Category Archives: Creativity
Climate: A catalyst for innovation (IO Psychology)
Publication: The Journal of Creative Behavior (2011)
Article: Creative Climate: A Leadership Lever for Innovation
Authors: Scott G. Isaksen & Hans J. Akkermans
Reviewed By: Scott Charles Sitrin
Earlier this year, Marissa Mayer, the former Google employee and current Yahoo CEO, ordered employees who were working from home to now work in the office in an attempt to foster more innovation within the company. This raises the question: what fosters innovation? According to Mayer and likely based on her previous experience at Google, in-office attendance is key, and according to research by Isaksen and Akkermans, another relevant variable could be climate, which refers to the overall workplace environment.
Isaksen and Akkermans administered surveys to 140 respondents from 103 organizations and 31 industries, and these surveys had participants assess their work climate and the level of innovation of their companies. Innovation was measured by participants’ responses to three questions graded on a four-point-Likert scale, and sample questions included “We are successful in implementing new ideas to obtain results in my work unit” and “In general, my organization has been successful at innovation.” The Situational Outlook Questionnaire (SOQ) assessed climate, and it looks at the levels of involvement, autonomy, trust, idea-time, playfulness, conflict, idea-support, debate, and risk taking within a work environment. Results indicated that workplaces with good climates had higher levels of innovation.
human resource management, organizational industrial psychology, organizational management
source for picture: http://www.freedigitalphotos.net/images/Business_People_g201-Multi_Ethnic_Team_During_Meeting_p66402.html
Inviting the Inquiry of Science into Strategic Planning (IO Psychology)
Topic: Business Strategy, Creativity, Strategic HR
Publication: Harvard Business Review (SEPT 2012)
Article: Bringing Science to the Art of Strategy
Authors: A. G. Lafley, R. L. Martin, J. W. Rivkin, and N. Siggelkow
Reviewed By: Megan Leasher
Strategic planners sit down once a year. They pride themselves on their scientific rigor in how they analyze and shoot down every idea they generate. They then proceed with a less-than-stellar, not-so-innovative idea, and they wonder why the organization doesn’t swoon with delight? Lafley and colleagues (2012) assert that a key component of science is missing in these proceedings: the inquiry. They argue that the scientific method must first begin with the brainstorming of novel hypotheses, then proceed into the design and testing of these hypotheses. The authors detail a series of steps that incorporate the inquiry of science into strategic planning to achieve a more creative, successful, and efficient direction.
The first step is the key differentiator of the entire process. This step entails identifying at least two mutual exclusive options to resolving the issue at hand. All options must be framed as pure possibilities, devout of criticism, skepticism, and analysis. This is where the invention and inquiry of science comes into play. This is where we all get to be creative designers and dream into the realm of pure possibilities. The authors describe possibility as any “happy story that describes how a firm might succeed” (p. 59).
Then the list of possibilities is broadened and time is taken to identify what conditions must hold true in order for each possibility to succeed. Conditions may include things like customer support, market sustainability, or feasibility of supply. All conditions must be framed positively, so that everyone feels confident in success if all conditions were to hold true. Judgment, skepticism, and analysis are not yet allowed, so that all possibilities continue to be framed as positive. After this, barriers that would prevent each condition to hold true are identified and ranked. We now allow judgment and skepticism through the door, but analysis must still wait outside.
The next step is where experiments are designed to test the barriers to each condition. We must ask: What are the right questions that will lead us to answers that we can have faith in? As the authors mention, tests can be as simple as talking to a supplier, or as complicated as surveying thousands of customers.
We then conduct the tests and allow the scientific analysis to begin. It’s time to put on our goggles, get data happy, and crunch the numbers. The authors assert that the first test should always be of the condition that the group feels will least likely hold true. If the test fails and the barrier is confirmed true, no further testing is needed and the possibility is rejected. If the condition passes the test, move on to the next condition unlikely to hold true, and so on. Tests for a possibility should only be conducted sequentially, never in parallel, to conserve effort and resources.
Lastly, the final possibility is selected. After reviewing the results of all tests of the barriers, the group simply picks the solution with the fewest serious barriers left standing. It is a relavitvely simple, anticlimactic step; all of the hard work has already been completed and we are left with practically a simple tally count. It is important to call out that testing barriers to conditions provides evidence, not proof. Evidence still requires human judgment that is fully aware that risk is always present.
I feel this framework has such potential and would love to see its value play out first hand. But controlling the judgment and skepticism early on is a monumental challenge; this process requires a shift in mindset and determined, focused group leaders who can direct participants to frame all choices as possibilities for success. Plus, a geek like me wants to jump right into the test design and analysis. But to be “scientific,” we must inquire. Science isn’t just analysis; it’s play, and brainstorming, and invention beyond your brain’s current capacity.
human resource management, organizational industrial psychology, organizational management
Creativity is More Than Thinking Outside the Box (IO Psychology)
Topic: Teams, Creativity
Publication: Academy of Management Journal
Article: Cognitive team diversity and individual team member creativity: A cross-level interaction
Authors: S. J. Shin, T.-Y. Kim, J.-Y. Lee, & L. Bian
Reviewed By: Katie Bachman
A creative team is a joy to own. But how can an organization ensure that their team is acting as a cohesive, effective, creative unit? It turns out that it is oh so simple, but maybe not as rudimentary as you’d think. Join me as we venture outside the box!
When we talk about creativity in teams, we can talk about an individual team member’s creative contribution or we can talk about the creative output for the team as a unit. But none of this is very good if everyone on a team is thinking the same thing (pro tip: that’s not very creative). Instead, we need cognitive team diversity! That’s psychobabble for needing people to think differently, have different knowledge and skills, and come to the table with different values and beliefs. The logical step here (if you follow my creative way of thinking) should be that cognitive team diversity—thinking differently—leads to more creativity among team members. That makes sense, right? If people think differently, they’ll come up with different ideas.
But wait! You don’t think it’s quite that easy, do you? There are two components that we need to add to the model. One is leadership. When a team has a charismatic (“transformational” for those in the know) leader, that relationship between cognitive team diversity and creativity is the real deal. But when the leader is just blahs-ville, that relationship doesn’t hold up. There other thing to look out for is creative self-efficacy among team members. If team members think that cognitive diversity and creativity and all of that are important, it will be. It’s the same relationship as with leadership—if team members have this self-efficacy, it’s all good; but, if team members don’t feel like creativity is warranted or appreciated, it won’t be.
So, good news! Your team can be creative. Just make sure you have the right kind of leader and everyone feels warm and fuzzy about sharing ideas. No sweat!
human resource management, organizational industrial psychology, organizational management
Is Bureaucracy Bad for Creativity? That Depends on You
Topic: Creativity, Strategic HR, Teams
Publication: Academy of Management Journal
Article: How does bureaucracy impact individual creativity? A cross-level investigation of team contextual influences on goal orientation-creativity relationships
Authors: Giles Hirst, Daan Van Knippenberg, Chin-Hui Chen, & Claudia A. Sacramento
Reviewed By: Katie Bachman
Bureaucracy and creativity. They might seem like mortal enemies—we often think of red tape and paper work as the killer of creative thinking—but it doesn’t have to be! Really, it depends on your employees. When we talk about goal orientation (why people do what they do), we usually take about three types of people. First, you have your learning-oriented workers. These are the ones who do what they do for sheer enjoyment of the work. They are intrinsically motivated. Second, you have your performance-prove-oriented employees. These workers want to show you how good they are. Third and finally, you have your performance-avoid workers. These are your risk-adverse employees—the rule followers. They all respond to bureaucracy differently, particularly when it comes to creativity.
We can divide bureaucracy into two dimensions—centralization and formalization. Centralization deals with the amount of decision making ability team members have. The more centralized decision making is, the less team members have opportunity to add their input. Formalization deals with the paperwork. It’s the policies and procedures employees have to adhere to in their job. Like centralization, the more formal the procedure, the less wiggle-room there is for workers.
Perceived similarities make it easier for newbies to adjust. But how?…
Topic: Diversity, Work Environment, Culture, Creativity
Publication: Journal of Vocational Behavior (APR 2011)
Article:Perceived similarity, proactive adjustment, and organizational socialization
Authors: J. D. Kammeyer-Mueller, B. A. Livingston, & H. Liau
Reviewed by: Charleen Maher
Organizational newcomers carry the stress of adjusting to their new jobs, working with new people, and learning the ins and outs of a new organization. Previous research has shown that when organizational newcomers engage in proactive adjustment behaviors (e.g. feedback seeking, relationship building), they are more likely to be committed to their new organizations and are more likely to be accepted by their coworkers.
This study sought to find out if perceived similarity to one’s new work group leads to more proactive adjustment behaviors and, in turn, has an effect on important work outcomes (e.g. creative performance, organizational citizenship behaviors). The authors examined the following aspects of perceived similarity: surface-level (similarity in age, education, race, gender) and deep-level (similar work style). So, what is the relationship between perceived similarity and proactive adjustment behaviors?
Perceived similarity in age, race, gender, and education predicted perceived similarity in work-style. Similarity in age actually decreased the chances that organizational newcomers would engage in proactive feedback seeking. Similarity in education increased the likelihood that newcomers would socialize with coworkers.
Creativity at Work…Through Increased Workplace Structure?
Topic: Creativity, Strategic HR, Stress
Publication: Human Resource Management (NOV/DEC 2010)
Article: Does Structuring of Human Resource Management Process Enhance Employee Creativity? The Mediating Role of Psychological Availability
Authors: G. Binyamin, A. Carmeli
Reviewed By: Lauren A. Wood
The environment of the modern workplace is increasingly becoming more dynamic and unstable leading employees to perceive high levels of work-related stress. To battle this increased uncertainty in the external environment and provide a sense of stability to employees, organizations are looking internally at the way human resources processes are designed. Structuring of HRM processes consists of 7 essential dimensions: strategic alignment with organizational goals, managerial engagement, employee job functions structured and evaluated based on a job analysis, clarity of HRM policies and evaluation criteria, planning, flexibility, and internal consistency or synergy of all processes. Structuring HR around these 7 dimensions was shown to help alleviate employee stress perceptions by decreasing feelings of uncertainty.
Despite these positive outcomes, intuitively, it seems that by providing a structured work place, employee creativity (an indispensable factor for knowledge work) would decrease. However, as the authors of the current study show, this does not appear to be the case – because structuring HRM processes around the 7 dimensions decreased perceived employee stress and uncertainty, employees’ psychological availability (psychological recourses an employee can allocate to a given situation) was freed-up, allowing room for higher-order cogitative processes like creativity.
Transformational Leadership and Innovative Behavior
Topic: Leadership, Creativity
Publication: Journal of Organizational Behavior
Article: Transformational and transactional leadership and innovative behavior: The moderating role of psychological empowerment (MAY 2010)
Author: A. Nederveen Pieterse, D. van Knippenberg, M. Schippers, & D. Stam
Reviewed by: Sarah Teague
In recent years, the role of creativity and innovation in the workplace has grown exponentially. Being innovative is often considered a competitive advantage in terms of both product outcomes (e.g. new designs) and people processes (e.g. employee recruitment). It has been argued that innovative behavior is more contingent on motivation rather than ability (Amabile, 1988). Assuming this is the case, leadership should play a pivotal role in fostering innovation. In particular, two types of leadership come into play.
Transformational leadership is conceptualized as influencing followers to “rise above their self-interest” and focus their efforts on higher-level goals (i.g. group- or organization-level). A great deal of the current literature posits that transformational leadership should have a profound impact on innovation. Alternately, transactional leadership centers on clarifying expectations and monitoring follower performance, and this style is generally thought to seriously detract from innovation. However, empirical inconsistencies suggested a need to investigate potential boundary conditions. To this end, the authors of the present study were interested in psychological empowerment (PE; i.e. “active orientation towards a work goal” that encompasses self-efficacy). They propose that PE is relevant, because it gives people a feeling of capability; the “can-do” aspect of behavioral intent.
Accordingly, the current study sought to investigate the impact of psychological empowerment on the relationship between these two different types of leadership (transformational and transactional) on employee innovation. The authors predicted a main effect for transactional leadership on employee innovation but no effect for transformational. Additionally, they predicted that psychological empowerment (PE) would moderate the relationship between leadership style and innovation.
Maximizing your stakeholders’ experiences in product creation
Topic: Business Strategy, Creativity
Publication: Harvard Business Review (OCT 2010)
Article: Building the co-creative enterprise
Authors: V. Ramaswany, F. Gouillart
Reviewed By: Liz Brashier
We all know that companies care about their customers – especially when it comes to the customer experience with products. After all, where would any company be without customers? Ramaswamy and Gouillart (2010), however, challenge us to consider other stakeholders (i.e., employees, distributors, etc.) who have a tremendous impact on the customer experience.
The traditional process of creating a new product focuses solely on meeting customer requirements while streamlining the existing process; it saves time and money. It also ignores the interests of everyone involved in that creation process except for the company and the customers. But by ignoring the “internal players” in the product creation process, companies are inadvertently missing out on opportunities to create a new experience for the customer. When internal players don’t have a say in creation, their experience isn’t necessarily optimal for them – and that is where the problem lies.
Task Conflict, Team Creativity and…Goldilocks?
Topic: Conflict, Creativity
Publication: Journal of Applied Psychology (AUG 2010)
Article: Task conflict and team creativity: A question of how much and when
Authors: Farh, J. L., Lee, C., & Farh, C. I.
Reviewed By: Bobby Bullock
The concept of team creativity has become more and more salient in recent years due to an increasing reliance on teams to enhance an organization’s competitiveness. Team creativity is defined as the creation of new and helpful ideas concerning services, procedures, products, and processes by a team of individuals. So while, yes, we all want our teams to be creative, what environmental factors will encourage this?
Searching for such factors, Farh, Lee, and Farh (2010) set out to examine the roles that task conflict (or conflict about policies, procedures, decisions, interpretation of facts, and the distribution of resources) and the phase of a project team’s lifecycle (i.e., team formation, mid-point, and project deadline) have in determining team creativity.
Consistent with previous findings, Farh et al. (2010) found that there is a curvilinear relationship between task conflict and team creativity, meaning that when task conflict was extremely low or extremely high, team creativity was at its lowest, and moderate amounts of task conflict were linked with the highest amounts of team creativity. This supports the ‘Goldilocksian’ idea that too much disagreement and team members may become frustrated or lose sight of the group’s main goal, while too little disagreement could lead to groupthink and complacency. However, ‘just the right’ amount of disagreement can expose members to new ideas and stimulate divergent thinking!
Farh et al. (2010) also found that project team lifecycle interacted with task conflict to produce creative outcomes. Their findings indicate that the curvilinear relationship was only present at the early phase of a team’s lifecycle. This means that, as project teams near their deadline, task conflict will cease to produce creative solutions. They theorized that this is due to a team’s inability to change course or incorporate new ideas when they are nearing their deadlines.
The implications to this research are valuable for any organization that wishes to get the most from their project teams:
- Managers or team leaders should not discourage conflict based on ideas, decisions, etc… In fact, if they encourage some level of task conflict, they can expect their teams to come up with more creative solutions through the dissemination of more ideas and divergent thinking.
- Task conflict should be embraced particularly at the early phases of a team project, when members are defining/refining objectives and planning a course of to attain those objectives.
- According to Farh et al. (2010), managers should also “build a psychologically safe team climate early on in the project, so that team members feel safe to bring up ideas that may be counter to the majority opinion,” (pp. 6-7).
With all this said, it’s important for managers to keep in mind that too much task conflict and too many arguments can shift a team towards relationship conflicts, frustration and lack of productivity! Just like that old story with the blond girl, the three bears and the porridge!
Cheated Employees: Less Organizational Commitment and Less Creativity
Topic: Fairness Organizational Commitment Creativity
Publication: Journal of Applied Psychology (July, 2010)
Article: Psychological Contract Breaches, Organizational Commitment, and Innovation-Related Behaviors: A Latent Growth Modeling Approach
Authors: T.W.H. Ng, D.C. Feldman, S.S.K. Lam
Reviewed By: Ben Sher
Okay, here’s the deal. Employees make assumptions about what they owe their employers and what their employers owe them in return. This is called a psychological contract. According to Ng, Feldman, and Lam (2010), when employees think this psychological contract is being violated, they may feel less organizational commitment and become less innovative.
So what does happen when employees feel bamboozled? According to the authors, two things happen. First, employees will naturally begin to feel less emotional attachment to the company. This is not revenge; it’s just an inevitable emotional reaction. Secondly, employees will indeed have some interest in getting back at the employer as long as they can keep their jobs.
That sounds ominous. So, what do the employees do about it? Basically, they become less creative. The authors explain that there are two ways an employee can be creative on the job. Employees can solve problems and they can implement ideas. Problem solving is difficult to measure, so instead the authors measured idea implementation. They defined this as anytime an employee shared a new idea with a colleague or superior, or anytime an employee either worked to implement those new ideas or helped others to implement them. When employees perceived psychological breaches, they ended up engaging in less of these innovative behaviors. Because the study included employees from a wide variety of jobs, the authors concluded that the complexity of the job makes no difference, and innovation will always suffer.
A key finding of this study is that this decrease in innovation continued over time. Employers may mistakenly think that breaking psychological contracts won’t have lasting consequences and that employees will eventually forgive and forget. This is a mistake. Because the authors were able to identify the role psychological contract breaches have in reducing organizational commitment, or the overall attitude employees have towards their employers, it is easy to understand how innovation will continue to decrease over the long run. Employers should be warned of these consequences, and should be encouraged to fix the situation and give employees what they believe they are owed.
Ng, T.W.H., & Feldman, D.C., & Lam, S.S.K. (2010). Psychological Contract Breaches, Organizational Commitment, and Innovation-Related Behaviors: A Latent Growth Modeling Approach. Journal of Applied Psychology, 95, 744-751.
