Background. Employee creativity is always needed in this ever-changing environment, especially in profit making companies. In order to stand out among the competitors, proactivity and creativity become the requirements for marketing employees to reach top performance. This research tried to investigate predictors of creativity. Previous research on predictors of creativity can be divided into two, namely individual and contextual factors. The current research focused on both individual and contextual factors, because research showed that the interaction between personality and environmental factors determined employee behavior. Proactive personality was one of the individual factors that was examined in relation to creativity. However, most research found proactive personality accounted for small variance of creativity. Thus, there are underlying mechanisms to be found in the relationship between proactive personality and creativity. Based on conservation of resources theory (COR theory; Hobfoll, 1989), we argue that feedback-seeking behavior may underlie the relationship between proactive personality and creativity. However, the mediating effect of feedback-seeking behavior is moderated by task feedback, such that the mediating effect of feedback-seeking behavior in proactive personality and creativity is significant when the task feedback is positive than when the task feedback is negative.

Methods. In this study, we collected sample from 261 marketing employees from many companies in Indonesia. Data were collected by using questionnaires. We collected the predictor, mediator, and moderator variables using self-report survey, and creativity variable was collected using supervisor-rated survey. The data were analyzed using Hayes’ PROCESS macro on SPSS program.

Results. The results indicate that feedback-seeking behavior mediates the relationship between proactive personality and employee creativity. Task feedback moderates the relationship between proactive personality and feedback-seeking behavior, such that indirect effect of feedback-seeking behavior becomes nonsignificant when the task feedback is negative than when the feedback is positive.

Conclusions. This research contributes to creativity literature by identifying feedback-seeking behavior as the mediator on the relationship between proactive personality and employee creativity.

Added-values. By examining both mediating and moderating effects, the research contributes to the literature by uncovering the underlying psychological processes on proactive personality-creativity relationship, namely feedback-seeking behavior and task feedback.

Contribution to society. This study has several contributions both theoretical and practical. First, we integrate individual and contextual factors of creativity by offering feedback-related variables (feedback-seeking behavior and negative task feedback) as important psychological mechanisms relating proactivity and creativity. Second, for practical implications, the results of this study could help managers or organizations to create supportive environments for employee to enhance creativity by carefully using feedback. Third, to the best of our knowledge, most research on creativity was conducted in Western context, and this study enriched the knowledge about creativity from the non-Western context.

Keywords: proactive personality; employee creativity; feedback-seeking behavior; task feedback; marketing employees.

Word count: 501 words