A research led by Prof Xu Huang, Associate Dean (Research & Postgraduate Studies) of the School of Business, shows that there is a strong positive correlation between happy marriages and creativity at work.
The research investigates the impact of employees’ marriage experience on their work-related creativity. Based on data collected from 548 couples in China, the research team discovered that when employees are highly satisfied with their marriages, they are more likely to accumulate more “psychological resources”, which can energise them to engage in creative tasks at work that requires extra efforts and energy. Also, employees’ spouses play an important role in shaping the employees’ creativity. Employees will exhibit the highest level of creativity at work, when their spouse and they themselves both experience a high level of marital satisfaction. If their spouse is not happy with the marriage, even though they experience high marital satisfaction, they may not have sufficient “psychological resources” to engage in creative activities at work, perhaps, because they need to consume energy to deal with their “unhappy” spouse at home.
A research-related article “How a Strong Marriage Spices Up Your Creativity at Work” written by Prof Huang has been published in Jumpstart (https://www.jumpstartmag.com/31794-2/) on 30 July 2020.
