The methodology of door-knocking: Saudi household surveys on socioeconomics and learning technologies

Abstract Some academics endorse analysing societies’ symbolic forms. This article, therefore, inspects the symbol of door-knocking. It addresses the research question of what impacts data collection through door-knocking. This question was addressed as part of a household survey conducted in low-income Saudi neighbourhoods to study socioeconomics and learning technologies. This study involved recruiting 18 male and female Saudis to knock on 1300 doors. It showed positive and negative influences on data collection. Concerning negative influences, knockers and “knockees” were gendered—constrained by gender separation, societal and parental restrictions upon women and lack of gender confidence. Knockers were intimidated by doors’ assertive features, such as elaborate carvings, decorative cut-outs or colouring. They were frightened by doors’ defensive features, like thick doors with enormous frames, two front doors per house, high concrete walls and unnecessary stairs. They were uncomfortable—exhausted, emotionally distressed and concerned about hygiene and safety. Regarding positive influences, knockers and knockees were traditional, following Saudi negotiation, charity work, hospitality and generosity. Knockees were respectful, showing respect to knockers’ authority, rank and class. They were profit-oriented, appreciating financial and non-financial incentives. Saudi households were distinguishable through food smells, shoes, cars, stickers and plants. These influences constitute methodological grounds for future door-knocking.

Academic door-knocking
Academics collect data by using the method of door-knocking. However, very few have written about this experience in the methodology section, nor have they composed independent manuscripts dedicated to this experience (Brutto et al., 2005;Yu et al., 2012). The method of home-tohome outreach is customarily "embedded within the research process and rarely made explicit during the research itself or in subsequent publications" (Davies, 2011, p. 290). In consideration of this limitation, scholarly efforts should, as recommended by Hazel and Clark (2013), be put into "explicitising" the academic methodology of home-to-home data collection by theorising it and devoting manuscripts to its dynamics. Following this recommendation, this paper details an experience of door-knocking and deals with this experience as "data" (Davies, 2011, p. 290) that are to be analysed, interpreted, discussed and eventually published. A small number of academics have taken the initiative and reported on the experience of data collection through door visitation. For example, Von Wright (1988) viewed academic knocks from neurophysiological perspectives; in contrast, the current article views them from social and cultural standpoints. Hazel and Clark (2013) examined house-to-house research primarily from political viewpoints, whereas the current study perceives it from philosophical outlooks. Freeman (2000) and Davies (2011) applied first-person pronouns to share their personal, technical and diary-like reflections on academic door-knocking; however, the current work takes a step further in attempting to theorise this knocking. The article investigates door-knocking in more depth (beyond exploring the technicality and art of going door-to-door) to scrutinise its philosophy. Existing academic literature appears to be lacking with respect to the philosophising of door-knocking; hence, this article places knocking within a philosophical context.

Methodology
This publication studies the aspects of social reality grounded in the front door. It unearths the social dramas inherent in the front door, generating a narrative for what appears to be merely a passive, spatial piece of metal or wood. It addresses the question of what impacts data collection through door-knocking by examining an academic experience of door solicitation in the Saudi context. The solicitation involved around 1300 unannounced knocks on Saudi front doors to study socioeconomics and learning technologies. Four-months of knocking with an average of 11 knocks a day occurred in Dammam, the capital of the Eastern Province of Saudi Arabia. The household selection went through two stages. In stage one, low-income neighbourhoods were identified by consulting three charity organisations, who referred to nine neighbourhoods as inhabited by many low-income Saudi families. In stage two, houses in each neighbourhood were randomly selected at the same density rate, using satellite images. Satellite images were used due to the absence of address-list systems and published knowledge about neighbourhoods. The project's leading team consisted of Arab and non-Arab speakers. Hence, the decision was made to employ bilingual locals from a private university. Bilinguals, who can afford to study in private universities, tend to come from high-income families. Out of 102 female and 31 male applicants, ten women and eight men were accepted as data-collectors, that is, "knockers". The analysation of the collected data gave rise to four negative and four positive influences over data collection through door-knocking in the Saudi context. These influences are illustrated in Figure 1 and unpacked in the following sections.

Negative influences [findings]
This section addresses the first part of the research question, focusing on what negatively impacts the data collection by means of door-knocking.

Being gendered
Knockers and "knockees" (to borrow a term from Sims & Stephens, 2011) felt constrained by gender in three ways. The first way was gender separation; some were restricted by the cultural norm of gender segregation, whereby unrelated men and women cannot, traditionally, meet up. That is, households were more likely to participate in an interview if the interviewing was in line with the custom of gender separation. Yet, despite this custom, cross-gender interviewing occurred in special circumstances. First, one gender interviewed the other on the street outside the home. Second, men interviewed women inside the home in the presence of other family members, whether male or female, adult or child. Third, men interviewed female-headed households through their child, who acted as a go-between to deliver messages between the mother and interviewer, who sat in different rooms. Fourth, women interviewed men in the presence of their wives or a male researcher. Sixth, men interviewed women through a closed house door, making it difficult for them to hear each other through the door. Some women accepted being interviewed through a closed door because they were conservative; they were worried about safety, especially without the presence of a male member of the house. Some of these women had been locked in by their husbands, who had taken the door keys with them. Some of those who chose to be interviewed from behind a door were ashamed of the bad condition of their households and consequently did not want others to see inside. That said, the norm of gender separation made some men more desperate to socialise with women. Hence, at times, if a household head was male, he appeared to prefer to be interviewed in the presence of women because of flirtation and the novelty of talking with women. Some female-headed households were desperate for aid, and as such, some agreed to be interviewed by men as long as they would be helped by receiving the 14 USD reward for taking part in the interview, even though they were against gender mixing. Even though conservativism is the norm, very low-income households could not afford to act conservatively. Notwithstanding the social norm of gender separation, at times, male households agreed to be interviewed if the interviewer was female or accompanied by a woman. Perhaps because of that reason, the records show that female interviewers experienced less rejection than men. Sometimes, although male research assistants knocked on household doors and were refused, female research assistants who knocked on the same doors saw inhabitants change their minds and agree to participate.
Second, societal and parental restrictions on women constrained some knockers. As for societal restrictions, neighbourhoods are alienated into two zones: one for families and the other for male singles. It is generally stated in rent advertisements whether accommodation is for male singles or families. Single apartments are structured differently from family apartments. For example, for male singles' accommodation, each apartment has only one door, and the doors are close to one another. As for family accommodation, each apartment has two doors-one for family members and one for guests. Property owners build an entire apartment building and dedicate it to either male singles or families, and there is no mixing between the two types. In a male singles-only building, residents reported not liking it when a woman (here, a female interviewee) entered their building, as they observed that such behaviour brings negative attention. Female knockers never agreed to enter an apartment for single men or a house where there were only male family members. As for parental restrictions, many women were enthusiastic about working as research assistants for the project, but most of them knew that their parents would never allow them to knock on doors. Some women might have joined the project without telling their parents or might have told their parents at a later stage of the project. Some might even have told their parents that they were going to a shopping mall or campus while secretly conducting fieldwork.
The third way, a lack of gender confidence, made some knockers constrained by a lack of confidence with communicating with the other gender. Female students showed more confidence in door-knocking than their male counterparts, perhaps because women culturally spend more time in the house domain than men and are subsequently more familiar with the home's political and social dynamics. Moreover, male research assistants found it difficult to knock on houses, viewing houses as women's domains. That is, the Saudi front door splits the entire nation into two domains: women's inside-the-house and men's outside-the-house domains. This means that the front door originates from a deeply rooted social dyad and the power relationships between the inhabitants, namely, men and women. The association of women with the inside-the-house domain is well-established, to the extent that it is thought that, once a woman steps outside the home, the devil immediately starts escorting her until she returns home (Bin Jabrin, 2010). Certain cultural values are "inscribed" on the Saudi front door. In other words, the house door exists as a cultural representation and concept, which women carry with them and sustain outside the house. The first example of this is that restaurants tend to be divided into small rooms with closed doors (with one room per family), creating a temporary front door. Some other restaurants have no such rooms; alternatively, they offer female customers movable, flexible, non-transparent, long partitions with which to border themselves and their dining table, thus replicating a front door. The second example is that the windows of some cars are covered with one-way film, through which passengers can see out, but passers-by cannot see in. This film is culturally applied to serve in the role of a front door, turning the car into a domestic private domain. The third example is that, on beaches and in deserts, some women build temporary fabric walls or use their cars as borders between themselves and the public domain, thus "self-enforcing" the concept of the front door (Al Munajid, 2015). These three examples show that the front door can be viewed as permanently attached to women, even when they are physically in motion (e.g., while going for a walk or being in a car). This deeply enriched and well-established value of the house door discouraged some male knockers from daring to knock on it.

Being intimidated
Knockers felt intimidated by the assertive features of the front doors. There were various forms of assertiveness. The first assertiveness, decorations, means that the front door was decoratively outstanding. A door tends to be elaborate, even when the rest of the house is in bad condition. This can show the front door to be the most important component of the building's façade. The door is traditionally made of wood or metal and, at times, decorated with carvings, cut-outs or gold colours. Households "express their wealth and identity through the use of distinctive decorations and patterns on the main entrance door" (Alharkan, 2017, p. 47). The door is painted in dark colours to contrast the light-coloured walls, thus highlighting its presence.
The second assertiveness of actions and statements means that residents are supposed to undertake specific actions and articulate certain statements when crossing the front door, thereby stressing its presence. Concerning actions, before a woman opens the front door to leave the house, she may take certain actions, including gaining verbal permission from a male guardian or being escorted by a male relative (Bin Othaimin, 1993). Also, a woman is culturally supposed to take the action of veiling when crossing the door to leave the house. As for statements, while stepping over the threshold to leave home, one is expected to articulate: "In the name of God, I place my trust in God, and there is no might nor power except with God" (Al Qahtani, 1990). When crossing the door to leave the house, one is culturally encouraged to articulate: "O God, I take refuge with You lest I should stray or be led astray, commit or be made commit a sin unintentionally, oppress or be oppressed, behave foolishly or be treated foolishly" (Al Qahtani, 1990). Moreover, while entering through the house doorway, one is culturally expected to say to residents "peace be upon you", a practice that highlights the front door as representing an essential shift from a non-peaceful territory to a peaceful zone (Bin Fozan, 2003). The wording of these sentences provides some insight into the existence of the house front door as a transitional borderline. Such actions are promoted because of the belief that what lies beyond the house door in the public domain represents vice, sin and wickedness. These features of the Saudi house doors frightened some knockers. Such actions and statements show the act of crossing the doorstep to constitute a fundamental transition in social roles, configurations and settings.
The third assertiveness, the virtual transformation of the front door, means that the house door becomes metaphysical, transcending its basic physical presence to take an immaterial form. Here are three instances to illustrate the point. First, when outside the domestic domain, women may wrap their entire body (including hair and face) with loose fabric, utilising this fabric as a form of a mobile front door (Al Shaikh, 1992). Second, going online is viewed as crossing the virtual form of a front door to the public domain. For this reason, some households impose certain restrictions on their female family members in online settings. Some women wear a veil when using a webcam to talk to others, even family members. When it is not in use, they cover the lens of the webcam with tape, thus "closing" the digital front door. Third, for some residents, female contact information is private, confidential and not to be released to the public domain. In situations where female contact details (e.g., a mobile phone number) must be given, some women instead provide the contact details of their male relatives. In this case, the mobile phone is culturally configured to entail a front door that members of the male public domain cannot access or breach. In other words, the Saudi front door has been digitised. Fourth, a man may be notified if his neighbours have workers on the second floor or rooftop of the house, since these workers may be able to overlook the courtyard of the neighbour's house, see his female family members and therefore undermine the purpose of house doors and walls. When a man receives such a notification, he asks his female family members to close the curtains and not go out into the courtyard. This implies that the front door exceeds its physical presence and ascends into the air limitlessly, constituting an immaterial concept and taking on an abstract form.

Being frightened
Some knockers were frightened by doors' defensive features. First, doors are made thick. A "heavy entrance door is a common feature emphasising the sharp line between the external public and internal private" (Akbar, 1980, p. 24). The second feature, frame thickness, points out that door frames are made heavy. The front door has an elaborate concrete frame that is higher and thicker than the walls to stress its existence. The third feature, two front doors, means that there are two front doors located one after another, with a distance of around one metre. That is, a door or wall is sometimes added behind the front door to prevent a knocker from having a direct view into the house when the door is opened (Khair, 2016). At times, such a wall does not exist; hence, a knocker is culturally advised to stand to the right or left of the door to avoid having a direct view into the house when the door is opened (Zaidan, 2015). The fourth feature, defensive positioning, implies that front doors are located strategically, in a defensive manner. That is, the front door may be positioned at the corner of a house to avoid exposure of the house's core middle space and yard to a knocker (Akbar, 1998). House doors tend not to face one another, to avoid exposing the inner spaces of homes to neighbours (Alsaleh, 2008;Bahmmam, 2002). In short, the house door is physically designed and culturally configured to have a strong defensive position and generate a defensible system (Saleh, 1996).
The fifth feature of high walls illustrates the concrete walls with a height of more than two metres. The front door encompasses not merely the entrance to a home, but also high concrete walls that surround the entire property (Glasze & Alkhayyal, 2002). These walls contain no holes, preventing passers-by from seeing through gaps (Saleh, 2002). Although walls are already high (more than two metres), some households use cladding sheets to expand the height of walls surrounding their house, effectively doubling the walls in height. In brief, the house exists as a "compound" with secure, high, wide doors and walls, effectively turning towns into "municipalities of closed spaces" and "cities of walls" (Sawaf, 2017, p. 12). The sixth feature of unnecessary stairs refers to the unnecessary stairs in front of the house door, existing as a cultural sign to underline the transition from one domain to another. That is, the act of having to go up the stairs to enter the inside-the-house domain reinforces an implicit sense of going up from a low-status (outside-the-house) domain to a higher-status (inside-the-house) domain. The seventh feature is that windows are positioned defensively. When building a house, owners ensure that windows are designed in a way that prevents neighbours from seeing into the house, implying that windows are part of the Saudi front door. All of these features of the Saudi front door and its surroundings underpin its defensively made nature.

Being uncomfortable
Some knockers were uncomfortable, showing exhaustion, emotional distress or concern about hygiene or safety. Regarding exhaustion, they complained that knocking required the physical effort of going door-to-door and taking stairs, making them exhausted by the end of the day. Many households lived in buildings with several floors, forcing knockers into walking up sets of stairs. Some protested that they had to remain standing while conducting interviews through closed doors or on the street. As for hygiene, knocking on doors and shaking hands with households were sources of hygiene-related concern among knockers, especially considering that shaking hands with others is encouraged and promoted in Saudi culture as a way of politeness. Hence, when finishing a day of door-knocking, knockers made sure to wash their hands with soap carefully. Most female knockers were concerned about cockroaches, which could commonly be observed inside and outside houses. Some women did not want to go into a household that smelled of cigarettes or smelled bad in general, or where pets were present (i.e. cats and birds).
As for emotional distress, some knockees started crying during the interviews when knockers asked them to self-report shocks and struggles in their life. Regarding the difference in social class, some research assistants were wealthy, wearing gold, jewels and branded watches and driving upmarket cars. Nevertheless, some removed these items in the field and parked their cars on the outskirts of neighbourhoods for safety reasons and to imitate the status of low-income families. Since knockers came from well-off families, exposing them to some very low-income families through the project significantly impacted them, encouraging them to rethink their taken-forgranted wealth. Concerning safety, some parents of knockers were worried about the safety of their children. That said, households and neighbourhoods were found to be quite safe.
The following examples underpin this claim. When knocking on doors, the youngest child (male or female) opened them and talked to knockers, meaning that households were not worried about safety. Also, children were playing in the streets, unattended by adults even after sunset, giving a positive indication of the safety level. Also, it was safe for a female knocker to walk the streets during daylight, as long as she was not alone. For men, it was safe even at night. It should be noted that, although men could knock on doors alone, female knockers were in pairs to achieve an even higher level of safety.

Positive influences [findings]
This section provides answers to the second part of the research question, concentrating on what positively affects data collection through door-knocking.

Being traditional
Some knockers and knockees acted in traditional manners. The first tradition relates to negotiation. Some knockers were, subconsciously, inspired by their Arab roots, whereby Arabs are known for being good at negotiation and have been in trade and sales for thousands of years. Hence, during data collection, some knockers, intuitively, applied and resorted to the "foot-in-the-door" business strategy (cf. Freedman & Fraser, 1966) without former training. They applied this strategy in three ways. The first way relates to temporal deception; once households opened their front door, some research assistants immediately enquired if they would be willing to take part in a 10-minute interview, although the interview would take 40 minutes. The research assistants lied about the time because they knew that once they were inside the house, they would not be asked to leave when the interviewee realised that the interview would take longer than promised. Once the research assistants passed the threshold and were inside the house, their position shifted from being a stranger into being a guest. As such, the household was more likely to agree when asked for more time. The second way relates to national pride; a knocker would, right from the start, ask households if they were Saudi. If they responded in agreement, this would then make them feel selected and experience a sense of privilege and status to be deemed eligible to participate in the survey. The third way relates to headship pride. That is, some research assistants would kick off the conversation with households by asking the person if they were the household head, making them feel a sense of authority and power. The third way relates to children; the very first question that knockers asked was whether it would be acceptable to give some snacks to the children in the household. If the household member replied positively, they would, in all likelihood, agree to take part in the survey to show appreciation, at least in return for pleasing their children. The research assistants were asked to stop using the "foot-in-the-door" business strategy in such ways, as it seemed to be ethically dubious.
The second tradition relates to charity. Giving charity is an integral part of Saudi culture. Households are used to charity organisations and "good people" (a phrase commonly used in Saudi culture) knocking on their doors, particularly during the holy month of Ramadan, asking them what they need and giving them food and clothes. Hence, knockers were perceived by households as charity workers, who are, culturally, to be welcomed and appreciated. That said, researchers were not misperceived as salespeople, as door-to-door sales do not occur in Saudi Arabia. The third tradition relates to hospitality. In the past, Arab households left their doors open almost 24/7 as a sign of hospitality. Refusal to receive visitors is harshly criticised in their society (Al Omari, 2009). Throughout history, Saudi culture has been deeply structured around the concept of hospitality . It was observed during fieldwork that some front doors were left open, particularly when households were expecting guests. The fourth tradition relates to friendliness, warmth and bigheartedness. Sacred teachings attach considerable value to what it is phrased as "honouring the guest" (Al Munajid, 2008). As an Islamic norm, a knocker has the right to be welcomed and taken care of for at least three days in a row (Bin Baz, 2010). During the research, households made jokes and insisted on knockers "visiting" again. Moreover, some regarded the visit not as an interview, but rather as an opportunity to "chitchat", kill time and share stories. Some households welcomed researchers because they were bored and wanted to be entertained. The fifth tradition relates to generosity. Door visitation appeared to cultivate some households' Bedouin roots, whereby ancestors welcomed knockers to show generosity (Hateem, 2015). Traditions state that, regardless of how swift a visit is, guests are not allowed to leave before they have been offered drinks and food or snacks. Because of these traditions, two-thirds of households welcomed knockers and showed cooperation. Having foreign researchers in the field encouraged households to be particularly accommodating and welcoming, so as to impress foreigners with national values.
That being said, other traditions negatively influenced data collection through door-knocking. The first negative tradition relates to directedness. Saudis tend to avoid being direct, as directness is viewed as a form of rudeness. Hence, when knocking on doors for interviewing, some knockees would not say no to knockers face-to-face. Instead, they would come up with excuses and ask knockers to come back later. The second tradition relates to religiosity. Some knockees asked to pause the interview for 45 minutes as they wanted to attend mosque when prayer time was due. The third tradition relates to myths. One interviewee referred to being "possessed by a ghost" as a shock he experienced, which consequently caused his low income. A different shock reported by another knockee was having been hit by the "evil eye" (a look given by one who feels jealous of others for having a specific good feature in the hope that they lose this feature).

Being respectful
Some knockees showed respect to particular figures and matters. The first sign of respect relates to authorities. Households were more likely to agree to take a survey if authorities were involved. Some asked for permission (i.e. a signed letter) from an organisation (here, a university) conducting the research. That said, some households did not accept the organisation's letter and asked for a government letter instead. The researchers were unsure if such a letter from the government even existed. Some households believed that only the government could solicit information, and if the government wanted information, it would collect it itself. This implies that some households did not believe academics should do research at all, indicating a limited understanding of academic roles. Two households stated that, if the authorities supported the project, it should be announced on TV. Four households called the police on knockers. Three of the callers were military employees who reportedly felt a sense of needing to protect the country against any possibly illegal and harmful action that knockers may plan to undertake through the collection of data. Police officers checked the letter from the university and confirmed that knockers' actions were not illegal. Officers remarked that it would be entirely up to the household to accept or turn down knockers' invitation to participate in the survey. Some households thought that the research assistants were census workers. Households are accustomed to being asked for personal information through census actions, particularly considering that the latest census rounds had just finished at the time the research started.
The second sign of respect relates to ranks. Households were more likely to agree to participate in a survey if it was conducted by a PhD holder. Culturally speaking, having a doctorate is held in high esteem, and professors receive a particularly warm welcome. The primary researchers wore their professional hats, introducing themselves to households as professors, which helped maximise the acceptance rate. The third respect relates to social class. Some knockers appeared to be from highincome families, which encouraged households to welcome them. Other knockers experienced relatively high rejections because households noticed from their accent that they hailed from a minority group. Lower-income residents were observed to show more collaboration if knockers hailed from higher-income families. In general, it seems that lower-income individuals allow higher-income people (here, wealthy research assistants) to intervene in their private life but not the other way around, which could imply that door-knocking entails implicit status negotiations.

Being profitable
Some knockees appreciated incentives. The first incentive was a mutual benefit. Some households hoped that their participation in such an economical and educational project would help them gain personal benefits (financial or non-financial aid) and would help improve the economic and educational status of their neighbourhood. The second incentive was a personal non-financial benefit. Each child in a household was given an elaborate pack of snacks (sweets, drink and chips). Parents reported appreciating this gift for their children, fostering the acceptance rate. The third incentive was a personal financial benefit. Some households agreed to partake in an interview if there was a financial reward in return. Households received 14 USD for taking part in the survey. Some households begged to be interviewed to receive money. It should be remarked that knockers were told to ensure the anonymity of participants, as this was an ethical requirement. However, participants were found to dislike being anonymous. They wanted to be identified so that others might come to know about their unfortunate financial circumstances and, therefore, give them donations and charity. Some households asked for researchers' numbers to call them later to beg for money or jobs, meaning that what mattered was not the anonymity of participants but rather the anonymity of research assistants. It should be noted that some households were illiterate, meaning they could not read what was written on the receipt for the reward for participating in the survey. By way of contrast, a small number did not take the reward because they viewed the money as "so little" or against Saudi generosity (generosity that prevents them from receiving money from visitors). Although some households were in need, they refused to take such charity out of "Saudi pride". Some did not accept the money because they were not in need or did not want to be somehow made to feel less than the interviewer.

Being distinct
It is difficult to use doors to differentiate Saudi homes from non-Saudi households. That said, certain features of Saudi house doors would ease this differentiation. First, with the market feature, any door in neighbourhoods that is close to the markets and shops is more likely to be occupied by foreign households. Second, the shoe feature notes that some Saudi households (particularly those living in an apartment) leave their shoes outside the front door, which helped knockers know (according to the type of shoes) if the family was Saudi. Saudis wear shoes that tend to be different from those worn by non-Saudis. With the third difference of smells, Saudi families could be identified according to the food smells coming through the house door and windows. That is, Saudis generally cook particular types of dishes that differentiate them from non-Saudi residents. The fourth difference relates to cars; Saudi families typically purchase certain types of cars that are different from those bought by non-Saudis. Hence, Saudi households could be identified via the type of car parked next to the door. The fifth difference is stickers; some foreigners have stickers on their front door, which is not a regular practice among Saudi households. The condition of a house is the sixth difference. If a house is in a particularly bad condition, it is likely inhabited by non-Saudi individuals. If the house is in bad condition, yet its house door is impressive, it is likely inhabited by Saudi families. Finally, the difference of plants points to the fact that if there are plants by the front door, this can potentially indicate that the household is Saudi.

Closing
Following the philosophical call for the analysation of societies' symbolic forms, this article has examined the symbolic form of door-knocking. It has relied on a household survey to profile possible positive and negative influences that can be exerted over the collection of data through door-knocking. That said, the positive influences have won against the negative influences, turning the practice of door-knocking in Saudi Arabia into a success, with approximately 70% of Saudi households welcoming knockers. This success undermines the warning from managers at the beginning of the project that Saudi households would very much dislike door-knocking. Colleagues, likewise, cautioned the researchers that the Saudi front door was held in high regard, which would make the practice of approaching it out of bounds. Yet, the outcome is counter to expectations. Although door-knocking at first seemed to the academic knockers as knocking on a door to "hell", it turned to be more akin to knocking on a door to "heaven". The take-home message of this research is that, in Saudi Arabia, even though the perceived reality is that any academic attempt to breach the front door will not succeed, the actual reality is that households are likely to welcome researchers. It should be remarked that the success of data collection done through door-knocking in Saudi Arabia would have been limited if the target audience had been high-income households. That is, apparently, the lower one's income, the more likely one was to agree to participate in household surveys. This is partly because low-income households have nothing to worry about in terms of sharing information (unless they take drugs and are involved in other crimes), whereas higherincome individuals may have more secrets (e.g., the illegal act of having a job in the public sector and a job in the private sector simultaneously).
As a final note, it is apparent that, even though knockers managed to physically breach the Saudi front door, they were unable to culturally breach it. Even though male knockers were allowed inside a house, women remained fully veiled, thereby sustaining and holding up a layer of the front door. More notably, when knockers were allowed to enter the house and cross the Saudi front door entrance, they were located in a guest room, which sometimes had an independent door. Houses generally had two front doors (one for family and one for guests), ensuring "the sharp segregation between guest and family parts" (Al-Naim, 2006, p. 40). The guest room was the closest to the front door, ensuring that guests remained inside the house without being inside the house. In this case, although knockers crossed the physical front door entrance, they did not cross the cultural front door entrance and could not particularly observe the inside-the-house dynamics. A methodological implication of this is that knockers were allowed merely to complete questionnaires and not move beyond this practice (e.g., by witnessing social dynamics within the inside-the-house domain). What can be derived from this research is that, in Saudi Arabia, even though the strategy of academic door-to-door outreaching has potential for self-reporting techniques (e.g., household surveying), it has no "ethnographic potential" (Davies, 2011, p. 289).


extfieldsofstudy: Medicine Psychology

text:
From LMX to Individual Creativity: Interactive Effect of Engagement and Job Complexity.

This study explores how the quality of leader–member exchange (LMX) is associated with employees’ creativity via engagement, and the moderating role of a job characteristic related to knowledge (job complexity) in this relationship. A moderated mediation model was tested on a sample of 320 employees from emergent high-tech and knowledge-based small and medium enterprises (SMEs) in Spain. The results supported an indirect influence of LMX on individual creativity through engagement. Additionally, this study found that job complexity accentuated the impact of engagement on creativity. More importantly, the findings confirmed that the intensity of the LMX–engagement–creativity relationship was moderated by job complexity. That is, the relationship was stronger when job complexity was high. Taken together, this study improves the understanding of the factors that contribute to increased employee creativity, an important outcome for high-tech and knowledge-based SMEs.

Introduction
In the current knowledge economy, individual creativity (i.e., "the production of novel and useful ideas by an individual" [1] (p. 126)) has become crucial to firms [2][3][4]. As their context is characterized by strong competition and the scarcity of resources, small and medium enterprises (SMEs) increasingly depend on employees' ideas for their longer-term survival and to achieve a competitive advantage [5]. Those firms operating in high-tech and knowledge-intensive industries particularly need to promote employee creativity as the foundation for the innovation and the introduction of new processes and products to the market [6,7].
In knowledge-intensive SMEs, employees are the main bearers of tacit knowledge and their competences and creativity are important for the innovation process [8,9]. Since these firms cannot compete in efficiency via economies of scale, they rely more on leveraging employee creativity [10].
Although creativity and innovation are conceptually different, they are closely related constructs [11,12]. Individual creativity focuses on the generation of new and useful ideas, while innovative behavior also encompasses their application [2,4,13]. Some scholars (e.g., Amabile [14], Janssen [15], and Scott and Bruce [16]) consider creativity to be the first phase of the innovation process, which also encompasses the promotion of ideas and their realization. In the same vein, LePine and Van Dyne ( [17], p. 865) emphasized that "innovation begins with recognition and generation of novel ideas or solutions that challenge past practices and standard operating procedures". According to Joo et al. ([18], p. 394), creativity is important in itself because it is "the seed of innovation".
Research has extensively analyzed employee characteristics (such as creative self-efficacy, personality traits or creative skills, among others) as antecedents of individual creativity (see the narrative review by Anderson et al. [2], and the review by Cai et al. [11]). The importance of social context knowledge, only two studies [37,38], carried out in the service sector in India and South Korea, have empirically tested engagement as an intervening mechanism between LMX and innovative behavior. Since innovative behavior also covers the implementation of ideas, these studies do not allow to determine the differential contribution of LMX on creativity through engagement. Scholars [2,12] advocate the need to examine creativity separately.
In addition, according to the interactionist perspective [39], creative behaviors arise from the interplay between individual and contextual factors. This study proposes that the effect of engagement on individual creativity will be conditioned by the opportunities offered by the task context (represented by job complexity).
Job complexity is among the most important characteristics of contemporary jobs [40], particularly in knowledge-based firms. It is recognized that more complex jobs offer employees more opportunities to be creative [41][42][43]. Most of the creativity research has considered job complexity (usually measured as a combination of identity, variety, significance, autonomy, and feedback) as an antecedent of creativity [2]. However, so far, research examining the moderating role of job complexity is still limited.
Volmer et al. [19] claimed that "opportunities provided within high-quality LMX are best used in conjunction with job design features" (p. 475). Shalley et al.'s [44] study showed that job complexity interacts with growth need strength and a supportive work context to affect individual creativity. Audenaert et al. [45] found that job complexity positively moderated the influence of psychological empowerment on employee innovation. Recently, Cai et al. [46] confirmed that job characteristics strengthened the association between employee psychological capital and creativity. However, how job complexity performs as a moderator in the LMX-engagement-creativity relationship has remained unexplored. Therefore, this study is the first to analyze these relationships.
Our study extends the literature on the implications of relational leadership (in our case, LMX) on individual creativity. Although there is a growing body of research that has used the LMX framework to explain creativity, according to Tierney ([47], p. 175) "there is still much to be investigated in this realm".
First, this study responds to the call by Qu et al. [25] for further research on mediators in the LMX-individual creativity relationship. Specifically, engagement, a psychological motivational state that manifests itself in the physical, cognitive, and emotional energies exerted at work, is proposed. Although engagement is recognized as a robust motivational construct and calls for further research on its impact on creativity have been made (e.g., Anderson et al.'s [2]), little is yet known about its effect on creativity [48].
Second, given that the engagement-creativity link may be affected by the task context, we extend the research by analyzing the moderating role of job complexity, a key job characteristic in knowledge-intensive firms. Although both engagement and job complexity are relevant to creativity, surprisingly, their interactive effect has not been explored.
Taken together, this manuscript contributes to the recent literature focusing on analyzing the influence of LMX on individual creativity by testing a moderated mediation model and illuminating the process model linking LMX to individual creativity [4,13,21,25].

LMX, Engagement, and Creativity
Drawing on role theory and social exchange theory, researchers have linked LMX to attitudinal and behavioral outcomes [49]. In general, low-quality relationships are orientated towards an economic exchange, while high-quality relationships, focused on longer-term social exchange, are based on high levels of mutual obligations, trust, respect, and reciprocity [49][50][51].
It has been argued that work interactions characterized by mutual appreciation, support, respect, and trust promote engagement because they are a source of meaning and safety for employees [26,29]. Shuck and Wollard [52], based on Kahn's [26] framework, point out that engagement arises in environments that cultivate psychological meaningfulness and safety, and where employees believe they have the resources to perform their jobs (psychological availability) [26,28]. Psychological meaningfulness is defined as a "sense of return on investments of self in role performance" ( [26], p. 705). Psychological safety is conceptualized as a "sense of being able to show and employ self without fear of negative consequences to self-image, status or career" ( [26], p. 705) and psychological availability implies to have resources necessary for investing self in role performances.
According to Kahn [28], a sense of meaning emerges "when we are treated with a certain amount of dignity, respect and appreciation by others with whom we work-particularly by supervisors" (p. 24). Under conditions of high-quality LMX, employees feel important, valuable, and valued by their supervisors [26]; they perceive that they can express themselves in their role performance, openly share their ideas, and experiment without fear of negative consequences following failure [26,53]. Employees will be willing to invest all their energies (physical, emotional, and cognitive) into their work roles if they believe that they possess the physical and socio-emotional resources to fulfil the work role demands [26,27]. In a high-quality LMX relationship, it is assumed that followers have access to relevant resources (information, empowerment, feedback, recognition, dignity, emotional support, etc.). Indeed, Breevaart et al. [54] provided evidence linking high-quality LMX to more a resourceful work environment; employees reported more developmental opportunities and social support, which facilitated their engagement.
Based on social exchange theory [22], Cheng et al. [55] argued that "engagement is a form of currency in the social exchange and a means of fulfilling obligations for reciprocity" (p. 87). In a sample of employees from different industries in Taiwan, the authors found that employees' perceptions about the quality of the relationship with their supervisors were directly and positively linked to their engagement level. The studies by Agarwal et al. [37], on a sample of managerial employees in India, and Brunetto et al. [56], on a sample of nurses and police officers in Australia, also support this relationship. Additionally, the meta-analysis by Christian et al. [36] revealed a positive estimated corrected correlation between LMX and engagement. According to the previous arguments, it is posited that Hypothesis 1. LMX is positively related to employee engagement.
According to the creativity componential theory [1,14], while domain-relevant skills and creativity-relevant skills determine individuals' ability to perform creatively, intrinsic task motivation determines their actual behavior. If individuals are intrinsically motivated, the likelihood of truly engaging in their work and spending more time and energy searching for new information and different solutions in their work role will be increased [57]. Drawing on the creativity componential theory, Bakker and Xanthopoulou [58] stated that an employee "who is not engaged is not going to use his/her skills and expertise in the service of creative performance" (p. 2763). Atwater and Carmeli [3] concluded that "without energy, creative abilities will not be optimized and the employees are less likely to be creatively involved in work" (p. 266).
Furthermore, because activating positive moods improve cognitive processes and stimulate the search and integration of new information and the consideration of multiple alternatives, they seem to be significant for creativity [59,60]. The positive emotions usually felt by engaged employees expand their action-thinking repertoires [61]. This enlargement encourages the building of enduring psychological and intellectual resources, which will boost learning and creativity.
A few studies have concluded that feelings of energy and vitality are positively linked to creativity [3,62,63]. Although these studies are very informative, engagement differs from feelings of energy and vitality because it encompasses "the investment of an individual's complete self" ( [27], p. 617) in the job. In addition to high activation, engagement denotes how intensely and persistently employees invest all their energies in their work [27]. Cognitive perseverance and persistence contribute to the generation of more ideas and new solutions [60]. Since creativity requires effort, mental energy, persistence, and high employee involvement [3,64], highly engaged employees are likely to exhibit more curiosity, are willing to assume risks, enthusiastically look for new ideas, consider multiple alternatives, and explore unconventional ways and approaches to solve problems and challenges [65]. Employees who bring all their energies to, physically and emotionally, and are cognitively focused on their work will be willing to employ their knowledge, ability, and expertise and to make a greater effort to acquire new skills to be creative [14].
To the best of our knowledge, only two studies have tested the engagement-creativity relationship. Bakker and Xanthopoulou [58] discovered that engaged school principals were considered more creative by teachers. Eldor and Harpaz [48] revealed that engagement promoted employees' creativity in different occupations in Israel. Accordingly, the following is proposed Hypothesis 2. Engagement is positively related to individual creativity.
The creativity componential theory proposes that social environment factors, such as relationships with supervisors, affect individual creativity but that their effect on motivation is more direct [14]. As previously argued, a positive relational environment creates the favorable psychological conditions (meaningfulness, safety, and availability) for employees to invest and express themselves freely in their jobs, which, in turn, stimulates them to generate and derive new solutions and approaches. Recently, Lee et al. [12] have highlighted that creativity thrives when employees are in psychologically safe and motivating environments. The relational leadership style, and LMX in particular, is considered to be a practice that encourages employees' engagement [11], so that they direct all their energies towards creativity. Furthermore, according to social exchange theory, employees in high-quality LMX relationships feel obligated to reciprocally respond to the good treatment by their supervisor by showing positive attitudes and behaviors [37,38,66]. Engagement is considered a more immediate way to respond reciprocally to social exchanges [55,67]. Therefore, employees in a high-quality LMX relationship will be more engaged and, consequently, more involved in beneficial behaviors, such as creativity. Highly engaged employees, by bringing their whole self into their work roles performance, will be more involved in beneficial behaviors, such as creativity [48,58,65].
Although no study has tested engagement as a mediating mechanism between LMX and individual creativity, Atwater and Carmeli [3] showed that positive exchange relationships between leaders and subordinates helped employees have the sensation of greater energy and become more involved in creative tasks. Furthermore, Agarwal et al. [37] and Kim and Koo [38] confirmed that engagement is a mediating mechanism between LMX and innovative behavior. Based on the aforementioned arguments, engagement is expected to explain the effect of LMX on individual creativity. Hypothesis 3. LMX is indirectly related to individual creativity via engagement.

Job Complexity as a Moderator
Recently, Morgeson and Humphrey [68] broadened the classical model of job characteristics including additional motivational characteristics related to knowledge. Job complexity, which is defined as "the extent to which a job is multifaceted and difficult to perform" ( [40], p. 1335), is increasingly considered as a crucial knowledge characteristic of current jobs with important motivational outcomes [2,68]. Complex jobs are mentally challenging, and employees are expected to discover new strategies for performing them. The perception of challenge can help employees "to invest more efforts to successfully fulfil the demands entailed by the job" ( [62], p. 364) and will result in greater creativity. A meta-analysis conducted by Marinova et al. [41] found that high-complexity jobs stimulate change-oriented behaviors.
Evidently, creativity is a result of the interplay of individual factors and the work context [39]. According to Blumberg and Pringle [69], although the individual has the capacity and willingness to perform a certain behavior, its realization depends on the presence or absence of certain factors in his/her working context. Parker and Griffin [70] posited that "context can moderate both the extent to which an engaged individual performs well and how they express their engagement" (p. 64). The extent to which engagement fosters individual creativity can, therefore, vary depending on task context, represented by the job complexity level.
High-complexity jobs are multifaceted, less specified [40,43], and offer greater potential for creativity. In high-complexity jobs, employees have more opportunities to explore new ideas, search for novel solutions and approaches, and solve non-routine problems in their work [41,42]. At the same time, complex jobs are more mentally challenging, require the use of diverse advanced skills [43,68] and the development of new skills to address the challenging job demands [45]. Pan et al. [66] found that empowered employees working in organic structures, in which the jobs are complex and challenging, displayed higher levels of creativity than employees working in mechanistic structures.
As aforementioned, engaged employees fully bring themselves to the job; invest their physical, emotional, and cognitive energies simultaneously; persist in the face of challenges [26,27]; and have high learning goal orientation [71]. Therefore, it is expected that highly engaged employees in complex jobs have the opportunity to better capitalize their energies into creative performance.
In contrast, low-complexity jobs, which involve relatively uncomplicated and simple tasks [40,68], offer limited opportunities for employees to experiment and attempt different ways of performing their work [41]. These jobs provide less room and incentive for employees "to rock the boat and to make the difference with their ideas" ( [45], p. 613). In this context, employees are likely to focus their energies on applying accepted knowledge and practices rather than developing new ways of performing their work, discovering different solutions or generating new ideas in their work [45,72]. When jobs are low in complexity, engaged employees, due to context constraints, are supposed to display a lower level of creativity.
Finally, when jobs are highly complex, but employees are distanced from their work roles, they will probably reduce their creative efforts. Although the job allows for creativity, employees lack the motivation, energy, enthusiasm, and perseverance necessary to face the challenges involved in creative work [42]. When both variables have small values (low-complexity job and low engagement), it is more difficult for creativity to thrive. According to the aforementioned arguments, the following is posited: Since a satisfactory exchange relationship, characterized by trust, appreciation, and positive feedback generates in the followers a sense of psychological meaningfulness and security, and provides them with access to necessary resources [26,29], they will feel more energized and connected to their jobs [37,56]. However, engaged employees may vary in the degree to which they involve themselves in creative behaviors. Jobs vary in their degree of complexity. As noted above, complex jobs are more mentally stimulating, less structured, and generate more opportunities for their occupants to use their knowledge and skills in problem solving [40], providing them more space for creativity. Therefore, based on the interactionist perspective [39], which assumes that individual creativity is the result of the interaction between individual and contextual factors, job complexity may shape the extent to which employees express their engagement (as a result of LMX) in their creativity performance.
We propose that a high-quality relationship between leader and subordinates will be always beneficial for employees' engagement; however, if the task context provides them with the opportunity to discover new solutions and apply their potential (perception of job complexity), their engagement will be translated into greater creativity. In sum, we posit a moderated mediation model for individual creativity [73].

Hypothesis 5.
The positive indirect influence of LMX on individual creativity, via engagement, is stronger when job complexity is higher.
The hypothesized model is shown in Figure 1.
The hypothesized model is shown in Figure 1.

Sampling Procedure and Participants
The data were gathered from a sample of employees from emergent high-tech and knowledgebased SMEs in Spain. Various sources of information were used to select the firms in which to carry out the study: the list of firms linked to the Spanish universities associated with RedEmprendia (a network of universities in Spain, Portugal, and Latin America that promote responsible innovation and entrepreneurship), the spin-off registers of the websites of the main Spanish universities and those of firms in the main technology parks in Spain. From the resulting list, we contacted, by mail or phone, with the management of 100 firms that satisfied three conditions: SMEs, with an age less than 10 years, and belonging to high-tech and knowledge-intensive industries. Of these, 21 agreed to collaborate in the investigation. According to Messersmith and Guthrie [74], emergent firms "are the foundation for economic growth in today's business" (p. 241). High-tech and knowledge-based SMEs need the employees to develop fresh ideas and explore unconventional solutions as a basis for developing advanced processes and launching new products and services to the market [6].
To collect the data, and at the same time guarantee the respondents' anonymity, we mailed employees a direct link to the online questionnaire. Specifically, we contacted the 443 employees whose emails were provided to us by the participating firms. Finally, we received questionnaires of 320. Males constituted 63.75% of the sample, and female accounted for 36.25%. The respondents had a mean age of 32.09 years. The sample consists of employees with a high educational level. The majority had a higher education degree (69.06%); 27.81% had a master's degree, or PhD; and only 3.12% had high school or lower level studies.

Measures
Except for the control variables, we measured all the constructs with multiple items using a seven-point Likert scale (1 = strongly disagree, 7 = strongly agree). Every measure was taken or adapted from previously validated and published instruments. All measurement items are available in the Appendix A.
LMX: We used the eight-item scale proposed by Bernerth et al. [50]. An example is "My relationship with my manager is composed of comparable exchanges of giving and taking". Engagement: We used 12 items from Rich et al.'s [27] three-dimension scale: physical (e.g., "I try my hardest to perform well on my job"), emotional (e.g., "I am enthusiastic in my job"), and cognitive (e.g., "At work, I focus a great deal of attention on my job"). According to Rich et al. [27], since job engagement is reflected by the commonality of the three dimensions, it is a second order construct. This measure, based on the Kahn's [26] three-factor conceptualization, emphasizes the motivational

Sampling Procedure and Participants
The data were gathered from a sample of employees from emergent high-tech and knowledge-based SMEs in Spain. Various sources of information were used to select the firms in which to carry out the study: the list of firms linked to the Spanish universities associated with RedEmprendia (a network of universities in Spain, Portugal, and Latin America that promote responsible innovation and entrepreneurship), the spin-off registers of the websites of the main Spanish universities and those of firms in the main technology parks in Spain. From the resulting list, we contacted, by mail or phone, with the management of 100 firms that satisfied three conditions: SMEs, with an age less than 10 years, and belonging to high-tech and knowledge-intensive industries. Of these, 21 agreed to collaborate in the investigation. According to Messersmith and Guthrie [74], emergent firms "are the foundation for economic growth in today's business" (p. 241). High-tech and knowledge-based SMEs need the employees to develop fresh ideas and explore unconventional solutions as a basis for developing advanced processes and launching new products and services to the market [6].
To collect the data, and at the same time guarantee the respondents' anonymity, we mailed employees a direct link to the online questionnaire. Specifically, we contacted the 443 employees whose emails were provided to us by the participating firms. Finally, we received questionnaires of 320. Males constituted 63.75% of the sample, and female accounted for 36.25%. The respondents had a mean age of 32.09 years. The sample consists of employees with a high educational level. The majority had a higher education degree (69.06%); 27.81% had a master's degree, or PhD; and only 3.12% had high school or lower level studies.

Measures
Except for the control variables, we measured all the constructs with multiple items using a seven-point Likert scale (1 = strongly disagree, 7 = strongly agree). Every measure was taken or adapted from previously validated and published instruments. All measurement items are available in the Appendix A.
LMX: We used the eight-item scale proposed by Bernerth et al. [50]. An example is "My relationship with my manager is composed of comparable exchanges of giving and taking". Engagement: We used 12 items from Rich et al.'s [27] three-dimension scale: physical (e.g., "I try my hardest to perform well on my job"), emotional (e.g., "I am enthusiastic in my job"), and cognitive (e.g., "At work, I focus a great deal of attention on my job"). According to Rich et al. [27], since job engagement is reflected by the commonality of the three dimensions, it is a second order construct. This measure, based on the Kahn's [26] three-factor conceptualization, emphasizes the motivational nature of engagement. Therefore, it is especially suitable for analyzing the effect of engagement on the individual creativity.
Job complexity: We used three items from Morgeson and Humphrey's [68] scale. To improve the participants' understanding, the items were worded positively. An example item is "The job comprises relatively complicated tasks".
Individual creativity: We took the four-item scale used by Baer and Oldham [65]. An example is "I often come up with creative solutions to problems at work".

Analytical Methods
Statistical analyses were conducted with SPSS Statistics 24.0 and SPSS AMOS 23 (IBM Corp, Armonk, NY, USA). To establish the psychometric properties of the scales, confirmatory factor analyses (CFAs) in AMOS were conducted. To test the hypotheses, the PROCESS macro for SPSS [73] was applied with bias-corrected bootstrapping. Bootstrapping does not presume that data are normally distributed, so this statistical procedure is recommended to validate mediating effects. Moreover, the PROCESS macro for SPSS incorporates conditional process analysis. According to Hayes [73], this methodology "focuses on the estimation and interpretation of the conditional nature (the moderation component) of the indirect and/or direct effects (the mediation component) of X on Y in a causal system" (p. 11). Therefore, the PROCESS macro is particularly adequate to analyze the proposed model. To enhance the interpretability of the coefficients, the variables implicated in the interaction were mean-centered [73]. Table 1, the correlations were aligned with our hypotheses. To confirm the constructs' reliability and validity, we conducted CFAs. First, we analyzed the engagement measure fit as a second-order factor formed by three dimensions. The results indicated a satisfactory fit  Table 2 summarizes the statistics used to verify the scales' reliability and validity. The composite reliability (CR) and the average variance extracted (AVE) of each scale exceeded the established minimum of 0.6 and 0.5, respectively [75], supporting the reliability of the scales. Convergent validity was evidenced by verifying that all the factor loadings were significant and higher than 0.5. The discriminant validity between constructs was verified since the correlation confidence intervals excluded the unit value, and their squared correlations were lower than the AVE [75].

As displayed in
The presence of a mediating effect requires that two conditions be fulfilled [76]: the independent variable (LMX) should be significantly associated with the mediator (engagement), and the mediator should be significantly related with the dependent variable (individual creativity). To test the hypotheses, Model 14 established by Hayes [73] was performed. Table 3 presents the results for the conditional process model. In support of hypothesis 1, LMX was found to be positively linked with engagement (a = 0.22, p < 0.001). Consistent with hypothesis 2, engagement had a positive effect on individual creativity (b1 = 0.55, p < 0.001). The validation of the two first hypotheses provides evidence for the indirect influence of LMX on individual creativity via engagement, confirming hypothesis 3. Moreover, confidence intervals for the indirect conditional effects of LMX on individual creativity at various values of job complexity estimated by bootstrap did not include zero (Table 4). This provides additional evidence supporting hypothesis 3.    The interaction effect between engagement and job complexity was positive and significant (b3 = 0.13, p < 0.05), confirming hypothesis 4. Figure 2, plotted using the process by Dawson [77], supports this interpretation of the moderating effect by showing that the engagement-individual creativity relationship is significantly strongest when job complexity is higher.
supports this interpretation of the moderating effect by showing that the engagement-individual creativity relationship is significantly strongest when job complexity is higher. As seen in Table 4, the indirect influence of LMX on individual creativity via engagement is moderated by job complexity (hypothesis 5). Since the confidence interval estimated by the bootstrap for the index of moderated mediation excludes zero (0.003-0.061), this result provides additional support for hypothesis 5 [78]. It was evidenced that the higher the job complexity the stronger the indirect influence of LMX on employee creativity was.

Results Discussion
The purpose of this investigation was to advance the understanding of the relationship between LMX and individual creativity. In particular, this paper explored how the quality of LMX, as perceived by followers, was associated with individual creativity through engagement and how this relationship was moderated by job complexity in the context of high-tech and knowledge-based SMEs. The findings of this research supported the proposed framework. The results indicated that (1) the quality of the relationship between leader and follower favors job engagement; (2) engagement, in turn, increases individual creativity. Finally, the results showed that job complexity interacts with engagement to increase individual creativity. In other words, the greater the job complexity, the greater the effect of engagement on individual creativity. As seen in Table 4, the indirect influence of LMX on individual creativity via engagement is moderated by job complexity (hypothesis 5). Since the confidence interval estimated by the bootstrap for the index of moderated mediation excludes zero (0.003-0.061), this result provides additional support for hypothesis 5 [78]. It was evidenced that the higher the job complexity the stronger the indirect influence of LMX on employee creativity was.

Results Discussion
The purpose of this investigation was to advance the understanding of the relationship between LMX and individual creativity. In particular, this paper explored how the quality of LMX, as perceived by followers, was associated with individual creativity through engagement and how this relationship was moderated by job complexity in the context of high-tech and knowledge-based SMEs. The findings of this research supported the proposed framework. The results indicated that (1) the quality of the relationship between leader and follower favors job engagement; (2) engagement, in turn, increases individual creativity. Finally, the results showed that job complexity interacts with engagement to increase individual creativity. In other words, the greater the job complexity, the greater the effect of engagement on individual creativity.
Unlike other studies (e.g., Atwater and Carmeli [3]; Pan et al. [66]; Qu et al. [25]), our study found no direct relationship between LMX and individual creativity; that is, LMX did not directly increase employee creativity. However, an indirect relationship was found. The implication is that the quality of LMX encourages employees to be willing to invest all their energies into their work and display their real identity, thoughts, and feelings [26]; and through this motivational mechanism, LMX boosts employees' creativity. This result is aligned with earlier research [37,55,56] and engagement literature [26,29]. High-quality exchanges cultivate employee engagement probably because they deepen the sense of meaning about the purpose of the work [29] and encourage a sense of safety by embodying the supportive regard and trusting interactions necessary for employees to invest and express themselves in their role performances [26]. In turn, engagement impacts individual creativity, which is an important outcome for high-tech and knowledge-based SMEs [6]. This result is consistent with the notion that motivation is fundamental for creativity [1,14,57] and research concerning activating positive mood states. Engaged employees experience high activating positive emotions (e.g., enthusiasm, excitement, and interest) and have a broader vision of their work role [27]. Therefore, they are more likely "to think outside the box" ( [48], p. 217) and produce novel ideas and different solutions.
This finding is also consistent with the Job Demands-Resources model of work engagement [79], according to which resources (namely, LMX), by activating the motivational process leading to work engagement, impact on employee behaviors. For example, Bakker and Bal [80] found that the weekly exchange with the supervisor was associated with weekly engagement which, in turn, led to weekly job performance.
Furthermore, it was found that the interaction between engagement and job complexity promotes individual creativity. Job complexity accentuates the impact of engagement on individual creativity. The highest levels of creativity were reached when both engagement and job complexity were high. When a job provides little room for personal contribution and is undemanding and not challenging (low-complexity job), an engaged employee has less of a chance to integrate diverse information and come up with unusual and singular ideas while working. In line with that proposed by Cai et al. [11], an synergistic effect of job design (contextual factor) and job engagement (individual factor) for predicting individual creativity was found.
Additionally, it was confirmed that the intensity of the mediated relationship (LMX-engagementindividual creativity) is contingent on job complexity. The indirect influence of LMX (via engagement) on individual creativity was stronger when jobs were more complex. This implies that a good exchange relationship between superior and employee encourages his/her engagement level; but for this to be translated into elevated creativity, the employee must have the opportunity to contribute creatively, and a high-complexity job affords such an opportunity to a greater extent. Moreover, it is likely that in complex jobs engaged employees (due to the greater self-regulation) will be more willing to apply their talents and cultivate new skills to produce novel and useful ideas.

Theoretical Contributions
This study has several theoretical contributions. By proposing and testing a model of creativity that integrates social context (LMX), motivational (engagement), and task context (job complexity) variables, this study addresses several gaps identified in the recent literature. First, by finding empirical evidence for the mediating role of engagement, which is a robust motivational construct [27], this study provides a clearer understanding of the process model linking LMX to individual creativity, thereby contributing to enrich the existing LMX and creativity literature. In this way, we respond to calls for new studies that analyze the mediating variables in the LMX-individual creativity relationship (e.g., Khalili [4]; Qu et al. [25]). To the best of our knowledge, this is the first research to test the LMX-engagement-individual creativity relationship.
Second, it contributes to fill the knowledge gap in research regarding the role of motivational psychological states on creativity [2]. Although engagement has been related to individual outcomes such as personal initiative [81], active learning [82], or knowledge sharing [83], little is known about its effects on individual creativity.
Finally, this research responds to the calls made by earlier studies [13,25,47,54] in examining the moderating role of job complexity in the engagement-creativity relationship. The results also support Parker and Griffin's [70] notion that an employee may exhibit a lower level of performance (creativity in our study) not because he/she is not highly engaged but because the context (job complexity in our study) limits that possibility. At the same time, we extend the research by Volmer et al. [19], who found that LMX contributed more strongly to followers' creativity when they experienced higher job autonomy. As expected, when employees in high-quality LMX relationships perform complex tasks, they capitalize their greater engagement on increasing their creativity. We think this finding represents an important advance in the comprehension of the mechanisms involved in the complex relationship of LMX-creativity.

Practical Contributions
The findings of this study provide several practical implications for management at high-tech and knowledge-intensive SMEs where the knowledge and creativity of the personnel is a major resource [9].
First, we found that employee engagement is key to encourage individual creativity. This means that when employees are engaged, they are more likely to provide new and useful ideas that will contribute to the success of the firm. In today's changing environment, especially in the study sector, having employees who provide new and fresh ideas is of paramount importance to firms [5,6,13]. Therefore, management should facilitate employee engagement.
Second, although there are different ways to increase employee engagement (for example, providing organizational support), our study corroborated the important role of leader-follower relationships. If the relationship is based on trust, respect, and reciprocity, employees will feel more secure, recognized, and valued by their leaders [26,29]. In a high-quality LMX, the leader facilitates the follower to access a substantial amount of support, information, and resources; in turn, the follower is willing to invest more of him/herself in the work role [54]. Although an exchange relationship involves both the leader and the follower, the leader is often responsible for initiating and maintaining the relationship [84]. Accordingly, supervisors must be encouraged to build and nurture high-quality relationships with followers. Management should provide supervisors with the training and resources needed [47]. In this sense, training in interpersonal skills and emotional intelligence becomes relevant. It has been pointed out that leaders with higher emotional intelligence skills, who are able to recognize and understand the emotions of their followers and regulate emotions, build higher quality interpersonal relationships with their employees [85]. Previous studies [86,87] show the effectiveness of training programs in improving the quality of the LMX relationships by developing leaders' interpersonal and active listening skills and spending time getting to know the concerns and work expectations of subordinates.
Third, the findings show that job complexity allows for the maximization of the effect of engagement on individual creativity. Therefore, if high creativity is a desirable result, as is usually the case in high-tech and knowledge-based SMEs, the job design must facilitate creativity [43]. It is advisable to design jobs so that they are perceived by employees as mentally stimulating and challenging, allow them to use their cognitive skills and provide them opportunities for learning, exploring, and experimenting. However, when it comes to designing or redesigning jobs there may be limits to the complexity level. When jobs are already highly complex, "increasing information processing or task variety may produce job overload" ( [68], p. 1334). Therefore, we believe that the design of multifaceted jobs should be accompanied by interventions aimed at improving employee engagement, so that synergistic effects are generated.

Limitations and Future Research Lines
We cannot ignore the limitations of the study. First, the cross-sectional design limits causal inferences. Additional studies with longitudinal data are needed to support the causality of the relations.
Second, this study used employee self-reports, which may cause common method bias. Although this bias is rarely severe enough to jeopardize the validity of the results [88], the recommendations of Podsakoff et al. [89] concerning the design of questionnaire were followed to reduce this bias. Additionally, Harman's one-factor test using a CFA [89] was applied. The model in which every item of the four variables loaded onto the same factor fitted data poorly (χ2(324) = 5859.64; χ2/df = 18.09; CFI = 0.34; TLI = 0.29; RMSEA = 0.23), suggesting that common method bias was not a significant issue in our investigation.
Third, the sample consisted of employees from emergent high-tech and knowledge-intensive SMEs in Spain. Given that only a limited proportion of SMEs operate in these industries, new studies should replicate the conclusions in other industries and contexts. The characteristics of the sample, made up of highly educated employees, should also be considered. This might restrict the generalizability of the results.

Conclusions
Although the literature has recognized that LMX is linked to individual creativity, it is necessary to go deeper into the mechanisms underlying this relationship and the conditions under which it occurs. A model incorporating engagement as mediating variable and job complexity as moderating variable has been proposed. This model was tested in a context where creativity constitutes a main basis for the innovation process: high-tech and knowledge-intensive SMEs. The findings revealed that engagement transmits the effect of LMX on individual creativity, and that job complexity intensifies the effect of engagement on individual creativity. Moreover, it was confirmed that the strength of the mediated relationship is moderated by job complexity. When employees in high-quality LMX relationships perform complex tasks, they capitalize their greater engagement on increasing their creativity.