Expatriate Academics’ Positive Affectivity and Its Influence on Creativity in the Workforce Indigenization Context: Revealing the Role of Perceived Fairness

Workforce indigenization in Gulf Corporation Council (GCC) countries is under-researched in international business literature, especially among expatriate academics from the Middle East and North Africa regions working in GCC countries. Therefore, drawing from the social exchange and conservation of resources theories, this study examines the moderating effect of perceived fairness on the relationship between positive affectivity (PA) and creativity in the context of enhanced indigenization of human resource (HR) policies in GCC countries. This study collects data from 228 mobile academics working in Saudi universities. Principal least squares structural equation modeling results show that PA positively impacts creativity. Further, perceived fairness is found to reinforce the connection between PA and creativity. This study’s results indicate that host universities must build appealing HR policies to cope with the diverse challenges related to the indigenization of HR policies. Furthermore, this study highlights the role of positive personality traits in enhancing creativity.