Greg R. Oldham

Win or Lose the Battle for Creativity: The Power and Perils of Intergroup Competition

Integrating and refining social interdependence theory and structural adaptation theory, we examined the effects of intergroup competition on the creativity of 70 four-person groups engaged in two idea generation tasks. We manipulated both group membership change (change, no change) and intergroup competition level (low, intermediate, high). Competition had the expected U-shaped relation with creativity in open (membership change) groups but failed to produce the hypothesized inverted U-shaped pattern in closed (no membership change) groups. In the latter, effects were positive for low to intermediate competition and flat for intermediate to high levels. Within-group collaboration mediated these effects.

The social network side of individual innovation A meta-analysis and path-analytic integration

The current study provides a comprehensive analysis and integration of the literature on the social network correlates of individual innovation. Reviewing the extant literature, we cluster existing network measures into five general properties—size, strength, brokerage, closure, and diversity. Using meta-analysis, we estimate the population effect sizes between these network properties and innovation. Results showed that brokerage had the strongest positive relation to innovation, followed by size, diversity, and strength. Closure, by contrast, had a weak, negative association with innovation. In addition, we offer a path-analytic integration of the literature proposing and testing the direct and indirect effects of the five properties on innovation. We suggest that network size and strength impact innovation through a web of relations with the more proximal features of brokerage, closure, and diversity. Our path-analytic integration considers the two dominant perspectives on the effects of social networks—brokerage versus closure—simultaneously allowing us to establish their relative efficacy in predicting innovation. In addition, our model highlights that network strength can have both negative and positive effects (via different direct and indirect pathways) and thus inherently involves a tradeoff. We discuss the implications of these results for future research and practice.

The impact of digital technology on the generation and implementation of creative ideas in the workplace

We present arguments describing how digital technology can enhance innovation.We describe conditions necessary to generate and implement creative ideas.We examine how digital technology influences each of these conditions.We discuss possible risks of digital technology use and future research ideas. This article discusses a variety of ways that digital technology can enhance innovation by facilitating the conditions necessary for the development of employees creative ideas and the implementation of these ideas in organizations. We begin by arguing that three conditions are necessary if employees are to generate creative ideas: access and exposure to new and diverse information, full engagement in the work role, and the experience of socioemotional or instrumental support. We posit that the implementation of employees creative ideas requires the mobilization of support and sponsorship of the ideas from credible allies. We then discuss the possibility that digital technology shapes the creativity of ideas generated by employees and the implementation of these ideas by influencing each of these conditions. We conclude with a discussion of some possible risks of digital technology use and some suggestions for several new directions for future research.

Creativity and the Work Context

Publisher Summary This chapter summarizes and integrates the literature that has addressed the effects of contextual conditions on employee creativity. Substantial evidence suggests that employee creativity contributes to an organizations growth, effectiveness, and survival. Given the potential significance of employee creativity for the growth and effectiveness of organizations, it is not surprising that a wealth of recent studies have examined the possibility that there are personal and contextual conditions that serve to enhance (or restrict) the creativity employees exhibit at work. Most contemporary theorists define creativity as the production of ideas concerning products, practices, services, or procedures that are novel or original and potentially useful to the organization. Ideas are considered novel if they are unique relative to other ideas currently available in the organization. Ideas are considered useful if they have the potential for direct or indirect value to the organization, in either the short- or long-term.

Adopting Employees' Ideas: Moderators of the Idea Generation–Idea Implementation Link

This study examined the possibility that the relationship between the number of ideas an employee generated and the number of those ideas that were adopted by the organization was moderated by the general radicalness of the employees ideas (i.e., the extent to which the ideas were breakthrough or groundbreaking), the employees intention to stay, psychological safety, and coworker support. Ninety-three employees generated one or more ideas and raters evaluated the radicalness and implementation of these ideas. Results showed a positive relationship between the number of ideas generated by an employee and the number adopted when the employees ideas were generally low in radicalness. However, when an employees ideas were generally high in radicalness, there was a positive relationship between the numbers generated and implemented only when the employee intended to remain a member of the organization or felt psychologically safe at work. The implications of these results for future research and practice are discussed.

I know how you feel, but it does not always help: Integrating emotion recognition, agreeableness, and cognitive ability in a compensatory model of service performance

Purpose – Previous research has demonstrated the importance of emotion recognition ability in negotiations and leadership, but scant research has investigated the role of emotion recognition ability in service contexts. The purpose of this paper is to propose and test a compensatory model in which service employees’ emotion recognition ability helps enhance their job performance, particularly when employees score low on the agreeableness personality dimension or have low cognitive ability. Design/methodology/approach – With a two-wave multisource dataset collected from a service center of a large retail bank, multiple regression analysis was used to test the moderating roles of agreeableness and cognitive ability on the relationship between service employees’ emotion recognition ability and their performance. Findings – Service employees’ emotion recognition ability helped enhance their job performance. However, the positive effect of emotion recognition ability on job performance was only statistically s...

Then and Now: Job Design, Diversity and Creativity

Over the years, the management field has had many important contributors to its theoretical development and practical application of major concepts. As a relatively young academic discipline, we ha...