Creative developments in creativity theory
Academy of Management. The Academy of Management Review Mississippi State Apr
2000
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------Authors:
Cameron M Ford
Volume:
25
Issue:
2
Pagination:
284-285
ISSN:
03637425
Subject Terms:
Creativity
Research
Proposals
Organization theory
Psychological aspects
Classification Codes:
2500: Organizational behavior
9190: United States
Geographic Names:
United States
US
Abstract:
A comment on Drazin, Glynn and Kazanjian's (1999) article in Academy of
Management Review is used to argue that in future organizational creativity
research, scholars should define creativity as a socially constructed
assessment, emphasize both sensemaking processes and sensemaking outcomes,
specify relevant stakeholders and domains, and adopt a mental dialogue
metaphor as a way of investigating multilevel sensemaking processes that
affect organizational creativity.
Copyright
Academy of Management Apr 2000
Full Text:
Drazin, Glynn, and Kazanjian's (1999) article is the third multilevel model of
organizational creativity published recently in the Academy of Management
Review. Woodman, Sawyer, and Griffin (1993) presented an "interactionist
view," in which they identified important influences on creativity associated
with different levels of analysis. In 1996 I advanced this contribution by
embedding many of the influences identified by Woodman et al. into a
multilevel, coevolutionary process model (Ford, 1996). With this model I
describe how individuals' interpretations of multiple task domains within and
between levels of analysis affect their preferences for habitual versus novel
actions and how the introduction of novel actions affects the evolution of
task domains. Drazin et al. refine the general multiple domain approach (Ford,
1996) by describing how crises can shift individuals' or communities'
attention between the requirements of two specific task domains (i.e.,
technical versus managerial) during the evolution of large-scale, longduration, creative projects. Although these contributions differ in many
respects, collectively, they seem to represent a convergence around several
core explanatory processes that can serve as the basis for future multilevel
research concerning organizational creativity.
Drazin et al.'s article does, however, raise several critical issues that need
to be considered as the organizational creativity literature continues to
develop. The first issue relates to the definition of creativity. The authors
define creativity as "a person's psychological engagement in creative
activity" (1999: 301). Aside from sounding rather tautological (i.e.,
creativity is a process that leads to creative activity), this definition
suggests that creativity is an intrasubjective motivation process. As Drazin
et al. note, this process definition stands in stark contrast to the trend in
the creativity literature toward defining creativity as a subjective
assessment of an outcome or product's novelty and value (Amabile, 1983).
Theoretical justification for this approach is reflected most strongly in the
"systems view of creativity" (Csikszentmihalyi, 1988). Advocates of this
perspective argue that creative acts must be defined within the context of the
social and historical milieu in which they were carried out. They also suggest
that defining people or processes as "creative" is pointless, because such
definitions must ultimately make reference to creative acts or outcomes, as
Drazin et al. have done. Viewing creativity as an ambiguous public assessment
subject to conflict, influence, and negotiation seems more consistent with
Drazin et al.'s description of how intrasubjective, intersubjective, and
collective frames of reference develop with respect to creative acts. Defining
creativity with respect to creative actions and outcomes has conceptual and
methodological advantages (Amabile, 1983) that can facilitate future
organizational creativity research.
Another issue concerns the scope of the authors' theoretical proposals.
Although they briefly acknowledge the existence of prior research that links
motivation, skills, personality, and contextual features to creativity, they
are rather dismissive of these findings, apparently because they reflect a
functionalist-reductionist research orientation. Rather than dismiss this body
of work on philosophical grounds, I think it is more useful to recast these
"empirical facts" within a more holistic description of individual thought and
action.
For example, rather than simply proposing that individuals form "frames of
reference" that mediate their engagement in creative acts, one could describe
more specifically configurations of thoughts (e.g., goals, expectations. and
so on) and feelings within frames of reference that increase individuals'
engagement in creative actions (cf. Ford, 1996). This approach also provides a
means of describing how individuals' current frames might affect their ability
or willingness to modify their current schema. In future efforts to advance a
sensemaking perspective on organizational creativity, researchers should seek
to identify both process and contentsensemaking and sense made-and examine
patterns of coevolution between the two. Prior creativity research -may help
researchers advance their understanding of these processes.
The third issue involves identifying relevant task domains in addressing the
related levelsof-analysis issues that arise. In the illustrative example
provided by Drazin et al., specific interactions between two task domains
(technical and managerial) at the same level of analysis were described within
the context of large-scale, long-duration projects. This analysis is very rich
but limited in its generalizability (as Drazin et al. point out). In the
Woodman et al. (1993) and Ford (1996) articles, much more generic theoretical
proposals are presented. For example, in my article (Ford, 1996) I describe
coevolution processes that affect creativity in four levels of domain,
including groups, organizations, institutions, and markets. With this general
description, I attempt to capture "the complex mosaic of loosely coupled,
mutually influential domains of thought and action that exist within and
across levels" of analysis (1996: 1125).
It is important to keep in mind that the choice of levels and domains offered
by any researcher is somewhat arbitrary and must be judged within the context
of the purpose of a particular study. Drazin et al.'s analysis, contrasting
the interests and sensibilities of two interdependent task domains,
illustrates their main arguments very effectively. However, one could easily
imagine other voices being added to the negotiations over belief structures
that guide largescale, creative projects (e.g., lawyers, suppliers, customers,
government representatives, and so on). In future studies of organizational
creativity, scholars need to pursue rich descriptions that depict coevolution
processes among multiple domains with redundant, independent, and/or
conflicting interests and requirements. Drazin et al.'s article is an
important contribution toward the development of midlevel, context-specific
models of creative action in organizations. Others should follow their lead in
other domains.
Finally, levels of analysis do not provide a useful way of describing how
creative actors think about their work environments. Harris (1994) offers an
especially promising alternative description of how individuals understand and
navigate the complex requirement of multiple domains within and across levels
of analysis. He suggests that individuals develop schemas reflecting different
stakeholders and their respective domains (e.g., a management schema, a
finance schema, a customer schema, an engineering schema, a peer schema, and
so forth). When making sense of their circumstances and making decisions about
their behavior, individuals "choose to behave in response to . . . contrived
mental dialogues between themselves and other contextually relevant (past or
present, real or imagined) individuals or groups" (1994: 316). These mental
dialogues influence the goals, expectations, and emotions that guide
individuals' efforts to please important stakeholder interests. Harris's
mental dialogue metaphor is a useful way to link both shared and idiosyncratic
schemas or frames of reference to individual behavior.
In summary, in future organizational creativity research, scholars should
define creativity as a socially constructed assessment, emphasize both
sensemaking processes and sensemaking outcomes (perhaps by recasting findings
from functionalist-reductionist research), specify relevant stakeholders and
domains, and adopt a "mental dialogue" metaphor as a way of investigating
multilevel sensemaking processes that affect organizational creativity.
REFERENCES
Amabile, T. M. 1983. The social psychology of creativity: A componential
conceptualization. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 45: 357-376.
Csikszentmihalyi, M. 1988. Society, culture, and person: A systems view of
creativity. In R. J. Sternberg (Ed.), The nature of creativity: Contemporary
psychological perspectives: 325-339. New York: Cambridge University Press.
Drazin, R., Glynn, M. A., and Kazanjian, R. K. 1999. Multilevel theorizing
about creativity in organizations: A sensemaking perspective. Academy of
Management Review, 24: 286-307.
Ford. C. M. 1996. A theory of individual creative action in multiple social
domains. Academy of Management Review, 21: 1112-1142.
Harris, S. G. 1994. Organizational culture and individual sensemaking.
Organization Science, 5: 309-321.
Woodman, R. W., Sawyer, J. E., & Griffin, R. W. 1993. Toward a theory of
organizational creativity. Academy of Management Review, 18: 293-321.
Cameron M. Ford
University of Central Florida
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