Daily creative clashes in organizations: how, when, and for whom daily task conflict shapes employee idea generation

This study examines the extent to which, how, and when task conflict is associated with employees’ day-to-day idea generation. Drawing on Conservation of Resources theory, we hypothesized a nonlinear within-person association between task conflict and idea generation, mediated by daily job crafting and moderated by regulatory emotional self-efficacy beliefs in managing negative emotions at work. We tested our hypotheses using a 31-day diary study of 142 employees who completed a baseline questionnaire assessing self-efficacy beliefs and end-of-day surveys measuring task conflict, job crafting, and idea generation. Daily task conflict was nonlinearly associated with short-term idea generation through daily job crafting, contingent on self-efficacy beliefs. Employees with high regulatory emotional self-efficacy were especially likely to engage in job crafting and generate new ideas on days characterized by high (rather than low or moderate) task conflict, reflecting an accelerating increase in these behaviours as conflict intensified. This study identifies job crafting as a behavioural mechanism that helps explain how task conflict is associated with idea generation at the within-person level and clarifies the personal boundary conditions of this relationship. These findings offer theoretical and practical insights into how organizations may support employee idea generation amid day-to-day task conflict.