Disentangling the relations among help-givers' instrumental helping ties, creativity, and creative idea implementation: A social network perspective

How does the instrumental helping provided by individuals contribute to their creativity and subsequent implementation of creative ideas? This study aims to answer this question by investigating the relationship between help-givers' helping strength and idea implementation, with a focus on disaggregating instrumental helping ties into helping strength and helping breadth from a social network perspective. In addition, the present work explores the mediating role of creativity and the moderating role of helping breadth in this relationship. The sample for this study consisted of 206 R&D employees from an engineering technology research centre. The results indicated that helping strength exhibited a direct inverted U-shaped relationship with idea implementation and an indirect relationship through the mediating effect of creativity. Findings also demonstrated that helping breadth moderates the relationship between helping strength and idea implementation, with a shape-flip effect. Specifically, when helping breadth was low, helping strength had an inverted U-shaped relationship with idea implementation, whereas when helping breadth was high, the relationship shifted to a U-shape. This study offers theoretical and practical insights into an intricate mechanism that underlies the contingent connections among help-givers' instrumental helping ties, creativity, and idea implementation.