The important role of social networks in creativity has long been recognized in the literature. However, research to date has primarily focused on the structural, informational, and relational dimensions of social networks in creativity. Acknowledging the importance of employees themselves, past research has also called for further research to study the human side of social networks in addition to their structural, informational, and relational dimensions. Addressing this research need, we studied the indirect relationship between employees’ tertius iungens orientation (i.e., their strategic, purposeful, and effortful behavior to either connect otherwise disconnected coworkers in their organization or facilitate preexisting relationships among them) and their creativity through their interpersonal relationships with their coworkers. In addition, we studied how this indirect relationship is moderated by the expectations of both the focal employees and their coworkers. Based on a multi-source and multi-wave survey study in one of the major Internet companies in the world, our results showed that employees with a tertius iungens orientation enjoyed high-quality interpersonal relationships with their coworkers and in turn exhibited high levels of creativity. The results also indicated that while employees’ job aspirations positively moderated the relationship between their tertius iungens orientation and interpersonal relationships, their organizational status positively moderated the relationship between their interpersonal relationships and creativity. These results expand extant research in the area by showing how and under what conditions employees’ creativity is influenced by their strategic, purposeful, and effortful behaviors to take advantage of the benefits of social networks. Considering firms’ interest and efforts to increase employee creativity, our study also suggests that firms can increase employee creativity by hiring people with a strong tertius iungens orientation and training their existing employees about the value of such an orientation.

中文翻译：

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工作中的人际关系和创造力：建立网络的视角

社交网络在创造力中的重要作用早已在文献中得到认可。然而，迄今为止的研究主要集中在创造力中社交网络的结构、信息和关系方面。承认员工自身的重要性，过去的研究还呼吁进一步研究除了结构、信息和关系维度之外，研究社交网络的人性方面。针对这一研究需要，我们研究了员工三级之间的间接关系方向（即，他们的战略性、有目的性和努力的行为，以连接组织中原本不相干的同事或促进他们之间已有的关系）以及他们通过与同事的人际关系的创造力。此外，我们还研究了这种间接关系如何受到核心员工及其同事的期望的调节。基于对全球主要互联网公司之一的多源多波调查研究，我们的结果表明，拥有tertius iungens的员工定向与他们的同事享有高质量的人际关系，并反过来表现出高水平的创造力。结果还表明，虽然员工的工作愿望正向调节他们的tertius iungens之间的关系取向和人际关系，他们的组织地位正向调节他们的人际关系和创造力之间的关系。这些结果通过展示员工的创造力如何以及在什么条件下受到战略性、有目的性和努力行为的影响，从而扩展了该领域的现有研究，以利用社交网络的好处。考虑到公司对提高员工创造力的兴趣和努力，我们的研究还表明，公司可以通过雇用具有强烈的tertius iungens方向的人并培训现有员工了解这种方向的价值来提高员工的创造力。