Unlocking organizational creativity: Unique effects of corporate social responsibility in leveraging individual creativity

Individual creativity is considered a precursor to organizational creativity. However, organizational creativity is more than the sum of employee creative capabilities: It emerges through collaborative interaction among employees. We propose that corporate social responsibility (CSR) serves both as an internal driver and a context that supports the transformation of employee into organizational creativity. Specifically, we theorize that employee-related CSR enhances organizational creativity by boosting employee creativity and that non-employee-related CSR positively moderates the relationship between employee and organizational creativity. Building on a sample of 833 US firms from 2009 to 2019 and using a novel approach to measure organizational creativity, we find support for our theorization. Our theory and findings contribute to creativity literature by stressing the role of context in the transformation of employee into organizational creativity.