Abstract: Although perceived organizational support has been viewed to be an important antecedent of employee creativity, the extant findings are inconsistency. Based mainly on the self-enhancement perspective, social comparison, and social exchange theory, this article explicated the influencing processes of perceived organizational support on employee creativity, empirically tested the moderating role of relative perceived organizational support, and the nonlinear relationship between affective commitment and employee creativity. Using a sample from 458 supervisor-subordinate dyads, the results showed that relative perceived organizational support significantly moderated the relationship between perceived organizational support and employee creativity, the relationship between affective commitment and employee creativity is inverted U-shaped, and there is an instantaneous indirect effect of perceived organizational support on creativity via affective commitment. These furthered the mechanisms underlying the perceived organizational support and its boundary conditions, and deepened the analysis between affective commitment and employee creativity.

Key words: perceived organizational support, relative perceived organizational support, affective commitment, creativity