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Advances in Social Sciences Research Journal – Vol. 8, No. 8
Publication Date: August 25, 2021
DOI:10.14738/assrj.88.10598. Balogun, S. K., Attah, T., & Famakinde, O. P. (2021). Familial Factors Influencing Creativity Among Married Employees of Financial
Technology Organisations in Lagos. Advances in Social Sciences Research Journal, 8(8). 587-599.
Services for Science and Education – United Kingdom
Familial Factors Influencing Creativity Among Married
Employees of Financial Technology Organisations in Lagos
Shyngle K. BALOGUN
Department of Psychology, University of Ibadan, Nigeria
Thomas ATTAH
Department of Psychology, University of Ibadan, Nigeria
Oluwafemi P. FAMAKINDE
Department of Psychology, University of Ibadan, Nigeria
ABSTRACT
Creativity in the workplace is absolutely essential, especially in a financial
technology organization in today’s global society. A detailed literature review
reveals unclear connection of creativity with some family-related variables among
married employees. This study is a further exploration to establish the role of
familial factors such as commitment to marriage, marital satisfaction, religiosity
and familism in the creativity of FINTECH employees in Lagos, Nigeria. The research
was a cross-sectional survey of married employees within FINTECH organizations
in Lagos. 224 married employees (135 are males) were conveniently sampled to
respond to a structured questionnaire of six sections made up of validated scales
that measured constructs of marital commitment, marital satisfaction, religiosity,
familism and creativity. Three hypotheses were tested using Pearson product
moment correlation, multiple regression analysis and t-test for independent
samples at pα.05. Creativity for FINTECH employees has a significant positive
relationship with marital commitment (r=.468, p<.01), marital satisfaction (r=.224,
p<.01), religiosity (r=.328, p<.01) and familism (r=.452, p<.01). Psychological
factors (commitment to marriage, familism, marital satisfaction and religiosity)
have a significant joint influence on employee creativity (F (4, 223) = 24.766, p <.01;
R2 = .295) and a significant independent contribution of commitment to marriage
and familism to employee creativity [(β = .358, p <.01); (β = .287, p <.01)
respectively]. There are no significant gender differences in employee creativity (t
(217) = 1.656, p > .05). This confirms the hypothesized heightened relationship of
familial factors with creativity of employees, especially FINTECH employees. This
study rather brings a new suggestion that organizations should not just focus on the
conditions of work at the office, or the pay of their employees only, but also give
attention to the state of the family of their employees as this influences their
abilities to deliver innovative ideas and lofty solutions to nutty problems within the
work environment.
Keywords: Creativity, Commitment to marriage, Familism, FINTECH employees
Word count: 303
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Advances in Social Sciences Research Journal (ASSRJ) Vol. 8, Issue 8, August-2021
Services for Science and Education – United Kingdom
INTRODUCTION
Creativity is said to be critical competency for 21st century organization; which helps in
leadership and adaptation to change (Cekmecelioglu & Gunsel, 2013). Creativity is also said to
be critical for organizations’ survival and competitiveness (George & Zhou, 2002; Zhou, 1998).
Employees’ creativity is very germane in the overall performance of any organization. This is
especially true in this dynamic and competitive environment as found within the Financial
Technology (FINTECH) organisations; thus, every employee needs to be creative and ground- breaking in conduct of their duties.
Display of creativity by employees in any organizations may have to do with familial orientation
of the concerned employees. This is so because, being married places some demands on an
individual in addition to being committed to their job. However, married employees might find
it more challenging to be creative at work compared to any other marital status, as there could
be familial factors that may influence work outcome of which creativity is not an exception; and
these familial factors might be marital instability or poor quality of marriage of the respective
married employees. This assertion is in line with the work of Tang, Huang and Wang (2017)
that proposed and tested the idea that a satisfying marriage increases a spillover of
psychological resources from family to work that enhances creativity in employees. Tang et al.,
(2017) also reported positive relationship between marital satisfaction and creativity at
workplace. This finding suggests that certain marital-related variables could either enhance or
reduce creativity among married employees.
Creativity in the workplace is absolutely important. If employees can apply creative thinking to
their everyday work life, such an employee will find that not only will the day stop feeling like
drudgery, but the employee will be unlocking more meaningful opportunities. And this does
not just go for employees, but for managers as well. In fact, managers have the ability to be the
conductors of creativity in their subordinates. Being creative in the workplace goes far beyond
making the prettiest spreadsheet or the most colorful PowerPoint presentation. Instead, there
are two main ways that creativity is absolutely needed in the workplace: creative thinking and
creative problem solving. Creative thinking is pretty simple to define, but a bit harder to
implement. Basically, if you are a creative thinker, it means that you come up with ideas that
are entirely unique. On one hand, employees who are creative thinkers understand that a
person’s talent is best used to make results that might come from unordinary circumstances;
which could be possible by taking some risks in workplace. On the other hand, creative problem
solving comes into play when employees attempt to fix an issue that has many possible
resolutions; examine these solutions and come out with the best solutions that are completely
new and interesting with cutting edge advantages.
Undoubtedly, employee creativity is crucial for the growth and development of any
organization. For example, within the FINTECH (Financial Technology) organisation which has
to do with how new technology or innovation is replacing traditional ways of conducting
financial transactions, characterized by high levels of competition, being creative as employees
is a key survival strategy. FINTECH have also helped in digitizing processes that were
previously handled with paper money and human interaction. The term financial technology
can apply to any innovation in how people transact business, from the invention of digital
money to double-entry bookkeeping. The word FINTECH is a combination of the words
“financial technology”. While the term has been around for several years, it seems that 2015 is
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Balogun, S. K., Attah, T., & Famakinde, O. P. (2021). Familial Factors Influencing Creativity Among Married Employees of Financial Technology
Organisations in Lagos. Advances in Social Sciences Research Journal, 8(8). 587-599.
URL: http://dx.doi.org/10.14738/assrj.88.10598
really the year that this fledgling sector of the larger financial services space finally came to be
recognized.
FINTECH is the major cause of all the recent disruptions being experienced in the Nigerian
financial sector today (with the likes of ALAT & *737-Nigeria and Wari, MTN money). Now you
can access top-notch financial services without stepping into a banking hall. FINTECH uses
technology in a better way to make people feel convenient living in the modern age. FINTECH
helps people who are financially excluded, but desire to buy or sell online have access to quick
and affordable banking transaction just by using a mobile phone, tablets or any other hand held
devices. With the rapid adaptation of card payments in Nigeria, platforms like Flutterwave,
Wari, E-money, and Paystack are playing the lead role in making it easy for businesses to start
accepting online payments with the click of a button, while other Brand such as the Baxi box,
Flooz money, Sigue, Paga as well as Pocket Moni are making impact in the mass market space,
driving convenient payments as well as financial inclusion, all coming into limelight through
high level of creativity from employees within these organizations.
Employee’s ability to initiate and produce idea or work that is both original and timely in
workplace is important for employees. Among other definitions of employee creativity, Plucker,
Beghetto and Dow (2004) defined creativity to be an interaction among aptitude, process and
environment by which a person or a group of persons produces a noticeable product or service
that is both novel and useful to the organization. Creativity is simply the generation of novel
and useful idea (Amabile, 1988; 1996). Being creative could be challenging if an employee is
married; considering some family-related issues that could be conflicting with work activities
and hinder creativity in him or her; especially if there is marital instability. In other words,
marital dynamics could be central to married employees’ readiness to engage in work activities,
which are vibrant to the creative process in workplace.
Several factors have been reported to have influence on employee creativity across the globe.
For instance, Moghimi and Subramanian (2013) reported influence of organizational climate
on employee creativity and innovation. In their own study, Shalley, Zhou and Oldham (2004)
reviewed empirical studies on personal and contextual variables that have affected employee
creativity; and they emphasized on the need for further research on the potential benefits of
employee creativity and identify its various antecedents. It was then suggested that it would be
desirous to look into other possible variables that could influence creativity in organization. An
extensive review of literature reveals an unclear association between some family-related
psychological variables and level of creativity among married employees.
High creativity in married employees may have the supportive networks of family. In other
words, creativity in married employees may flourish perhaps; when they are highly committed
to their marriages. For instance, Graves, Ohlott and Ruderman (2007) reported that marital role
commitment was associated with increased enhancement in work-related outcomes. This
explains that commitment to marriage is important as a factor to ensuring stability in family- work life. Amato and DeBoer (2001) defined commitment to marriage as a tendency to stay in
a marriage even when encountering marital difficulty. In other words, commitment to marriage
is the propensity for a spouse to vow not to quit a marriage irrespective of any challenge he or
she faces. Commitment to marriage may serve as a booster to marriage stability and reduce
divorce. It may also help in reducing problems in marriage; especially when a spouse is taking