Creating A Creative State of Mind: Promoting Creativity Through Proactive Vitality Management and Mindfulness

Most research on employee creativity has been focused on relatively distal antecedents, such as personality or job characteristics, which has resulted in top-down organizational approaches to promote employee creativity. However, such approaches overlook the self-regulating potential of employees and may not explain intraindividual fluctuations in creativity. In the present research, we build on proactive motivation theory to examine how employees may promote their own creativity on a daily basis through the use of proactive vitality management (PVM). To better understand the PVM-creativity link, we zoom in on this process by examining the role of mindfulness as an underlying mechanism. In two daily diary studies, employees from the United States (N = 133 persons, n = 521 data points) and the creative industry in Germany (N = 62 persons, n = 232 data points) reported on their use of PVM and states of mindfulness for five consecutive workdays. Additionally, participants completed a daily creativity test (brainstorming task) in Study 1, whereas supervisors rated participants' daily creative work performance in Study 2. In both studies, multilevel analyses showed that daily PVM was positively related to creative performance through daily mindfulness, supporting our hypotheses. These replicated findings suggest that individuals may bring themselves in a cognitive, creative state of mind on a daily basis, emphasizing the importance of proactive behavior in the creative process

Proactive vitality management in the work context

In the present research, we use proactivity literature and studies on energy at work to argue that individuals may proactively manage their vitality (i.e., physical and mental energy) to promote optimal functioning at work. We develop and validate a scale to measure proactive vitality management (PVM), and explore the nomological network. We conducted a five-day diary study (N = 133; 521 days), a survey study (N = 813) and a cross-sectional study measuring daily PVM (N = 246) among working individuals from various occupational sectors. The results show that PVM can be reliably measured with eight items that load on one overall factor, both on general and daily level. Furthermore, daily PVM was moderately but positively related to the use of work-related strategies and micro-breaks. Moreover, PVM related positively to relevant personal characteristics (i.e., proactive personality and self-insight) and showed moderate but positive relationships with job crafting and relaxation (convergent validity). PVM was unrelated to psychological detachment and decreasing hindering demands (discriminant validity). Finally, PVM was positively related to well-being, in-role work performance, creative work performance and performance on the Remote Associates Test (criterion validity). We conclude that employees may promote their own work performance through the use of PVM

Proactive vitality management and creative work performance: The role of self-insight and social support

Integrating proactivity and creativity literatures, we argue that people can perform more creatively at work w

Relocation of inadequate resection margins in the wound bed during oral cavity oncological surgery: A feasibility study

Background: Specimen-driven intraoperative assessment of the resection margins provides immediate feedback if an additional excision is needed. However, relocation of an inadequate margin in the wound bed has shown to be difficult. The objective of this study is to assess a reliable method for accurate relocation of inadequate tumor resection margins in the wound bed after intraoperative assessment of the specimen. Methods: During oral cavity cancer surgery, the surgeon placed numbered tags on both sides of the resection line in a pair-wise manner. After resection, one tag of each pair remained on the specimen and the other tag in the wound bed. Upon detection of an inadequate margin in the specimen, the tags were used to relocate this margin in the wound bed. Results: The method was applied during 80 resections for oral cavity cancer. In 31 resections an inadequate margin was detected, and based on the paired tagging an accurate additional resection was achieved. Conclusion: Paired tagging facilitates a reliable relocation of inadequate margins, enabling an accurate additional resection during the initial surgery