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University of Groningen
Understanding how to stimulate individual, team and organizational creativityBalau, Georgiana
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Publication date:2017
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Citation for published version (APA):Balau, G. (2017). Understanding how to stimulate individual, team and organizational creativity: The role ofcognitive styles, faultlines and co-creation. University of Groningen, SOM research school.
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Chapter 1
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General Introduction
Creativity, defined as the “generation of ideas, insights, or problem
solutions that are new and meant to be useful” (Baas, De Dreu, & Nijstad,
2008:780) is widely acknowledged as a vital source of progress in many
societal domains. Creative ideas can be generated by a single individual or
by groups of individuals (Andriopoulos, 2001; De Dreu, Nijstad, Bechtoldt,
& Baas, 2011; Rietzschel, Nijstad, & Stroebe, 2014; Woodman, Sawyer, &
Griffin, 1993). Idea generation is a core activity of many institutions (e.g.,
universities, organizations), being a main driver of competitive advantage
and innovation (Ahuja, Lampert, & Tandon, 2008; Galvagno & Dalli, 2014).
Therefore, policy makers also pay substantial attention on how creativity of
cities, regions, and nations can be stimulated.
The general aim of this dissertation is to enrich the understanding
of the phenomenon of creativity in two ways (see Figure 1). First, we aim to
enrich the extensive field of creativity studies on the individual and team
level by delving deeper into how the particular aspect of cognitive styles
influences creativity. As this research is embedded in a long and rich
tradition of studying creativity of individuals and teams, we frame this part
as the more ‘exploitative’ part of this dissertation. Second, we aim to enrich
our understanding of the less studied phenomenon of creativity at the
organizational level. In particular, we examine the impact of particular
internal and external factors on the ability of organizations to generate
creative outcomes. We therefore label this part of the dissertation as the
more ‘explorative’ part.
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Figure 1. Aim of the dissertation
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Exploitative Part: The Impact of Cognitive Styles on Individual and
Team Creativity
Whereas creativity researchers (Byron, Khazanchi, & Nazarian, 2010; de
Jesus, Rus, Lens, & Imaginario, 2013; Hennessey & Amabile, 2010;
Hulsheger, Anderson, & Salgado, 2009; Stewart, 2006) has long focused on
studying observable individual/team characteristics (e.g., gender) and their
impact on creativity, they increasingly pay attention to less observable
characteristics. Individuals’ cognitive style has been identified as one of
characteristics that can substantially influence individual and team
creativity (de Visser, Faems, Visscher, & de Weerd-Nederhof, 2014; Scott &
Bruce, 1994). Cognitive styles are defined as individual differences in the
way people perceive, organize and process information (Epstein, 2003;
Pacini & Epstein, 1999). Cognitive style research (Epstein, 1985; Morling &
Epstein, 1997; Pacini & Epstein, 1999) mainly distinguishes between
experiential cognitive style, which is fast, autonomous, intuitive, and
rational cognitive style, which is slow, deliberative, analytic.
Reviewing existing research on the impact of cognitive styles on
creativity, we identified two important research gaps. First, whereas recent
research on cognitive styles (Barr, Pennycook, Stolz, & Fugelsang, 2013; De
Neys, 2014) tends to apply the dual processing assumption, implying that
individuals can have a combination of high analytic and intuitive thinking,
empirical research on such combination of analytic and intuitive thinking
and its implications for the creative behaviour of individuals is lacking. In
other words, whereas cognitive style scholars theoretically point to the
possibly of combining analytic and intuitive thinking, empirical research on
the implications of such combination is absent. In the first study, we
therefore aim to answer the following research question: How does a
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combination of activating both experiential and rational cognitive styles
influence individual creativity? (RQ1.1)
Apart from studying the relationship between cognitive styles and
creativity at the individual level, scholars (Aggarwal & Woolley, 2013; de
Visser et al., 2014; Leonard, Beauvais, & Scholl, 2005) have also started
examining the role and importance of cognitive styles at the team level. In
this latter stream of research, surprisingly limited attention has been paid
to the context in which these teams are situated. Relying on insights from
resource matching theory (Anand & Sternthal, 1989; Mantel & Kellaris,
2003), we however expect that different contexts might trigger different
environmental cues, influencing the extent to which teams can benefit from
particular cognitive styles in terms of generating new ideas. The second
research question is therefore formulated as follows: To what extent do
different environmental cues (i.e., rational versus experiential cues) influence
the relationship between team experiential cognitive style and team
creativity? (RQ1.2)
To address these research questions, we apply experimental
research designs. We chose this approach as it allows testing causal
relationships in a controlled setting (Bargh, Chen, & Burrows, 1996;
Chartrand & Bargh, 1996). We rely on students as experimental
participants. We rely on established tasks (Nijstad, Stroebe, & Lodewijkx,
2003; Rietzschel, De Dreu, & Nijstad, 2007; Rietzschel, Nijstad, & Stroebe,
2010) to measure creativity at the individual and team levels of analysis.
From an empirical point of view, the novelty of our research is situated at
the level of manipulating a combination of rational and experiential
cognitive styles in Study 1 and manipulating different kinds of
environmental cues in Study 2.
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Explorative Part: Understanding the Drivers of Organizational
Creativity
Whereas previous creativity research (Amabile, 1997; George & Zhou,
2002; Hennessey & Amabile, 2010) mainly focused on examining the
impact of individual/team characteristics and their impact on individual
and team creativity, our understanding of creativity at the organizational
level is rather limited (Andriopoulos, 2001; Woodman et al., 1993).
Studying the phenomenon of organizational creativity – i.e., the ability of
organizations to generate new and useful ideas – is important as, at the
organizational level, other factors might play out, influencing firms’ ability
to generate new ideas. In the second part of this dissertation, we want to
enrich our understanding of organizational creativity through exploring
both internal and external conditions that impact the creativity of
organizations.
First, we focus on the composition of firms’ R&D workforce as an
important driver of organizational creativity. Several studies (Thamhain,
2003; Hoffman, Parejo, Bessant, & Perren, 1998) have provided first
indications that diversity of the R&D workforce can impact organizations’
ability to generate new ideas. However, these studies mainly looked at
these dimensions as independent factors. Applying insights from faultline
theory (Lau & Murnighan, 2005; Thatcher & Patel, 2011) at the
organizational level, we emphasize the importance of considering how
these different diversity dimensions of firms’ R&D workforce jointly
influence the ability of firms to generate technological inventions. In the
third study, we therefore aim to answer the following research question: To
what extent and under which conditions does SMEs’ R&D workforce faultline
strength influences SMEs technological invention? (RQ2.1)
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Second, our explorative research efforts expand towards
understanding the impact of external drivers on organizational creativity.
Following the open innovation paradigm (Chesbrough, 2003; Lichtenthaler
& Lichtenthaler, 2009), we argue that external actors can be important
sources of valuable information that can inspire organizations to generate
new ideas. In particular, we examine the impact of co-creation activities on
firms’ organizational creativity. The fourth research question addressed by
this dissertation is therefore formulated as follows: To what extent and
under which conditions does co-creation impact SMEs’ radical organizational
creativity? (RQ2.2)
To address these research questions, we rely on survey data on
SME companies. We focus on SME companies as, within such firms, the
relationship between the core independent and dependent variables is less
likely to be contaminated by complex organizational and legal structures.
Synopsis of the Dissertation Chapters
Chapter 2 investigates how activated combinations of cognitive styles
impact individual creativity (i.e., ability to generate a wide variety of ideas).
Cognitive styles refer to the way people perceive, organize and process
information (Epstein, 2003). They have been considered an essential
characteristic that influences individuals’ creativity (Dane, Baer, Pratt, &
Oldham, 2011; Munoz-Doyague, Gonzalez-Alvarez, & Nieto, 2008; Norris &
Epstein, 2011). We focus on comparing a combined activation of a high
experiential and a high rational cognitive style with alternative cognitive
styles combinations (i.e. high experiential and low rational; low
experiential and high rational). Whereas prior studies have studied the
independent effects of experiential and rational cognitive styles on
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individuals’ creativity, this research studies cognitive styles in combination.
Relying on Cognitive-Experiential Self-Theory (Epstein, 2003) and insights
from dual-processing theory (De Neys & Glumicic, 2008; Sloman, 1996), we
develop and test competing hypotheses on the impact of a combination of
high experiential and high rational cognitive styles on individuals’
creativity. To test our hypotheses, we conducted a three-condition
laboratory experiment (i.e., N = 75) and activated individuals’ combined
cognitive styles by means of a bogus Personalised Personality Profile.
Chapter 3 investigates the moderating impact of workplace setting
on the relationship between team experiential cognitive style and team
performance. We experimentally test the extent to which different
environmental cues (i.e., rational or experiential cues) influence the
relationship between teams’ experiential cognitive style and team creative
performance. Relying on insights from resource-matching theory (Anand &
Sternthal, 1989), we argue that the workplace setting is an important
contingency factor because: (1) they influence the cognitive resources
required to process information for a given task and (2) they also influence
the cognitive resources available to process information for a given task
(Anand & Sternthal, 1989; Mantel & Kellaris, 2003). To address our
research aim, we tested our hypotheses using a sample of students (i.e., N =
225) from a university in the Netherlands, who were randomly distributed
in 75 three-member teams in a three-condition laboratory experiment
where we manipulated either experiential or rational environmental cues.
Chapter 4 examines the impact of SMEs’ R&D workforce diversity
on technological invention, i.e., the act of creating new technologies. We
focus on the impact of R&D workforce faultline strength (i.e., the degree of
both internal- and cross-subgroup alignment) on SMEs’ technological
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invention (i.e., the presence of patent applications by the firm in 2008) and
the moderating effect of the firm size on this relationship. Based on insights
from the team diversity literature we develop hypotheses on the impact of
faultline strength on SMEs ability to generate technological inventions. To
test our hypotheses, we rely on the 2008 National Survey of R&D in
Singapore conducted by the Agency of Science, Technology and Research
(A*STAR). This database provides in-depth information on the R&D
workforce composition and technological invention activities of 753 SME
firms.
Chapter 5 examines how a particular mode of collaboration with
external actors – i.e., co-creation – influences organizational creativity.
Specifically, we focus on the impact of co-creation on radical organizational
creativity (i.e., ideas that differ substantially from an organization’s existing
practices and alternatives) (Gilson & Madjar, 2011; Madjar, Greenberg, &
Chen, 2011). Combining insights from co-creation literature (Terblanche,
2014; Voorberg, Bekkers, & Tummers, 2015), innovation and
organizational learning literature (Levinthal & March, 1993; Rhee & Kim,
2015), we hypothesize a positive impact of co-creation on radical
organizational creativity (Gilson & Madjar, 2011; Madjar et al., 2011). In
addition, we hypothesize that firms’ internal structure and firm’s internal
support for creativity moderate this relationship. To test these hypotheses,
we rely on 275 SMEs situated in the region of Northern Netherlands, which
participated in the Northern Dutch Innovator Monitor.
Chapter 6 elaborates on the theoretical and practical implications
of the findings. This chapter ends with the most interesting ideas for future
research.
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