Creativity
Jing Zhou
Creativity refers to the generation of novel and useful ideas concerning products, services, work methods, processes, and procedures by an in dividual or a small group of individuals working together (Amabile, 1996). This definition is out come instead of process oriented. We judge the extent to which an idea is creative, instead of judging the extent to which an individual’s mental process through which an idea is pro duced is creative. In addition, both novelty and usefulness are necessary conditions for an idea to be considered creative. An idea that is novel but has no potential value or usefulness would not be considered creative. By definition, individual creativity is different from organizational innovation, in that the former involves the idea generation stage, whereas the latter includes both the idea generation and implementation stages. Thus, individual creativity often pro vides a starting point for organizational innov ation (Amabile, 1988).
Creativity can be seen as a continuum ranging from low levels to relatively high levels (Mum ford and Gustafson, 1988). Whereas lower level creativity often involves incremental modi fications and adjustments, reconfigurations of existing ideas, or combination of two or more previously unrelated ideas or material in a novel and useful fashion (see bisociation), higher level creativity involves more frame breaking and radical contributions.
Anyone with a normal level of intelligence can be somewhat creative (Barron and Harrington, 1981). To a certain degree, most individuals’ creative abilities can be improved over time, through training and actual experience of participating in creative activities (Zhou and Shalley, 2003). However, different individuals may be capable of being creative in different domains (Amabile, 1996). For example, whereas one person may tend to express creativity in artistic designs in advertising, another person may be particularly good at coming up with new and useful ideas to improve business processes.
Measurement
The outcome oriented definition of creativity facilitates empirical research because it allows researchers to measure and quantify creativity. In the behavioral laboratory, creativity is often measured by using the consensual assessment technique in which two or more qualified judges independently rate the extent to which an idea or solution is creative (Amabile, 1996). If the judges’ ratings are found to be reliable and in agreement, then a creativity score is computed as an average of the creativity ratings for each individual across judges and the ideas rated (Shalley, 1991; Zhou, 1998).
In field studies, creativity is often measured by asking supervisors to rate the creativity of their employees (Oldham and Cummings, 1996; Zhou and George, 2001). Some studies involving R&D employees have also used object ive measures such as the number of patents, patent disclosures, research papers and technical reports, and ideas submitted to employee sug gestion programs (see Zhou and Shalley, 2003, for a review). Many studies have found similar results between objective measures and super visory ratings of creativity, yet some studies have found varying results, and still other studies have found varying results between different objective measures. Thus, more research is needed to examine relations between supervisor ratings and objective measures, and among dif ferent objective measures of creativity (Zhou and Shalley, 2003).
Factors Influencing Creativity
Early creativity research took a person centered approach, focusing on identifying personalities that characterize creative individuals (Barron and Harrington, 1981). However, despite the enormous effort spent on identifying key personalities that determine creativity across subject areas, empirical results have been incon clusive and inconsistent (Barron and Harring ton, 1981). The answer to the question of what personalities are determinants of creativity in the workplace remains elusive. Thus, contemporary research has emphasized the need to identify and examine contextual factors that facilitate or in hibit creativity (Zhou and Shalley, 2003). More recently, researchers have come to realize that a fuller and more comprehensive understanding of how creativity is enhanced or restricted would require an interactional approach, in which both personal and contextual factors are taken into consideration (Oldham and Cummings, 1996; Woodman, Sawyer, and Griffin, 1993; Zhou, 2003).
A great deal of research concerning effects of contextual factors on creativity has been facili tated by an intrinsic motivation principle (Zhou and Shalley, 2003). This principle is the key part of the componential model of creativity, which posits that individuals exhibit the highest level of creativity when they possess domain relevant knowledge and skills, creativity relevant skills and strategies, and most importantly, task motivation (Amabile, 1988, 1996). Contextual factors are theorized to affect creativity via influ encing individuals’ task motivation, especially their intrinsic motivation. Factors that boost intrinsic motivation are theorized to enhance creativity, whereas factors that reduce intrinsic motivation are said to diminish creativity, par ticularly during idea generation (Amabile, 1996). This principle has received some direct and in direct support. For example, transformational leadership has been shown to enhance creativity partially through boosting intrinsic motivation (Shin and Zhou, 2003).
More conceptual advances have been made in recent years. For example, Zhou and George (2001) developed a voice perspective of creativ ity. They theorized and found that employees with high job dissatisfaction exhibited the highest creativity when continuance commitment was high and when (1) useful feedback from co workers, or (2) co worker helping, or (3) per ceived organizational support for creativity was high. Shalley (1991) highlighted the importance of creativity goals in directing one’s attention and effort toward creativity. Shalley and Perry Smith (2001) and Zhou (2003) developed a social learning perspective of creativity. These and other new conceptual advances hold consider able promise for achieving richer and more in depth understanding of how a wide variety of contextual factors affect creativity.
Examining issues related to creativity might be particularly interesting and important in the context of entrepreneurship, because creativity in entrepreneurship goes far beyond simply 54 creativity coming up with a new business idea. In fact, to the extent that entrepreneurship involves the creation, discovery, evaluation, exploration, and exploitation of opportunities (Shane and Venka taraman, 2000), either within established firms or as new ventures, creativity exhibited by in dividuals, groups, and organizations is an indis pensable part of the entire entrepreneurial process. As such, investigating antecedents and consequences of creativity at the individual, group, and organization levels in the entrepre neurial process presents a rich and exciting op portunity for researchers and practitioners interested in understanding, promoting, and en gaging in entrepreneurship.
Bibliography
Amabile, T. M. (1988). A model of creativity and innovation in organizations. In B. M. Staw and L. L. Cummings (eds.), Research in Organizational Behavior, 10: 123 67. Greenwich, CT: JAI Press.
Amabile, T. M. (1996). Creativity in Context. Boulder, CO: Westview Press.
Barron, F. and Harrington, D. M. (1981). Creativity, intelligence, and personality. Annual Review of Psychology, 32: 439 76.
Mumford, M. D. and Gustafson, S. B. (1988). Creativity syndrome: Integration, application, and innovation. Psychological Bulletin, 103: 27 43.
Oldham, G. R. and Cummings, A. (1996). Employee creativity: Personal and contextual factors at work. Academy of Management Journal, 39: 607 34.
Shalley, C. E. (1991). Effects of productivity goals, creativity goals, and personal discretion on individual creativity. Journal of Applied Psychology, 76: 179 85.
Shalley, C. E. and Perry-Smith, J. E. (2001). Effects of social-psychological factors on creative performance: The role of informational and controlling expected evaluation and modeling experience. Organizational Behavior and Human Decision Processes, 84: 1 22.
Shane, S. and Venkataraman, S. (2000). The promise of entrepreneurship as a field of research. Academy of Management Review, 25: 217 26.
Shin, S. and Zhou, J. (2003). Transformational leadership, conservation, and creativity: Evidence from Korea. Academy of Management Journal, 46: 703 14.
Woodman, R. W., Sawyer, J. E., and Griffin, R. W. (1993). Toward a theory of organizational creativity. Academy of Management Review, 18: 293 321.
Zhou, J. (1998). Feedback valence, feedback style, task autonomy, and achievement orientation: Interactive effects on creative performance. Journal of Applied Psychology, 83: 261 76.
Zhou, J. (2003). When the presence of creative co-workers is related to creativity: Role of supervisor close monitoring, developmental feedback, and creative personality. Journal of Applied Psychology, 88: 413 422.
Zhou, J. and George, J. M. (2001). When job dissatisfaction leads to creativity: Encouraging the expression of voice. Academy of Management Journal, 44: 682 96.
Zhou, J. and Shalley, C. E. (2003). Research on employee creativity: A critical review and directions for future research. In J. J. Martocchio and G. R. Ferris (eds.), Research in Personnel and Human Resource Management, Vol. 22. Oxford: Elsevier Science, 165 217.