Teacher's engagement in creativity: The role of school middle leaders' values, team diversity and team knowledge self-efficacy

The current research examines an innovative theoretical model to determine how school middle leaders' personal attributes affect a teacher's engagement in the team's creative process—a necessary step toward creativity. I argue that middle leaders' values (conservatism vs. openness to change) may affect teachers' perceptions of their team's diversity, which in turn may affect team knowledge self-efficacy and engagement in creativity. Data were collected from 256 teams consisting of 256 middle leaders and 871 teachers, from 84 Israeli Arab middle and high schools. Results showed that middle leaders' values have different effects on teachers' (in a team) perceptions of team diversity: openness to change had a positive effect on perceptions of deep-level diversity and conservative values positively affected perceptions of surface-level diversity. Perceptions of deep-level diversity positively affected engagement in creativity and knowledge self-efficacy, and perceptions of surface-level diversity negatively affected knowledge self-efficacy. Furthermore, indirect effects were found between middle leaders' openness to change and engagement in creativity through perceptions of diversity and knowledge self-efficacy. Theoretical and practical implications are discussed.