Justice climate and employee creativity in the work uncertainty context: a cross-level investigation

Drawing on uncertainty management theory, our cross-level process model explains why and how distributive, procedural, and interactional justice climates in teams influence individual-level employee creativity. Based on a multilevel, multisource, and multiwave sample of 218 supervisor-subordinate matched data in 40 teams, our study obtains three major findings. First, distributive, procedural, and interactional justice climates and work uncertainty have interactive effects on individual-level psychological safety and creative self-efficacy. Second, three types of justice climates have indirect effects on employee creativity only through individual-level creative self-efficacy. Third, team work uncertainty moderates the indirect effects of three types of justice climates on employee creativity through individual-level creative self-efficacy (but not through individual-level psychological safety). These moderating and moderated indirect effects are stronger under higher team work uncertainty.