Innovation & Creativity

Question 1

Creative activities and creativity leads to multiple “career”(-related) benefits, like?

Answer 1

Creative activities and creativity leads to multiple “career”(-related) benefits:
❖Wages and bonus
❖Promotion(s)
❖Surprising job and gig offers ❖Expat experience
❖Partnership and collaboration opportunities

Question 2

WHY CREATIVITY “MANIA”? A CATEGORISATION?

Answer 2

1. Economic
   - Economic advantage;
   ▪ Abundance: oversupplied goods→change for differentiation/comp.
   advantage.
   ▪ Money: outsourcing from West to East
   ▪ Automation: efficient robots
   ▪ Scarcity of human resources
   ▪ Now: Sustainability
   - Career success.
2. Political/relational
   ▪ Status;
   ▪ Image build;
   ▪ Interpersonal attraction.
3. Biological
   ▪ Healthy advantage;
   ▪ Happiness.

Question 3

What is creativity?

Answer 3

1. Creativity is the ability to create (= to make new things) and think of of new ideas (Merriam- Webster).
2. Creativity is a process resulting in a product; it is the production of a novel and appropriate response, product, or solution to an open-ended task. The response must be new, but it must also be appropriate to the task to be completed or the problem to be solved. In addition, the task must be open-ended, rather than having a single, obvious solution (Amabile & Mueller, 2008).
3. Creativity is the ability to produce new ideas which are novel to the idea producers themselves (Drabkin, 1996).
4. Creativity is not an attribute of individuals, but of social systems making judgments about individuals…The social and cultural conditions, interacting with individual potentialities, brought about the objects and behaviours we call creative” (Csikszentmihalyi, 1994).

Question 4

What is the scope of creativity?

Answer 4

1. “the production of novel and appropriate responses, products, or solutions”.
2. Core elements: novelty and usefulness
3. Domains: business, science, fine art.
4. Scope: R&D staff, sales teams, HR jobs…. all job positions.
5. Types: incremental (“c”) vs. radical (“C”)
6. Level: individual, team, organisational, regional, country/cultural

Question 5

Difference between CREATIVITY & INNOVATION?

Answer 5

1. Many consider innovation and creativity the same; do not make a distinction between two concepts – no essential difference.
2. Others do demarcate the two concepts:
    Innovation more used at the organizational level, whilst creativity refers to an individual or team characteristic.
    Creativity is not necessarily innovation → If you have a brainstorm meeting and dream up dozens of new ideas then you have displayed creativity, but there is no innovation until something gets implemented. This suggests that innovation encompasses the creativity concept.

Question 6

What are the different views on creativity?

Answer 6

1. Ability
   ▪ …to produce new ideas that are novel to producers themselves (Drabkin, 1996)
2. Process
   ▪ Production of novel and appropriate responses, products, or solutions (Amabile & Mueller, 2008)
3. Attribution and judgment
   ▪Creativity implies persuasion in that creative people change the way that others think (Simonton, 1990)

Question 7

DIFFERENT VIEWS UNITED: MODEL ??

Answer 7

Within:
- Ability: Expertise & Creative ability
- Motivation(s
+ Environment
–> (Process)
- Novel & useful products and services (influenced by attribution & judgement)

Question 8

What is CREATIVITY AS (INDIVIDUAL) ABILITY?

Answer 8

1. Ability = the quality or state of “being able” =
2. A (natural) capacity or talent that enables an individual to perform a particular job or task successfully.
    Creativity is one of the 24 values.
3. Long-standing perspective: some individuals are more inclined to be creative than others by
   virtue of their personality or abilities (van Knippenberg & Hirst, 2015).
4. Differences between individuals:
    Intelligence
    Demographic/biographic characteristics
    Personality/psychological/cognitive traits

Question 9

FUEL FOR CREATIVITY: COGNITIVE STYLES

Answer 9

Kirton’s Cognitive Style measure (1987):
- Continuum ranging from adaptation to innovation.
 Adaptor: doing things better.
 Innovator: doing things differently; the more creative thinkers.

Question 10

FUEL FOR CREATIVITY: PERSONALITY TRAITS

Answer 10

Big-5 Personality (Goldberg, 1990):
 Openness to experience (+);  Agreeableness;
 Introversion/extraversion;
 Conscientiousness (-);
 Neuroticism/ emotional stability

Question 11

FUEL FOR CREATIVITY: GOALS AND REGULATION

Answer 11

• Big-5 Personality traits are quite general (high amount of variance explained), and are derived empirically rather than from theory.
• As a reaction, search for more conceptually grounded explanations, for instance:
   Goal orientation: learning (mastery) vs. performance:
  → Performance-approach/prove: moving towards aspired goals and positive outcomes; proving one’s qualities.
  → Performance-avoidance: moving away from aversive stimulations and negative end-states.
• Regulatory focus: promotion-focus (i.e. pursuit of certain goals due to desire to approach gains – risk seeking) vs. prevention-focus (i.e. pursuit of certain goals due to desire to avoid losses – risk averse).

Question 12

Performance-approach & promotion focus lead to?

Answer 12

Approach oriented motivation promotes creativity;
• Activated and engaged individuals;
• Enhances cognitive flexibility;
• Broaden the scope of attention; (slide 32 out of 70)

Question 13

Performance-avoidance and prevention-focus lead to?

Answer 13

Bi-sided effect of avoidance oriented motivation on creativity;
• Deactivated and disengaged individuals (not always);
• Enhances cognitive control, e.g., cognitive persistence;
• Narrow the scope of attention.

Question 14

What is CREATIVITY AS A PROCESS?

Answer 14

Four basic stages (Amabile, 1996): 1. Problem definition/finding;
2. Preparation;
3. Idea generation;
4. Validation/communication.
There is a begin and an end to the process, but no strict order.

Question 15

INFLUENCING THE PROCESS: COMPONENTIAL VIEW?

Answer 15

1. Importance of selecting people that demonstrate high levels of each of the individual components of creativity:
   –> Componential Theory (Amabile):
    Component 1: (Domain-relevant) Expertise.
    Component 2: Creativity skill (i.e. set of creativity-relevant processes stemming from a person’s personality, cognitive style, and working style).
    Component 3: (Intrinsic) Motivation.

Addition: Environmental component: can foster or block creativity.

Question 16

MOTIVATION COMPONENT: IMPORTANCE?

Answer 16

1. Intrinsic motivation
   - Inner interest, associated with interest, passion, enjoyment:
    High engagement and autonomy in tasks;  Tendency to risk;
    Flexibly explore.

2. Extrinsic motivation
External goals, such as rewards, expectation of evaluation
 Low engagement in tasks (not always); 
 Tendency to comply;
 Exploit than explore.

Question 17

‘SYSTEMS VIEW’ OF CREATIVITY?

Answer 17

1. Where the Componential Theory emphasises/centres around the individual, the Systems Theory (Csikszentmihalyi, 1999) also considers the domain and the field.
   - -> Creativity takes place in a system rather than in a singular person.

• Domain transmits information to the person;
• The person produces a variation, selected or not by the field,
• The field in turn passes selected variations to the domain.

Question 18

COGNITIVE PROCESS(ING) OF CREATIVITY?

Answer 18

1. INDIVIDUAL INPUTS
   - Traits (Intelligence, personality, cognitive abilities):
    Characteristic behaviours and feelings that are consistent and long lasting
    Biological basis
    Independent of environmental influences.
   - States (motivational states, emotional states):
    Temporary behaviours or feelings that depend on a person’s situation and motives at a particular time
    Influenced by traits
    Situational
   –> Traits & Individual states lead to uncommon novel, many ideas, insights, solutions, recognition & selection, evaluation (novel & useful outcomes).
   But how?

Question 19

So how do we move from the inputs to the outcomes?

Answer 19

1. BRAIN PROCESS(ING):
   - INFORMATION STORAGE AND RETRIEVAL.
   Semantic network model of brain
    Nodes represent concepts
    Nodes link to each other based on relatedness
   # Cognitive units / nodes
   # Relatedness / Association  Proximal
    Remote
   Different styles across individuals…
2. DIFFERENT STYLES ACROSS INDIVIDUALS: DUAL COGNITIVE PATHWAYS (TO CREATIVITY)
   - Divergent processing:
    Broad and inclusive mental categories
    Divergent and loose processing style
    Flexible and flat associations
   - Convergent processing:
    Narrow set of categories
    Persistent, analytical and deep processing style
    Systematical search and incrementally combining possibility.

Question 20

What is divergent processing: cognitive flexibility?

Answer 20

• Cognitive flexibility: the ease with which people can switch to a different approach or consider a different perspective.
• Creativity comes from broad and inclusive exploration of various categories that are otherwise disconnected.

Question 21

What is convergent processing: cognitive persistence?

Answer 21

• Cognitive persistence: the degree of sustained and focused task-related cognitive efforts.
• Creativity comes from in-depth exploration among a few categories.

Question 22

What is the interplay between two pathways of the creativity model?

Answer 22

Flexibility & Persistence –> Creating ideas (original and appropriate)

Question 23

BRAIN PROCESS(ING) MODEL OF CREATIVITY?

Answer 23

Individual input (traits & states) –> cognitive flexibility & cognitive persistence –> novel and useful outcomes.

Question 24

DEMARCATING AFFECT/EMOTIONS/MOODS?

Answer 24

• -> AFFECT:
• Defined as a broad range of feelings that people experience. Affect can be experienced in the form of emotions or moods.
• -> EMOTIONS:
• Caused by specific event.
• Very brief in duration (seconds or minutes).
• Specific and numerous in nature (many specific emotions such as anger, fear, sadness, happiness, disgust, surprise)
• Usually accompanied by distract facial expressions.
• Action oriented in nature.
• -> MOODS:
• Cause is often general and unclear
• Last longer than emotions (hours or days)
• More general (2 main dimensions - positive and negative affect- that are comprised of multiple specific emotions)
• Generally not indicated by distinct expressions
• Cognitive in nature.

Affect –> emotions Moods –> affect

Question 25

HOW DOES EMOTION EXPLAIN CREATIVITY?

Answer 25

- Positive emotions --> Broaden-and-Build Theory explains the function of discrete positive emotions – e.g. joy, interest, contentment, pride, and love (Fredrickson, 1998).  Positive emotions broaden people’s thought-action repertoires.  Undo lingering negative emotions.  Defocused attention and larger cognitive context (i.e. cognitive flexibility).  Fuel psychological resilience, which is individual's tendency to cope with stress and adversity.  Trigger upwards spirals toward improved/enhanced emotional well-being.

Question 26

ORGANISATIONAL FRAMEWORK OF EMOTION, AFFECT AND CREATIVITY

Answer 26

Slide 56

Question 27

Pros and Cons of THE DARK SIDE OF CREATIVITY?

Answer 27

1. Pros - Flexible - Risky - Confident - Independent 2. Cons - Undisciplined - Deviant - Arrogant - Uncooperative 3. Gino and Ariely (2011) found that creative people displayed all sorts of dishonest traits: more likely to cheat on a game in the lab; better at justifying their dishonesty afterwards.

Question 28

THE DARK SIDE OF CREATIVITY?

Answer 28

Gino and Ariely (2011) found that creative people displayed all sorts of dishonest traits: - more likely to cheat on a game in the lab. - better at justifying their dishonesty afterwards.

Question 29

SITUATIONAL INFLUENCE ON CREATIVITY: | HOW CAN ORGANISATIONS FOSTER CREATIVITY?

Answer 29

a. Physical environment b. Organisational culture and climate c. Job settings d. Interpersonal connections & team stimulations e. Leadership Person-in-situation framework (Hirst & van Knippenberg)

Question 30

SITUATIONAL INFLUENCE ON CREATIVITY: HOW CAN ORGANISATIONS FOSTER CREATIVITY? A) PHYSICAL ENVIRONMENT— SACRED SPACE

Answer 30

Environmental influence Colour decoration --> Colour stimulates creativity, blue or red? (Mehta & Zhu, 2009) ▪Up to 161 volunteers solved problems in front of a either a blue, red or neutral background on computers. ▪Difference tasks were given to participants, such as designing toys - Blue associates with openness, peace, and tranquility Intend to take risks, imagine, and explore Boosts creativity - Red associates with dangers, warnings, and mistakes Intend to vigilant and conservative solutions Prohibit concentration Spatial density Physical boundaries in rooms  Office gardens vs. cubicles “An environment described as agreeable, with adequate illumination, furniture, space, and ventilation”.

Question 31

SITUATIONAL INFLUENCE ON CREATIVITY: HOW CAN ORGANISATIONS FOSTER CREATIVITY? B) ORGANISATIONAL CULTURE AND CLIMATE

Answer 31

- Organisational culture: system of beliefs, norms, feelings, and values shared by its members, which are translated into (employee) behaviour. - Organisational climate: it is about “what it feels like to work in a certain organisation”. Manifestations of culture might be observed in different organizational factors:  Organizational structure (hierarchical vs. flat)  Corporate policy  R&D investment  R&D alliance with other firms  Empowerment  Reward system

Question 32

SITUATIONAL INFLUENCE ON CREATIVITY: HOW CAN ORGANISATIONS FOSTER CREATIVITY? C) JOB SETTINGS

Answer 32

- Job complexity  Stimulate need of competence - Job autonomy  Satisfy need of autonomy - Job interdependence  Need of relatedness  Various expertise - Job requirements  External expectations on creativity - Deadlines  External expectations ~Goal-setting theory ~ Self-determined theory ~ Intrinsic motivation

Question 33

SITUATIONAL INFLUENCE ON CREATIVITY: HOW CAN ORGANISATIONS FOSTER CREATIVITY? D) INTERPERSONAL CONNECTIONS

Answer 33

``` - Intragroup interaction: Creative stimuli from coworkers  Expertise and resources from coworkers  Leader’s support  Feedbacks and refinement ``` ~Resource composition ~ Diversity benefits ~ Social learning

Question 34

SITUATIONAL INFLUENCE ON CREATIVITY: HOW CAN ORGANISATIONS FOSTER CREATIVITY? D) TEAM STIMULATIONS

Answer 34

Team composition:  Personality: extraversion + conscientiousness  Diverse gender, ethnical groups, cultural backgrounds  Diverse educational backgrounds, technical skills Team processes:  Information elaboration

Question 35

SITUATIONAL INFLUENCE ON CREATIVITY: HOW CAN ORGANISATIONS FOSTER CREATIVITY? E) LEADERSHIP

Answer 35

- Leaders play an important role in fostering organisational/individual creativity: - Certain leadership styles are more effective than others:  Task-oriented leadership  Relation-oriented leadership - De Jong & Den Hartog (2007) – leadership behaviours associated with creative (innovative) employee behaviour: 1. Role modelling; 2. Intellectual stimulation; 3. Stimulating knowledge diffusion; 4. Providing vision; 5. Consulting; 6. Delegating; 7. Support for innovation; 8. Organising feedback; 9. Recognition; 10. Rewards; 11. Task assignment

Question 36

HOW TO TRANSLATE DISPOSITION INTO ACTION: PERSON-IN-SITUATION PERSPECTIVE?

Answer 36

1) Situation strength: the extent to which the situation conveys clear clues as to what is appropriate and inappropriate behaviour in that situation. 2) Situation trait relevance: the extent that “it is thematically connected by the provision of cues, responses to which indicate a person’s standing on the trait” (Tett & Burnett, 2003). 3) Situational resources: the extent to which the situation provides the resources to achieve the outcomes inspired by one’s trait.