Sleepy but creative? How affective commitment, knowledge sharing, and organizational forgiveness mitigate the dysfunctional effect of insomnia on creative behaviors

Abstract

Purpose: This study investigates how employees' experience of suffering from insomnia might reduce the likelihood that they perform creative activities, as well as how this negative relationship might be buffered by employees' access to resources at three levels: an individual resource (affective commitment), a relational resource (knowledge sharing with peers) and an organizational resource (climate of organizational forgiveness). Design/methodology/approach: Quantitative data came from a survey of employees in the banking sector. Findings: Insomnia reduces creativity, but this effect is weaker when employees feel a strong emotional bond to their organization, openly share knowledge with colleagues and believe that their organization forgives errors. Research limitations/implications: The limitations of this research include its relatively narrow scope by focusing on one personal stressor only, its cross-sectional design, its reliance on subjective measures of insomnia and creativity and its single-industry, single-country design. Practical implications: The findings indicate different, specific ways in which human resource managers can overcome the challenges associated with sleep-deprived employees who avoid productive work behaviors, including creativity. Originality/value: This study adds to extant scholarship by specifying how employees' persistent sleep deprivation might steer them away from undertaking creative behaviors, with a particular focus on how several pertinent resources buffer this process.