The impact of in- and extra-role stressors on employee creativity and well-being

Human resource development (HRD) is a cornerstone of contemporary organisations, but it is also inherently dual serving both individual (employee well-being) and organisational interests (outputs, efficiency, etc.). Consequently, a major HRD challenge is to navigate a landscape of contradictory commitments and responsibilities. Seeking to untangle this field, the current paper strives to distinguish between in- and extra-role stressors and explores their differential impacts on employees’ functioning and wellbeing. Based on Conservation of Resources (COR) Theory, we propose a model that aims to uncover how citizenship pressure (CP, extra-role pressure) and role overload (in-role pressure) impact work interference with family (WIF) through the mediation effect of employee creativity. Our analysis encompassed 150 employee-supervisor dyads from 56 organisations. We found that role overload and CP have differential implications for WIF and employee creativity: While role overload induces WIF and decreases creativity, CP has no statistically significant impact on WIF but does increase creativity. Furthermore, our analysis demonstrates that creativity’s influence on work–family relations depends on whether it mediates role overload or CP: When mediating role overload, creativity reduces WIF, and when mediating CP, it increases it. Limitations and implications our insights have for HRD are discussed.