Collective Intelligence 2014

Leveraging Diversity in Intercultural Creative Teams JULIA KATHERINE HAINES, University of California, Irvine

1. DIVERSITY AND SOCIAL CREATIVITY

Scholars have been studying creativity for many generations, but their focus has shifted in recent years from the individual to a more social orientation to creativity. Schneiderman [2000] brought social influence into the creative process model, suggesting more emphasis should be placed on interaction with others and the environment. This conceptualization stresses that creativity does not happen inside an individual mind, but rather is the result of relationships and interactions with other people and other things [Engeström 2001]. It has been largely taken for granted that creativity is important to design because the more ideas produced, the greater the possibility of finding a good solution [Taylor, Berry & Block 1958]. In the decades since this idea was initially introduced, the concept of creativity and its role in design has been refined somewhat. People generally accept that the greater the confluence of sources to combine and recombine ideas, the better the result. This implicitly supports the potential for diversity to improve creative outcomes, as diverse matrices of thought can be combined in many more ways than more homogenous ones. And in looking for ways to glean diverse perspectives, culture is an important element to consider, as varying social environments and experiences can produce very different ways of thinking about the same domain. Many scholars suggest that diversity holds great potential for creativity, yet culturally diverse teams are often wrought with troubles in communication and collaboration. While theory abounds, few empirical studies have actually examined creativity in diverse teams to understand the balance of challenges and benefits. In this study, I take a combined approach to uncover relationships between measures of culture and cultural diversity and creative outcomes and then look more closely at the creative process to explore how these are related. I highlight the importance of embracing conflict in creative teams and discuss ways diversity might be leveraged in intercultural design teams.

2. STUDY DESIGN

To investigate these topics, I conducted a laboratory experiment with a range of more homogeneous to more heterogeneous groups of 3 to 4 participants working in a creative task. In order to construct culturally-diverse groups, I recruited a mix of student participants from the US and other countries, namely India and China. I used Aperian’s GlobeSmart Assessment Profile (GAP), a validated empirical instrument, to assess cultural traits and degrees of diversity along five dimensions (Fig. 1). Immediately prior to the study task, participants individually completed the GAP, a 27-item survey that presents statements about general work-based situations and asks level of agreement or disagreement on a 7-point Likert scale. Following a brief group warmup, the groups were presented with the improvisational design task. The groups were instructed to to develop an idea for a novel and useful invention for students in 30 minutes, followed by a debrief and individual questionnaire. After all 14 study sessions had been run, three raters were recruited to evaluate the groups’ products. They did initial individual evaluations and then met and discussed each product in relation to refined criteria, with an emphasis on what were determined as the three most important, based on discussion and the literature: novelty, usefulness, and feasibility. I used Krippendorff’s Alpha [Hayes &

1

2 J. Haines

Collective Intelligence 2014

Krippendorff, 2007] to calculate inter-rater reliability, finding reliability among these criteria: novelty 𝛼

= 0.83; usefulness 𝛼 = 0.75; feasibility 𝛼 = 0.93 (nCoders = 3; nCases = 14; nDecisions = 42). These scores were combined to create a total composite score for each product. Then, using profile maps from the GAP analysis (as in Fig. 1), I created series of data for each individual participant as well as for the groups. This resulted in a data set that included individual scores along each dimension, team scores along each dimension (averages), the degrees of diversity for each team along each dimension (differences between individuals, or deviations), and an overall diversity score for each team.

Fig 1. GlobeSmart Assessment Profile Mapping

3. TEAM COMPOSITION AND INTERACTIONS IN THE CREATIVE PROCESS

I took a combined approach to analysis, initially looking at relationships between variables, and then delving into the processes and meanings that underlie these relationships. First, I analyzed product outcomes in relationship to group cultural dimensions and diversity. To assess connections between the cultural traits measured through the GAP and performance, I conducted statistical analyses to evaluate the relationships between the group averages along each of the five dimensions and the product outcomes. Then I examined the diversity along the each of these dimensions with regard to outcome. Significant relationships were found in four areas, though it should be emphasized that significance was measured at the p=.05 level, so there is an element of chance at play. Overall diversity was negatively related to usefulness (r(12)=-.626, p=.017), as well as were diversity along the risk-restraint dimension (r(12)=-.555, p=.039) and diversity along the task-relationship dimension (r(12)=-.618, p=.019). The one cultural dimension that was itself significantly related to outcome was the task-relationship dimension, which indicates that having a team composition in which members are more task-oriented relates to better creative performance, while being more relationship-oriented relates to poorer performance (r(12)=-.601, p=.023). The results of these quantitative analyses identified areas for further exploration. I looked closer at the processes of the top- and bottom-scoring groups, coding the transcripts of the task using a scheme that reflects key aspects of design activity [based on Olson et al., 1993]. In total, there were 8 major code categories, and 12 subcategories, which were used not only to classify the type of activity, but also the nature of the exchange- whether it reflected agreement or disagreement. Frequencies of the most important categories of analysis and difference showed general trends. Those in the poorly-performing groups had less discussion of the problem and clarifying ideas, and they provided more positive than negative feedback. The lowest-scoring team had few negative comments and the lowest word count. The next worst team devoted massive amounts of time to off-topic conversation (165 instances). Considering the differences in these behaviors alongside the differences of group cultural composition on the task-relationship spectrum highlighted an important dynamic at play: conflict. The data suggest that there was in fact more conflict in the groups that performed well and conflict avoidance in groups that did not. Those teams further toward the relationship end of the spectrum (as an aggregate) appeared to engage in less clarification and negative feedback and had lower outcome scores. By contrast, teams that were more task-oriented engaged in more disagreement and conflict, and their products scored much higher.

Leveraging Diversity in Intercultural Creative Teams 3

Collective Intelligence 2014

Through this process, I identified conflict and conflict avoidance as key components that guided action and interaction. Task conflict contributes positively to creative outcomes, and it is more common in teams with a task orientation. By contrast, a relationship orientation caused conflict avoidance in groups, which led to withholding of the varying perspectives that make diversity powerful to begin with.

4. LEVERAGING DIVERSITY

Despite the potential for diversity to aid in social creativity, it related to worse outcomes statistically. However, several areas of significance arose from these analyses; in particular, an orientation to relationships, as opposed to tasks, appeared to be a major negative contributing factor in group creative processes. I probed further to understand how this played a role, and found that conflict is a central aspect of creative design processes. As I observed in the task-oriented groups, being open to conflict can lead to discussions that allow for diverse groups to share perspectives and recontextualize ideas to create better outcomes when the conflict is managed properly. The key to these groups was their ability to maintain group stability while engaging conflicting opinions. They did this by maintaining focus on the task and, in the short term, adapting their behaviors. They did not ignore relationships altogether, but rather found a way of interacting that did not lead to groupthink or to behaviors that may destroy the groups’ stability. Based on these findings, I propose a model of intercultural group conflict and creativity that adapts Jehn’s model of conflict types [1997] to these foci (Fig 2). I found that higher scoring groups in innovative activities collaborated less. That is to say, creativity was achieved by cognitive confrontation through clarification and negative evaluative statements, not necessarily agreement. It is important to reconsider what collaboration means in the context of creativity and design and when conflict should also be a goal. Much cross-cultural and intercultural research seeks to identify differences in values and behaviors in pursuit of minimizing their influence. It seems that in creative tasks, though, we want to consider the ways in which we can leverage some differences, while minimizing others. We must look at how disagreements and emotion are embedded in cultural contexts and what we can learn about resolving conflict with a practical approach to intercultural conflict styles. In terms of leveraging diversity in creative teams, better intercultural training, preparation for conflict management and creating conditions to instigate conflict itself are things to consider. There are technological implications as well. ICTs reduce the focus on social cues [Giambatista and Bhappu 2010] and impose a task structure that generally shifts attention towards task performance. This suggests that use of technology may benefit diverse groups in the form of reduced relationship conflict and process conflict, while enhancing conflict around the creative task. In developing technologies that support creative activities, it is important we understand the ways in which they may or may not create conflicts, particularly in intercultural contexts, where there is a greater potential for misunderstandings. Future research must consider ways to evaluate cultural traits and consider how they relate behavior in context. Clearly this area is rife with opportunity to develop better conceptual structures and technologies to support diverse, creative collaboration. Full paper available at: http://www.juliakhaines.com/home/LeveragingDiversity.pdf

Fig 2. Model of Intercultural Group Conflict and Creativity

4 J. Haines

Collective Intelligence 2014

REFERENCES Engeström, Y. 2001. Expansive Learning at Work: Toward an Activity Theoretical Reconceptualization. J. of Education and Work

14(1), 133-156. Giambatista, R.C. and Bhappu, A.D. 2010. Diversity’s harvest: Interactions of diversity sources and communication technology on

creative group performance. Organizational Behavior and Human Decision Processes 111 (2), 116-126. Hayes, A.F. and Krippendorff, K. 2007. Answering the Call for a Standard Reliability Measure for Coding Data. Communication

Methods and Measures 1, 77-89. Jehn, K.A. 1997. A Qualitative Analysis of Conflict Types and Dimensions in Organizational Groups. Administrative Science

Quarterly, 42(3), 530-557. Olson, J. S., Olson, G. M., Storrøsten, M., and Carter, M. 1993. Group work close up: A comparison of the group design process

with and without a simple group editor. ACM Transactions on Information Systems 11, 321–348. Schneiderman, B. 2000. Creating Creativity: User Interface for Supporting Innovation. ACM Trans. on Computer-Human

Interaction 7(1), 114-138. Taylor, D.W., Berry, P. C. & Block C. H. 1958. Does Group Participation When Using Brainstorming Facilitate or Inhibit Creative

Thinking? Administrative Science Quarterly 3(1), 23-47.