Faith at work: the hidden costs of religious dissimilarity for conflict and creativity

Purpose The purpose of this study is to explore whether perceived religious dissimilarity between supervisors and their subordinates reduce employees’ creative idea sharing by increasing relationship conflicts. This study also intended to explore whether organizational collaborative culture attenuates the negative effects of perceived religious dissimilarity, and relationship conflicts on employees’ creative idea sharing. Design/methodology/approach Data were collected from employees and supervisors working in a large organization where religious identity is part of their routine life. The collected data was run a confirmatory factor analysis to ensure the measurement model worked properly. The hypotheses were then tested using structural equation modeling and bootstrap tests for mediation, moderation and the conditional indirect effects with MPlus. Findings The results showed that perceived religious dissimilarity increases relationship conflict within supervisor-subordinate relationship, which in turn reduces employees’ willingness to share creative ideas. Relationship conflicts also fully mediated the relationship between dissimilar religious orientation and creative idea sharing, pointing to its central role. Organizational collaborative culture attenuates the negative effects of relationship conflicts on creative idea sharing, helping the organizations to maintain the creative capacity even when tensions are high due to religious dissimilarity. Practical implications The results explained the need for the organizations to build a collaborative culture that can attenuates the negative effects of relational conflicts emerge due to dissimilar religious orientation. Managers and HR teams should pay attention to the relational challenges that religious diversity may introduce and take steps to promote inclusive practices. Investing in conflict-management support and practices that encourage open communication can help protect both creativity and innovation. Originality/value The study shows that religious dissimilarity between the supervisor and the subordinates can act as a particularly strong identity divide, shaping conflict and creative idea sharing, however, organizational collaborative culture attenuates the negative effects of religious dissimilarity, relationship conflicts on creative idea sharing. Building on different theoretical perspectives together in a moderated mediation model allows for a clearer understanding of how relational conflicts develop and when these conflicts effect sharing of creative ideas.