Employee Creativity: It’s a Matter of Management

In today’s highly competitive marketplace, one of the key ingredients of a company’s survival is its ability to generate new ideas or better ways of doing things.

ow, then, can a company foster workplace creativity rather than squelch it? That is the subject of a new study by Jing Zhou, associate professor of management at the Jesse H. Jones Graduate School of Management, and Shung Jae Shun from Washington State University. There are, the researchers report, important links between an organization’s leadership and its employees’ creativity.

“By creativity, we mean the ability to produce something that’s new and that will add value to the company,” Zhou says. “That can include fresh approaches to production, managing people, or delivering services—anything with a tangible result. Not surprisingly, managers can help build an organizational culture that supports creativity.”

In studies both in the United States and abroad, Zhou has looked at a number of factors influencing workplace creativity. In Korea, Zhou and Shun surveyed 290 employees and supervisors at 46 companies that included large, established corporations and new ventures in industries as diverse as construction design, cable, electronics, and telecommunications. In each case, they measured employees’ perceptions of their managers and, from data collected on the employees’ creativity, performed regression analysis to see if different leadership styles would predict creativity.

“Our results showed that in contrast to those who micromanage,” Zhou says, “supervisors who provide employees with intellectual stimulation and encourage them to think outside the box have a positive impact on creativity.”

Part of the challenge for managers is understanding the nature of creativity in the context of their organization, Zhou says. In prior studies, she debunked a number of myths about creativity, including the misconception that only smart people are creative and that their ideas come to them with little or no effort. “Creativity does not come randomly,” she says. “It’s often a long process and takes place in stages.”

Another myth is that creative people tend to work on their own. The study contends that creativity is actually a social process, and creative people often are stimulated by working with others. “A culture that does not support cross-fertilization or open communication between different areas of the company is not a culture that supports creativity,” Zhou says. “The same is true for a company that is so rigid that its employees are afraid to try something new for fear of making mistakes.”

In past studies, Zhou also found that creativity is more likely to occur where managers provide employees with nonjudgmental feedback about their ideas and helpful information to improve their job performance. There is an irony, however, to the concept of creativity, particularly in the context of an organization striving to create new and better ideas. “When times are tough, companies tend to take steps that ultimately discourage creativity,” Zhou says. “They don’t necessarily encourage new ideas because they cannot afford to make any mistakes. Unfortunately, many organizations don’t really understand how the creative process can benefit them. If a company is creative in improving its processes, for example, it would probably become more efficient, which would help it during difficult times.”

The researchers’ findings were published in an article titled “Transformational Leadership: Conservation and Creativity,” published in the Academy of Management Journal.

—Pam Sheridan