نقش اشتراک دانش و LMX برای ارتقاء خلاقیت کارکنان در تیم کارگاه تم پارک: مطالعه موردی تایوان The role of knowledge sharing and LMX to enhance employee creativity in theme park work team: A case study of Taiwan

Introduction Milman (2001) indicated theme parks are the favorite modes of mass entertainment in mature markets worldwide and are star players in the tourism industry (Cheng et al., 2014). However, they must continue to change because business environment changes rapidly (Fotiadis and Vassiliadis, 2016). In the few past decades, researchers have conducted in-depth studies on the use of creativity in various industries; managers, especially those in the tourism industry, have strived to encourage employees to increase their creativity at the workplace (Hon et al., 2013). Previous researchers paid more attention to discussing visitors’ behavior in theme park industry (e.g., Fotiadis and Vassiliadis, 2016). For example, Cheng et al. (2014) indicated that there are seven factors influencing visitor brand-switching behavior. Frontline employees are important to ensure customer satisfaction (Bitner et al., 1990). Creativity is the key to enhance the competitive edge for an organization as it is regarded as the first step toward innovation (Shalley at al., 2004). Therefore, how to promote the confidence of employees in contributing new or novel ideas is crucial for innovation in an organization. However, there is research that explores how to increase employees’ creativity capabilities in the theme park industry. The study investigated how knowledge and leadership stimulate the generation of creativity, thereby promoting TI and building their competitive advantage. To explore this issue, this study adopted theory of social exchange, knowledge management (KM), and social learning. Our research variables based on related literature, built the relationships among those variables, and then proposed a theoretical framework (Figure 1) based on those relationships. Knowledge is considered to generate, enhance, and facilitate creativity (e.g., Amabile, 1988; Williams and Foti, 2011). The empirical study by Tsai et al. (2015) indicated that KS could improve students’ creative performance, especially for tourism and hospitality management. Most studies have explored KS and creativity at team, organization, or staff level (e.g., Zhang et al., 2011; Carmeli and Paulus, 2014), though few studies have explored KS from a multi-level perspective (Liu et al., 2011). Furthermore, it remains unknown whether the relationship between KS and EC differs with differing levels of KS. We try to link this space, which is its first contribution. Our second contribution is to explore how KS enhances EC. Although KS can enhance EC, the path toward creativity is uncertain, which reduces employees’ confidence in contributing new ideas or processes, even when the employees have sufficient work-related knowledge and experience. To increase the confidence of employees in exhibiting high creativity, organizational or team factors might be more crucial than individual factors. For example, empirical evidence has revealed that organizations that support innovation also encourage EC (Erne et al., 2013; Hon and Lui, 2016). Studies have also revealed that high-quality LMX in a team or organization encourages employees to attempt risk-related tasks or to promote their work performance and attitude (e.g., Graen and Cashman, 1975; Janssen and Van Yperen, 2004; Wang, 2016). LMX stresses that supervisors should establish a unique social exchange relationship with each of their employees, and the relationships should be based on mutual respect and trust (Gerstner and Day, 1997). However, high quality-LMX is not always observed in teams and organization; thus, determining what benefits the LMX relationship is necessary.