Leader Self‐Reported Emotional Intelligence and Perceived Employee Creativity: An Exploratory Study

This research studies the relationship between six dimensions of leaders' emotional intelligence and two dimensions of employee creativity. A sample of 138 managers from 66 organizations reported on their own emotional intelligence and the creativity of their teams. Our results point out two main findings: (a) leaders' emotional intelligence explains significant variance of both creativity dimensions; (b) emotional intelligence dimensions with higher predictive power are self‐control against criticism and empathy. The findings suggest that emotionally intelligent leaders behave in ways that stimulate the creativity of their teams.     

The Antecedents of Creativity Revisited: A Process Perspective

This study invokes a process view on employee creativity to uncover how the different stages of the creative process are associated with different antecedents. Specifically, we explore the role of five previously identified antecedents of organizational creativity in the different phases of the creative process within organizations: (1) personality; (2) rewards; (3) the role of co‐workers; (4) leadership; and (5) organizational resources. In an analysis of 22 case studies we found that antecedents of creativity indeed have different roles in different stages of the creative process and that antecedents that are helpful in one stage of the creative process, can be detrimental for another stage. Such results highlight the importance of conceptualizing creativity as a process, rather than as an outcome variable.     

An Exploratory Study of Entrepreneurial Creativity: Its Antecedents and Mediators in the Context of UAE Firms

In this study, we attempt to advance our understanding of the role of entrepreneurial creativity in the context of firms in the United Arab Emirates (UAE). Through field research accompanied by a review of the related literature, this study identifies crucial antecedents of entrepreneurial creativity. The proposed model combines variables belonging to different contextual factors such as external factors (resource access, resource possession, and alertness to opportunity) and individual factors (creative self‐efficacy, expertise and intrinsic motivation). The model is tested using data from a large‐scale survey of firms in the UAE. We find that expertise and creative self‐efficacy is significantly related to entrepreneurial creativity. The results also reveal that intrinsic motivation and alertness to opportunity are the key mediators between contextual factors and entrepreneurial creativity. The findings of this study present some interesting practical implications to entrepreneurs in order to improve their creative skills.     

Diversified Knowledge,R&D Team Centrality and Radical Creativity

The impact of team knowledge network structure on team creativity has seldom been explored. To address this gap, we argue that research and development (R&D) teams' radical creativity is not only associated with the source of diversified knowledge (insiders of the team, outsiders of the team and internet professional forums), but also with team knowledge network centrality. Data from 32 R&D teams in seven research institutions support our contention that diversified knowledge from all three sources positively affects team radical creativity. In addition, the betweenness centrality of R&D team knowledge networks moderates the relationship between two sources of diversified knowledge (insiders of the team and outsiders of the team) and team radical creativity.     

Deceptive Appearances: the Turing Test,Response-Dependence,and Intelligence as an Emotional Concept

Minds and Machines - The Turing Test is routinely understood as a behaviourist test for machine intelligence. Diane Proudfoot (Rethinking Turing’s Test, Journal of Philosophy, 2013) has...     

Innovation Labs: An Examination into the Use of Physical Spaces to Enhance Organizational Creativity

Recent years have seen an increase in the number of innovation labs, purpose‐built physical facilities designed to enhance and support creativity and innovation in organizations. This rising phenomenon may be driven by the increasing emphasis placed on innovation as the key to the survival of modern day organizations. Innovation labs are attracting greater attention from organizations, yet little is known about their effectiveness. Using a mixed‐method approach this paper aims to evaluate the effectiveness of a major UK‐based facility in enhancing creativity and to explore users' attitudes towards this rising organizational phenomenon. The findings have implications for the management of existing innovation labs and those in the planning.     

Development and Validation of Team Creativity Measures: A Complex Systems Perspective

Without formalizing the team creativity (TC) concept with reliable and valid measurement, it is difficult to conduct rigorous research to help teams generate creative ideas and problem solving at a high level, of good quality and great value. The one‐sidedness and lack of depth of existing research on team creativity leads to the limited reliability and validity of team creativity measurements. In order to solve these problems, we introduce the complex system theory and develop the TC Scale with nine items for team creativity from three dimensions: team creative thinking, team creative action and team creative outcome. The data is collected from three distinct positions of respondents (managers, team leaders and senior staff) in 183 creative teams. The results of reliability measures, exploratory factor analysis and confirmatory factor analysis strongly support our scale. Further, we test the correlation between team trust and team creativity to establish its predictive validity and make a further verification on the scale structure through second‐order confirmatory factor analysis. Finally, we discuss the implications for research and practice.     

Multidisciplinary Medical Team Meetings: An Analysis of Collaborative Working with Special Attention to Timing and Teleconferencing

In this paper we describe the process of a multi-disciplinary medical team meeting (MDTM), its functions and operation in colocated and teleconference discussions. Our goal is to identify the elements and mechanics of operation that enhance or threaten the dependability of the MDTM as a “system” and propose technologies and measures to make this system more reliable. In particular, we assess the effect of adding teleconferencing to the MDTM, and identify strengths and vulnerabilities introduced into the system by the addition of teleconferencing technology. We show that, with respect to the system’s external task environment, rhythms of execution of pre-meeting and post-meeting activities are critical for MDTM success and that the extension of the MDTM to wider geographic locations with teleconferencing might disrupt such rhythms thereby posing potential threats to dependability. On the other hand, an analysis of vocalisation patterns demonstrates that despite difficulties related to coordination and awareness in video-mediated communication (evidenced by increased time spent in case discussion, longer turns, decreased turn frequency and near lack of informal exchanges) the overall case discussion structure is unaffected by the addition of teleconferencing technology into proceedings.     

Individual Creativity and Team Climate in Software Development Projects: The Mediating Role of Team Decision Processes

This study investigates how individual creativity is related to the quality of team decision processes and team climate, and the mediating role of team decision processes between individual creativity and team climate. A multi‐level theoretical model was proposed and partial least squares structural equation modelling (PLS‐SEM) was conducted on a sample of 139 software development projects. The results suggest that: (i) individual creativity improves the quality of team decision processes, (ii) team decision processes are positively associated with four dimensions of team climate (organizational support, innovation orientation, goal orientation and informal structure), and (iii) team decision processes partially mediate between individual creativity and team climate. In particular, the obtained results stress the role of individual creativity in the formation and evolution of a positive climate by means of team decision processes. The study implies that managers should recognize the value of creative individuals as the basic source of competitive advantage and success. It further discusses the managerial implications of the findings as well as limitations and constructive new directions for future studies to improve software development team performance.     

Employee Creativity and Suggestion Programs: An Empirical Study

This paper takes a closer look at a functional strategy known as the innovation or creativity strategy. It is used by growing numbers of companies to take advantage of the imaginative capacities of their entire workforce instead of relying on a handful of specialists or fostering the emergence of a few marginal “heroes” within the organization. The strategy involves the introduction of an improvement program based on employee suggestions. The goal of the research described in this paper was therefore to document twenty two such programs introduced by manufacturing companies in Quebec, to describe the operating methods used, and to summarize and analyze the results. Twelve large companies (more than two hundred employees) and ten SMEs (Small and Medium Sized enterprises with between twenty five and two hundred employees) took part in the survey.     

Creativity and the Computer Nerd: An exploration of attitudes

Abstract

This study arises from our concern that many of our best art and design students are failing to make the most of the opportunities provided by IT because of their fear or dislike of computers. This not only deprives them of useful skills, but, even more importantly, deprives many IT based developments of their input.     

Job Satisfaction and Creativity Style: An Unexpected Empirical Finding

The purpose of this study was to explore whether or not a relationship exists between managerial job satisfaction and creativity styles of U.S. and European managers. Data were obtained from a sample of 8,621 U.S. managers attending leadership development programs at the Center for Creative Leadership-U.S. and from another sample of 127 European managers attending leadership development programs at the Center for Creative Leadership-Europe. The results suggest that there is no relationship among various job satisfaction measures as derived from the Managerial Job Satisfaction Questionnaire and creativity style preference as measured by the Kirton Adaptation Innovation Inventory. Implications are discussed.     

Bounded Rationality,Group Formation and the Emergence of Trust: An Agent-Based Economic Model

Computational Economics - It is possible to model trust as an investment game, where a player in order to receive a reward or a better outcome, accepts a certain risk of defection by another...     

Online Word-of-Mouth (or Mouse): An Exploration of Its Antecedents and Consequences

This study developed an integrated model to explore the antecedents and consequences of online word-of-mouth in the context of music-related communication. Based on survey data from college students, online word-of-mouth was measured with two components: online opinion leadership and online opinion seeking. The results identified innovativeness, Internet usage, and Internet social connection as significant predictors of online word-of-mouth, and online forwarding and online chatting as behavioral consequences of online word-of-mouth. Contrary to the original hypothesis, music involvement was found not to be significantly related to online word-of-mouth. Theoretical implications of the findings and future research directions are discussed.     

Business Intelligence: An Analysis of the Literature

This research collects, synthesizes, and analyzes 167 articles on a variety of topics closely related to business intelligence (BI) published from 1997 to 2006 in ten leading Information Systems (IS) journals. We found a generally increasing level of activity during the 10-year period and a focus on exploratory research methodologies. We noted that several methodologies were either underrepresented or absent from the pool of BI research. We also identified several subject areas that need further exploration.     

Factors Influencing Creativity in Virtual Design Teams: An Interplay between Technology,Teams and Individuals

Creativity is a topic of interest across numerous disciplines and areas of study. Creativity constitutes a challenging aspect of engineering design, and scholars in the field of management claim that the increase in virtual teamwork calls for research as to how virtual configurations alter some of the management practices based on the collocated workplace. By reviewing the different literatures, we posit a knowledge gap regarding creativity in the virtual design context, where varying degrees of virtuality are likely to exert an influence on creativity. In our quest to start bridging this gap, we pursued an exploratory case study with a student‐based virtual design team project, known as the European Global Product Realization (EGPR). Thirty‐nine interview extracts, covering most participants, along with non‐participant observation and document review, gave us insights into the nature of the project, the participants' perceptions of creativity, and their experience of designing in virtual teams. In all, our study unearths and discusses a number of factors – and the extent to which – they are found to influence creativity in virtual design teams. The study has cross‐domain relevance from those interested in the management of virtual teams through to those looking at creativity and design.     

Collaborative virtual environments: An introductory review of issues and systems

A Collaborative Virtual Environment or CVE is a distributed, virtual reality that is designed to support collaborative activities. As such, CVEs provide a potentially infinite, graphically realised digital landscape within which multiple users can interact with each other and with simple or complex data representations. CVEs are increasingly being used to support collaborative work between geographically separated and between collocated collaborators. CVEs vary in the sophistication of the data and embodiment representations employed and in the level of interactivity supported. It is clear that systems which are intended to support collaborative activities should be designed with explicit consideration of the tasks to be achieved and the intended users' social and cognitive characteristics. In this paper, we detail a number of existing systems and applications, but first discuss the nature of collaborative and cooperative work activities and consider the place of virtual reality systems in supporting such collaborative work. Following this, we discuss some future research directions.     

Discovery, Innovation, and Creativity: The Core of Computing

Computing programs should infuse the principles of entrepreneurship in computing curricula to equip students with the tools and skills necessary for them to succeed—and for the economy to thrive.