101 Proactive Vitality Management, Work Engagement, and Creativity this approach facilitates labor-intensive research designs, and results in heterogeneous samples at relatively low costs. Moreover, sincewe analyzed howwithin-person effects are different for groups scoring low versus high on goal orientations, we are less concerned about representative mean scores on the study variables. A third limitation of our study is the low reliability of the subscale intended to measure performance prove goal orientation. The low internal consistency did not allow us to investigate in a robust fashion how this goal orientation dimension would interact with proactive vitality management. Note, however, that the performance avoidance goal orientation dimension is arguably most different from learning goal orientation, and offered perhaps the best contrasting analysis. Indeed, our findings were consistent with our theoretical analysis. Nevertheless, it is interesting and relevant to test how performance-prove goal orientation interacts with proactive vitality management in the prediction of work engagement and creativity. Finally, we used self-reports of creativity, which is suboptimal, because participants may give socially desirable responses and indicate that they are creative. However, we analyzed changes in creativity, and focused on deviations from participants’ “baseline”. The fact that we analyzed how changes in self-reported creativity could be predicted by changes in work engagement and proactive vitality management means that social desirability cannot explain our findings. In addition, previous research has shown that self-rated creativity is positively related to biographical information about specific creative behaviors (e.g., designing gardens, writing stories, building websites, composing music; Batey & Furnham, 2008), and to expert-ratings of creativity (Kaufman, Beghetto, & Watson, 2016). Conclusion This study shows that employees can manage their own volatile resources, in the form of increasing positive affect, inspiration, and energy. In the weeks employees proactively managed their vitality, their work engagement was higher, as well as their creative performance. Particularly employees high in learning goal orientation seem to profit most from this process, whereas employees high in performance avoidance goal orientation seem to profit least. These findings underscore the importance of employee proactive initiatives. While employers are responsible for healthy working environments, employees are also responsible for their own vitality, and may mobilize their vitality proactively in order to stay engaged and be creative. 4
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