The impact of generative artificial intelligence (GenAI) usage patterns on employee creativity

Area of Science:

• Artificial Intelligence
• Organizational Behavior
• Human-Computer Interaction

Background:

• Generative AI (GenAI) is revolutionizing innovation in the workplace.
• Prior research primarily focused on GenAI adoption and usage frequency, neglecting its impact on creativity types.

Purpose of the Study:

• To investigate the differential effects of exploitative and exploratory GenAI use on incremental and radical creativity.
• To examine the mediating role of knowledge integration capability and the moderating role of task complexity in these relationships.

Main Methods:

• An exploratory empirical study utilizing a three-wave lagged survey design.
• Data collected from 381 matched employees in knowledge-intensive firms in China.
• A model grounded in the exploration-exploitation framework was developed and tested.

Main Results:

• Exploitative GenAI use positively correlates more with incremental creativity than radical creativity.
• Exploratory GenAI use positively correlates more with radical creativity than incremental creativity.
• Knowledge integration capability critically mediates these relationships, and task complexity positively moderates them.

Conclusions:

• This study enhances the theoretical understanding of human-AI co-creativity.
• Provides empirical evidence for organizational strategies regarding GenAI implementation to foster specific types of employee creativity.