Individual Creativity in the Workplace

Roni Reiter-Palmon, Victoria L. Kennel, James C. Kaufman, Roni Reiter-Palmon, Victoria L. Kennel, James C. Kaufman

• Publisher: Academic Press
• Year: 2018
• ISBN:
  9780128132395
• Topic: Psychology
• Subtopic: Applied Psychology
• Index: Psychology

Rapid technological change, global competition, and economic uncertainty have all contributed to organizations seeking to improve creativity and innovation. Researchers and businesses want to know what factors facilitate or inhibit creativity in a variety of organizational settings. Individual Creativity in the Workplace identifies those factors, including what motivational and cognitive factors influence individual creativity, as well as the contextual factors that impact creativity such as teams and leadership.The book takes research findings out of the lab and provides examples of these findings put to use in real world organizations.

• Identifies factors facilitating or inhibiting creativity in organizational settings
• Summarizes research on creativity, cognition, and motivation
• Provides real world examples of these factors operating in organizations today
• Highlights creative thought processes and how to encourage them
• Outlines management styles and leadership to encourage creativity
• Explores how to encourage individual creativity in team contexts

Section 1

Creativity and Innovation: Larger Concepts

Chapter 1

Moving From Creativity to Innovation

Eric F. Rietzschel⁎; Simone M. Ritter^{† ⁎} Department of Psychology, University of Groningen, Groningen, Netherlands
^† Radboud University Nijmegen, Behavioural Science Institute, Nijmegen, Netherlands

Abstract

The generation of creative ideas and insights is commonly thought to be an important precondition for innovation. However, the relation between these constructs is far from straightforward. In this chapter, we present an overview of research on the evaluation and selection of creative ideas. In doing so, we show that both the evaluation and (especially) the selection of creative ideas can be quite problematic, depending on several individual and contextual factors. Having summarized the literature, we use these findings and insights to give some practical recommendations for successfully moving from creativity to innovation.

Keywords

Creativity; Innovation; Idea selection; Idea evaluation; Idea implementation

Creativity is one of our most important abilities, having led to humans exploring and colonizing the entire planet (as well as parts of extraterrestrial space), the invention of agriculture, medicine, and astounding levels of technological advances, not to mention science, philosophy, and art—it is no exaggeration to state that the world would look completely differently (for better or for worse) without human creativity. However, creativity’s potential to change the world relies on something that has traditionally been overlooked in the field of creativity research: the ability to get creative ideas implemented and adopted. This requires more than idea generation: creative ideas need to be recognized and selected, resources need to be harvested, and relevant stakeholders need to be convinced of the value of a creative idea before implementation can successfully take place. In this chapter, we summarize much of the literature on the evaluation and selection of creative ideas, discuss what we think are some of the main challenges in moving from creativity to innovation and, finally, provide practical advice for successful idea evaluation and selection and for “selling” a highly creative idea.

Defining Creativity and Innovation

Creativity is commonly defined as the ability to generate ideas, solutions, or products that are both novel and appropriate (e.g., Amabile, 1996; Sternberg & Lubart, 1999; also see Litchfield, Gilson, & Gilson, 2015, for a discussion of different quality dimensions of “creative” ideas). Thus ideas that are merely good solutions to a problem without any element of novelty or surprise would be considered mundane, and ideas that are only novel without being somehow feasible or appropriate in a given domain would be considered eccentric or “weird,” but neither would be considered creative contributions. Note, however, that mundane ideas are not necessarily worthless: Often the most important thing, especially in organizations, is that an idea works. However, there are many situations in which organizations are specifically looking for novel ideas, for example, when conventional solutions are known to be ineffective, or when searching for a way to gain a competitive advantage through innovation.

The relation between creativity and innovation is best described by stating that creativity is a necessary, yet insufficient condition for innovation (e.g., Baer, 2012; Rietzschel, Nijstad, & Stroebe, 2006; West, 2002a, 2002b). While the common definition of creativity revolves around idea generation, innovation is usually defined as “the intentional introduction and application within a job, work team or organization of ideas, processes, products or procedures which are new to that job, work team or organization and which are designed to benefit the job, the work team or the organization” (West & Farr, 1990, p. 9). Thus innovation centers around the implementation of creative ideas in an organizational context.

The Importance of Distinguishing Creativity From Innovation

The difference between creativity and innovation is important for several reasons. Firstly, the terms “creativity” and “innovation” describe different behaviors, and as such should also be distinguished conceptually. In fact, the two are not always strongly or even positively related, nor are they necessarily predicted by the same (dispositional or contextual) variables (e.g., Oldham & Cummings, 1996; Perry-Smith & Coff, 2011; Somech & Drach-Zahavy, 2013; West, 2002a, 2002b). Thus, factors that contribute to idea generation may not lead to better idea implementation, and sometimes the factors that enhance the one seem to actually hinder the other. This has serious implications for organizations interested in increasing their innovative output. Distinguishing between creativity and innovation is, therefore, important from both a theoretical and a practical perspective.

Secondly, we currently know far more about idea generation than about idea implementation. Although a substantial amount of research has looked at innovation in organizations, this research has rarely explicitly distinguished between idea generation and idea implementation (but see, e.g., Baer, 2012; Oldham & Cummings, 1996; Somech & Drach-Zahavy, 2013, for exceptions)—the two are often measured together in a global assessment of innovative job performance. In contrast, there is a large body of literature that has looked specifically at creativity (see, e.g., Zhou & Shalley, 2008, for overviews of organizational creativity research), addressing issues such as individual differences, group interaction, contextual influences, and so on. The consequence is that we know quite a lot about the factors that contribute to successful idea generation, but—given the lack of research on idea implementation and the weak and complicated relation between idea generation and implementation—relatively little about the factors that contribute to idea implementation specifically.

Thirdly, innovation research suggests that it is precisely in the transition from idea generation to implementation that individuals and groups run into difficulties: getting to successful implementation simply seems to be the bigger challenge. As West (2002a, 2002b) famously stated, “ideas are ten a penny” (p. 411): There usually is no shortage of creative ideas, but rather a lack of willingness, support, or the necessary resources (either tangible or intangible) to get these ideas implemented. Thus, research on the conditions for a successful transition from creativity to idea implementation is sorely needed.

Moving From Creativity to Innovation in the Organizational Context

Several scholars have addressed the creative or innovative process as a series of stages, although in reality the process is more likely to be iterative. An influential example is the model by Mumford, Lonergan, and Scott (2002), who proposed a process where (a) ideas are generated, and (b) possible outcomes and implications are forecasted, after which (c) the viability of the idea within the intended implementation context is assessed. This can then lead to (d) a decision to either drop the idea altogether, or begin planning for implementation, or—more likely—move into a revision process, after which the idea gets implemented or might still be dropped. What this and similar models suggest is that idea implementation is difficult because ideas encounter multiple challenges along the way, such as evaluation (creative ideas need to be recognized), selection (only a limited number of ideas can be chosen for further development), selling or promotion (other stakeholders need to be convinced of the value of an idea), and further revision and implementation.

Organizational creativity and innovation is a multilevel phenomenon influenced by many stakeholders (e.g., Woodman, Sawyer, & Griffin, 1993). Idea generation can happen in many ways, such as during brainstorming sessions (e.g., Osborn, 1953; Sutton & Hargadon, 1996), suggestions entered into an internal suggestions system (e.g., Frese, Teng, & Wijnen, 1999; Verworn, 2009), or ideas generated and pursued as part of one’s regular work duties (e.g., Shalley, Gilson, & Blum, 2000). Similarly, the screening, selection, and further development of ideas can happen in a variety of ways and settings, such as workgroup meetings (where workgroup members collectively decide which ideas or options to pursue) or board meetings (where the management may decide on the allocation of funds), but also individually, when employees or supervisors decide on their own which ideas or options seem most promising. Regardless of how ideas are generated and selected, however, organizational reality requires the involvement of other stakeholders at some point; apart from small, self-owned businesses, employees are rarely if ever in the position to generate, select, and implement creative ideas at work themselves (apart from those ideas that only concern people’s own work processes, such as adopting a new way of organizing one’s own work tasks). Thus, although innovation requires that the person who came up with an idea sees the value of her idea and is able to select it as a promising option to develop and implement, this is by no means enough: even if individual creators would score perfectly on recognizing a...