The effect of fear culture in the workplace on employee creativity and motivation

Fear which is one of the strongest emotions, has the potential to affect individual creativity and motivation by suppressing employees psychologically and sociologically. Fear can sometimes push a person to look for the impossible and find it. Creativity and motivation are among the issues that managers take into account because they affect the financial results of the organization. The aim of this study is to examine the effect of fear culture on motivation and creativity in organizations. In this context, a questionnaire consisting of "Culture of Fear Scale, Individual Creativity Scale and Motivational Tools Scale" questions was applied to 466 people from public and private sector employees in Mersin and Ankara provinces. The research datas were analyzed using the structural equation modeling in SPSS and Lisrel. In the research, three main hypotheses have been established that test the effect of fear culture on creativity, intrinsic and extrinsic motivation. The hypotheses were tested by structural equation modeling. Besides, whether the culture of fear creates a demographic and sector-specific difference was examined by performing the t-test and ANOVA. According to the research results, the culture of fear negatively affects the intrinsic and extrinsic motivation statistically. In addition, it has been found that the culture of fear also affects creativity in a statistically significant and negative way. By managing the culture of fear in organizations, the employee should not be seen as a punitive tool.