector Received 11 February 2020
Revised 12 July 2020
28 September 2020
Muhammad Khalid Anser Accepted 2 October 2020
School of Public Administration, Xi’an University of Architecture and Technology,
Xi’an, China
Zahid Yousaf
Higher Education Department, Government College of Management Sciences,
Mansehra, Pakistan
Muhammad Sharif
School of Economics, Quaid-i-Azam University, Islamabad, Pakistan
Wang Yijun
School of Public Administration, Xi’an University of Architecture and Technology,
Xi’an, China
Abdul Majid
Management Sciences, University of Haripur, Haripur, Pakistan, and
Muhammad Yasir
Management Sciences, Government College of Management Sciences, Mansehra,
Pakistan

Abstract
Purpose – This study aims to investigate the relationship between employee polychronicity and employee
creativity. This study also explores the mediating role of employee resilience in the relationship between
employee polychronicity and employee creativity.
Design/methodology/approach – This study was based on a quantitative research design, and a survey
instrument was used to collect data from doctors and nurses. Ordinary least squares (OLS) regression and four-
step Baron and Kenney (1986) approaches were used to check the impact of nurses’ polychronicity on creativity
through resilience.
Findings – Results proved that employee polychronicity positively influences employee creativity. The
finding indicates that employee resilience acts as a mediator in the relationship between employee
polychronicity and employee creativity.
Originality/value – The worth of this study rests on the deeper understanding of the employee
polychronicity–employee creativity link in the health-care sector. Moreover, by bringing to the fore employee
resilience as a mediator of the polychronicity–creativity relationship, this study provided a new vantage point
to explore the intricacies concerned with the relationships between polychronicity, resilience and creativity.
Keywords Employee creativity, Employee polychronicity, Employee resilience, Nurses, Health sector
Paper type Research paper

European Journal of Innovation

Management
Funding: The Youth Project of Humanities and Social Sciences, Ministry of Education Granted No. © Emerald Publishing Limited
1460-1060
18XJC790015, The Project of National Natural Science Foundation of China. Granted Nol 71803148. DOI 10.1108/EJIM-05-2020-0176
EJIM Introduction
The importance of creativity at the employee level becomes vital for all types of organizations
in the current decade (Dong et al., 2017). Employees’ capabilities regarding creative
thinking are considered as a primary source for their organization’s success (Amabile, 1988;
Yousaf et al., 2019). To align with these changing circumstances, the organizations are largely
reliant on the creativity of their workforce (Yousaf and Majid, 2017; Zhu et al., 2018).
Therefore, individual-level creativity plays a critical role for the competitive advantages and
long-term survival of all kinds of organization (Munizu and Hamid, 2018; Yousaf and Majid,
2016, 2018). The same is the case with hospitals and health-care entities, where creative
thinking of employees, especially nurses, plays an important role for the innovation
performance of these organizations (Yasir and Majid, 2019). Creative behavior provides novel
thoughts to improve the performance of operational requirement at workplace (Antoncic
et al., 2018; Patterson and Zibarras, 2017).
Nursing profession being one of the most valued, noble and respectable profession
demands a critical role by nurses with diversified challenges (Shahpouri et al., 2016). Contrary
to the advanced and developed societies, the nursing profession is not given its due status and
instead nursing personnel are treated as inferior and insignificant workers (Mueller et al.,
2018). Nursing staff performs a plethora of tasks simultaneously in hospitals and many
activities are clubbed under their job description (Liu and Li, 2017). Such hectic state of the
nursing engagements pushes them to find out novel and more creative way to discharge their
duties at the same time; therefore, their attitude becomes polychronic (Hertenstein et al., 2019).
This study focuses on nurses’ polychronicity for achieving creativity.
The emergence of advanced technologies used for medical care, reliable and fast treatment
response enforced health-care organizations to encourage creativity among nursing staff
members (Malik et al., 2016). The existing literature highlights both organizational- and
individual-level important factors that determine creative thinking at workplace (Shalley et al.,
2004; Tierney and Farmer, 2011). Organizational-level predictors include, e.g. motivation and
participation (Lansislmi et al., 2006), leadership styles (Garcia et al., 2011), psychological
empowerment (Knol and Van Linge, 2009), etc. On the other hand, employee personal
characteristics such as personality, cognitive style (Shalley et al., 2004), creative self-efficacy
(Tierney and Farmer, 2011), social relationships (Anderson et al., 2014), growth need strength
(Shalley et al., 2009) and creative personality (Zhou and Oldham, 2001) are preconditions for
individual creativity at workplace. Beyond these elements, employee polychronicity is
considered as an important source of creativity at the employee level (Sanjram and Khan, 2011).
Polychronicity can determine employee creativity through fueling innovative ideas (Yousaf
et al., 2019). Previous researchers have glossed over the notion of polychronicity as a major
antecedent of creativity in the context of health-care sector. The nature of work performed by
nurses is very complex and their individual-level factor like polychronicity plays important role
for defining their creativeness instead of contextual factors.
The existing literature on polychronicity shows that it shapes both organizational- and
individual-level factors like organizational and job performance (Mulki and Wilkinson, 2017),
sale growth (Conte and Gintoft, 2005), job demands, job resources (Shahpouri et al., 2016), job
satisfaction (Yuh and Choi, 2017), goal and error orientations (Yee et al., 2013), executive
functions, media multitasking (Laporta-Hoyos et al., 2019), job satisfaction and turnover
intention (Yuh and Choi, 2017), multitasking behaviors and organizational identification
(Matherne et al., 2017), etc. Beyond these outcomes of employee polychronicity, the most
important one is employee creativity, i.e. glossed over by previous researchers. The existing
literature explains that polychronicity has a strong and positive impact on organizational
performance as a whole, besides sale growth and job performance on the individual level
(Hecht and Allen, 2005). Hence, an explicit research study is required to investigate the
interplay between employee polychronicity and employee creativity, contextualizing the
health-care sector. The current study fills this literature gap and investigates the relationship Employee
between polychronicity and creativity. polychronicity
Furthermore, unpaid attention on the polychronicity–creativity links, our stance about
underlying mechanisms of the polychronicity–creativity connection is meager at best.
and employee
Researchers like Yousaf et al. (2019) accentuated that there might be other important creativity
antecedents of employee creativity and polychronicity alone is not sufficient to determine
employee creativity. Preceding literature as well as existing deliberations had glossed over the
interrelations between polychronicity, resilience and creativity. To tackle this research gap, our
research suggests that employee resilience, i.e. one of the most important outcomes of employee
polychronicity, should be added as a mediator in the relationship between polychronicity and
creativity. Likewise, the available literature regarding creativity pertaining to the health-care
sector is unsuccessful to highlight any link between polychronicity and creativity through
employee resilience (Kremer et al., 2019; Sunley et al., 2019). Hence, a study regarding the
relationship of polychronicity with regards to employee resilience for achieving creativity is
required (Sanjram and Khan, 2011). Employee resilience is employees’ capability to face
difficulties in a positive manner and promote the recognition of an enthusiastic mechanism. This
study pays attention to this significant and unclear aspect that has been glossed over by
previous researchers. Moreover, the academia has presented a number of comprehensive models
containing a variety of variables as key factors to the creativity; however, none has addressed
this aspect so far (Kremer et al., 2019). The study in hand, through a single model explains the
concepts of polychronicity and employee resilience for exploring employee creativity. The
nature of work of nurses is the same in the health-care sector; hence, the results of this study will
contribute to the existing stream of the literature for both developing and developed countries.
This study aims to identify employee polychronicity as a key factor of employees’
creativity in the health-care sector. Second, the study explains the mediating role of employee
resilience in the relationship between employees’ polychronicity and their creativity. The
following section of this research study contains the literature review and subsequently the
research methodology. Next, the data analysis has been presented, and in the last section of
the paper, findings and concluding remarks have been presented. The theoretical framework
of the current research study is shown in Figure 1.

The literature
Employee polychronicity and employee creativity
Polychronicity refers to the boundaries where people prefer to perform several relating
activities at once (Mulki and Wilkinson, 2017). Polychronicity enables employees to execute
various tasks at one time in a more suitable way rather than doing with a single task (Hecht
and Allen, 2005). Polychronicity is different from multiple tasks and multiple goals because it
is one’s preference to do several tasks at once instead of goal-oriented pressures (Kapadia,
2016; Madjar and Shalley, 2008). Polychronicity sets directions for innovative ideas, i.e.
necessary element of employee creativity (Yousaf et al., 2019). On the other hand, researchers
defined creativity in different ways. Hertenstein et al. (2019) described that creativity is the

Figure 1.
The theoretical
framework
EJIM enlargement of latest and beneficial concepts that grow the competence and value of various
process. Creativity is the outcome of one’s accumulated creative innovation, i.e. one’s ability
and extended knowledge based on his/her past practices (Bai et al., 2016; Revilla and
Rodr
ıguez-Prado, 2018). We defined creativity as the creation of new ideas relevant and
useful for the execution of tasks at workplace (Amabile, 1988; Kremer et al., 2019; Zhang et al.,
2015; Zhu et al., 2018). We argue that employee creativity among nurses is linked with their
polychronicity and doctors have ability to identify their creativeness.
Doctors have the ability to identify nursing behavior in health-care organizations due to
direct interactions with nurses (Hosseini et al., 2016; Mills et al., 2018). Doctors assign tasks
and duties to their subordinate nurses and evaluate their performances on a regular basis
(Yasir and Majid, 2019). In this regard, doctors are able to identify nursing behaviors in-detail
and they can predict their creativeness (Yousaf et al., 2019). The direct interactions between
doctors and their subordinate nursing staff members enable them to identify nurses’
creativity (Afsar and Masood, 2018). The relationship between doctors and nurses creates a
reliance atmosphere which is helpful for both of them to share beneficial knowledge. Through
this knowledge sharing, the doctors can correctly judge the abilities and creative skills of their
subordinate nursing staff members. Hence, due to direct supervision of assigned tasks,
doctors are in a better position to judge the creative ability of nursing staff members (Asmr
et al., 2019; Xu et al., 2019; Desalu et al., 2019).
Previous studies explored various individual-level predictors of employee creativity at
workplace such as knowledge sharing and individual skill development (Dong et al., 2017),
functional flexibility (Yasir and Majid, 2019) and individual motivation (Zhu et al., 2018),
personality traits (Yao and Li, 2020), individual task conflict (Li et al., 2019), etc. However,
researchers recompense at low consideration to link employee creativity with polychronicity. In
this study, we proposed that employee creativity is initiated through – employee polychronicity
which helps to develop their abilities for newest ideas through performing multiple tasks
simultaneously.
Polychronicity permits employees to manage various schedules at once; hence, these efforts
enable them to investigate latest methods to perform their activities and determine newest ideas
(Jang and George, 2012). Polychronicity pushed forward employees to adopt modern and
newest methods rather than traditional patterns. The struggle to perform many tasks at once
enables employees to be more creative than outdated actions (Hecht and Allen, 2005).
Polychronicity agreed a policy to determine the method of creativity and innovative routine
(Sanjram and Khan, 2011). Employee creativity, hence, depends on employees’ inclination to do
several things at once for proceeding toward creative process and their occupied performances
from traditional to creative one (Coelho et al., 2011; Jang and George, 2012).
Polychronic nurses are highly motivated toward creativity (Sanjram and Khan, 2011) and
the polychronicity is the concept on period and newly goes devotion (Jang and George, 2012).
Nurses operate in hospitals and achieve many necessary actions at once (Jang and George,
2012; Schell and Conte, 2008; Hertenstein et al., 2019). Nursing jobs are very sensitive and
work weight variation is a regular matter; therefore, polychronic capacity is continuously
important for creativity (Ding et al., 2019; Kaufman and Lane, 1997). Nurses are basically
allocated with the regular duties like tolerant care including sheets changing, dressing,
treatment, record maintaining and surplus accordingly and other allied responsibilities
(Tange et al., 2003) which focus on creativity for better worth service transfer.
H1. Employee polychronicity is positively related with employee creativity.

Employee polychronicity and employee resilience

Employee polychronicity is concerned with the engagement of employees in several relating
tasks at the same time (Jang and George, 2012). Employee polychronicity enables employees
about their partiality to get complicated and many tasks at the same time which enhance their Employee
staying power, patience and tolerance (Schell and Conte, 2008). These qualities of endurance polychronicity
enable them to improve the level of resilience. Employee resilience is the capability of
employees to practice their positivity to regularly adapt and broad their work, even when
and employee
faced with difficulty (Jang and George, 2012). Jang and George (2012) acknowledged resilience creativity
referring to the ability to promote the recognition of the mechanism of permitting employees
to rebound and recover to an equilibrium point enthusiastically. The Oxford Dictionary
defined resilience as the capacity to recover quickly from toughness and difficulties.
In this study, we proposed that employee polychronicity originates employee resilience
which develops and helps their abilities for innovative ideas by performing many tasks
(Hecht and Allen, 2005). Polychronicity enhances nurses’ resilience through encouragement
and self-confidence, i.e. they can perform several tasks at once and face work-related
activities. On the basis of these deliberations embarked by previous literature, we propose
that employees’ polychronic attitude give up employee resilience in the health-care sector. As
nurses perform various tasks simultaneously and this toughness in their duties sets a strong
basis to improve the resilience level. Employee polychronicity enhances employee resilience
to adjust different schedules. Employee polychronicity manages many tasks and their
abilities to grow up as a multidimensional observation that returns the improved resilience
capacity (Cox et al., 2011; Lengnick-Hall et al., 2011; Lampel et al., 2014).
H2. Employee polychronicity is positively related with employee resilience.

Employee resilience and employee creativity

Employee resilience refers to the capability to improve quickly from complexity; toughness
and difficulties enable employees to become stronger and creative (Zamuda et al., 2019).
Employee resilience is a capability of employees that is maintained and facilitated by
establishments to manage, adjust and even succeed and be active in stimulating
environments (Kimura et al., 2018). Employee resilience grows news ideas and innovation
with the help of past experiences and brings more effective work and adaptable changes in
future (Panpakdee and Limnirankul, 2018). Employee creativity is more nominal in the
health-care sector where organizational environment influences the level of work
performance through employee resilience (Lengnick-Hall et al., 2011). Employee resilience
increases the persistence level of individual worker and fulfills the target achievements of
employee creativity (Kilbourne and Woodman, 1999; Lees et al., 2018).
Employee creativity initiated through employee resilience is concerned with the worker’s
planned schedules toward the advancement, group and understanding of newest ideas which
cops to perform workstation activities in a well method (Kimura et al., 2018). An advanced
level of employee resilience simplifies and motivates employees toward creativity that is dire
development within an organization. Employee resilience generates innovation ideas and
innovation processes that reflect employee presentation to develop employee creativity (Al-
Omar et al., 2019). Employee resilience helps nurses through staying power and actions for
maintaining their routine activities in a creative way (Panpakdee and Limnirankul, 2018).
Employee creativity implies employees’ affective, cognitive and physical resources which are
developed through employee resilience (Sunley et al., 2019). Employee resilience also achieves
the needs and maintains how interpersonal relationships affect employees’ creativity
(Panpakdee and Limnirankul, 2018). Discussion examines that employees’ resilience is an
important factor to determine employees’ creativity.
H3. Employee resilience is positively related with employee creativity.
EJIM Employee resilience as a mediator between employee polychronicity and employee creativity
Employee polychronicity initiates different newest ideas to investigate the work performance
with the help of resilience (Schell and Conte, 2008). Therefore, we argue that employee
resilience acts as a mediator in the relationship between employee polychronicity and
employee creativity. Polychronic people having the ability to perform several tasks at once
are able to face difficulties, i.e. improved resilience (Lengnick-Hall et al., 2011). Such employee
resilience gives them more confidence and self-reliance which are basic requirements of
creativity (Schell and Conte, 2008). The creative employees are confident and positively
convinced people with capabilities to face difficulties and environmental pressures (Sunley
et al., 2019). Polychronicity enhances employee resilience which enables them to use their
positivity in order to frequently adapt and complete their work, even when faced with
adversity for more creative ideas (Sharma et al., 2014). Employee resilience acts as a bridge
between polychronicity and creativity through improving employees’ capability to manage
multiple tasks in an effective and efficient way (Brewton et al., 2010; Tian et al., 2015).
Employee resilience raises positive emotions initiated from their polychronic experiences
toward creativity (Varker and Devilly, 2012). Therefore, we argued that employee resilience
should mediate between the employee polychronicity and employee creativity link.
When employees are performing multiple tasks, their tolerance and resilience levels
increase and they become more creative. Polychronic employees are able to manage multiple
tasks at once and this ability crops up their resilience level in terms of multidimensional
perception that returns the capacity of an individual to adapt and change on in an optimistic
path. Such employee resilience initiated through polychronicity sets a platform for creative
thinking. It is the employee resilience which declares that employees spend sufficient time
and critically achieve multiple jobs instantaneously and develops their creativity (Bekaertet,
2011; Cox et al., 2011). Employee resilience is communicated by polychronicity for improving
their level of creativity through permuting special advantages that provide employees
attraction and achieving independence. Such perception of freedom and protection ensures
creativity (Suarez, 2013). Resilience formed by polychronicity recovers employees’ capacity to
produce new ideas and novel work approaches. Polychronic employees have experience to
handle several tasks which confirm their resilience for involving in creativity (Shirali et al.,
2012). Employee resilience connects polychronicity with the creativity (Harwood et al., 2011).
H4. Employee resilience mediates the relationship between polychronicity and employee
creativity.

The research methodology

Sampling procedure and data collection
This is a quantitative research study and a cross-sectional technique was utilized. A total of
197 registered doctors and 358 nurses of 25 big hospitals of Pakistan were selected for the
current study. Data were collected through five hired research assistants in two waves. In
wave 1, doctors were contacted and only 121 doctors showed willingness to provide their
participation and rated their subordinate nurses’ creativity. Doctors who are the immediate
bosses of nurses spend most of their time with nurses and treated admitted patients with the
help of information provided by nurses (Asmr et al., 2019). Hence, the direct interactions
between doctors and nurses created a favorable working environment, i.e. based on trust and
confidence (Desalu et al., 2019). Doctors acting as supervisors of nurses also needed proper
records about patients’ diseases and treatments which were provided by nurses. These
nurses were more reliant and helpful when reporting directly to doctors. Hence, doctors being
direct supervisors can correctly judge the attributes of nursing staff working under their
supervision (Yousaf et al., 2019). The nature of work of doctors and nurses differs, but the
close interactions between both of them enable doctors to identify nurses’ creativity.
Therefore, we choose doctors to rate their subordinate nurses’ creativity. Questionnaires were Employee
sent to them with a cover letter through an email and a postal process. In wave 1, only 103 out polychronicity
of 121 responses were useable for analyzing employee creativity. In the second wave, nurses
were contacted through their supervisors. Each doctor was supervising 4–12 nursing staff
and employee
members (depending on the nature of hospitals’ policies). Our research assistants received creativity
478 responses out of which only 358 were useable. Nurses responded the questions about
their polychronicity and resilience. The Human Research Ethics Committee was ensured
through, and the data collection process followed all ethical considerations about the
confidentiality of data.
Scale measurement
Polychronicity. The five-item scale of polychronicity was adapted from the work of Yousaf
et al. (2019) and its Cronbach’s α was 0.87. The sample item was “I prefer to do two or more
activities at the same time.”
Employee resilience. Employee resilience was gauged with a six-item scale developed by
Al-Omar et al. (2019) and its Cronbach’s α 5 0.89. The sample item was “I tend to bounce back
quickly after hard times.”
Employee creativity. Employee creativity was measured with a four-item scale developed
by Akgunduz et al. (2018). Cronbach’s α was 0.88. The sample item was “the sub-ordinates
create newest but operable work related ideas.”
Control variables. A total of three demographic factors were included, i.e. respondents’ age,
respondents’ education and respondents’ experience.

The analysis and results

The current study used regression and four-step Baron and Kenney (1986) approaches to
analyze data. We also checked the reliability and validity of scales (Fornell and
Larcker, 1981).
The confirmatory factor analysis
In order to check the model fitness, we conducted a confirmatory factor analysis (CFA) and
developed a baseline three-factor model along with two alternate models (Anderson and
Gerbing, 1988). Results proved that our hypothesized three-factor model is fit (see Table 1)
and values were with the range.
Validity and multicollinearity
Both convergent and discriminate validities were checked. Table 2 presents the value of
factor loading (FL) and average variance extracted (AVE), which confirmed convergent
validity. To analyze discriminant validity, we followed the guidelines of the Fornell and
Larcker (1981) technique through comparing the shared variance between the variables with
AVE of each variable and the result confirmed discriminant validity AVE > shared variance.

The descriptive analysis

Table 3 shows results of mean, standard deviation (SD) and correlations. Results proved our
theory and it is indicated that employees’ polychronic attitude is significantly correlated with

Model details χ2 df χ 2/df RMESA GFI CFI

Hypothesized three-factor model 1,021.02 421 2.4252 0.05 0.96 0.95 Table 1.
Two-factor model 1,698.32 538 3.1567 0.15 0.79 0.78 Confirmatory factor
Single-factor model 1,925.89 512 3.7615 0.27 0.64 0.63 analysis results
EJIM Constructs FL AVE CR α
Employee creativity
EC 1 0.882 0.78 0.94 0.88
EC 2 0.813
EC 3 0.857
EC 4 0.798
Polychronicity
Polychron 1 0.879 0.75 0.93 0.87
Polychron 2 0.856
Polychron 3 0.793
Polychron 4 0.844
Polychron 5 0.818
Employee resilience
ER 1 0.748 0.79 0.95 0.89
ER 2 0.834
Table 2.
ER 3 0.878
Results of factor
loading, average ER 4 0.897
variance extracted, ER 5 0.824
composite reliability ER 6 0.798
and alpha Note(s): CR: composite reliability; AVE: average variance extracted

Variable Mean SD 1 2 3 4 5 6

1 Age 5.61 – 1.00

2 Experience 2.88 0.61 0.04 1.00
Table 3. 3 Education 4.96 0.63 0.06 0.03 1.00
Mean, standard 4 Polychronicity 3.41 0.74 0.07 0.05 0.09 1.00
deviation and 5 Employee resilience 3.25 0.78 0.11 0.08 0.11 0.50** 1.00
correlations 6 Employee creativity 3.94 0.79 0.12 0.09 0.07 0.36** 0.56** 1.00

employee creativity (r 5 0.36). Polychronicity is also positively correlated with employee

resilience (r 5 0.50), and employee resilience is positively correlated with creativity (r 5 0.56).

Hypotheses testing
The regression analysis was utilized to examine the direct effects of polychronicity on
employee creativity as well as mediating effects of employee resilience in the relationship
between polychronicity and employee creativity. The results depicted in Table 4 revealed
that polychronicity is positively predicting employee creativity as per statistical results
(β 5 0.36**, SE 5 0.033) presented in model 2. So on the basis of this result, H1 is supported.
The results of model 5 revealed that polychronicity is positively and significantly predicting
employee resilience (β 5 0.50**, SE 5 0.029). Hence, H2 is accepted. Results of model 3
indicate that employee resilience is positively predicting employee creativity (β 5 0.49**,
SE 5 0.053). So on the basis of this result, H3 is supported.
The mediating role of employee resilience in the association between polychronicity and
creativity was tested with the help of Baron and Kenney approach (1986). This approach is
based on four steps. Step 1 shows that independent variable should positively affect
dependent variable, i.e. proved in H1. Step 2 shows that independent variable should
positively affect mediating variable, i.e. proved in H2. Step 3 shows that the mediating
 DV: employee creativity DV: employee resilience
Employee
Variables details Model 1 Model 2 Model 3 Model 4 Model 5 polychronicity
and employee
Controls
Age 0.043 (0.056) 0.011 (0.044) 0.010 (0.042) 0.003 (0.055) 0.055 (0.039) creativity
Experience 0.075 (0.111) 0.042 (0.076) 0.004 (0.067) 0.013 (0.086) 0.077 (0.072)
Education 0.042 (0.064) 0.019 (0.034) 0.009 (0.050) 0.001 (0.057) 0.075 (0.046)
Predictors
Polychronicity 0.36** (0.033) 0.11* (0.056) 0.50** (0.029)
Employee resilience 0.49** (0.053) Table 4.
R2 0.030 0.359 0.432 0.041 0.443 Ordinary least squares
Adjusted R2 0.018 0.341 0.403 0.029 0.412 regression for testing
Durbin–Watson 1.674 2.094 2.012 1.821 2.213 employee resilience as
Note(s): Significance level: *p < 0.05; **p < 0.01; ***p < 0.001; standard errors in parentheses a mediator

variable should positively affect the dependent variable, i.e. proved in H3. Step 4 determines
that by adding a mediator with an independent variable, the effect of independent variable on
the dependent variable should be insignificant or have major reduction. After the addition of
polychronicity to model 3, the coefficient of polychronicity remains positive but the value
reduces from 0.36 to 0.11. As the statistical results indicated that the relationship of
polychronicity and employee creativity is mediated by employee resilience by enhancing the
employee creativity, so H4 of the current study was statistically supported. Table 5 presents
results (see Figure 2).

F- t-
H Details value value Beta Significance Remarks

H1 Polychronicity → employee creativity 33.879 5.721 0.36 0.000 Accepted

H2 Polychronicity → employee resilience 72.416 8.51 0.50 0.000 Accepted
H3 Employee resilience → employee creativity 94.367 15.751 0.49 0.000 Accepted
H4 Polychronicity → employee 50.865 7.665 0.11 0.076 Accepted Table 5.
resilience → employee creativity Results of testing H1,
0.49 0.000 H2, H2 and H4

Figure 2.
Mediation by employee
resilience
EJIM Discussion
This study proposed four hypotheses to explore the impact of employee polychronicity,
employee resilience and employee creativity. H1 shows that employee polychronicity predicts
employee creativity. The results proved that employee creativity majorly depends on
employee polychronicity. Hence, H1 has proved that polychronic attitude of nurses crops up
their creativity for performing different tasks simultaneously. This discussion illuminates an
ignored part of daily routine activities of nurses and other subordinate staff members who
can develop creativeness through polychronicity.
H2 shows that employee polychronicity predicts employee resilience. The results proved
that employee polychronicity provides foundation for the improvement of their resilience.
These findings revealed that nurses with polychronic attitude have the ability to balance
their work and resist in a positive manner. H3 of the study shows that employee resilience is
correlated with employee creativity. The results of H3 revealed that employee resilience
predicts employee creativity. Employee resilience as an ability of employee helps to face
difficulties which make him/her more confident and creative.
Finally, it is also confirmed that employee resilience mediates the link between employee
polychronicity and employee creativity. These findings revealed that employee
polychronicity contributes for the improvement of employee creativity in the presence of
employee resilience. Hence, the study H4 is supported.

Theoretical implications
The study in hand contributes to the existing body of innovation management literature in
some notable ways. The most prominent contribution of this research is that it focuses on the
individual-level aspect such as polychronicity, rather than focusing on the organizational-
level aspects and outcomes. The current study added to the existing literature about new
outcomes of polychronicity in terms of employee creativity. In this regard, this study
extended the work of previous researchers who indicated numerous antecedents of employee
creativity other than polychronicity (Shirali et al., 2012; Cox et al., 2011). Thus, this research
contributes to the literature and identifies that employee creativity is an outcome of
polychronicity. Previous researchers merely link polychronicity with organizational and job
performance (Arndt et al., 2006; Sunley et al., 2019), sale growth (Conte and Gintoft, 2005), job
demands, job resources (Kimura et al., 2018), job satisfaction (Bekaert et al., 2011), goal
orientation (Schell and Conte, 2008) and job satisfaction (Cox et al., 2011). Therefore, the
current study extended the work of recent researchers like Yousaf et al. (2019) who linked
polychronicity with job embeddings and innovative work behavior. This study extended the
theoretical domain on polychronicity through the addition of employee resilience between
polychronicity and employee creativity in the hospitality sector.
The results also confirmed that employee creativity is improved in the presence of
employee polychronicity and resilience and extended the work of previous researchers (Warr
and Inceoglu, 2012). The current study extends the existing literature as the study in hand
proves that employee polychronicity is not the sole factor to improve employee creativity.
The connection between employee polychronicity and employee creativity is based on the
existence of employee resilience.

Practical implications
This research has significant implications for management in practice. First, our findings
indicate that employees with polychronicity behavior can participate in creativity activities
and successfully involve in the process of organizational innovation with the help of resilience
by focusing on capability to improve quickly from complexity; toughness and difficulties
enable employees to become stronger and creative (Zamuda et al., 2019). The finding of the Employee
current study also contributes for practitioners of the hospitality sector. polychronicity
Second, nursing staff needs attention of their supervisors/doctors, who should provide
infrastructure for the performance of multiple tasks at once and developing the flexible and
and employee
supportive environment to enhance their creativity. The nature of work of nurses comprises creativity
different and complex tasks. These difficulties in performing different tasks make them
habitual to find novel ideas at workplace. The findings of this research indicate that the
increasing level of polychronicity increases creativity. Supervisors (doctors) should
emphasize effectively on nurses’ polychronic attitude that is critical for facilitating them to
further improve their creativity.
Third, this study helps the practical management and supervisors through highlighting
the important role of employee resilience. Supervisors need to understand their subordinate
nurses and consider their personality, i.e. how much environmental working pressure they
can bear. This tolerance will be a greater support to encourage their subordinates and hence
improve the resilience level. This study shows that supervisors in the health-care sector
should consider their subordinates and their level of forbearance for enhancing their
creativity. Increased resilience among employees initiated through polychronicity motivates
and encourages them to improve creativity.

Limitations and future research

This study entails some limitations; first, the current study applied cross-sectional techniques
for empirical findings; however, the longitudinal study can be used for testing the gradual
mechanism of the polychronicity level among nurses. Next, studies should be conducted with
the same variables in developed nations. The information about employees’ creativity was
collected from the health-care sector only; however, as future research direction, it is
suggested to collect data from other organizations like the hospitality sector, business
organizations, etc.

Conclusion
The purpose of the current study was to highlight the factors that are essential for the
development of employee creativity. In this regard, the current study formulated four
hypotheses in order to describe the role of employee polychronicity and employee resilience
for employee creativity. First, the current study found that the direct effect of employee
polychronicity was significantly associated with employee creativity. Second, the findings
also supported the direct effect of employee polychronicity on employee resilience. Third, the
study also empirically found a positive and significant impact of employee resilience on
employee creativity. Finally, the current study tested the mediating role of employee
resilience between the employee polychronicity and employee creativity link. These findings
revealed that employee polychronicity increases the level of employee resilience, which in
turn increases the level of employee creativity.

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About the authors

Dr. Muhammad Khalid Anser is an assistant professor in the Xi’an University of Architecture and
Technology, China. He obtained his master’s, MPhil and PhD degrees in economics from Bahauddin
Zakariya University, Islamia University and Shaanxi Normal University, respectively. He is an author
and a reviewer of different peer-reviewed research journals. His work has been published in journals of
Corporate Social Responsibility and Environment Management, European Journal of Innovation
Management and Environmental Science and Pollution Research. Currently, he is supervising various
Pakistani and Chinese masters and PhD scholars.
Dr. Zahid Yousaf is an assistant professor in the Government College of Management Sciences,
Mansehra, Pakistan. He obtained MCom degree from the University of Peshawar, Pakistan. He
obtained his MS and PhD degrees in management sciences from Hazara University, Pakistan. He is
author of more than 40 publications in different peer-reviewed research journals. His work has been
published in Journal of Organizational Change Management, International Journal of Contemporary and
Hospitality Management, European Journal of Innovation Management, Management Decision, Journal
of Cleaner Production, The Service Industry Journal, Canadian Journal of Administrative Science,
Environmental Science and Pollution Research, Resources Policy, Clean Technology and Environmental
Policy, Sustainability, Frontiers in Sustainability, Frontiers in Public Health, Eurasian Business
Review, Polish Journal of Environmental Studies, Air Quality, Atmosphere and Health, etc. He has
presented various research papers in different international conferences. He is supervising various
scholars at the international level (masters and PhD scholars) and available as supervisor/consultant
for masters and PhD scholars. Zahid Yousaf is the corresponding author and can be contacted
at: muhammadzahid.yusuf@gmail.com
Muhammad Sharif is a PhD scholar in the School of Economics, Quaid-e-Azam University
Islamabad. He received MPhil degree in economics from the Islamia University of Bahawalpur, Pakistan.
Dr. Wang Yijun is an associate professor in the Xi’an University of Architecture and
Technology, China.
Professor Dr. Abdul Majid is a chairman of the Department of Management Sciences at University of
Haripur, Pakistan. He did his PhD from the University of Peshawar, Pakistan, and post-doctoral research
from the University of Sheffield, the UK. He wrote more than 70 papers in different peer-reviewed research
journals like International Journal of Contemporary and Hospitality, Employee Relation, Management
Journal of Organizational Change Management, Quality and Quantity, Journal of Advanced nursing,
Management Decision, Journal of Management Development, etc. and presented various papers in
different international research conferences like the British Academy of Management (BAM).
Dr. Muhammad Yasir is a lecturer in the Government College of Management Sciences, Mansehra,
Pakistan. He obtained MCom, MS and PhD degrees in management sciences from Hazara University,
Pakistan. He has more than 30 publications in world’s top ranking Social Sciences Citation Index (SSCI)
journals and has vast experience in the field of management, human resource management (HRM),
environmental and ecological issues.

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