Constraints as catalysts: a model of emotional intelligence, team learning, and team resilience, in driving...

The study explains the relationships among perceived constraints, creative solutions, and innovation team practices in tourism organizations operating in fragile, resource-scarce, and conflict-affected settings in the Amhara region, Ethiopia. Based on resilience theory and team learning theory, the research develops a complex conceptual model explaining how perceived constraints affect individual creativity and team practice in innovation via emotional intelligence, team learning, and team resilience. The study employed a cross-sectional quantitative research design and collected data via a survey administered to 287 respondents from tourism enterprises. The tourism organizations were selected using a purposive sampling method, combined with proportional and simple random sampling, from businesses located in the Amhara region. A PLS-SEM with 5,000 bootstrap resamples was used for analysis. It is found that perceived constraints do not affect both creative solution and innovation team practice. Instead, emotional intelligence fully mediates the relationship between perceived constraints and creative solutions. The mediating effect of team learning on the association between perceived constraints and team resilience is significant. The mediating effect of team resilience on the association between team learning and innovation team practices is also significant. In addition, a sequentially mediated effect of team learning and team resilience was found to be significant. This study advances the "constraints-as-enablers" perspective by demonstrating that constraints influence creativity and innovation indirectly through psychological capabilities and adaptive team processes, thereby extending resilience and team learning theories in fragile, resource-constrained tourism contexts.