Divine Limitation or Enabler? Understanding How Religion Influences the Relationship Between Ethics and Creativity

Our study makes three contributions to the literature. First, we contribute to business ethics by elaborating theory on the construct of relational moralization as a process between individuals and God, rather than two individuals, where ethical considerations are integrated into the relationship. In so doing, we find relational moralization leads to a more nuanced view of the ethics-creativity relationship where ethics acts as a double-edged sword that both limits the domain of creativity and enables innovation within this domain, resulting in a form of relationally bounded creativity based on relational obedience to God. Second, we further contribute to the literature on business ethics by highlighting the potential positive aspects of obedience. While prior research largely focuses on obedience as destructive or ‘evil’ (Pina e Cunha et al., 2010), we find obedience can also be potentially constructive, especially when the source of authority is an altruistic God (Dyck, 2014), who can be known, and with whom relational obligations develop. Finally, we contribute back to the literature on intimate co-creation. While theory identifies the role of a shared interpersonal boundary of the dyad, we elaborate theory empirically by moving from a shared boundary to a relational identity and schemas (servant and co-creator) in intimate co-creation.