OBHR 101

MANAGEMENT OF PEOPLE AT WORK

Group Research Project

Done by:

Chee Wai Chit

Nguyen Minh Thuy
Benjamin Koh Jer Min
Wong Zyue Xhien
Louis Lim Wei Chun

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 Developing Creativity in the Workplace

In today’s fast changing world, where the only constant is change, companies need to

constantly innovate in order to remain competitive in the marketplace. As such, being one of the

drivers of innovation, it no wonder why creativity is one of the most valued assets in today’s

workforce. Therefore, this project serves to research further into the topic of creativity, seeking

to draw in depth solutions for the development of creativity, especially in the workplace.

Readers may wonder why we bother to research on a much studied topic. This is because

although there has been a burgeoning stream of studies on creativity, the results are not

systematically linked. What we are actually interested in is whether there exists a governing

concept that correlates to the present antecedents of creativity, because if a governing concept

does exist, new methods of developing workplace creativity may be found.

Development of Hypothesis

Maslow’s hierarchy of needs states that when a level of needs is satisfied, a person will

then move on to satisfy a higher level of unfulfilled needs. Relying on this principle, we

conducted an initial research to determine if creativity was in fact developed by fulfilling the

esteem needs of the workforce. Amabile, Conti, Lazenby & Herron, (1996) stated that

encouragement, freedom and challenging task were antecedents of creativity and these

antecedents bore uncanny similarities to the factors that correlate to organization based self-

esteem which Pierce, Gardner, Cummings & Dunham (1989) stated in their research that

managerial respect, mechanistic organization and job complexity were factors that correlate to

organizational-based self-esteem (OBSE).

Hence, from our initial research above, we saw that the creativity could be in fact a causal

relation between fulfilling the esteem needs of the workforce (OBSE) and creativity. Therefore,

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it leads to the development of our hypothesis: A higher level of OBSE results in higher level of

creativity.

Our Methodology

Our methodology will test the hypothesis that a high level of OBSE will result in a high

level of creativity. A 10-instrument item will be used to test OBSE. (Pierce, Gardner, Cummings

& Dunham (1989)) These items will reflect what we expect employees to consider in evaluating

the extent to which they believe that they are valuable, worthwhile and effectual members in

their organizations. Then a simple 5-point scale (Amabile, Conti, Coon, Lazenby & Herron

(1996)) will be used to rate creativity for team projects. For both variables, surveys will be

distributed to full time working adults to obtain the results.

Expected Results

We expect a positive correlation between OBSE and creativity, i.e. the higher the level of

OBSE, the higher the level of creativity present in an organization. Leveraging on the expected

results, we conclude that by fulfilling the esteem needs of the workforce (OBSE), the workforce

will then focus on becoming more creative. And as mentioned earlier, we proposed that there

could be a concept that governs the antecedents of creativity which from our expected results, we

can hence conclude that the antecedents of creativity (that past research have found) are in fact

factors that fulfill the esteem needs of a workforce.

Implications

There are two important implications. Firstly, instead of focusing on the limited and

exhaustive list of antecedents of creativity, organizations now have more ways to develop

creativity, i.e. attempting to fulfill the esteem needs of the workforce. Secondly, research wise,

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more studies could be done to find more factors under the esteem level of needs that may have

positive correlation with creativity.

Limitations

Some limitations of the study are that creativity characteristics that are present in

individuals are not taken into consideration. However, this is reasonable as we are only interested

in carrying the work environment factors that affect OBSE. Another limitation is that any

working adult can participate in this research study. Finally, we only assume that the antecedents

of OBSE are the cause of creativity. Up to now, research studies have not been able to prove the

above statement. It may well be the case that at least some of the antecedents studied here are

consequences of the level of project creativity. (Amabile, Conti, Coon, Lazenby & Herron

(1996))

Conclusion

Creativity is undoubtedly highly sought after by organizations, and many desperately

seek the answers to developing creativity at the workplace. By proving that the antecedents of

creativity (that past research studies have found) are in fact factors that fulfill the esteem needs of

the workforce, organizations are now not limited by the exhaustive list of ways to develop

creativity.

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References

• Pierce, J. L., Gardner, D. G., Cummings, L. L., & Dunham, R. B. (1989). Organization-based

self-esteem: Construct definition, measurement, and validation. Academy of Management

Journal, 32, 622-645.

• Amabile, T.M., Conti, R., Coon, H., Lazenby, J. & Herron, M. (1996). Assessing the work

environment for creativity. Academy of Management Journal, 39, 1154.

• Pierce, J. L., Gardner, D. G., (2004). Self-esteem within the work and organizational context:

A review of the organization-based self-esteem literature. Academy of Management Journal,

30(5), 591-622

• Greg R. Oldham, Anne Cummings(1996). Employee Creativity: Personal and contextual

factors at work. Academy of Management Journal, Vol, 39, No. 3, 607-634.

• Amabile, T. M. "Motivating Creativity in Organizations: On Doing What You Love and

Loving What You Do." California Management Review 40, no. 1 (fall 1997): 39-58.