INNOVATIVE BEHAVIOUR IN ORGANIZATIONS Vojkan Nedkovski -
[email protected] UNIVERSITY OF MILAN Category: 06 INNOVATION >> 06_05 ORGANIZING CREATIVITY FOR INNOVATION: MULTIDISCIPLINARY PERSPECTIVES, THEORIES, AND PRACTICES
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Innovative behaviour in organizations ABSTRACT
While most of the research has focused on creativity, the subsequent stage of the overall process of innovative behaviour, i.e. idea implementation, remain vastly overlooked by the academic literature. To address this gap, I propose developing a study that will distinguish between creativity and idea implementation both theoretically and empirically. A comprehensive social network analysis is a relevant tool for studying how the properties of a social network in which the employees are embedded may differently affect the two stages of the innovative process. The data would be analysed in a mid-size organization (100-150 employees) and would comprehend the interaction between network size, strength of ties and network closeness centrality. Moreover, drawing on the interactionist perspective as well as the motivationopportunity-ability theories of behaviour, there will be highlighted the joint effects of social network properties and motivational/cognitive factors on the two stages of innovation. Keywords: creativity, innovation, social networks
Innovative behaviour in organizations
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Abstract
While most of the research has focused on creativity, the subsequent stage of the overall process of innovative behaviour, i.e. idea implementation, remain vastly overlooked by the academic literature. To address this gap, I propose developing a study that will distinguish between creativity and idea implementation both theoretically and empirically. A comprehensive social network analysis is a relevant tool for studying how the properties of a social network in which the employees are embedded may differently affect the two stages of the innovative process. The data would be analysed in a mid-size organization (100-150 employees) and would comprehend the interaction between network size, strength of ties and network closeness centrality. Moreover, drawing on the interactionist perspective as well as the motivation-opportunity-ability theories of behaviour, there will be highlighted the joint effects of social network properties and motivational/cognitive factors on the two stages of innovation.
Keywords: idea generation, idea implementation, social network analysis, motivation, cognitive style
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1. INTRODUCTION That creativity and innovation are important determinants of organizational growth and performance is not a new argument. Decades ago, Schumpeter (1939: 102) stated that “…carrying out innovations is the only function which is fundamental in history…”. Indeed, the scientists and practitioners from the more recent past have likewise confirmed the growing importance of innovation (e.g. Ford & Gioia, 1995; King & Anderson, 2002). Being innovative is considered to be the main driver for competitiveness in an increasingly dynamic environment (Amabile, 1996; Chen & Kaufman, 2008; Ford & Gioia, 1995; King & Anderson, 2002; Rosa, Qualls, & Fuentes, 2008; Shalley & Gilson, 2004; Tushman & O‟Reilly, 1996) and a key factor for long-term survival of organizations (Ancona & Caldwell, 1987). In order a particular organization to be innovative, it is necessary that it is capable of harnessing the ideas from their employees, because it is the people who “…develop, carry, react to, and modify ideas” (Van de Ven, 1986: 592). Consequently, studying what enables or impedes creativity and innovation of people at work is of a critical importance (Yuan & Woodman, 2010). The scholars have most commonly defined creativity as a generation of novel and useful ideas (Amabile, 1988; Oldham & Cummings, 1996; Paulus & Yang, 2000), while innovation has been defined a process that include generation of novel and useful ideas as a first stage and implementation of the innovative ideas as a second stage of the overall process (Amabile, 1996; Shalley & Zhou, 2008; West & Farr, 1990). Although several researchers have argued that the process of innovation is cyclical in sense that idea generation and idea implementation may occur and reoccur several times during the development of a new product, service or process (e.g. Paulus, 2002), such a two-dimensional distinction may help us obtaining more meaningful insights about the process of innovation (Škerlavaj, Černe, & Dysvik, 2014). The overall innovation process that includes both generation and 3
implementation of innovative ideas is also known as innovative behaviour (Yuan & Woodman, 2010), a term that will be most commonly used throughout this study. Recognizing that the personal characteristics are essential for the innovative contributions by individuals, there is a growing body in the literature studying the impact of contextual factors on the individual innovative behaviour (Perry-Smith, 2006). Among the contextual antecedents that have been studied so far, the properties of social networks are of prominent significance, as it is the interpersonal interaction and communication at workplace that can provide opportunities for creativity and innovation (Perry-Smith & Shalley, 2003). Indeed, social networks may provide an individual with the opportunity to connect with others holding different perspectives and ideas, or may limit the perspectives when closely connected to similar others (Burt, 2004). Despite the fact that there is a growing stream of literature that investigates how different properties of an employee‟s social network may affect his or her innovative behaviour (e.g. Baer, 2010; Burt, 2004; Ibarra, 1993; Perry-Smith, 2006; Perry-Smith & Shalley, 2003; Zhou et al., 2009), most of the research has focused merely on the aspect of creativity (Anderson, Potočnik, & Zhou, 2014; Baer, 2012). Hence, this study would attempt to cover this theoretical gap by providing an enhanced knowledge about the impact of social networks, in which an individual is embedded, on the two stages of innovative process, i.e. creativity and implementation. Apart from the social context in which the innovative behaviour takes place, there have been studied various personal characteristics that differentiate the more creative individuals from their less creative peers. Accordingly, one of the most important antecedents of creativity is intrinsic motivation (Amabile, 1983, 1988, 1996; Deci & Ryan, 1985). Similarly, Kirton‟s adaptation-innovation inventory predicts the natural propensity of an individual to adapt or to innovate (Bobic, Davis, & Cunnigham, 1999). Drawing on the interactionist perspective, which assumes that personal characteristics interact with contextual
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factors (Ford, 1996; Oldham & Cummings, 1996), the aim of this study is to understand how the social networks interact with personal motivation and cognitive style in order to affect the two stages of innovative behaviour. Hence, the questions that arise are the following: How the interaction among various network properties such as size, strength of ties and network closeness centrality affects the two stages of innovative behaviour? Which combination of the three factors (i.e. social network, motivation and cognitive style) contributes the most towards idea generation and which towards idea implementation? What is the right balance among the three factors that allows an individual to enhance his or her innovative behaviour? Studying how the two stages of the overall process may be affected by the interaction between social context variables and individual characteristics is essential for an innovation to arise. As Levitt (1963: 79) puts it, “ideas are useless until used”. For this purpose, in the next section, there would be reviewed the current state of the academic literature on creativity and innovation at work. Following the aims of this study, the emphasis would be set on the interactionist perspective, which also includes the interaction between individual characteristics and social networks. Next, there would be proposed a research model and hypothesis as well as a methodological approach, in order finally to conclude with expected contributions and intended managerial implications.
2. LITERATURE REVIEW The purpose for this review is evaluating the current state of the literature on creativity and innovation at individual level of analysis. First, there are reviewed the studies that define the concepts of creativity and innovation in order to understand the boundaries between the two constructs and to arrive to a comprehensive definition that fits the objectives set by this study. In the second part, it is provided an overview of the main theoretical models on creativity and innovation. There are also reviewed several empirical studies that have 5
applied one of the models in their research designs. Following this section, there is reviewed the literature on social networks as a more specific fragment of the overall context in which an employee is embedded. Finally, in the last sections, it is reviewed the literature on motivation and cognitive style as potential moderating variables.
Defining the concept of innovative behaviour The most common conceptualization used in the academic literature is that the process of creativity and innovation at work consists of two different stages, i.e. idea generation as a first stage and idea implementation as a subsequent stage of the entire process (e.g. Amabile, 1996; Oldham & Cummings, 1996; Shalley & Zhou, 2008). Hence, idea generation, usually termed as creativity, refers to generation of ideas that are at the same time novel and useful (Amabile, 1988; Oldham & Cummings, 1996). Idea implementation, on the other hand, refers to evaluation of the generated ideas, putting them into practice, and incorporating them within the established organizational practices (Gilson & Shalley, 2004; Mumford, 2001; Reiter-Palmon & Illies, 2004). Thus, creativity usually refers merely to generation of novel ideas and does not necessarily imply that those ideas would be further implemented. Unlike the process of creativity, innovation implies that the generated idea would be implemented and put into practice. As such, idea generation and idea implementation require different behaviours from the part of the individuals (Axtell, Holman, & Wall, 2006; Farr & Ford, 1990; West, 2002). Idea generation, for instance, requires exploration, divergent thinking as well as relatively higher risk propensity (Miron-Spektor, Erez, & Naveh, 2011), whereas idea implementation requires exploitation, systematic thinking, and lower risk propensity (West, 2002). This contradiction is often labeled as “the innovation paradox” (Miron-Spektor, Erez, & Naveh, 2011), which on the other hand is
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similar to the exploration-exploitation paradox in the organizational learning literature (Bledow et al., 2009a; Bledow et al., 2009b). One noteworthy characteristic of the creativity and innovation literature is that there are significant disagreements over the boundaries between the concepts of creativity and innovation and as a result, several scholars have called for a clearer differentiation between them in the future (e.g. Rank, Pace, & Frese, 2004). For example, Paulus (2002) argued that the process of creativity and innovation is chaotic and consequently, creativity does not necessarily occur only at the initial stage but instead, it occurs and reoccurs during the whole process. Aiming to synthetize these different views, Yuan & Woodman (2010), by using the term innovative behaviour, have defined it as a “complex behaviour consisting of activities pertaining to both the generation/introduction of new ideas (either by oneself or adopted) and the realization or implementation of new ideas” (2010: 324). This definition clearly distinguishes between idea generation (i.e. creativity) and idea implementation, and states that the innovative behaviour contains two separate stages. An aspect that is missing in this definition is the organizational context in which the new ideas are generated and implemented. Namely, what is considered creative in one organization does not mean by default that it would be considered as such in another organization. In respect to this, Plucker, Beghetto, & Dow, (2004: 90) stated that creativity is “the interaction among aptitude, process, and environment by which an individual or group produces a predictable product that is both novel and useful as defined within a social context”. This definition emphasizes the involvedness of various casual factors within a specific work domain that underline the process of creativity. A more fragmented distinction and in the same time a comprehensive view of innovative behaviour was provided by Janssen (2001), who distinguished between idea generation, idea promotion, and idea implementation. According to this distinction, the mid-
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process, idea-promotion, refers to mobilizing support, acquiring approval and making the important organizational actors enthusiastic about the generated ideas (Janssen, 2001). In the literature, this mid-process of idea promotion have been seen both as part of idea generation and idea implementation. For example, West (2002) argued that promoting an idea through formally accepted organizational channels is a part of idea implementation. Conversely, Burt (2004: 388) argued that “an idea is as valuable as an audience is willing to credit it with being”. According to this stand, good ideas are considered to be the ones that people praise and value, which in turn is associated with the ability of an individual to discuss and promote the idea to the potential evaluators. Moreover, the value of an idea does not necessarily depend on the novelty and usefulness of the idea itself but instead, the value is determined by the ability of the promoter to convince the audience about the importance of an idea. Following Burt (2004), in this study it is assumed that idea promotion is part of creativity (i.e. idea generation) because of the similarity of behaviours across the social networks required for an actor to successfully generate and promote an idea. Thus, idea generation requires applying different perspectives about the feasibility and outcomes of jobrelated solutions implemented elsewhere, which in turn involves communication with other people (Parker & Axtell, 2001). Moreover, by communicating with different people coming from related job-domains, an individual may also enhance his or her domain-related knowledge (Perry-Smith & Shalley, 2003), i.e. the knowledge about facts, circumstances and issues relevant for particular problem (Amabile, 1996). Domain-relevant knowledge, in turn is associated with greater creativity (e.g. Amabile, 1988, 1996). Similarly to idea generation, idea promotion requires exploring different informal channels and networks through which the idea can be promoted, bearing risks in terms of reputation and status, and making the key organizational actors enthusiastic about it (Howell & Shea, 2001; Maidique, 1980; Markham & Griffin, 1998). As such, idea promotion is a
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political process, where an individual needs to mobilize support around the idea and make strategic coalitions with other influential people from the organization in order that idea to be highly valued and accepted (Howell & Boies, 2004). Thus, the need for being open for collaboration with large amount of people and the development of alliances is the common activity that is required for idea generation and idea promotion. Once an idea is generated and promoted as a novel and useful in respect to a specific context, it needs to be implemented and put into practice. The process of implementation does not necessarily imply the need for large collaborative networks and alliances. Instead, it may imply relatively smaller networks characterized by strong mutual relationships that are aimed to ensure trust and cooperation within a group and to decrease in-group conflict (Adler & Kwon, 2002). Throughout this study there will be used an integrated definition of innovative behaviour, which draws on the definitions provided by Yuan and Woodman (2010), Janssen (2001) and Plucker et al. (2004). Namely, what is intended by innovative behaviour is that it is a complex process consisting of generating, promoting, and implementing ideas that are novel and useful within particular social context. Moreover, because of the similarity of behaviours required for a successful generation and promotion of an idea, it will be assumed that creativity is a process that contains the both stages, while idea implementation is a separate stage of the overall process of innovative behaviour. That is to say, Innovative behaviour = Creativity (idea generation + idea promotion) + idea implementation
The main theoretical models of individual innovative behaviour at work The early work on creativity and innovation is centered on the idea that individual characteristics are the key factors for determining innovative behaviour at work (Barron & Harrington, 1981; Ford & Gioia, 1995). Accordingly, the scholars have identified a plethora of individual characteristics that may affect creativity and innovation. Individual 9
characteristics studied so far, include among the others: personal traits (e.g. Gong et al., 2012), goal orientations (e.g. Hirst, Van Knippenberg, & Zhou, 2009), thinking styles (Clegg et al., 2002), creative self-efficacy (e.g. Tiereney & Farmer, 2002), creative role identity (e.g. Farmer, Tierney, & Kung-McIntyre, 2003), creative personal identity (e.g. Jaussi, Randel, & Dionne, 2007), knowledge (e.g. Amabile, 1996), emotional affect (e.g. Amabile et al., 2005), and intrinsic motivation (e.g. Amabile, 1996). For example, Prabhu, Sutton & Sauser (2008) tested the relationship between three different personality traits (i.e. openness to experience, self-efficacy, and perseverance) and creativity, using the intrinsic and extrinsic motivation as both mediators and moderators of the relationships. They found that intrinsic motivation partially mediates the relationship between openness to experience and creativity, while it completely mediates the relationship between self-efficacy and creativity. In respect to extrinsic motivation, they found that it moderates the relationship between self-efficacy and creativity as well as between perseverance and creativity, and in both cases it had a negative association with the criterion variable, that is, creativity. Another literature stream, however, emphasized that contextual factors play an important role as well. Without neglecting the importance of individual characteristics to the process of innovative behaviour, this stream of the literature has shown that contextual factors, where the individuals are embedded, are of an essential importance. The contextual factors affecting the individual innovative behaviour at work that have been identified so far include job autonomy (e.g. Wu, Parker, & de Jong, 2014), rewards (e.g. George & Zhou, 2002), job design (e.g. De Spiegelaere, Van Gyes, & Van Hootegem, 2012) and transformational leadership (e.g. Rank et al., 2009). One of the pioneering contributions that attempted to synthetize the individual characteristics and contextual factors is Amabile‟s (1983) componential theory of organizational creativity and innovation. This theory states that work environments affect
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creativity and innovation through their impact on three major components, i.e. expertise, creative-thinking skills, and intrinsic motivation (Amabile, 1997). Out of these three components, intrinsic motivation has gained most of the attention by the scholars. Despite the fact that intrinsic motivation has been often theorized as an essential factor for creativity (Amabile, 1996), there are only few studies that empirically tested its role as a psychological mechanism that explains the effects of work environment on creativity and innovation. For instance, Shin & Zhou (2003) showed that intrinsic motivation partially mediated the relationship between transformational leadership (i.e. a leadership style that shapes the work environment) and creativity. Moreover, intrinsic motivation fully mediated the interaction between employees‟ conservation (i.e. personal differences in terms of values) and transformational leadership. Similarly, Zhang & Bartol (2010) found that empowering leadership affect creativity through its impact on intrinsic motivation. Another important theoretical model in the creativity and innovation literature is Ford‟s (1996) model of individual creative action in multiple social domains. It states that every individual has to choose between two competing options, that is, being creative or being routine, which in turn depends on the sense-making processes, motivation as well as the skills and knowledge possessed by that individual (Ford, 1996). According to this model, an individual‟s creative action would be influenced by the joint effect of these three factors. However, up to our knowledge, there are not empirical studies that have worked along the three factors simultaneously. The study of Janssen (2005), for example, showed that perceived influence, conceptualized as an individual sense of having control over the organizational outcomes, is positively associated with innovative behaviour. As such, the study of Janssen (2005) considers merely the influence of the sense-making factor on innovative behaviour. The interaction with the other two factors, i.e. motivation and knowledge was not considered. In addition to sense-making, another of the three factors that
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was studied was motivation, which was found to be an important determinant of individual creative action (Unsworth & Clegg, 2010). Regarding the effects of knowledge on creativity, Howell & Boies (2004) showed that strategic and relational knowledge were positively related to idea promotion. Thus, these three studies only partially investigated the model of individual creative action. The reason for this may be that the model is complex and hardly feasible for comprehensive empirical studies that would comprise all the three constructs. Alternatively to the model of individual creative action and the componential theory, the interactionist perspective of organizational creativity recognizes that innovative behaviour is a complex process characterized by interaction between personal and contextual factors at different levels of organization (Oldham & Cummings, 1996; Woodman, Sawyer, & Griffin, 1993). Unlike the Amabile‟s componential theory, the interactionist perspective does not necessarily implies that the expertise, thinking-skills and motivation would mediate the relationship between the contextual factors and innovative behaviour, nor it limits itself to merely these three factors. Instead, it assumes that the differences in respect to personal characteristics interact with contextual factors in order to affect the innovative behaviour at work.
Social networks and innovative behaviour As it was already discussed, the componential theory of creativity and innovation and the interactionist perspective both suggest that the working environment may have an important impact on the innovative behaviour of the employees. Consequently, the social network lenses have been applied for studying various behavioural phenomena within the organizations such as commitment and satisfaction (e.g. Krackhardt & Porter, 1985), influence and power (e.g. Brass, 1984), and conflict (e.g. Labianca, Brass, & Gray, 1998). In addition, there is a growing stream of literature that investigates how different properties of
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an employee‟s social network may affect his or her innovative behaviour (e.g. Baer, 2010; Burt, 2004; Ibarra, 1993; Perry-Smith, 2006; Perry-Smith & Shalley, 2003; Zhou et al., 2009). The basic feature of a social network is its size. Ego network size refers to the total number of links an individual (i.e. ego) has in its network (Everett & Borgatti, 2005). The larger number of people with whom an individual interacts is often associated with increased exposure to an elevated amount of external information, ideas and knowledge as well as with an opportunity for sharing various types of resources with the other people in the network (Ahuja, 2000; Hansen, Mores, & Lovas, 2005; McFadyen & Cannella, 2004). Therefore, larger ego-networks are often positively associated with innovative behaviour. For example, the study of Rodan and Galunic (2004) shows that ego network size has marginal positive effect on innovations exhibited by managers. Similarly, Perry-Smith (2006) found that the number of ties in scientists‟ networks is positively related to scientists‟ creativity. An exception is Moran‟s (2005) study of sales managers, which shows that the ego network size was not significantly related to the innovations pursued by the sales managers. Instead, the number of ties possessed by sales managers was positively related to sales performance. A possible explanation to these findings might be that the main task of the sales managers in this study was to sale products rather than to innovate. As a result, it is likely that the sales managers used the increased networks in order to sell the company‟s products, which resulted with better sales performances for those having larger social networks. McFadyen & Cannella (2004), on the other hand, suggested diminishing returns from an ego social network size. They showed that there is a quadratic relationship between biomedical researchers‟ ego network size and knowledge creation. Namely, when the number of co-authorships exceeded certain level, the biomedical researchers were more likely to receive negative returns from their publications. McFadyen & Cannella (2004) justified these
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findings with the opportunity costs such as time and energy that an individual bears when increasing the social networks. At certain point, these costs may exceed the potential benefits of having at disposal a large social network. Along with the impact of ego‟s network size, another central feature of network analysis is the assessment of the relative strength of the ties. It is a combination of frequency of interaction, emotional intensity, and reciprocity and may vary from weak to strong, as two distinct parts of a continuum (Granovetter, 1973). Whereas the stronger ties may be important for obtaining social support and trust within a group (Ibarra, 1992; Krackhardt, 1992), according to Granovetter‟s (1973, 1982) groundbreaking work known as “the strength of weak ties”, the weaker ties have higher probability of being connections of a non-redundant nature that link dense social circles. If such a connection is a unique link between two dense social circles, that connection is known as a “structural bridge” (Granovetter, 1973). Drawing on this theoretical foundation and terming the “structural bridges” as “structural holes”, Burt (2004) showed that managers that are able to span the structural holes were more likely to express good ideas in their working environment. Moreover, these managers were more likely to obtain approval and acceptance of their ideas. As Burt (2004) suggests, it is so, because such network position exposed those managers to non-redundant and diverse information coming from other groups of people to which, only they were connected. Consequently, the structural holes may provide an individual actor with non-redundant and diverse information that can be used to develop novel and useful ideas, and thus to enhance the creative outcomes. Drawing on the theoretical foundations set by Granovetter (1973), Brass (1995) argued that a social network characterized by weaker relationships is important determinant of creativity. The study of Perry-Smith (2006), has indeed confirmed this argument, and showed that the number of weak ties was positively related to creativity, while the
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relationship between the number of strong ties and creativity was not statistically significant. These theoretical contributions suggest a liner relationship between number of weak ties and creativity. The more weak ties an individual has, the better it would be for his or her creative outcomes. Along with the findings by McFadyen & Cannella (2004) discussed before, Zhou et al. (2009) found a curvilinear relationship between the number of weak ties and creativity. The intermediate level of weak ties was positively related to creativity when the employees‟ conformity value was low. Recognizing these contributions and drawing on Granovetter‟s (1973) strength of weak ties perspective, the study of Baer (2010) offered interesting insights about the role of weak ties on creativity. In order to address the question of whether the implications for creativity come from the number of weak ties or from the average low strength of these ties, he hypothesized that there is a joint effect between network size and tie strength. The findings suggest an inverted U-shaped relationship among network size, tie strength and creativity, moderated by network diversity, i.e. the extent to which social networks provide an opportunity for access to strictly different social circles. Similar to the findings of Zhou et al. (2009), the creative performance was higher at intermediate levels of network size and tie strength, when network diversity was high. Moreover, Baer (2010) found that openness to experience moderate this quadratic relationship. The third fundamental feature of a social network is its centrality. A more central position of an individual in respect to the others is associated with creativity because, such a position provides an individual with higher social status (Ibarra, 1992), higher risk propensity (Ibarra & Andrews, 1993; Woodman, Sawyer, & Griffin, 1993) as well as with perceptions of more freedom and power (Brass, 1984; Krackhardt, 1990; Ibarra, 1993). For example, Ibarra (1993) showed that network centrality was more important determinant of administrative innovation than the alternate sources of power. Similarly, Perry-Smith (2006) found that high network centrality in combination with fewer rather than more outside ties was positively
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related to creativity. When an individual had many ties outside the organization in combination with high network centrality, the relation to creativity was weaker. Thus, social networks may provide an individual actor with opportunities for exhibiting innovative action. Following the motivation-opportunity-ability theories of behaviour (e.g. Blumberg & Pringle, 1982), which suggest that individual behaviour is a result of interaction of these three factors, in the next two sections there would be discussed work motivation and cognitive style as potential moderating variables in the relationship between social networks and innovative behaviour.
Work motivation Work motivation plays a critical role in organizational behaviour as it determines the quality and extent to which the employees would engage into the working activities. Several influential theoretical contributions distinguished between two broad categories of motivation: intrinsic and extrinsic motivation (e.g. Deci, 1975; Deci & Ryan, 1985). It is important to emphasize, as Forgeard & Mecklenburg (2013) did, that the distinction between intrinsic and extrinsic motivation do not refer to certain qualities that are intrinsic or extrinsic to the focal actor. Rather, it refers to qualities that are intrinsic or extrinsic to the work process itself. In respect to the intrinsic qualities, Deci (1975) and Deci & Ryan (1985) proposed that self-determination and sense of competence at work are feelings that give rise to people‟s intrinsic motivation. For one to feel self-determined he may need to enjoy, to certain extent, autonomy in his working behaviour and similarly, in order one to feel competent in his work, he should receive some indications about it in form of feedback (Charms, 1968). Indeed, as Csikszentmihaly (1975) puts it, when an individual enjoys high levels of intrinsic motivation, his interest and involvement in the job task rise to a level that provide him with a sense of merging with his working activity.
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On the other hand, individuals might be motivated by factors that are external to the working process. Examples include rewards, deadlines, surveillance and performance evaluations, and in this instance, it is referred to „extrinsic motivation‟ (Amabile, 1993; Deci, 1975; Deci & Ryan, 1985). A precise and sublimated definition of the two categories was provided by Amabile (1993: 188), who stated that “individuals are intrinsically motivated when they seek enjoyment, interest, satisfaction of curiosity, self-expression, or personal challenge in the work”, whereas they are “extrinsically motivated when they engage in the work in order to obtain some goal that is apart from the work itself”. Accordingly, the difference in the goals possessed by individuals would affect the respective category of motivation. Those who are driven by goals related to learning new skills and competences about the work would fall in the category of intrinsically motivated individuals, while those who are primarily driven by performance related goals, would fall in the category of extrinsically motivated individuals (Forgeard & Mecklenburg, 2013). Given this distinction, the studies in the field suggest that intrinsic motivation enhance creativity at work (Amabile, 1996). On the other hand, given that extrinsic motivators undermine the intrinsic motivation one possesses, it impedes creativity. The literature has acknowledged that the two categories may be influenced by the social context in which the actors are embedded. According to Amabile‟s (1983; 1996) componential model of creativity and innovation, the others influence one‟s intrinsic motivation and thus, indirectly affect innovative behaviour. By others it is meant the different actors such as audience members, peers or mentors, with whom the focal actor has certain type of relationship. Consequently, the nature of interaction will be dependent on the type of actors in play and can take different shapes such as observation, evaluation, competition, support etc. As Amabile‟s (1983) intrinsic motivation hypothesis of creativity states, these
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different types of interactions may influence focal actor‟s intrinsic and/or extrinsic motivation.
Cognitive style Kirton‟s adaptor-innovator continuum measures the individual‟s natural propensity to adapt or innovate (Bobic, Davis, & Cunningham, 1999). At one extreme of the pole, the innovators are characterized by high risk-propensity under conditions of uncertainty, redefining the existing problems, breaking the mental sets on regular basis and generating pools of novel ideas (Guastello et al., 1998). At the other end of the pole, the adapters are characterized by low-risk propensity, they easily accept the existing definitions of problems, follow rather traditional and already accepted approaches to the existing problems and are generally uninspired by the innovators (Guastello et al., 1998). Hence, as Kirton (1976: 622) puts it, the two poles distinguish between people with ability to „do things differently‟, i.e. the innovators to people with an ability to „do things better‟, i.e. the adapters. Consequent to this conceptualization of a personal cognitive style, several scholars have linked innovative cognitive style to creativity (e.g. Gonzalez-Alvarez & Nieto, 2008; Guastello et al., 1998; Sagiv et al., 2010; Tierney, Farmer, & Graen, 1999). For instance, Tierney Farmer, & Graen (1999) drawing on the interactionist perspective studied how the employees‟ as well as supervisors‟ motivations, cognitive styles, and leader-member exchange (LMX) interact to affect creativity. They found that innovative cognitive style of the employees was positively related to creativity independently from the level of LMX. However, the higher levels level of LMX had a positive impact on creativity when employees‟ cognitive styles were directed toward „adapters‟. The study of Guastello et al. (1998) fragmented the individual cognitive style on eleven styles in the axes connecting the innovators and adapters. Expectedly, they found that
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the innovators, i.e. the individuals who exhibited highest risk propensity and high motivation for creativity, outperformed the people belonging to the other cognitive styles in terms of creative outputs. Interesting insights were provided by Sagiv et al. (2010), who showed that innovative cognitive style is positively associated with creativity when there are no restrictions imposed on the scope of a problem. On the other hand, when there were externally imposed restrictions in terms of directing the employees to act in a certain way in order to solve a problem, the systematic cognitive style was positively related to creativity. Although, several studies linked the innovative cognitive style to creativity, it is apparent that there is a lack of knowledge about the impact that individual cognitive styles may have on the different stages of the innovative process.
Summary The early studies on creativity and innovation emphasized the differences in individual characteristics in order to distinguish the more creative individuals from their less creative peers. Parallel with this, there is a proliferation of studies showing that contextual factors are playing an important role as well. Indeed, recognizing that individual characteristics are important determinants of creativity and innovation at work, the more recent literature attempted to show that individual characteristics interact with the contextual factors. However, from the reviewed literature so far, we can conclude that concepts of creativity and idea implementation remain highly disconnected. Indeed, there is an increasing interest by scholars to study how an idea is generated and surprisingly less interest about how an idea flows towards implementation (Baer, 2012). The reason for this lack of integration might be that the two dimensions are characterized by different, and not rarely opposite set of activities that need to be undertaken by an individual (Axtell, Holman, & Wall, 2006; Miron-
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Spektor, Erez, & Naveh, 2011; West, 2002). As a consequence, Anderson, Potočnik, & Zhou (2014) have called for more integration in the future research. Therefore, the aim of this study is to contribute toward covering this theoretical gap.
3. RESEARCH DESIGN AND HYPOTHESIS The aim of this study is to provide a comprehensive understanding of the role of social networks on the overall process of innovative behaviour. Since the previous studies have mainly focused on creativity, there is a lack of knowledge about the impact of social networks on the entire process of innovative behaviour, which beyond creativity, includes also idea implementation (e.g. Perry-Smith, 2006; Zhou et al., 2009). By analyzing the joint impact of the three most common features of social networks (i.e. network size, strength of ties and network closeness centrality) on the two dimensions of the individual innovative process, this study would attempt to cover this knowledge gap. For this purpose, I intend drawing on the interactionist perspective, which proposes that contextual variables interact with personal characteristics to affect innovative behaviour. Following the motivation-opportunity-ability theories of behaviour (e.g. Blumberg & Pringle, 1982), I suggest that apart from the social networks, which may provide an individual actor with the opportunity to act in a certain way, motivation and cognitive style should be considered as well. The proposed research model is presented in figure 1. First, there would be assessed how the interaction among network size, the strength of the ties, and network closeness centrality may affect the two dimensions of innovative behaviour, separately. Next, there would be assessed the joint effects among the social network features and motivation as well as the joint effects between social network features and cognitive style. Finally, I will hypothesize a five-way interaction among the social network features, motivation, and cognitive style. 20
Three-way interaction among ego network size, the strength of the ties and network closeness centrality Consistent with the research suggesting that there is positive relationship between ego network size and creativity and innovation (e.g. Perry-Smith, 2006; Rodan & Galunic, 2004), it is proposed that social network size is positively associated with idea generation and idea promotion. Individuals having large social networks of direct ties are more exposed to the information and right insights needed to generate, and promote new and useful ideas. The larger number of people with whom an individual interacts is often associated with increased exposure to an elevated amount of external information, ideas and knowledge as well as with an opportunity for sharing various types of resources with the other people in the network (Ahuja, 2000; Hansen, Mores, & Lovas, 2005; McFadyen & Cannella, 2004). An individual with large number of ties is more likely to be able to form alliances and coalitions with others in order to convince the important organizational members about the usefulness of the generated idea. On the other hand, we propose a negative relationship between ego network size and idea implementation. It is because, a large amount of ties may destruct an individual from the activities needed for implementing the generated ideas. As we have discussed before, idea implementation requires systematic thinking and routine in order an idea to be evaluated and transformed into a functional and operational product or process. It should be however noted that alone standing, social network size cannot be a complete determinant of innovative behaviour (Baer, 2010). It is because it does not provide clear idea about the strength of the relationships involved. Thus, the average strength of the relationships that an individual has with others is another important indicator of creativity and innovation that should be taken in consideration (Brass, 1995). A lower relative strength of the ties implies that it is more likely that an individual is connected with others who are dissimilar to himself (Grannovetter, 1973). Hence, there is a higher probability that an 21
individual having weaker ties is exposed to diverse opinions and perspectives as well as to non-redundant information, which in turn might be used for generating new ideas. Apart from the exposure to different perspectives and non-redundant information, an individual having relatively weaker ties may benefit from having the possibility to share an idea with the others in a more efficient way. Conversely to the weak ties, stronger ties are more likely to indicate connection to similar others, forming a closed network with strong social norms, obligations and expectations among the members (Brass et al., 2004; Coleman, 1988). As such, strong ties are associated with higher reciprocity (Uzzi, 1997) and trust (Bstieler, 2006). Therefore, individuals having stronger rather than weaker ties are expected to receive the required social support in order to efficiently implement the innovative ideas. Although the relationship between weaker ties and creativity was empirically examined (e.g. Perry-Smith, 2006; Zhou et al., 2009), the role of stronger ties remain highly undiscovered (Zhou et al., 2009). Indeed, as here it is proposed, stronger ties may be beneficial for idea implementation. The third interacting variable is the network closeness centrality. High closeness network centrality may provide an individual with a clearer overview about the developments within the network. Based on this, that individual may articulate his or her opinions and generate new and useful ideas that match the current developments within the network. Moreover, by holding a central network position an individual can reach the other network members in a more efficient way than an individual holding a more peripheral network position. Hence, a central network position provides opportunities that an innovative idea would be efficiently promoted within the network. In addition to this, a central network position is associated with higher social status (e.g. Ibarra, 1992; Lincoln & Miller, 1979) that may facilitate the process of idea promotion. Namely, the individual may use its relatively
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high social status in order to make the other organizational members enthusiastic about the innovative ideas (Janssen, 2001). Compared to a central network position, an individual being positioned in a periphery of the social network is relatively isolated from the developments within the network. It may imply that this individual would be less distracted from the flows of diversified information, which in turn provides opportunities for unbiased and efficient evaluation and implementation of ideas. Therefore, I hypothesize that:
Hypothesis 1.a: There is a three-way interaction between ego network size, strength of the ties, and network closeness centrality such that creativity would be higher when an individual has larger ego network size, weaker ties, and central network position.
Hypothesis 1.b: There is a three-way interaction between ego network size, strength of the ties, and network closeness centrality such that idea implementation would be higher when an individual has smaller network size, stronger ties, and peripheral network position.
Interaction between the social network context and work motivation Intrinsically motivated people are driven by goals related to learning new skills and competences about the work (Forgeard & Mecklenburg, 2013). As we have already discussed, a social network features such as high number of relationships, weaker ties and central network position can provide an individual with the opportunities for learning new skills and competences. Therefore, an intrinsically motivated individual may exploit these
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opportunities, which in turn is expected to enhance his or her performances in terms of idea generation and idea promotion. On the other hand, an extrinsically motivated individual is driven by performance related goals such as rewards and promotions. Given the irrelevance of learning new skills and competences for such an individual, the network features such as higher number of ties, relatively weaker relationships and central network position would be of lower importance.
Hypothesis 2.a: Work motivation would moderate the joint relationship between ego network size, strength of ties, network closeness centrality and creativity. Creativity will be higher under conditions of larger network size, weak ties, and high network centrality when an individual is intrinsically motivated.
Hypothesis 2.b: Work motivation would moderate the joint relationship between ego network size, strength of ties, network closeness centrality and idea implementation. Idea implementation will be higher under conditions of small network size, strong ties, and low network centrality when an individual is extrinsically motivated.
Interaction between the social network context and cognitive style According to Ford‟s (1996) model of individual creative action, every individual chooses between two competing options, i.e. being creative or being routine. Accordingly, the individuals with propensity to innovate may exploit the opportunities offered by higher network size, relatively weaker relationships and network centrality. On the other hand, the adapters would tend to exploit rather different opportunities offered by the social networks such as lower number of ties, relatively stronger relationships as well as a peripheral network position, which can allow them to better adapt and implement the innovative ideas.
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Hypothesis 3.a: Cognitive style would moderate the joint relationship between ego network size, strength of ties, network closeness centrality and idea generation/idea promotion. Idea generation and idea promotion will be higher under conditions of large network size, weak ties, and high network centrality when an individual is an innovator.
Hypothesis 3.b: Cognitive style would moderate the joint relationship between ego network size, strength of ties, network closeness centrality and idea implementation. Idea implementation will be higher under conditions of small network size, strong ties, and low network centrality when an individual is an adapter.
Five-way interactions among the social networks features, work motivation and cognitive style Finally, I hypothesize that there is a five-way interaction among network size, strength of the ties, network closeness centrality, work motivation and cognitive style:
Hypothesis 4.a: There is a five-way interaction among ego-network size, strength of the ties, network closeness centrality, work motivation and cognitive style. Idea generation and idea promotion will be higher when an individual has large network size, weak ties, central network position, is intrinsically motivated and is an innovator.
Hypothesis 4.b: There is a five-way interaction between ego-network size, strength of the ties, network closeness centrality, work motivation and cognitive style. Idea
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implementation will be higher when an individual has small network size, strong ties, peripheral network position, is extrinsically motivated and is an adapter.
4. METHODOLOGY In order to perform this study, a multi-respondent survey approach would be applied, where the social network size, strength of the relationships, motivation and cognitive style would be self-assessed by the employees in time t. Next, in time t+1, the supervisors would be expected to rate the innovative performance of their subordinates. This choice is consistent with the trend in literature to use an independent source of information for the dependent variable (e.g. Yuan & Woodman, 2010). The hypothesis would be tested on a sample of employees in mid-size company, employing between areound 150 employees. It is required that all the employees in the company are exposed to the challenge to pursue the activities inherent in the two stages of innovative behaviour, i.e. creativity and idea implementation. Examples may include the companies from consulting or other intellectual services.
Measures Innovative behaviour Drawing on Scott & Bruce (1994), Janssen (2001) developed a three-dimensional scale containing in total nine items. The items measuring idea generation includes: “Creates new ideas for improvements”, “Searches out new working methods, techniques or instruments” and “Generates original solutions to problems”. The items measuring idea promotion are the following: “Mobilizes support for innovative ideas” “Acquires approval for innovative ideas” and “Making important organizational members enthusiastic for innovative ideas”. And the items measuring idea implementation are as follows: “Transforms innovative
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ideas into useful applications” “Introduces innovative ideas into the work environment in a systematic way” “Evaluates the utility of innovative ideas”. The answers to these questions would be provided by the supervisors of the employees. In order to increase the probability that the supervisors would carefully assess each of the items, we would follow the Scott & Bruce (1994) approach for starting the questionnaire with the following statement: “Innovation is a process involving generation, promotion, and implementation of ideas. As such, it requires a wide variety of specific behaviours on the part of individuals. While some people might be expected to exhibit all the behaviors involved in innovation, others may exhibit only one or a few types of behaviour. Please rate each of your subordinates on the extent to which he or she:” Then, the nine items follow. The answers are based on 10 points scale ranging from “never” to “always”. Ego network size The ego network size can be measured as a total number of people to which an individual is directly linked. Such a technique is known as a degree network centrality (Freeman, 1978). Hence, degree centrality of a node i, can be expressed as: () where,
∑
ij
ij = 1 if there is a link between the nodes i and j ij = 0 otherwise.
In order to obtain the ego network size, the following question would be asked to the employees: Thinking back over the past two years, with whom do you communicate about work-related topics? (Perry-Smith, 2006: 90). For this purpose, a list of all the employees in the company should be provided. The strength of the ties The average strength of ties possessed by the node i though, can be expressed as:
27
=
(
where
) refers to the closeness between i and j refers to the frequency by which i and j communicate, and refers to the duration of the relationship between i and j
Since the strength of the ties is a function of closeness, frequency and duration (Grannovetter, 1973), the employees would be required to assess the strength of the relationships with their previously indicated colleagues by indicating values on the following statements/questions. Regarding the closeness of a relationship, the statement is: “I consider this individual to be a close colleague”. For the frequency: “During the past year, how often have you sought or received information or advice from this person?” And for the duration of a relationship: “How many years have you known this individual?”
Network closeness centrality The network closeness centrality possessed by the node i, can be expressed as: C( )
∑ ij
where
is the number of links in a shortest path from node i to node j.
Since this is an inverse measure of centrality, it can be interpreted as: ()
(
) ()
as a direct measure of centrality. In figure 2, there is provided an illustration of the closeness centrality measure (Freeman, 1978). For example, the node B has a direct contact with nodes A, C and D. In order to communicate with node E however, he must pass though node D. Therefore, according to the direct measure of centrality his network closeness would be equal to (5-1)/5 =.8 On the other hand, the node A has a direct contact only with node B. In order to communicate with all the 28
others, he must pass though node B, and to communicate with E, in addition to B he must pass also through D. Hence, node A has a network centrality of (5-1)/8 = 0.5. Since .8 > .5, node B has higher network closeness centrality than node A.
Work motivation The work motivation would be measured by the Amabile‟s (1994) 30-items work preference inventory (WPI). This inventory contains two principal scales, i.e. intrinsic and extrinsic motivation and four sub-scales. Thus, the sub-scales enjoyment and challenge relate to intrinsic motivation, while outward and compensation relates to extrinsic motivation. For example, an item measuring enjoyment, and thus intrinsic motivation states: “I want to find out how good I really can be at my work”. Another example for measuring intrinsic motivation, through challenge includes the following statement: “I enjoy trying to solve complex problems”.
On the other hand, an example for the items measuring extrinsic
motivation through outward states: “I am strongly motivated by the recognition I can earn from other people”. Finally, an item that measures extrinsic motivation through the compensation sub-scale, states: “I am strongly motivated by the money I can earn”. All the items are scored on a 10-point scale varying from “never true for me” to “always true for me”.
Cognitive style For measuring cognitive style, we propose using Taylor‟s (1989) refined version of Kirton‟s 32-items scale. Taylor‟s (1989) version includes two dimensions, i.e. innovators and adapters as well as three sub-dimesnions, i.e. originality, rule/group conformity and efficiency. The items included in the first sub-scale relate to innovators, while the items included in the latest two scales relate to adapters. An item measuring originality, and thus innovators states: “I would sooner create than improve”. “I prefer colleagues who never rock 29
the boat” is an item indicating rule/group conformity, whereas “I am methodical and systematic” is an example of an item measuring adapters through efficiency. All the items are valued based on a 10-point scale ranging from “strongly agree” to “strongly disagree”.
Control variables In order not to confound the hypothesized relations, the following variables are set to control the relationships: age, education (coded as 0, “no college degree”, 1, “bachelor‟s degree / laurea trienale”, 2, “master‟s degree / laurea specialistica”, 3 “PhD”), tenure in the company (number of years a person had been employed by the company) and the overall working experience.
5. EXPECTED
THEORETICAL
CONTRIBUTIONS
AND
MANAGERIAL
IMPLICATIONS Apart from creativity, idea implementation is inseparable part of the overall process of innovative behaviour. As such, the two stages still remain highly disconnected from each other (Anderson et al., 2014). Therefore, this study‟s objective is to contribute the creativity and innovation literature at work by operating along the two stages of innovative behaviour simultaneously. Indeed, by using refined network analysis, this study is expected to enhance the knowledge on how the interaction among several properties of a social network may affect creativity and idea implementation, differently. There are few previous studies showing that weaker ties are benefitial for creativity (Perry-Smith, 2006; Zhou et al., 2009), but up to our knowledge there is no evidence for the role of strong ties on the overall process. Similarly, there is a need for enhancing the knowledge for the role of network centrality not only to creativity, but to idea implementaion as well.
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Following the interactionist perspective, we further propose including two moderating variables, i.e. work motivation and cognitive style. As it is the case with the network features, up to our knowledge, there are no other studies that have examined the effect on these two variables on the innovative behaviour. By adding motivation and cognitive style to the properties of a social network, this study is expected to provide a comprehensive understanding about the impact of those variables of the overall process of innovative behaviour and how an individual can enhance his or her innovative contributions. The managerial implications of this study are three-fold. First, by using social network analysis as a tool for studying the relationship between various network features and innovative behavior, this study is expected to contribute towards better managerial practices in terms of organizational structure as well as network building among the employees. Second, by using motivation as a moderating variable in the relationship between social network and innovative behavior, this study will provide important lessons for managerial policies in terms of compensation and rewards as well as in terms of job autonomy and task complexity, as the former may affect extrinsic motivation and the later the intrinsic motivation of the employees. And as third, by understanding the moderating role of cognitive style in the relationship between social networks and innovative behaviour, this study is expected to support the attempts of managers to develop appropriate training programs aimed to enhance the innovative and/or adoptive abilities of their employees.
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7. Appendices
Figure I: The research model
Figure II: Network closeness centrality (Freeman, 1978)
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