It is all about the bottom line: Group bottom-line mentality, psychological safety, and group creativity

Abstract

We examine bottom-line mentality (BLM) at the group level and examine the effect of group BLM on group psychological safety and subsequent group creativity. We draw on goal shielding theory to suggest that groups high in BLM narrowly focus on bottom-line outcomes, which encourages them to eliminate distracting considerations from their work processes. Because the group's high BLM encapsulates goal shielding, these groups are deficient in fostering psychological safety as an important interpersonal process that facilitates group creativity. We also couple goal shielding theory with arguments related to situational strength to examine group BLM agreement (i.e., the standard deviation of the mean of group BLM) as a first stage moderator. We contend that high-BLM agreement (vs. low agreement) strengthens the goal shielding effect of group BLM, which is reflected by a stronger detrimental effect on group psychological safety that then reduces group creativity. We found support for our theoretical model using multisource, multiwave field data from a diverse sample of workgroups and their supervisors. We discuss the theoretical implications of our research and provide practical suggestions for limiting the deleterious consequences of group BLMs in the workplace.