Creativity and social alienation: the costs of being creative

Although creativity is a widely praised merit, the psychological costs that an employee may pay for being creative are less examined. The present study advances the research paradigm on the dark side of creativity by focusing on the negative psychological state (social alienation) of creative employees. By building on the studies on the homophily principle and on the cultural perspective of creativity, we investigated why creative employees are more likely to experience social alienation. Drawing on the social capital theory, we point out that social alienation of creative employees depends on their networking ability and harmony enhancement motive. A two-wave survey among 311 employees from 59 Chinese organizations supported the hypotheses. Implications of the findings are discussed for creativity and alienation literature as well as management practice.     

Creativity,job performance and their correlates: a comparison between nonprofit and profit-driven organizations

• This study explores a research model concerning creativity, job performance, and their correlates in the nonprofit organization setting. The findings of this study suggest that a set of differences in the areas of creativity, job performance, and their correlates exists between the marketers in nonprofit organizations and the marketers in profit-driven organizations. These findings reveal the need for contingency theories in this area, with emphasis centered on environmental differences. It is hoped that this study will draw the attention of many researchers toward topics concerning organizational creativity in the nonprofit organization setting.

Copyright © 2005 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Creativity,celebration and play at the Bauhaus,Berlin, 1920: lessons from history for contemporary marketers and arts organizations

• Organizations can be seen as rigid, rewarding conformity not creativity. Managing the creative team or individual can be challenging. This paper contributes to this special issue of the International Journal of Nonprofit and Voluntary Sector Marketing by addressing ways to manage creativity in an organization, as well as to creatively market the organization. It presents a case study of an organization based in Germany in the 1920s, the Bauhaus. This art and craft organization achieved extraordinary creative output in just over a decade of operation, during the devastation of post World War I. This paper demonstrates how its leader managed the creativity of the staff and students and creatively marketed the organization despite a lack of funds and the desperate shortage of resources. The Bauhaus provides a key lesson for contemporary marketers and managers in developing the characteristics of organizations that nurture creativity and the creative individual.

Copyright © 2005 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

The Financial Crisis and the Hegemony of Urban Neoliberalism: Lessons from Frankfurt am Main

In view of debates among critical urban scholars regarding the relationship between the current economic crisis and the stability of neoliberal hegemony on the urban scale, this article analyzes (1) the impact of the economic recession on the city of Frankfurt am Main, and (2) whether urban politics in the German financial center will witness a new phase of post‐neoliberalization. Statistical analyses of the local labor and property markets and of municipal budget trends reveal that the implications of the current crisis are relatively limited, especially when compared to the dot.com crisis in the early 2000s. Furthermore, a discourse analysis of the debates in the Frankfurt City Council between 2008 and 2010, supplemented by interviews with local political elites, shows that neoliberal hegemony remains stable and powerful regardless of the deep economic decline and a short period of uncertainty and intensive hegemonic struggles. In my analysis I focus on the power of neoliberal subjectivity and knowledge production in order to try and explain the deepening of the general consensus among local elites by demonstrating that a broad majority of actors from different political parties interprets the crisis within a neoliberal rationality.     

Toward The Networked City? Translating Technological ideals and Planning Models in Water and Sanitation Systems in Dar es Salaam

One of the most influential ideals for constructing and managing cities and infrastructures worldwide is that of the ‘networked city'. This ideal refers to the technological design and morphology of cities integrated and ordered by infrastructure networks and to a specific model in the operation, use and planning of infrastructures. Engineers, planners and public health officials have aspired to align with this circulating ideal of urban modernity, hygiene and rationalization of nature in (re)producing cities worldwide. Like many cities in the global South, Dar es Salaam cannot be characterized by universal access to centralized water and sewerage networks. While formal institutions, planning documents and strategies reflect significations, as well as organizational and planning models of a networked city, its urban environments are shaped by hybrid arrangements manifesting unequal access to water and sanitation services. We build on postcolonial critique in urban studies and science and technology studies to inquire into this contradiction by addressing the translation of the ideal of the networked city in Dar es Salaam. Our objective is to uncover the negotiations over the translation of this hegemonic model, and to delineate the scope of creativity in reinventing alternative urban modernities that defy simplistic notions of technology transfer.     

Exploring the Role of IT in the Front-End of Innovation: An Empirical Study of IT-Enabled Creative Behavior

The front-end of innovation (FEI) is critical for successful innovation in contemporary organizations. Employee creativity, or creative behavior, is at the heart of the FEI and it encompasses three activities: idea generation, idea elaboration, and idea championing. Information technology (IT) can play an important role in enabling these activities but extant research has focused primarily on IT-enabled idea generation. This paper complements the extant research by examining the entire set of activities that compose FEI. Specifically, we develop a model that examines IT-enabled idea generation, IT-enabled elaboration and IT-enabled championing, and that, grounded in the componential theory of creativity, analyzes their key drivers. An empirical study establishes the applicability of the model. The paper contributes to IS research and practice by shedding light on the tripartite role that organizational IT can play in employee creativity, and it serves as a springboard for future research.     

Compensation in the jobless organization

The job has traditionally played a central role in the design and structure of organizations. Recently, however, the jobless organization has emerged in response to a number of economic and technological developments. As the design and structure of organizations has changed, efforts have increasingly been made to move from the traditional job-based compensation system to a person-based approach. This paper reviews the changes that have been observed in compensation programs as efforts are made to respond to the jobless organization. This paper then highlights possible directions for future research by developing research propositions relating to the impact of person-based pay and the conditions likely to affect the nature of that impact.     

提高知识员工创新力的工作再设计策略

由美国次贷危机引发的金融危机对我国企业的不利影响逐步显现,知识员工创造力是组织创新发展的重要来源,被越来越多的企业所重视。     

Is It Only Good? The Dark Side of Leadership for Creativity and Innovation

It is assumed that leaders are essential in shaping and facilitating successful innovation and creativity in organizations. Both through direct leadership behaviors (e.g., by vision formulation) and through more indirect leadership behaviors (e.g., by role modeling). While these leadership behaviors seem both positive and productive, they may also hold risks of unintended, adverse results. In the current article, two ways are proposed in which this may occur: through contradictory leadership behaviors and a too‐much‐of‐a‐good‐thing effect. Future research in and awareness of the potential dark sides to leadership for creativity and innovation are warranted.     

Organizational Identity and Place: A Discursive Exploration of Hegemony and Resistance

abstract    This paper analyses how three distinct cohorts of workers in a recently merged UK-based College of Further Education understood their group and their organization's identities. We focus in particular, but not exclusively on how the groups' shared understandings of 'place' informed their identity accounts. Identities are theorized as being constituted within discursive regimes, and place treated as a discursive resource on which individuals and groups may draw in their attempts to author versions of their selves. In our case, understandings of place were also a resource on which some people drew in nostalgic reminiscence, and others used to fantasize about their preferred futures for the college. Framed by our intention to identify plurivocal native interpretations of place and identity in ways that promote the reading of polysemy back into case research, the contribution this paper makes is threefold. First, it adds to efforts to theorize organizations and identities as unstable social constructions constituted through acts of languaging. Second, it illustrates how different groups of local actors with distinct histories and value preferences may draw on their place of work in order to author contrasting versions of their organization's identity. Finally, our paper analyses the attempts made by senior managers and groups of other staff to define their organization in particular ways, as hegemonic 'moves' in an ongoing struggle for control over the organization as a discursive space.     

Human Capital,the Millennial's Reign,and the Need For Servant Leadership

Human capital has been a major emphasis and priority for organizations for the past 15–20 years; however, changing demographics in the workplace dictate that organizations step up these efforts. The current paper explores three generational cohorts, with particular emphasis on the Millennial generation as this cohort will encompass upward of 50% of the workforce by 2020. If organizations want to compete for and retain top Millennial talent, organizations must make themselves attractive to Millennials. This will require that organizations develop a leadership base that is suited to lead Millennials. We suggest that servant leadership is likely the optimal leadership style for creating an organization rich in human capital development and for making an organization a preferred workplace for the Millennial generation.     

Evaluating the Penetration of Capitalism in Postsocialist Moscow

A bstract .   This article evaluates critically the meta-narrative that capitalism is becoming totalizing and hegemonic. Recently, an emerging corpus of postdevelopment thought has begun to deconstruct this discourse, but only in relation to Western economies and the majority (third) world. To further contribute to this emerging critique, the aim is to analyze the degree to which capitalist economic practices have permeated postsocialist societies through a case study of Moscow. Based on face-to-face interviews with 313 households during 2005/06 concerning their work practices, a relatively shallow penetration of capitalism in this city is identified, with only a minority of households relying on the capitalist economy in particular, and the formal economy more generally, to secure their livelihood. The vast majority of the population is found to depend heavily on an array of noncapitalist economic practices; and capitalist and noncapitalist practices are identified as operating in tandem with, rather than in opposition to, each other. The outcome is a call to refute the universality of capitalist hegemony and to rethink the nature of economic development from a perspective that recognizes the persistence of economic pluralism.     

Managing Discursive Tension: the Co–Existence of Individualist and Collaborative Discourses in Flight Centre

Our study of the travel agency Flight Centre began as a case study of a company that appears to be a 'success story' in what is a highly competitive industry. In the course of our study we found that inscribed in Flight Centre were two, differing discourses which appear to co–exist in creative tension throughout the organization. One discourse is competitive individualism and the other collaborative teamwork. Our paper focuses on how Flight Centre has made use of multiple discourses such as these in the process of achieving competitive advantage, and how people manage the differing discursive logics which confront them on a day–to–day basis. The paper proceeds by identifying the social and textual practices which constitute each discourse. It then establishes the discursive co–existence and tension which exists between the two discourses. Study is made of the conditions under which this discursive co–existence is disrupted. We then identify the interpretative routines and practices through which organizational actors maintain and reproduce discursive co–existence. Our paper concludes by considering a variety of implications of studying multiple discourses in organizations.     

REDISCOVERING HEGEL: THE 'NEW HISTORICISM' IN ORGANIZATION AND MANAGEMENT STUDIES

This paper advances the argument that a particular form of culturally, rather than materialistically, based historicism dominated organization and management studies in the 1980s. the 1970s were dominated by a materialistically based form of historicism in which economic, technological and organizational imperatives were deemed to drive the evolutionary dynamics, trajectories and outcomes of institutional and organizational transformation. In sharp contrast, the 1980s witnessed the rise of culturally or ideationally based forms of historicist thought and analysis in which the explanatory and political significance of factors located in a society's or organization's 'material base' were substantially downgraded in favour of variables embedded in their 'ideological superstructures'. the paper traces the emergence, progress and implications of this cultural historicism in relation to four distinct, but interrelated discourses - enterprise, flexibility, quality and human resource management. It also suggests that this analysis raises a number of fundamental theoretical and methodological issues concerned with three different approaches to the study of the interconnections between intellectual and institutional change in 'late' or 'post'-modern societies - that is, the history of ideas, the sociology of knowledge, and technologies of government. the paper concludes with the argument that each of these broad approaches needs to be brought into clearer theoretical and methodological alignment in order to develop a more subtle and sophisticated understanding of the dynamics of, and elective affinity between, intellectual and institutional change. It also suggests that this need for a clearer theoretical alignment between these three approaches will become particularly pressing in the 1990s as an alternative discourse of citizenship emerges to challenge the ideological hegemony of the discourse of enterprise with its roots in cultural historicism.     

Critical creativity criteria for students in higher education: taking the interrelationship effect among dimensions into account

It is known that the overall competitive advantages enjoyed by the Taiwanese higher education system have been decreasing in recent years relative to the educational systems of other countries. In light of aiming to become a kingdom of innovation, how to regain its competitive advantages over the very short term has become a critical issue requiring immediate attention. Based on previous research indicating that improving innovation is among the primary ways of enhancing an education system’s competitive advantages, that creativity is the foundation of innovation, that organizations that truly understand human creativity and are committed to nurturing it and living with the consequences of doing so are those that are most likely to succeed, and that students are a major group to be regarded as the backbone of a nation’s future development, the aim of this study is to explore critical criteria for creativity, which could significantly improve the creativity of college students. Although related studies can be found today, these studies seem to ignore the different effects of different dimensions of creativity evaluation, leading to results that are irrational and not completely suitable for real practice. In this regard, a perception of interrelationships among these dimensions is thus taken into account while calculating weights of evaluation creativity dimensions and criteria. In accordance with the result, the top six explored critical creativity criteria are shown to help enhance today’s college students’ creativity.     

The Organizational Setting, Use and Institutionalization of Argumentation Repertoires

Although the association between management and argumentation has been a long-standing one, very little research has been undertaken into the organizational setting, institutionalization and use of argumentation. Argumentation is still considered to be undertaken between isolated individuals or within political communities. This paper aims to provide a first attempt at an organizational theory of argumentation. It suggests that organizations institutionalize very specialized repertoires of arguments, which constrain what their members can say, and which are discourse resources which are subject to appropriation and manipulation by organization members to increase their power and influence. One example of the importance of managerial control of argumentation is during organizational change, where specific argumentation subrepertoires are postulated to facilitate the transition between successive stages of change     

Managing Creative People: Strategies and Tactics for Innovation

With rapid changes in technology, and global competition, the success of many organizations has become progressively more dependent on their ability to bring innovative products to market. Ultimately, however, innovation depends on the generation of creative, new ideas. Accordingly, the literature bearing on the nature of creativity is reviewed to identify the conditions that influence innovation. Observations about the nature of creativity are used to draw conclusions about the kind of human resource management strategies that might enhance creativity. It is argued that organizations should consider multiple interventions that take into account the individual, the group, the organization, and the strategic environment when selecting interventions intended to enhance creativity.     

For Rigour in Organizational Management Theory Research

Rigour is required in examining the empirical validity of theories in organizational management, and is often considered to be the opposite of creativity in the development of knowledge about managing organizations. In this article, we argue that rigour is necessary in the enterprise of organizational management research. Moreover, it can actually be a contributor to creativity. The issue is not rigour versus creativity, but rather how rigour can foster creativity. We show that rigour in both theory and methodology can foster creativity. Rigour in theory provides the logical thinking that is the foundation that allows the development of sound theory. This can be achieved in various ways, including theory building, mathematical modelling, causal modelling, and theory analysis. Rigour in methodology can assist creativity in quantitative integration. The contribution of rigour to creativity is evidenced by the recently created statistico‐organizational theory and other new advancements in the field of structural contingency research.     

A multilevel leadership process framework of performance management

Performance management is a critical human resource management practice intended to facilitate performance and development in organizations. Unfortunately, recent discourse among researchers and practitioners suggest that current performance management practices in organizations are less than satisfactory and not effective. A popular recommendation to improve the performance management process is to focus less on the formal procedures and more on the manager-employee interactions embedded in the process. However, current models of performance management do not reflect this focus on social processes. We present a multilevel leadership process framework of performance management that highlights the pivotal role of managers. Within this framework managers carry out this process through their influence on employees, teams, and the organization. Recommendations for future directions are also provided.