University of Groningen

Understanding how to stimulate individual, team and organizational creativityBalau, Georgiana

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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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