Organizational Behavior and Theory Commons^™

Through The Lens Of Clarity: Perceived Organizational Tightness Boosts Creativity For Men, But Not For Women, Grace J. H. Lim, Roy Y. J. Chua

Research Collection Lee Kong Chian School Of Business

A commonly held perspective in the cultural tightness literature is that cultural tightness tends to negatively impact creativity. Yet some findings indicate that this relationship is not strictly negative and that a more nuanced perspective should be considered. Drawing on social information processing (SIP) theory and social role theory, we build theory on how the perception of organizational cultural tightness can increase creativity for some employees, but not for others. Specifically, we propose that perceived organizational tightness—the extent to which one perceives that an organization is characterized by strong norms and sanctions for deviation—increases clarity on creativity evaluation standards and …

Ai Models As Cultural Beings: Investigating Ai Cultural Biases And The Impact Of Cultural Alignment On Human-Ai Creative Collaboration, Choon Ngee Tan, Meng Han, Roy Y. J. Chua, Chi-Ying Cheng

Research Collection Lee Kong Chian School Of Business

Existing research on AI cultural biases predominantly focuses on Western models, overlooking critical gaps in non-Western models. We conduct a comparative analysis of AI models – ChatGPT (U.S. developed) and ErnieBot (China developed) – from different cultures to investigate how corresponding cultural biases manifest in their outputs. Additionally, we examine how cultural alignment between human users and AI models impacts their collaborative creative performance and the underlying psychological mechanisms. In Study 1, multi-choice prompt with zero-shot technique was used to evaluate cultural biases in four widely used AI models – ChatGPT-3.5/4, ErnieBot-3.5/4 – comparing their responses to established cultural psychometric …

A Closer Look At The Innovator: The Interplay Between Divergent And Convergent Processes Of Self-Regulation, Ronald Bledow, Hye Jung Eun, Lien Vossaert

Research Collection Lee Kong Chian School Of Business

Creativity and innovation are essential for modern organizations. While abundant research has helped to better understand creativity in everyday work life, considerably less attention has been paid to how individuals achieve creative performance during the implementation of innovation projects. We articulate a dialectical interplay between divergent and convergent processes of self-regulation that supports creative performance in innovation projects. We propose that a divergent exploration orientation contributes to creative performance by inducing a broad search for novelty and by stimulating iteration—repeated cycles of experimentation and refinement. Convergent processes of self-regulation—outcome focus and planning—strengthen the relationship between divergent processes and creative performance. …

Polymathy: The Foundational Source Of Creativity And Innovation., Michael Araki

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

In an era of mounting complexity and a growing need to transcend siloed thinking, this dissertation advances polymathy as a critical yet underexplored construct in the management and behavioral sciences. Polymathy is framed as an expansive approach to the pursuit, development, and application of knowledge, marked by the conjunction of breadth, depth, and integration. Building on a thought lineage that stretches from Ancient Greece through the Renaissance to the present day, this work shows that polymathy is neither a relic of the past nor an achievement reserved for a few—but a mode of being, thinking, and acting in the world …

Arts-Based Sustainability: From New York To Malawi, Martha B. Lerski

Publications and Research

Recognizing that libraries serve multiple constituencies and subject areas, this chapter documents and advocates for development of transdisciplinary arts-based research (ABR) and culture-related projects linked to environmental challenges. Libraries contribute collections and spaces, as well as the research of library and information scientists. Libraries are currently among invisible contributors to sustainability planning and services. The chapter will link this invisibility to the value of what visual arts refer to as negative space elements in subjects ranging from traditional ecological knowledge to environmental science. Library collections, projects, and research contribute to education for sustainable development (ESD) as required to achieve the …

Using Multiculturalism To Combat The Negative Creativity Effect Of Cultural Tightness: How It Is Done Matters, Jung Kiu Choi

Dissertations and Theses Collection (Open Access)

This study investigates the multifaceted influence of cultural tightness and multiculturalism on the global commercial success of pop music. Addressing an under-explored moderating effect of multicultural factors on creative output under tight culture, this research analyzes Billboard Global 200 and Spotify Top 50 chart data from 2013-2021. The empirical analysis reveals that cultural tightness negatively impacts pop song’s success. Conversely, multiculturalism, specifically through diverse languages and performance teams, generally enhances global success. A key finding is that while multicultural production teams do not directly correlate with success, they critically moderate the detrimental effects of cultural tightness, a buffering effect unique …

Personality Dynamics Turn Positive And Negative Mood Into Creativity, Ronald Bledow, Jana Kuhnel, Julius Kuhl

Research Collection Lee Kong Chian School Of Business

Introduction: Research on the link between affect and creativity rests on the assumption that creativity unfolds as a stimulus-driven response to affective states. We challenge this assumption and examine whether personality dynamics moderate the relationship of positive and negative mood with creativity. Theoretical Model: According to our model, personality dynamics that generate and maintain positive affect and down-regulate negative affect energize creativity. Based on this model, we expect high creativity in response to negative mood if people engage in self-motivation and achieve a reduction in negative mood. We further derive that individual differences in action versus state orientation moderate the …

Which Idea To Pursue? Gender Differences In Novelty Avoidance During Creative Idea Selection, Mengzi Jin, Roy Y. J. Chua

Research Collection Lee Kong Chian School Of Business

Despite women having made significant progress in the modern workforce, gender gaps are still evident in creative work. In this paper, we propose that, although women and men are equally capable of generating creative ideas, gender differences emerge during the idea-selection stage. Specifically, compared with men, women engage in higher novelty avoidance during idea selection—the degree to which one selects an idea that is less novel than the most novel idea one has generated. In two laboratory studies and a field survey involving creative professionals, we found significant gender differences in novelty avoidance during idea selection and identified women’s concerns …

Cultural Tightness In Organizations: Investigating The Impact Of Formal And Informal Cultural Tightness On Employee Creativity, Roy Y. J. Chua, Na Zhao, Meng Han

Research Collection Lee Kong Chian School Of Business

This paper delineates cultural tightness into formal versus informal aspects to depict the strength of norms and the extent of sanctions emanating from both formal and informal norms. Organizations with high formal cultural tightness regulate behaviors through explicit written norms and official sanctions, whereas those with high informal cultural tightness regulate behaviors through uncodified norms, collective beliefs, and informal social sanctions. Through a field study across 14 diverse companies in two countries (Malaysia and the Philippines) and two experiments involving participants from the United States, we found that perceived informal cultural tightness consistently exerts a more significant impact on stifling …

Establishing The Importance Of Co-Creation And Self-Efficacy In Creative Collaboration With Artificial Intelligence, Jack Mcguire, David De Cremer, Tim Van De Cruys

Research Collection Lee Kong Chian School Of Business

The emergence of generative AI technologies has led to an increasing number of people collaborating with AI to produce creative works. Across two experimental studies, in which we carefully designed and programmed state-of-the-art human–AI interfaces, we examine how the design of generative AI systems influences human creativity (poetry writing). First, we find that people were most creative when writing a poem on their own, compared to first receiving a poem generated by an AI system and using sophisticated tools to edit it (Study 1). Following this, we demonstrate that this creativity deficit dissipates when people co-create with—not edit—AI and establish …

Loose Purse Strings, Loose Cultures: How Resource Increase Affects Cultural Tightness-Looseness And Creativity In Large And Small Organizations, Caleb Chun Kwan Chu

Dissertations and Theses Collection (Open Access)

For over a decade, cultural tightness-looseness (TL) has established itself as a culture construct that is useful in diverse contexts at multiple levels. While most TL research has focused on TL consequences, less attention has been paid to TL antecedents. This dissertation proposes resource increase as a TL predictor and uses a resource-based perspective to review and extend extant TL literature. I empirically examine the effect of resource increase on incremental and radical creativity as mediated by TL at the team level. I also explore the moderating effect of organizational size on these team-level relationships. The data were drawn from …

Experimental Data For: "Effects Of Network Connectivity And Functional Diversity Distribution On Human Collective Ideation", Yiding Cao, Yingjun Dong, Minjun Kim, Neil G. Maclaren, Sriniwas Pandey, Shelley D. Dionne, Francis J. Yammarino, Hiroki Sayama

Systems Science and Industrial Engineering Faculty Scholarship

This is the dataset collected from our online human-subject experiments described in the following manuscript:

Yiding Cao, Yingjun Dong, Minjun Kim, Neil G. MacLaren, Sriniwas Pandey, Shelley D. Dionne, Francis J. Yammarino, and Hiroki Sayama:
"Effects of Network Connectivity and Functional Diversity Distribution on Human Collective Ideation"
https://arxiv.org/abs/2307.04284

The Impact Of Working From Home On Employee Creativity: A Cross Cultural Comparison Of Germany And China, Andrew Heng

Dissertations and Theses Collection (Open Access)

The rise of work-from-home (WFH) arrangements has brought significant changes to how employees work and interact with each other. This dissertation aims to examines the potential impact of WFH arrangements on employee creativity and investigates whether this impact varies across high-context and low-context cultures, with a particular focus on how demographic characteristics such as gender, age, and education may affect this relationship. The study is conducted within a top 10 global automotive supplier with associates in China (high-context culture) and Germany (low-context culture). As individual creativity often arises from collaboration and interaction with others, I hypothesised that as WFH frequency …

Enhancing Creativity In Organizational Teams: Development Of The Spark Program, Kimberly Morehead

Creativity and Change Leadership Graduate Student Master's Projects

Organizational teams have experienced unprecedented change since the start of the COVID-19 pandemic—such as frequent changes in leadership, increased turnover, and shifting to full-time remote work—which have impacted their ability to form lasting creative connections. This project addresses the challenge of the above changes by introducing a creativity-boosting program called The Spark, designed to help organizational teams remain inspired, connected, and energized throughout times of change. Following an overview of the rationale for this project and a review of the pertinent literature, the process plan is provided in detail. The project resulted in a program structure based on the Torrance …

Not All I-Deals Are Same: Examining A Process Model Linking Content-Specific I-Deals To Employee Performance Outcomes, Yilu Wang

Open Access Theses & Dissertations

Integrating i-deals theory and job demands and resources (JD-R) theory, I propose to investigate whether and how content-specific i-deals differ in their effectiveness in individual performance outcomes. Consistent with the early conceptualization of i-deals contents, I specifically compare the impact of task and work responsibility, financial incentives, schedule flexibility, and location flexibility on employees' engagement and performance outcomes. I suggest that content-specific i-deals have different relationships with physical-, emotional-, and cognitive-engagement, and the three types of engagement mediate the relationships between content-specific i-deals and performance outcomes (operationalized as task performance, organizational citizenship behaviors, and creativity). Multilevel modeling and relative weights …

Breaking The Chains: The Inverted-U-Shaped Relationship Between Action-State Orientation And Creativity Under Low Job Autonomy, Ronald Bledow, Jana Kühnel, Mengzi Jin, Julius Kuhl

Research Collection Lee Kong Chian School Of Business

When the social fabric of organizations limits individual autonomy, new ideas are needed that satisfy a person’s will as well as the constraints imposed by the social context. To explain when people achieve this synthesis and display creativity under low job autonomy, we examine the influence of their action-state orientation. The theory of action versus state orientation contrasts two responses people display when faced by a situation that conflicts with their will. An actionoriented response entails that people readily disengage from processing the situation and initiate goal-striving, while a state-oriented response entails that people remain focused on the situation. We …

There Is A Time To Be Creative: The Alignment Between Chronotype And Time Of Day, Jana Kuehnel, Ronald Bledow, Markus Kiefer

Research Collection Lee Kong Chian School Of Business

We examine the influence of chronobiological processes on creativity, specifically the influence of a person’s chronotype. Chronotype refers to the setting of a person’s biological clock that gives rise to a distinctive pattern of sleep habits and preferred diurnal activity. We propose a synchrony effect and predict that people are creative when the external clock is aligned with their internal, biological clock. According to our model, positive mood and creative self-efficacy act as affective and cognitive mechanisms of this synchrony effect. We present three studies that test our theorizing: A quasi-experimental field study with 260 employees, a day-reconstruction study with …

Unlocking The Creativity Potential Of Dialectical Thinking: Field Investigations Of The Comparative Effects Of Transformational And Transactional Leadership Styles, Roy Y. J. Chua, Jia Hui Lim, Wannwiruch (Fon) Wiruchnipawan

Research Collection Lee Kong Chian School Of Business

In a digital economy characterized by high volumes of information and ideas, many of which could be contradictory to one another, employees high in dialectical thinking should be well poised to connect disparate ideas to generate creative solutions for business problems. Yet, it is unclear whether dialectical thinking as a creativity-relevant skill can be realized in naturalistic workplace settings, given past mixed findings and the lack of field studies. We propose that supervisors’ leadership styles are important moderators that can unlock employees’ creativity potential in dialectical thinking. Additionally, we compare the activating effect of transformational leadership and the inhibiting effect …

Creative Occupations And The Precipitating Factors Of Burnout, Natasha E. Koval

Honors Projects

Creativity is an intrinsic part of the human life; however, it is one of the most challenging concepts to be understood. In this paper, I am examining occupations driven by creativity, their economic significance, and how sustainable these occupations are for the creative employees. I will be particularly looking at burnout and its precipitating factors as a way to understand the wellness of the creative workforce. Creative occupations, if fostered properly, can lead to job growth, increased income, and potential for investment in vulnerable communities. This makes them valuable resources for urban economic development goals. Literature suggests that there is …

Fuelling Effects Of Unique Opinion Holder’S Emotions On Team Creativity: A Collective Information Processing Perspective, Hui Si Oh

Dissertations and Theses Collection (Open Access)

Building on past studies that have found positive influence of minority member on team creativity, this research examined an underexplored yet crucial topic of a unique opinion holder’s happy and anger emotions on team creativity. Using a collective information processing perspective, this study examined whether the expression of anger and happiness would be beneficial for team creativity by spurring team members to respond qualitatively differently to each other’s ideas during the discussion. Additionally, this study examined whether the influence of a unique opinion holder’s emotions on team creativity through information-processing pathways would depend on individual members’ working memory capacities. Three …

Pressure To Be Creative: How Employees Respond To Organizational Creativity Pressure, Hye Jung Eun

Dissertations and Theses Collection (Open Access)

Creativity and innovation are vital for organizational growth and success, driving many organizations to increase pressure for employee creativity. Yet, researchers have neglected investigating how employees respond to creativity pressure at the workplace. This dissertation introduces and develops a new scale for the concept of organizational creativity pressure – the pressure on employees to continually develop novel and useful ideas and solutions. The scale is further validated through extensive assessment of content and construct validity, empirically differentiating the construct from similar others such as performance pressure and support for creativity.

Drawing on the transactional theory of stress (Lazarus & Folkman, …

The Lived Experiences Of Employees Identifying As Belonging Outside Of Workplace Cliques, Patricia O'Neil Foster

Walden Dissertations and Doctoral Studies

Cliques are a naturally occurring phenomenon and have been demonstrated to have adverse outcomes. Workplace cliques can lead to negative behaviors that affect organizational effectiveness. Although the effects of cliques have been studied extensively, a deeper understanding is needed by managers of the experiences of employees identifying as belonging outside of workplace cliques. The research question of this transcendental phenomenological study focused on the lived experiences of employees identifying as belonging outside of workplace cliques formed within their organization’s culture. Using convenience sampling, 15 people who identified as having worked in a situation where there was a clique agreed to …

Fostering Creativity At The Workplace, Marko Pitesa, Roy Chua, Smu Office Of Research

Research@SMU Infographics

A study recently conducted by SMU researchers has shown that the environment in which one grew up in may influence the amount of creativity he/she displays at the workplace. Managers and parents alike can intervene to enhance the individuals' creativity.

Across The Great Divides: Gender Dynamics Influence How Intercultural Conflict Helps Or Hurts Creative Collaboration, Roy Y. J. Chua, Mengzi Jin

Research Collection Lee Kong Chian School Of Business

Collaborating across cultures can potentially increase creativity due to access to diverse ideas and perspectives, but this benefit is not always realized. One reason is that the conflict that arises in intercultural creative collaboration is a double-edged sword and how it is managed matters. In this research, we examine how the gender of collaborating dyads influences the link between intercultural conflict (task and relationship) and creative collaboration effectiveness. Through two studies (a laboratory study and a field survey), we found that intercultural task conflict has a negative effect on creative collaboration in men dyads but a positive effect on creative …

Contextual Creativity And The Experience Of Cultural Pivoting In The Workplace, Jeanine Soucie

Antioch University Dissertations & Theses

The purpose of this grounded theory study was to explore the lived experience of foreign-born professional highly skilled employees living in the United States working for U.S.-centric organizations and the impact the interplay between their ethnic culture and the organization’s culture has had on their creativity in the workplace. Fourteen participants were interviewed and shared their experiences of creativity, providing rich stories. Using grounded theory analysis of their statements revealed five primary dimensions and five theoretical propositions. The study offers a heuristic model of the newly identified concept “cultural pivoting.” This term describes the importance and impact of having access …

Creativity As An Emergent Property Of Complex Educational System, Ceire Monahan, Mika Munakata, Ashwin Vaidya

Northeast Journal of Complex Systems (NEJCS)

The importance of creativity in education has been discussed often in the literature. While there remains no agreed-upon definition of creativity, the psychological literature points to traits of a creative person. These include the ability to think outside the box, make connections between seemingly disparate ideas, and question norms. The literature provides several examples of classroom experiments to help foster creativity in the classroom. In science and mathematics, we can start by getting students to recognize mathematics and the sciences as being creative endeavors. While these attempts are noteworthy, they are not necessarily aligned with instructional practices. In this article, …

How Ties With Family Members Influence Professionals' Creativity In Family Businesses: The Role Of Hive Effect And Trust, Rameshwari Ramachandra

Dissertations and Theses Collection (Open Access)

Many Asian enterprises are family businesses. In recent years, there has been a growing body of research on creativity in Asian firms, but few studies on the creativity of the professionals working in Asian family businesses. Given the importance of creativity in family businesses for their continued success, I examined how a professional’s ties to family members in a family business influenced their creativity. I proposed that the number of family members in a professional’s network would positively predict the professional’s creativity, and that this effect would be mediated by the family members’ affective and cognitive trust in the professional. …

Innovative And Introverted: How Introverts Function In The Creative Workplace, Rose Needle

Senior Theses

Open office plans have become the dominant style for creative workplaces, designed to encourage constant collaboration and proximity. Little research assesses the validity of that conventional practice, or the impact of open environments on creativity, productivity or employee satisfaction for introverts, who require time alone for highest functioning. Though the “Extrovert Ideal” permeates these industries, nearly 50% of the general population is introverted—and introverted traits correlate positively with creativity. This thesis includes a survey of 143 people working in creative industries, assessing perceptions of productivity and satisfaction along with personality type. A majority of respondents yearned for solitude to complete …

Mapping Cultural Tightness And Its Links To Innovation, Urbanization, And Happiness Across 31 Provinces In China, Roy Y. J. Chua, Kenneth Huang, Mengzi Jin

Research Collection Lee Kong Chian School Of Business

We conduct a 3-y study involving 11,662 respondents to map cultural tightness—the degree to which a society is characterized by rules and norms and the extent to which people are punished or sanctioned when they deviate from these rules and norms—across 31 provinces in China. Consistent with prior research, we find that culturally tight provinces are associated with increased governmental control, constraints in daily life, religious practices, and exposure to threats. Departing from previous findings that tighter states are more rural, conservative, less creative, and less happy, cultural tightness in China is associated with urbanization, economic growth, better health, greater …

The Effect Of Music Characteristics On The Novelty And Usefulness Of Creative Ideas., Kathleen Keeler

Theses and Dissertations

This study explores the relationship between music and creativity. Prior research has conflicting results with some finding that music does influence creativity and some reporting no relationship and others finding that music is harmful to creativity. All of these studies, however, have largely focused on the presence vs. absence of music without consideration for the characteristics (i.e., musical key, tempo, etc.) that make up the sound we identify as music and their unique effects on us emotionally, physically, and cognitively. This dissertation contends that different characteristics of music influence different components of creativity (i.e., novelty and usefulness) through their effects …