107 Creating A Creative State of Mind THEORETICAL BACKGROUND Research has shown that organizations can foster employee creativity by providing an environment that is fruitful for creativity. In such an environment, for example, attention may be given to personnel selection as well as job design (e.g., Oldham & Cummings, 1996; Unsworth et al., 2005), leadership styles (e.g., Hughes et al., 2018), organizational values and climate (e.g., Anderson et al., 2014; Goncalo & Staw, 2006), and teamwork and composition (e.g., Goncalo & Duguid, 2012; Hülsheger et al., 2009; MironSpektor et al., 2011; Paulus & Yang, 2000; Sung & Choi, 2012). Traditionally, such studies have primarily adopted a top-down perspective in which relatively distal predictors of creativity (i.e., factors that are relatively far away from the creative process) are examined as antecedents of creative performance. However, such factors are less likely to explain daily, intra-individual variations in creative performance. Indeed, while selecting employees on certain personality characteristics and providing favorable work conditions may certainly offer a fruitful basis for creativity to arise, it may not always be sufficient to elicit actual creativity. More specifically, even individuals who, for example, are open to new experiences, have a considerable amount of autonomy in their work, and who are surrounded by helpful and inspiring colleagues, do not achieve the same level of creativity every day. In line with this, we direct attention to the proposition that creativity research can benefit from an additional way to unleash creativity, namely the self-regulating potential of employees who proactively stimulate their own creativity on a daily basis (Op den Kamp et al., 2020; De Stobbeleir et al., 2011). In support of this perspective, research has shown that proactively seeking feedback helps individuals to perform more creatively (De Stobbeleir et al., 2011; Harrison & Dossinger, 2017). De Stobbeleir et al., (2011) hinted towards the potential role of other self-regulatory, goal-driven, and proactive behaviors in the creative process. In line with this, more recent studies have linked the use of proactive vitality management to creative performance (Bakker et al., 2020; Op den Kamp et al., 2018, 2020). In the current research, we dive deeper into the proactive vitality management process and examine how it may be used by individuals to create a favorable, cognitive mindset for creativity on a day-to-day basis. 5
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