Unlocking the creative potential of health-care employees: a serial mediation model.

Purpose: This study aims to investigate the mediating roles of servant leadership and employee vitality in the relationship between psychological ownership and employee creativity among healthcare workers in Ghana.

Design/methodology/approach: A sample of 736 public and private healthcare respondents was selected using a convenience sampling technique. Data collected using a self-reported questionnaire was analyzed via partial least square structural equation modeling.

Findings: The findings reveal that psychological ownership directly improves employee creativity, while servant leadership and employee vitality mediate the relationship between psychological ownership and employee creativity separately and complementarily.

Research limitations/implications: The research used self-reported data, increasing the potential for common method variance. However, sufficient care was taken to minimize these limitations.

Practical implications: This research makes valuable contributions to the field of healthcare practice literature. The findings suggest that management of health care entities should focus on creating a workplace culture that cultivates psychological ownership among employees and policies that enhance employee vitality and promote servant behavior to foster employee creativity.

Originality/value: This study represents one of the earliest attempts to examine a theoretical framework that connects servant leadership, employee vitality, employee creativity and psychological ownership within the context of the health service industry.