Group Creativity and Team Innovation

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Group Creativity and Team Innovation

• Bernard Nijstad
• University of Amsterdam

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Collaborators / Co-Authors

• Carsten K. W. De Dreu (University of Amsterdam)
• Myriam N. Bechtoldt (University of Amsterdam)
• Eric F. Rietzschel (University of Groningen)
• Wolfgang Stroebe (Utrecht University)
• Matthijs Baas (University of Amsterdam)

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This talk

• Background defining (group) creativity and
  (team) innovation
• Overview of group creativity/team innovation
  research
• Towards a unified theory The MIP-G model
• Illustrations
• Lab studies of group creativity
• Field study of team innovation
• Discussion

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This talk

• Background defining (group) creativity and
  (team) innovation
• Overview of group creativity/team innovation
  research
• Towards a unified theory The MIP-G model
• Illustrations
• Lab studies of group creativity
• Field study of team innovation
• Discussion

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Pablo Picasso
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Emily Dickenson
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Thomas Edison
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Creative products

• A product is creative to the extend it is both
  new (novel, original) and appropriate (useful,
  feasible) (e.g., Amabile, 1983 Paulus Nijstad,
  2003 Sternberg Lubart, 1999)

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Creative people

• Create creative products (paintings, poems,
  inventions, equations, theories, etc.)
• The best predictor of creative eminence is
  productivity (Simonton, 1999, 2003)
• Picasso produced 147,800 works of art (Guinness
  book of records)
• Dickenson wrote 1789 poems (latest count)
• Edison has 1093 patents (in the US alone)
• The equal odds rule every product has an equal
  chance of being creative

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Creative process

• The process that results in creative products
• Flexible thinking, but also hard work (cf. De
  Dreu, Baas, Nijstad, 2008 Dietrich, 2004)
• Different stages (e.g., Osborn, 1953 Nijstad
  Levine, 2007)
• Problem finding (definition, preparation)
• Idea finding (divergent thinking)
• Solution finding (selection, implementation)

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Group creativity

• The creative product resulted from the input of
  more than one person
• This does not imply group involvement in all
  stages of the creative process (cf. Nijstad
  Levine, 2007)
• Examples
• Music, theater, film, art (e.g., Sawyer, 2003,
  2006 Simonton, 2004 Farrell, 2001)
• Organizational teams (e.g., Dewett, 2004 Sutton
  Hargadon, 1996)
• Student groups (e.g., Taggar, 2002)
• Research groups (e.g., Dunbar, 1994)
• Classrooms (e.g., Hennesey, 2003)

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Team innovation

• The intentional introduction or application of
  ideas, processes, products, or procedures that
  are new to the team and that are designed to be
  useful (West Farr, 1990)
• Two differences with creativity
• Newness to the unit of adoption (relative rather
  than absolute)
• Implementation is crucial (e.g., West, 2002)

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Innovation implementation
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This talk

• Background defining (group) creativity and
  (team) innovation
• Overview of group creativity/team innovation
  research
• Towards a unified theory The MIP-G model
• Illustrations
• Lab studies of group creativity
• Field study of team innovation
• Discussion

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Some history

• In psychology interest started in the 1950s
  Guilford, 1950 Mednick, 1962 Torrance, 1969
  Stein, 1975)
• Initial focus on divergent thinking

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Divergent thinking and brainstorming

• Alex Osborn (1953, 1957, 1963)
• Principles
• Quantity breeds quality
• Deferment of judgment
• always we should keep asking our imagination
  what else? and again what else

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Does brainstorming work? (1)

• Brainstorming versus non-brainstorming procedures
• Brainstorming instructions enhance idea
  production (number Parnes Meadow, 1959)
• Quantity is related to quality (number of good
  ideas) (e.g., Diehl Stroebe, 1987, r .82
  Parnes Meadow, 1959, r .69)

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Does Brainstorming work? (2)

• Group versus individual brainstorming
• Osborn (1957) the average individual can think
  up twice as many ideas when working with a group
  than when working alone (p. 229)
• But productivity loss (Taylor et al., 1958
  Diehl Stroebe, 1987 Mullen et al., 1991)
• Interactive versus nominal groups large and
  robust effect
• Increases with group size

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Social-motivational factors

• Based on social facilitation/social loafing
  literatures
• Social loafing/free riding (e.g., Diehl
  Stroebe, 1987)
• Social matching (cf. co-action paradigms e.g.,
  Paulus Dzindolet, 1993 Camacho Paulus, 1995
  but see Munkes Diehl, 2004)
• Evaluation apprehension (cf. social facilitation
  e.g., Maginn Harris, 1980 Diehl Stroebe,
  1987)

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Evaluation apprehension
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Production blocking

• Production blocking (turn-taking) is a major
  cause of productivity losses
• Evidence
• Introducing blocking in nominal groups causes
  productivity loss (Diehl Stroebe, 1987, 1991)
• Removing production blocking in interactive
  groups eliminates productivity loss (EBS, Gallupe
  et al., 1991 writing, Paulus Yang, 2000)
• Introducing blocking in EBS causes productivity
  loss (Gallupe et al., 1994)
• The effect is due to cognitive interference
  (Nijstad et al., 2003)

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Cognitive stimulation?

• In (large) EBS groups (e.g., Dennis Valacich,
  1993 Valacich et al., 1994)
• In brainwriting (Paulus Yang, 2000)
• In presentation paradigms (Dugosh et al., 2000
  Nijstad et al., 2002)

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The creativity perspective

• Brainstorming is just one stage of creativity
• Studies of idea selection (Faure, 2004 Putman
  Paulus, in press Rietzschel et al., 2006)
• No consistent advantage of nominal groups
• Ineffective selection and focus on feasibility
• The reality of groups and teams
• Refocus what determines (high quality) group
  creative output?
• Comparing groups with other groups

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A few recent examples
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Innovation

• Economist, 2001
• Ideas are ten a penny. Put a handful of bright
  engineers in a brainstorming session and they
  will come up with literally scores of clever
  ideas . Invention is the easy bit. Innovation,
  by contrast, is the genuinely difficult part .
  What it does depend on is the single-mindedness
  with which the business plan is executed, as
  countless obstacles on the road to
  commercialization are surmounted, by-passed or
  hammered flat.

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Team innovation versus group creativity

• Group creativity mostly ad hoc laboratory groups
  doing a brainstorming task
• Team innovation field studies of intact teams
• With a history and a future (team climate)
• Less homogeneous (team heterogeneity)
• With leader/supervisor (leadership)
• Working at more complex tasks (task factors)

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A few examples
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In sum

• Somehow it fills my head with ideas only I
  dont exactly know what they are!

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This talk

• Background defining (group) creativity and
  (team) innovation
• Overview of group creativity/team innovation
  research
• Towards a unified theory The MIP-G model
• Illustrations
• Lab studies of group creativity
• Field study of team innovation
• Discussion

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Motivated information processing in groups (MIP-G)

• De Dreu, Nijstad, Van Knippenberg, 2008
• Groups performing cognitive tasks can be
  conceptualized as information processors (Hinsz,
  Tindale, Vollrath, 1997)
• Individual level processing (encoding, retrieval,
  etc)
• Group level communication
• Group members provide the resources (KSA)
• Trough information processing the member
  contributions are turned into a group product

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Motivation and information processing

• Information processing can be shallow and deep
  (cf. dual process models) epistemic motivation
• Information processing can be directed at
  individual or collective goals (cf. mixed motive
  tasks, e.g., negotiations) social motivation

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Epistemic motivation

• the willingness to expend effort to achieve a
  thorough, rich, and accurate understanding of the
  world, including the group task, rather than
  relying on routine or habitual thought
• Rooted in individual differences
• Need for cognition ()
• Need for closure/need for structure (-)
• Openness to experience ()
• Affected by situational factors
• time pressure (-)
• process accountability ()
• Preference diversity, minority dissent ()

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For example High need for structure
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Social motivation

• the preference for outcome distributions between
  oneself and other team members
• pro-self (own outcomes) pro-social (joint
  outcomes)
• Rooted in individual differences
• Social Value Orientation
• Agreeableness ()
• Affected by situational factors
• Transformational leadership ()
• Team climate (e.g., participative safety) ()
• Task and outcome interdependence ()

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Social motivation (TEAM)
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The different combinations
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The basic prediction

• Groups and teams are most creative/innovative
  when high levels of epistemic motivation are
  paired with high levels of pro-social motivation
• Members are processing information to reach
  collective goals
• Boundary condition the inputs of different
  members are necessary

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This talk

• Background defining (group) creativity and
  (team) innovation
• Overview of group creativity/team innovation
  research
• Towards a unified theory The MIP-G model
• Illustrations
• Lab studies of group creativity
• Field study of team innovation
• Discussion

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Study 1 2Group creativity

• Brainstorming task improve teaching
• Creativity original and useful
• Three dependent variables
• Fluency ( ideas)
• Originality
• Feasibility

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Study 1

• Design Epistemic Motivation x Social Motivation
• EM process accountability (no/yes)
• SM incentive schemes (reward personal
  performance or collective performance)
• 3-person groups (N 39 groups)
• 10 min sessions (individually write down your
  non-redundant ideas)

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Results (Study 1) Fluency
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Results (Study 1) Originality
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Results (Study 1) Feasibility
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Conclusion Study 1

• The combination of high EM and pro-social
  motivation increased originality
• It did not affect fluency and feasibility
• Conceptual replication Study 2

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Study 2

• Design EM x SM
• EM time pressure (yes (5 min) vs. no (15 min))
• SM agreeableness (continuous, group average)
• 3-person groups (N 36 groups)
• 10 min sessions (individually write down your
  non-redundant ideas)

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Results (Study 2) Fluency
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Results (Study 2) Originality
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Results (Study 2) Feasibility
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Conclusions Study 2

• The combination of high EM and pro-social
  motivation led to
• Higher fluency
• High originality
• Relatively high feasibility (correlation
  originality-feasibility r -.70)
• More good ideas! (Both original and feasible)

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Study 3 Top management team innovation

• N 36 top management teams, team size 3-17,
  Average company size 1750 employees
• Questionnaire team members (N 196)
• Minority dissent (EM) 4 items, a .68 (e.g.,
  individuals disagree with the rest of the team)
• Participative safety (SM) 8 items, a .84
  (e.g., We have a we are in it together
  mentality)
• Interview with CEO list innovations and judge
  them on radicalness and effectiveness
• Number
• Radicalness and effectiveness
• Number of high quality innovations

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Results (Study 3)

• On number of innovations
• only a main effect of minority dissent (MD) ß
  .61, p lt .01
• On average radicalness
• A minority dissent X participative safety (PS)
  interaction ß .40, p lt .05
• Low PS ß -.35 (ns)
• High PS ß .19 (ns)
• On average effectiveness
• No effects
• On number of influential innovations
• A minority dissent X participative safety (PS)
  interaction ß .46, p lt .05 (next slide)

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The interaction
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Conclusion Study 3

• Minority dissent as a proxy for EM leads to more
  innovations (main effect)
• These are only turned into high quality
  innovations with high levels of participative
  safety (as a a proxy for SM)

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This talk

• Background defining (group) creativity and
  (team) innovation
• Overview of group creativity/team innovation
  research
• Towards a unified theory The MIP-G model
• Illustrations
• Lab studies of group creativity
• Field study of team innovation
• Discussion

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Discussion

• MIP-G model can potentially integrate many
  findings
• For example
• Heterogeneity may associate with EM (Van
  Knippenberg et al., 2004)
• Task reflexivity and EM (e.g., De Dreu, 2002)
• Task interdependence and SM (Van der Vegt
  Janssen, 2003)
• Transformational leadership and SM (Shin Zhou,
  2007)
• We need direct evidence, and some issues remain

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Standing out and fitting in

• Willingness to stand out and SM
• Previous competitive, not pro-social interaction
  (Beersma De Dreu, 2005)
• Individualism, not collectivism (Goncalo Staw,
  2006)
• Besides SM, one also needs high EM (otherwise
  focus on harmony)
• Standing out can be perceived to be in the
  interest of the group

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Cultural differences

• Study in Korea, with different results
• Time pressure X incentive schemes
• High epistemic motivation pro-social motivation
  increased feasibility (not originality)
• Reason
• What is important for the group? What are
  collective goals?
• Relations vs. task originality vs. tradition

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Conclusion

• The combination of high epistemic motivation and
  high pro-social motivation leads groups to
  systematic and deep information processing to
  reach group goals
• High levels of creativity and innovation follow
  if this is perceived to be in the interest of the
  group

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Questions?

• b.a.nijstad_at_uva.nl