Alive and creating: the mediating role of vitality and aliveness in the relationship between psychological safety and creative work involvement

Individual involvement in creative work is of crucial importance for organizations in a knowledge-based economy. This study examined how psychological safety induces feelings of vitality and how feelings of vitality impact one's involvement in creative work. We examined these relationships among 128 part-time graduate students who held managerial and nonmanagerial position in their work organizations. The results suggest that employees' sense of psychological safety is significantly associated with feelings of vitality (both collected at time 1), which, in turn, result in involvement in creative work (collected at time 2). We discuss the implications of these findings for both theory and practice. Copyright (C) 2008 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.