Group Creative Problem Solving: The Role of Creative Personality, Process and Creative Ability
Abstract
Purpose: Team creativity is an important factor in developing new ideas for organisations. In spite of years of creativity research, little is known about various team aspects and their affect on team creativity. This study looks at the incremental explanatory value that team creative personality and divergent thinking skill processes have on team creativity.
Methodology/Approach: Individual personality, creative personality, and divergent thinking skills were collected from 349 students at a large public university in the southeast US. These students were then randomly assigned to 105 teams where they developed a novel product. Individual attributes were averaged to create team attributes that were used to determine correlations with the product creativity. Hierarchical regression was used to evaluate incremental explanatory values for each of the independent variables.
Findings: Group creative personality adds approximately 36 percent more explanatory power than cognitive ability and traditional personality measures in predicting team creativity. Creative processes, like team divergent thinking ability, further increased the R2 of our model from 0.54 to 0.65 demonstrating that team processes affect team creativity.
Research Limitation/implication: The task used in this study was not as complex as problems being considered by organizations. However, the results are expected to be indicative of the process used for more complex problems. It is also difficult to assign causality since correlations were used to verify some of our hypothesis.
Originality/Value of paper: This research expands the findings of team creativity by identifying factors that increase team creativity.References
Acar, S. and Runco, M.A., 2011. Creative abilities: Divergent thinking. In: M. Mumford, ed. 2011. Handbook of organizational creativity. Oxford, UK: Elsevier. pp.39-65.
Amabile, T.M., 1996. Creativity in context. Boulder, CO: Westview Press.
Amabile, T.M. and Pratt, M.G., 2016. The dynamic componential model of creativity and innovation in organizations: Making progress, making meaning. Research in Organizational Behavior, [e-journal] 36, pp.157-183. 10.1016/j.riob.2016.10.001.
Baer, M., Oldham, G, Jacobsohn, G.C. and Hollingshead, A.B., 2008. The personality composition of teams and creativity: The moderating role of team confidence. The Journal of Creative Behavior, [e-journal] 42, pp.255-282. 10.1002/j.2162-6057.2008.tb01299.x.
Bakker, F.C., 1991. Development of personality in dancers: A longitudinal study. Personality and Individual Differences, [e-journal] 12(7), pp.671-681. 10.1016/0191-8869(91)90222-W.
Barry, B. and Stewart, G., 1997. Composition, process, and performance in small groups. The role of personality. Journal of Applied Psychology, 82, pp.62-78.
Batey, M., Chamorro-Premuzic, T. and Furnham, A., 2010. Individual differences in ideational behavior: Can the big five and psychometric intelligence predict creativity scores?. Creativity Research Journal, [e-journal] 22(1), pp.90-97. 10.1080/10400410903579627.
Bendickson, J., Muldoon, J., Ligouri, E. and Midgett, C., 2017. High performance work systems: A necessity for startups. Journal of Small Business Strategy, 27(2), pp.1-12.
Besemer, S.P. and O’Quin, K., 1999. Confirming the three-factor product analysis matrix model in an American sample. Creativity Research Journal, [e-journal] 12(4), pp.287-296. 10.1207/s15326934crj1204_6.
Besemer, S.P. and Treffinger, D.J., 1981. Analysis of creative products: Review and synthesis. The Journal of Creative Behavior, [e-journal] 15(3), pp.158-178. 10.1002/j.2162-6057.1981.tb00287.x.
Conti, R., Coon, H. and Amabile, T.M., 1996. Evidence to support the componential model of creativity: Secondary analysis of three studies. Creativity Research Journal, [e-journal] 9(4), pp.385-389. 10.1207/s15326934crj0904_9.
Costa, P.T. and McCrae, R.R., 1992. NEO-PI-R: professional manual. Odessa, FL: Psychological Assessment Resources.
Crammond, B., Matthews-Morgan, J., Bandalos, D. and Sou, L., 2005. A report on the 40-year follow-up of the Torrance Test of Creative Thinking: Alive and well in the new millennium. Gifted Child Quarterly, 49, pp.283-302.
Donnellan, M.B., Oswald, F.L., Baird, B.M. and Lucas, R.E., 2006. The Mini-IPIP scales: Tiny-yet-effective measures of the big five factors of personality. Psychological Assessment, [e-journal] 18(2), pp.192-203. 10.1037/1040-3590.18.2.192.
Dudek, S.Z., Berneche, R., Berube, H. and Royer, S., 1991. Personality determinants of the commitment to the profession of art. Creativity Research Journal, [e-journal] 4(4), pp.367-389. 10.1080/10400419109534412.
Eysenck, H.J., 1995. Genius: The natural history of creativity. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press.
Feist, G.J., 1998. A meta-analysis of personality in scientific and artistic creativity. Personality & Social Psychology Review, [e-journal] 2(4), pp.290-309. 10.1207/s15327957pspr0204_5.
Goff, K. and Torrance, E.P., 2002. The Abbreviated Torrance Test for Adults (ATTA). Bensenville, IL: Scholastic Testing Service.
Goldberg, L.R., 1990. An alternative “description of personality”: The big-five factor structure. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 59(6), pp.1216-1229.
Gough, H.G., 1979. A creative personality scale for the Adjective Check List. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 37(8), pp.1398-1405.
Guilford, J.P., 1950. Creativity. American Psychologist, [e-journal] 5, pp.444-454. 10.1037/h0063487.
Guilford, J.P., 1967. The nature of human intelligence. New York, NY: McGraw-Hill.
Hoff, E.V., Carlsson, I.M. and Smith, J.W., 2011. Personality. In: M.D. Mumford, ed. 2011. Handbook of organizational creativity. Oxford, UK: Elsevier. pp.241-270.
Hulsheger, U.R., Anderson, N. and Salgado, J.F., 2009. Team-level predictors of innovation at work: A comprehensive meta-analysis spanning three decades of research. Journal of Applied Psychology, [e-journal] 94(5), pp.1128-1145. 10.1037/a0015978.
Hunsaker, S.L. and Callahan, C.M., 1995. Creativity and giftedness: Published instrument uses and abuses. Gifted Child Quarterly, [e-journal] 39, pp.110-114. 10.1177/001698629503900207.
Chan, D., 1998. Functional relations among constructs in the same content domain at different levels of analysis: A typology of composition models. Journal of Applied Psychology, 83(2), pp.234-246.
Christiaans, H.H.C.M., 2002. Creativity as a design criterion. Creativity Research Journal, [e-journal] 14(1), pp.41-54. 10.1207/S15326934CRJ1401_4.
James, K. and Drown, D., 2011. Organizations and creativity: Trends in research, status of education and practice, agenda for the future. In: M.D. Mumford, ed. 2011. Handbook of organizational creativity. Oxford, UK: Elsevier. pp.17-38.
Kemp, A., 1981. The personality structure of the musician: Identifying a profile of traits for the performer. Psychology of Music, [e-journal] 9(1), pp.3-14. 10.1177/03057356810090010201.
Kozlowski, S. and Bell, B., 2008. Team learning, development, and adaptation. Work group learning: Understanding, improving and assessing how groups learn in organizations. New York, NY: Taylor & Francis Grouop/Lawrence Erlbaum Associates.
Kurtzberg, T.R. and Amabile, T.M., 2001. From Guilford to creative synergy. Opening the black box of team level creativity. Creativity Research Journal, [e-journal] 13(3), pp.285-294. 10.1207/S15326934CRJ1334_06.
Martindale, C., 1989. Personality, situation, and creativity. In J.A. Glover, R.R. Ronning and C.R. Reynolds, eds. 1989. Handbook of creativity. pp. New York, NY: Plenum Press. 211-232.
Mumford, M.D., Costanza, D.P., Threlfall, K.V., Baughman, W.A. and Reiter-Palmon, R., 1993. Personality variables and problem-construction activities. An exploratory investigation. Creativity Research Journal, [e-journal] 6(4), pp.365-389. 10.1080/10400419309534493.
Mumford, M.D. and Gustafson, S.B., 1998. Creativity syndrome: Integration, application, and innovation. Psychological Bulletin, 103(1), pp.27-43.
Mumford, M.D., Hester, K.S. and Robledo, I.C., 2011a. Creativity in organizations: Importance and approaches. In: M.D. Mumford, ed. 2011. Handbook of organizational creativity. Oxford, UK: Elsevier. pp.3-16.
Mumford, M.D., Hester, K.S. and Robledo, I.C., 2011b. Methods in creativity research: Multiple approaches, multiple levels. In M.D. Mumford, ed. 2011. Handbook of organizational creativity. Oxford, UK: Elsevier. pp.39-65.
Oldham, G.R. and Cummings, A., 1996. Employee creativity: Personal and contextual factors at work. Academy of Management Journal, [e-journal] 39(3), pp.607-634. 10.2307/256657.
Paulus, P.B., Dzindolet, M. and Kohn, N.W., 2011. Collaborative creativity – group creativity and team innovation. In: M.D. Mumford, ed. 2011. Handbook of organizational creativity. Oxford, UK: Elsevier. pp.327-357.
Ree, M.J. and Carretta, T.R., 1998. General cognitive ability and occupational performance. In: C.L. Cooper and I.T. Robertson, eds. 1998. International review of industrial and organizational psychology. New York, NY: Wiley. pp.159-184.
Reiter-Palmon, R., Herman, A.E. and Yammarino, F.J., 2008. Creativity and cognitive processes: Multi-level linkages between individual and team cognition. In: F. Dansereau and F.J. Yammarino, M.D. Mumford, S.T. Hunter and K.E. Bedell-Avers, eds. 2008. Research in multi-level issues: Vol. 7. Multi-level issues in creativity and innovation. Bingley, UK: Emerald Publishing Limited. pp.203-267.
Reiter-Palmon, R., Wigert, B. and De Vreede, T., 2011. Team creativity and innovation: The effect of group composition, social processes, and cognition. In: M.D. Mumford, ed. 2011. Handbook of organizational creativity. Oxford, UK: Elsevier. pp.295-326.
Robert, C. and Cheung, Y.H., 2010. An examination of the relationship between conscientiousness and group performance on a creative task. Journal of Research in Personality, [e-journal] 44(2), pp.222-231. 10.1016/j.jrp.2010.01.005.
Ruscio, J., Whitney, D.M. and Amabile, T.M., 1998. The fishbowl of creativity. Creativity Research Journal, [e-journal] 11(3), pp.243-263. 10.1207/s15326934crj1103_4.
Stewart, G., 2006. A meta-analytic review of relationships between team design features and team performance. Journal of Management, [e-journal] 32(1), pp.29-55. 10.1177/0149206305277792.
Taggar, S., 2002. Individual creativity and group ability to utilize individual creative resources: A multilevel model. Academy of Management Journal, [e-journal] 45(2), pp.315-330. 10.2307/3069349.
Torrance, E.P., 1966. Torrance test of creative thinking: Norms technical manual (Research ed.). Princeton, NJ: Personnel Press.
Torrance, E.P., 1995. Rewarding creative behavior. Englewood Cliff, NJ: Prentice-Hall.
Vnou?ková, L., 2018. Criteria of Innovativeness and Creativity in Start-Ups and Innovative Entrepreneurship, Quality Innovation Prosperity, [e-journal] 22(1), pp.27-43. 10.12776/QIP.V22I1.1040.
West, M.A., 2002. Sparkling fountains or stagnant ponds: An integrative model of creativity and innovation implementation in work groups. Applied Psychology: An International Review, [e-journal] 51(3), pp.355-387. 10.1111/1464-0597.00951.
Amabile, T.M., 1996. Creativity in context. Boulder, CO: Westview Press.
Amabile, T.M. and Pratt, M.G., 2016. The dynamic componential model of creativity and innovation in organizations: Making progress, making meaning. Research in Organizational Behavior, [e-journal] 36, pp.157-183. 10.1016/j.riob.2016.10.001.
Baer, M., Oldham, G, Jacobsohn, G.C. and Hollingshead, A.B., 2008. The personality composition of teams and creativity: The moderating role of team confidence. The Journal of Creative Behavior, [e-journal] 42, pp.255-282. 10.1002/j.2162-6057.2008.tb01299.x.
Bakker, F.C., 1991. Development of personality in dancers: A longitudinal study. Personality and Individual Differences, [e-journal] 12(7), pp.671-681. 10.1016/0191-8869(91)90222-W.
Barry, B. and Stewart, G., 1997. Composition, process, and performance in small groups. The role of personality. Journal of Applied Psychology, 82, pp.62-78.
Batey, M., Chamorro-Premuzic, T. and Furnham, A., 2010. Individual differences in ideational behavior: Can the big five and psychometric intelligence predict creativity scores?. Creativity Research Journal, [e-journal] 22(1), pp.90-97. 10.1080/10400410903579627.
Bendickson, J., Muldoon, J., Ligouri, E. and Midgett, C., 2017. High performance work systems: A necessity for startups. Journal of Small Business Strategy, 27(2), pp.1-12.
Besemer, S.P. and O’Quin, K., 1999. Confirming the three-factor product analysis matrix model in an American sample. Creativity Research Journal, [e-journal] 12(4), pp.287-296. 10.1207/s15326934crj1204_6.
Besemer, S.P. and Treffinger, D.J., 1981. Analysis of creative products: Review and synthesis. The Journal of Creative Behavior, [e-journal] 15(3), pp.158-178. 10.1002/j.2162-6057.1981.tb00287.x.
Conti, R., Coon, H. and Amabile, T.M., 1996. Evidence to support the componential model of creativity: Secondary analysis of three studies. Creativity Research Journal, [e-journal] 9(4), pp.385-389. 10.1207/s15326934crj0904_9.
Costa, P.T. and McCrae, R.R., 1992. NEO-PI-R: professional manual. Odessa, FL: Psychological Assessment Resources.
Crammond, B., Matthews-Morgan, J., Bandalos, D. and Sou, L., 2005. A report on the 40-year follow-up of the Torrance Test of Creative Thinking: Alive and well in the new millennium. Gifted Child Quarterly, 49, pp.283-302.
Donnellan, M.B., Oswald, F.L., Baird, B.M. and Lucas, R.E., 2006. The Mini-IPIP scales: Tiny-yet-effective measures of the big five factors of personality. Psychological Assessment, [e-journal] 18(2), pp.192-203. 10.1037/1040-3590.18.2.192.
Dudek, S.Z., Berneche, R., Berube, H. and Royer, S., 1991. Personality determinants of the commitment to the profession of art. Creativity Research Journal, [e-journal] 4(4), pp.367-389. 10.1080/10400419109534412.
Eysenck, H.J., 1995. Genius: The natural history of creativity. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press.
Feist, G.J., 1998. A meta-analysis of personality in scientific and artistic creativity. Personality & Social Psychology Review, [e-journal] 2(4), pp.290-309. 10.1207/s15327957pspr0204_5.
Goff, K. and Torrance, E.P., 2002. The Abbreviated Torrance Test for Adults (ATTA). Bensenville, IL: Scholastic Testing Service.
Goldberg, L.R., 1990. An alternative “description of personality”: The big-five factor structure. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 59(6), pp.1216-1229.
Gough, H.G., 1979. A creative personality scale for the Adjective Check List. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 37(8), pp.1398-1405.
Guilford, J.P., 1950. Creativity. American Psychologist, [e-journal] 5, pp.444-454. 10.1037/h0063487.
Guilford, J.P., 1967. The nature of human intelligence. New York, NY: McGraw-Hill.
Hoff, E.V., Carlsson, I.M. and Smith, J.W., 2011. Personality. In: M.D. Mumford, ed. 2011. Handbook of organizational creativity. Oxford, UK: Elsevier. pp.241-270.
Hulsheger, U.R., Anderson, N. and Salgado, J.F., 2009. Team-level predictors of innovation at work: A comprehensive meta-analysis spanning three decades of research. Journal of Applied Psychology, [e-journal] 94(5), pp.1128-1145. 10.1037/a0015978.
Hunsaker, S.L. and Callahan, C.M., 1995. Creativity and giftedness: Published instrument uses and abuses. Gifted Child Quarterly, [e-journal] 39, pp.110-114. 10.1177/001698629503900207.
Chan, D., 1998. Functional relations among constructs in the same content domain at different levels of analysis: A typology of composition models. Journal of Applied Psychology, 83(2), pp.234-246.
Christiaans, H.H.C.M., 2002. Creativity as a design criterion. Creativity Research Journal, [e-journal] 14(1), pp.41-54. 10.1207/S15326934CRJ1401_4.
James, K. and Drown, D., 2011. Organizations and creativity: Trends in research, status of education and practice, agenda for the future. In: M.D. Mumford, ed. 2011. Handbook of organizational creativity. Oxford, UK: Elsevier. pp.17-38.
Kemp, A., 1981. The personality structure of the musician: Identifying a profile of traits for the performer. Psychology of Music, [e-journal] 9(1), pp.3-14. 10.1177/03057356810090010201.
Kozlowski, S. and Bell, B., 2008. Team learning, development, and adaptation. Work group learning: Understanding, improving and assessing how groups learn in organizations. New York, NY: Taylor & Francis Grouop/Lawrence Erlbaum Associates.
Kurtzberg, T.R. and Amabile, T.M., 2001. From Guilford to creative synergy. Opening the black box of team level creativity. Creativity Research Journal, [e-journal] 13(3), pp.285-294. 10.1207/S15326934CRJ1334_06.
Martindale, C., 1989. Personality, situation, and creativity. In J.A. Glover, R.R. Ronning and C.R. Reynolds, eds. 1989. Handbook of creativity. pp. New York, NY: Plenum Press. 211-232.
Mumford, M.D., Costanza, D.P., Threlfall, K.V., Baughman, W.A. and Reiter-Palmon, R., 1993. Personality variables and problem-construction activities. An exploratory investigation. Creativity Research Journal, [e-journal] 6(4), pp.365-389. 10.1080/10400419309534493.
Mumford, M.D. and Gustafson, S.B., 1998. Creativity syndrome: Integration, application, and innovation. Psychological Bulletin, 103(1), pp.27-43.
Mumford, M.D., Hester, K.S. and Robledo, I.C., 2011a. Creativity in organizations: Importance and approaches. In: M.D. Mumford, ed. 2011. Handbook of organizational creativity. Oxford, UK: Elsevier. pp.3-16.
Mumford, M.D., Hester, K.S. and Robledo, I.C., 2011b. Methods in creativity research: Multiple approaches, multiple levels. In M.D. Mumford, ed. 2011. Handbook of organizational creativity. Oxford, UK: Elsevier. pp.39-65.
Oldham, G.R. and Cummings, A., 1996. Employee creativity: Personal and contextual factors at work. Academy of Management Journal, [e-journal] 39(3), pp.607-634. 10.2307/256657.
Paulus, P.B., Dzindolet, M. and Kohn, N.W., 2011. Collaborative creativity – group creativity and team innovation. In: M.D. Mumford, ed. 2011. Handbook of organizational creativity. Oxford, UK: Elsevier. pp.327-357.
Ree, M.J. and Carretta, T.R., 1998. General cognitive ability and occupational performance. In: C.L. Cooper and I.T. Robertson, eds. 1998. International review of industrial and organizational psychology. New York, NY: Wiley. pp.159-184.
Reiter-Palmon, R., Herman, A.E. and Yammarino, F.J., 2008. Creativity and cognitive processes: Multi-level linkages between individual and team cognition. In: F. Dansereau and F.J. Yammarino, M.D. Mumford, S.T. Hunter and K.E. Bedell-Avers, eds. 2008. Research in multi-level issues: Vol. 7. Multi-level issues in creativity and innovation. Bingley, UK: Emerald Publishing Limited. pp.203-267.
Reiter-Palmon, R., Wigert, B. and De Vreede, T., 2011. Team creativity and innovation: The effect of group composition, social processes, and cognition. In: M.D. Mumford, ed. 2011. Handbook of organizational creativity. Oxford, UK: Elsevier. pp.295-326.
Robert, C. and Cheung, Y.H., 2010. An examination of the relationship between conscientiousness and group performance on a creative task. Journal of Research in Personality, [e-journal] 44(2), pp.222-231. 10.1016/j.jrp.2010.01.005.
Ruscio, J., Whitney, D.M. and Amabile, T.M., 1998. The fishbowl of creativity. Creativity Research Journal, [e-journal] 11(3), pp.243-263. 10.1207/s15326934crj1103_4.
Stewart, G., 2006. A meta-analytic review of relationships between team design features and team performance. Journal of Management, [e-journal] 32(1), pp.29-55. 10.1177/0149206305277792.
Taggar, S., 2002. Individual creativity and group ability to utilize individual creative resources: A multilevel model. Academy of Management Journal, [e-journal] 45(2), pp.315-330. 10.2307/3069349.
Torrance, E.P., 1966. Torrance test of creative thinking: Norms technical manual (Research ed.). Princeton, NJ: Personnel Press.
Torrance, E.P., 1995. Rewarding creative behavior. Englewood Cliff, NJ: Prentice-Hall.
Vnou?ková, L., 2018. Criteria of Innovativeness and Creativity in Start-Ups and Innovative Entrepreneurship, Quality Innovation Prosperity, [e-journal] 22(1), pp.27-43. 10.12776/QIP.V22I1.1040.
West, M.A., 2002. Sparkling fountains or stagnant ponds: An integrative model of creativity and innovation implementation in work groups. Applied Psychology: An International Review, [e-journal] 51(3), pp.355-387. 10.1111/1464-0597.00951.
Authors
Burch, G. F., Burch, J. J., & Batchelor, J. H. (2019). Group Creative Problem Solving: The Role of Creative Personality, Process and Creative Ability. Quality Innovation Prosperity, 23(3), 38–54. https://doi.org/10.12776/qip.v23i3.1286
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