A Longitudinal Investigation of the Relationship Between Weekly Group Affective Tone and Next-Week Team Creativity via Temporal Team Regulatory Focus: The Moderating Role of Person-Group Fit

Drawing on the dynamic perspective of regulatory focus theory, this study posits that weekly fluctuations in group affective tone (GAT) influence team creativity in the following week through distinct forms of team regulatory focus. Additionally, we theorized that person-group fit (P-G fit) moderates the dynamic relationships among weekly GAT, temporal team regulatory focus, and subsequent team creativity. Using a weekly experience sampling method (ESM), we collected longitudinal data from 58 teams over 4 weeks, yielding 173 weekly team responses. The results of multilevel path-analyses indicated that: (a) weekly PGAT is positively related to temporal team promotion focus, which in turn increases next-week team creativity; (b) weekly NGAT reduces next-week team creativity through increasing temporal team prevention focus, and P-G fit strengthens this indirect effect. Notably, this study also tested and ruled out the reverse causal relationship between team creativity and GAT, thereby providing a more rigorous examination of the proposed model.