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The purpose of this paper is to explore the Brazilian managers’ attitudes toward older workers, and how those attitudes explain HRM decisions in hypothetical scenarios.

Brazilian managers (n=201) reported their attitudes toward older workers and their decisions in scenarios involving an older vs a younger applicant/worker.

In spite of expressing positive attitudes toward older workers, a significant number of managers chose a younger one even when the older worker is described as more productive. To build a better understanding of how attitudes predict decisions, it is necessary to identify attitudinal profiles and the interplay between attitudinal dimensions, rather than simply studying each dimension separately. Attitudinal profiling also shows that some managers discriminate against younger workers, a finding, that is, ignored when (only) regressions are taken into account. The managers’ attitudes and behavioral intentions relate with their age. Evidence does not support the double jeopardy effect against older women workers.

The sample is small. The scenarios cover a reduced number of HRM decisions. The data about attitudes and decisions were collected simultaneously from a single source. The findings may be influenced by idiosyncrasies of the context. Future studies should also consider real situations, not hypothetical ones.

Efforts must be made (e.g. via training and development) to raise managers’ awareness about the consequences of ageism in organizations.

Empirical studies about managers’ perceptions/attitudes toward older workers are scarce. Studies in the Brazilian context are even scarcer.

The purpose of the paper is to test whether retail stores’ creativity predicts several indicators of performance through stores’ potency.

A sample of 45 stores (n = 317 employees) of a Brazilian retail chain was included, and a group/store level of analysis was adopted. Performance was measured through objective measures. To reduce the risks of common method variance, group creativity and group potency were measured with data from different store members.

The findings show that store creativity predicts indicators of store performance through store potency.

The study was carried out within a single organization, and the stores’ sample is small. Other causalities are plausible, and future studies should adopt a longitudinal design to test reciprocal effects between the variables of the study.

Cultivating creativity (via the selection of creative individuals and nurturing contextual conditions that encourage creativity) may have at least indirect effects on store performance.

While the few empirical studies relating group creativity (still an under-researched topic) and performance have mostly used subjective performance measures, this study uses objective measures.

The purpose of this paper is to study if the employees’ optimism-pessimism ratio predicts their creativity.

In total, 134 employees reported their optimism and pessimism, and the respective supervisors described the employees’ creativity.

The relationship between the optimism-pessimism ratio and creativity is curvilinear (inverted U-shaped); beyond a certain level of the optimism-pessimism ratio, the positive relationship between the ratio and creativity weakens, suggesting that the possible positive effects of (high) optimism may be weakened by a very low level of pessimism.

Being cross-sectional, the study examines neither the causal links between the optimism-pessimism ratio and creativity nor other plausible causal links. The study was carried out at a single moment and did not capture the dynamics that occur over the course of time involving changes in optimism/pessimism and creativity. Future studies may adopt longitudinal or quasi-experimental designs.

Managers and organizations must consider that, even though positivity promotes creativity, some level of negativity may help positivity to produce creativity.

This study suggests that scholars who want to study the antecedents of creativity (and innovation) must be cautious in focusing only on the positive or the negative sides of individuals’ characteristics, and rather they must explore the interplay between both poles. Individuals may experience both positive and negative states/traits (Smith et al., 2016), and this both/and approach may impel them to think divergently, to challenge the status quo and to propose “out the box” and useful ideas.

The purpose of this paper is to show how store positive affective tone predicts store performance (i.e. sales achievement) through creativity, and how store negative affective tone enhances the relationship between positive affective tone and creativity.

A sample of 94 stores of a Brazilian retail chain is used to test the model. Store supervisors reported (October 2011) the store's affective tone and creativity relative to the last six months. Three periods are considered for measuring performance: the last six months (May to October 2011), the preceding four months (January to April 2011), and the subsequent semester (November 2011 to April 2012).

The main findings are: positive affective tone predicts the stores’ performance through the mediating role of creativity, even after controlling the effects of preceding stores’ performance; negative affective tone makes the relationship between positive affective tone and creativity stronger.

The paper empirically validates theory suggesting that creativity may be a source of retail stores’ competitive advantage, and shows that fostering positive affective tone may be a pathway to promote creativity. The paper also suggests that negative affective tone is not necessarily a “problem”; rather, it can be used to enhance the favorable impact of positive affective tone upon creativity. These are important contributions for the retailing literature, considering that creativity (mainly at the team and organizational level) in that field is understudied. It is also an important contribution to the literature on the services sector, in which research on creativity is scarce.