Running Head: COMMUNICATION REMAINS THE KEY 1
Communication Remains the Key!
How the Communication Climate in a Start-up Guides the Team to
Innovation.
Clarissa Alberg (10697438)
University of Amsterdam
Supervisor dr. P.G.A van der Rijt
Graduate School of Communication
Corporate Communication Master’s Program
COMMUNICATION REMAINS THE KEY 2
Communication Remains the Key!
How the Communication Climate in a Start-up Guides the Team to Innovation.
Abstract
Recent studies have highlighted the importance of creativity and innovation and how this can be fostered and reached in an organization. One way to foster creativity and innovation is through a diverse team. This paper looks at how communication and diversity in a start-up can foster innovation. Furthermore, this paper also explores the variables needed in a start-up in order for this company to reach its growth phase. A questionnaire distributed to 250 start-up companies and individuals with a startup tested this relationship. The relationships were moderated by organizational identification and mediated by team creativity. These findings indicate that
communication shapes the identification of the employees, causing them participate more in the organization and add to the overall creativity of that organization.
Keywords: Start-up, creativity, communication climate, organizational identity, innovation, diversity
Introduction
Every company and organization in the world has at some point been an idea in someone’s mind, no matter how global they are at the moment. At the beginning, often the first five years (Penrose, 1959), they were in their experimental and start-up phases, in which their aim was to grow and increase their profit, by reinventing themselves, often through creativity and innovation.
Literature about the success of startups shows that “the condition under which an organization is planned and the process followed in its initials development has important consequences on its structure and performance in later life” (Van de Ven et al.,1984, p. 88). Van de Ven et al. (1984) also continue by stating that the
characteristics of the founder of this new organization should be visible, meaning that the organizational climate and culture need to be established and communicated from the beginning of the company, by its leaders.
According to Katz and Gartner (1988) the most common first event in an organization with more than one person is a personal commitment by individuals
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involved in the new venture. In order for the individual to be committed to the organization these individuals need to indentify themselves with both the group they work in as well as the overall organization. For this a clear linkage and a linker are needed between both parties in order to create this bond.
If individuals identify with the organization and its diverse classifications, they feel the need to also show beneficial behaviour to the company, by adding their knowledge to the overall creativity.
Individual creativity as well as team creativity are a core competence in the process of group performance leading to innovation implementation (Amabile, 1988).
“Innovation is a collective process that involves the contextual re-ordering of relations in multiple social networks” (Leeuwis & Aarts, 2011, p.21). The re-ordering of
relations is the creative process a team undergoes while exchanging information. This exchange of information is dependent on the communication of creativity amongst the individuals. Within this collective process communication serves as an intermediary function between the social networks.
While the previously mentioned authors discuss that creativity is crucial for a company, others argue that the prolonging of a company is in most cases also
dependent on the level of diversity (Dinsbach et al., 2007; Hofhuis et al., 2012; Knippenberg et al., 2004). When people work in teams in order to solve problems, different ways of thinking, being diverse (in terms of background, training and attitudes), is deemed as important. This cognitive diversity can affect a group’s processes and performance. It aids the creative process by presenting a heterogeneous set of perspectives for considerations (Kutzberg & Amabile, 2001).
Cultural diversity is thus deemed an essential and crucial attribute in a company. It is within these individuals that different perspectives lay, which could enhance the overall cognition. In these diverse teams one can shed light on an issue from a different angle and perspective, eventually enhancing and adding to the creative process.
Almeida and Kogut (1996) argue that there is evidence showing that start-ups have been introducing radical inventions and successful innovations. These authors mention that start-ups are more likely to possess the organizational characteristics, which could lead to more creative processes through organizational identification, and diverse cognitions. Individuals who therefore are from different networks and
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know different ways to implement these ideas, which could lead to innovation. This paper deems to investigate if and how diversity and communications in a start-up could leads to innovation. For this reason the question central in this thesis is: How does the interplay of communication and cultural diversity in a start-up company lead to innovation? By answering this question management implications could be made, which could foster creative processes in most starting organizations.
In the following sections, the variables used and the hypotheses, which are tested in this research, will be elaborated on in a theoretical framework. After this a model is stated and the operationalization of the research is explained, through the methods used. Thirdly the findings are stated only to continue to the elaboration of these in the discussion and conclusion. Finally, the limitations this research
encountered are mentioned along with the future implications.
Theoretical Framework
This section elaborates on the theory behind the variables used in this study, which are creativity and innovation, diversity, organizational identification and
communication climate.
Creativity and Innovation
Individual creativity as well as team creativity is a core competence in the process of group performance leading to innovation implementation and diffusion. Pirola-Merlo and Mann (2004, p. 236) describe creativity “as a judgment of the novelty and
usefulness (or value) of something”. According to Woodmen et al.(1993), creativity is framed as a subset of a broader domain of innovation and innovation is then
characterized as a subset of organizational change.
In order to delve more into creativity, one must first understand creativity on the individual level and separately as a team effort, namely team creativity. Individual creativity is comprised out of several conditions and factors. First, the antecedent
condition entails that one’s biographical background predicts creative personality
(Singh, 1986). Woodmen and Schoenfeldt (1989) argue that antecedent conditions influence personality and cognitive conditions. The biographical background of an individual is thus one way to predict how creative he or she is. A second way to predict creativity is through personality and cognitive factors. Both personality as
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well as cognitive abilities of the individual causes the individual to tap into his or her creativity (Amabile, 1988; Woodmen & Schoenfeldt, 1989; Somech & Zahary, 2013). A third aspect also associated with individual creativity is the intrinsic motivation of an individual. A persons intrinsic interest and creativity can be sparked by the
motivation and choices made when performing a task (Amabile, 1983). A last factor, which sparks creativity, is purely knowledge. Knowledge is needed in order to combine the several conditions and factors. Although the human mind tends to think along predictable lines and is often influenced by the surface features of problems, the creative mind is skilled in lateral or associate thinking, for which the application of knowledge is needed (Kurtzberg & Amabile, 2001). Amabile (1988) mentions that creativity does not happen spontaneously or randomly. Creativity is rather a combination of knowledge, skill and motivation, which have to be triggered. The author also continues by stating that organizational innovation is highly dependent on the creativity-relevant skills of the individual employees.
The combined creativity of the individual employees, also known as group or team creativity is not just an aggregate of each individual’s creativeness, but it is influenced by the group’s composition such as diversity, the groups characteristics such as size and cohesiveness and the groups processes such as their strategies (Woodman et al., 1993). When team members are confronted with each others’ differing opinions, this information often leads to novel ideas and solutions, which could make the team creative. This phenomenon is also known as the collective mind or collective creativity. Here creative solutions are built by recombining existing ideas. The relations between the individuals in the social system cause for
interactions, in which one’s actions or comments when considered by others, shapes how the other person thinks. The interactions thus trigger new interpretations and discoveries, which the individual alone could not have generated (Hagardon & Bechky, 2006). According to a study in which 96 tested teams confirmed that functional heterogeneity and composition of a team promotes team creativity and innovation, conducted by Somech and Zahary (2013), the personality factors of team members are described as characteristic patterns of thinking, feeling and acting, which affect team creativity through various processes ranging from task approach to task completion and the interactions during these processes. The communication between team members is for this reason important, because it triggers moments something changes along the predictable lines of thinking, causing these members to think
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“outside of the box”. For this reason it is important for individual team-members to exchange and build up on each other’s ideas (Chen, 2006; Pirola-merlo & Mann, 2004). Thus,
Hypothesis 1: Individual creativity positively influences the creativity of a team
Team creativity and individual creativity, are important for a company to evolve, be more innovative and with this gain competitive advantage (Bissola & Imperatori, 2011). In regard to a team, there are four characteristics in team creativity which foster innovation. These are: the shared vision, the sense that members can participate in decision making and the sharing of ideas, the concerns of the members for achieving a good standard of performance and the support of innovation in the team (Pirola-merlo & Mann, 2004).
Leeuwis and Aarts (2011), who studied the role of communication in
innovation processes, argue that for successful innovations to take place, there needs to be a change not only in technology but also in the human cognition. They discuss that “change is often affected by complex interdependencies, unintended and
unforeseen developments and interactions, coincidence and dynamics of conflicts that defy engineering and reductionists understanding” (p. 23). Innovative processes stem forth from change and are conceptualized as conflictive and dependent on dynamics and communication in networks, it re-orders relations in multiple social networks. By successfully implementing creative ideas within an organization, in which a creative team is a starting point the outcome can be innovation (Woodman et al., 1993; Amabile et al., 1996). Teams can stir up creativity and innovation by drawing on the combined knowledge and expertise of the individuals, keeping in mind that each individual has different skills, perspectives, backgrounds and knowledge. In order for innovation to be encouraged creative ideas should be supported and presented and risk should be taken (Bain et al., 2001).
To sum up, team creativity is not solely an aggregate of creative individuals, which leads to innovation, but rather an approach of how individuals come up with innovative ideas through group dynamics. In regard to start-ups it would therefore be important for the employees to know how to facilitate team creativity in order to promote innovation. This leads to two hypotheses namely,
COMMUNICATION REMAINS THE KEY 7
Hypothesis 2: A creative team, causes the organization to be more innovative Hypothesis 3: A creative team mediates the relationship between a creative individual and innovation
Diversity
Diversity refers to an almost infinite number of classifications and dimensions amongst individuals. According to Knippenberg, De Dreu and Homan (2004) who study the relationship between diversity and work-group performance, “diversity refers to differences between individuals on any attribute that may lead to the
perception that another person is different from self” (p. 1008). Williams and O’Reilly (1998) highlighted two main traditions in diversity research pertaining to work-group diversity and performance. In regard to work-group diversity, the social psychological perspective is adopted, also named the social categorizations perspective. Within this perspective, people tend to be ethnocentric, causing them to use any attribute in others to categorize them, even if these attributes are trivial or explicitly random. Certain categories such as age, gender and race are salient and more likely to be noticed and used. Another aspect pertaining to work-group diversity is the similarity/attraction paradigm. In this paradigm individuals look for similarities amongst each other, and place the rest of the employees who do not have a similarity in an out-group, defying them as unpredictable, unreliable, inferior and often also the enemy (Knippenberg et al., 2004).
While demographic compositions of groups could lead to social
categorization, this could also lead to variations in communication and increase interpersonal attractions, liking and knowledge, pertaining to the performance perspective. Levine and Resnick (1993) contest that “social interaction can produce intellectual development if socio-cognitive conflict is generated and resolved” (p. 596). The creation of knowledge and the discovery of new insights depend on the diverse viewpoints and perspectives with the work-group. Social interaction amongst diverse participants can lead to emergent new insights (Jehn, Northcraft, Naele, 1999). The positive effects of diversity on performance is dependent on the exchange of diverse information, the individual-level processing of this information, the process of feeding back the result of the processing into the group and the discussing and integration of the results and implications. When the participants elaborate on the
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exchanged information in work-group with diversity, this may cause this group to outperform homogeneous groups.
With regard to the fostering of creativity, it is also mentioned that individuals are often more creative in a diverse workgroup. This group diversity is supported through the information decision-making perspective, which states that, diverse groups outperform homogeneous groups. These diverse teams are seldom subject to groupthink in the early brainstorming stages, allowing the teams to continuously generate novel ideas (Bartels, 2007). Start-ups should therefore focus on combining a diverse set of employees in order to positively influence creativity. Thus,
Hypothesis 4. Diversity moderates the relationship between individual creativity and team creativity. The creativity of individuals in a team is triggered by a positive diverse input of other individuals.
Organizational Identification
Group identification is “the process through which identity is formed as a function of group membership” (Bartels et al., 2007, p.173). The self-concept of the individual is then comprised of a personal identity, which encompasses idiosyncratic
characteristics, and a social identity, which encompasses salient group classifications. These classifications enable individuals to order the social environment and find themselves and others in it. If one finds their social identity, they perceive themselves as belonging to a group with the specific classification they understand and identify themselves with. People then classify themselves based on diverse social or
demographic groups such as race, ethnicity, gender, religion, and occupation. It is through this social identity that one finds, and places him or herself psychologically linked with the fate of others and the fate the group, sharing common destinies and partaking in accomplishments beyond his or her personal power (Mael & Ashforth, 1992).
In regard to organizational identification, one would identify oneself with a formal organizational group. For an employee to feel as if they are a part of the organization and allowing them to identify with the organization is a crucial factor, conducive to the organization’s success. A strong identity could lead to a more positive attitude towards the organization (Ashforth & Mael, 1989) and higher work satisfaction (Hall & Schneider, 1972). It also lowers the employee’s intention to leave
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(Scott et al., 1999), enhances their willingness to make financial sacrifices, and they will show behaviour, which does not hinder the working ways of the organization, strengthening the organization a whole (Dutton et al., 1994).
Dukerich et al. (2002), who surveyed 1504 physicians in order to try to understand the voluntary cooperative behaviour of professionals in organizations by using an established model of organizational identification, distinguished two types of organizational identifications namely, a member’s personal perception of the image, which is the identity of the organization, and members assessment of how others perceive the image of the organization. The first is related to how the employees see their organization’s attributes, and identify with them as a place to work. The latter, is concerned with how the employees experience that the outside world perceives their organization (Dutton et al. (1994).
Organizational identification is for this reason a form of social identification, in which people define themselves in terms of their organization. The employees feel comfortable with any attributes of the organization, ranging from the communication to aesthetics. It is a perception of the work environment.
According to Kutzberg and Amabile (2010), individuals who perceive their work environment as non-controlling and non-constraining, who thus feel comfortable and identify with the organization, produce higher levels of creativity. Bissola and Imperatori (2011) argue that creativity is a matter of individual skill, which has to be enhanced by organizational practices, these practices include means to which an employee identifies with the organization. The organizational design should for this reason be conducive to the employees and sustain their creativity, by allowing them multiple classifications to identify with.
If individuals identify with the organization and its diverse classifications, they feel the need to also show behaviour that is beneficial to the company, thus also making them contribute more to the overall creativity. The behaviour of the
employees who identify with the organization will therefore be prosperous for the company. The employees will contribute more to the overall creativity and will built up on each other’s input. (Hagardon & Bechky, 2006; Chen, 2006; Pirola-merlo & Mann, 2004; Somech & Zahary, 2013. Hence,
Running Head: COMMUNICATION REMAINS THE KEY 10
Hypothesis 5. Organizational identification moderates the relationship between diversity, individual creativity and team creativity. High Identification is needed for diverse members to be creative in the team.
Communication Climate
Communication is seen as a phenomenon in which the parties involved construct meanings in interactions (Aarts & Van Woerkum, 2008). In organizations this process needs to be fostered in order to create a climate where all parties can express
themselves. According to Puntnam and Cheney (1985), in Van den Hooff and Ridder (2004) a communication climate is “the atmosphere in an organization regarding accepted communication behavior”(p. 120). The communication climate in a start-up is of high importance for entrepreneurs, because entrepreneurship is a dynamic that establishes on the ability to successfully gather information and interpret it, which is successfully understanding and communicating. The gathering of information requires communication and the building of relationship through this communication (Nunally & Saad, 1993).
In order to understand the communication climate of a company one must first understand the organizational climate and the difference between the two. The latter is the link between the individual, the organization and the attitude about the
organization (Guzley, 1992). As Tagiuri (1968) explains in Guzley (1992) “climate is the relatively enduring quality of the total environment that is expressed by occupants, influences their behaviour, and can be described in terms of the values of a particular set of characteristics (or attributes) of the environment” (p. 382). It is a referral to a property of the organization, which can be characterized by specific dimensions within the organization.
Guzley (1992), who tested whether levels of organizational commitment were positively related to the communication climate and the organizational climate, offers six dimensions as supported by Taylor and Bowers (1972) and described by Pace (1983). The first dimension the human primacy dimension highlights the extent to which the organization considers its employees to be a valuable resource. The employee is then considered to be a resource of novel or creative ideas, which ad to the overall creativity and innovation of the organization. The second dimension, the
communication flow, refers to the extent to which information flows in a company. A
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communication. The third dimension, namely the motivational practices, refer to the degree to which the working conditions and relationships in the environment
encourage or discourage the tasks at hand. The fourth dimension, namely the
decision-making practices is concerned with the way decision are made. It entails the
inclusion of all parties in the decision-making process. The fifth dimension,
technological readiness, refers to level in which technology is up-to-date and
maintained. The sixth and last dimension, lower-level influence, is closely related to the second and fourth dimension, because this dimension entails the extent to which employees feel that they have influence in what takes place in their department, or team.
The communication climate on the other hand consists of members’
perception of the previously mentioned dimensions. It refers to situations and its link to thoughts, feelings, and behaviour of the organizational members (Denison, 1996). If there is a positive communication climate, the employees have a higher chance of linking their thoughts, feelings and behaviour to those adequate to the organization. If the perception of the communication and the understanding of this by the employees is positive, they will understand what the organization demands of them and what they can demand from the organization. The communication climate of a firm is for this matter linked to the organizational identification. Employees must find
themselves in their understanding of the company. The communication climate of an organization is the enduring quality of the internal environment, which distinguishes the organization from other organization. It is a result from the behaviour and policies of the members, especially the top management, it is a perception and it serves as a basis for interpret for interpreting situations and it also acts as a source for directing activities (Pitchard & Karasick, 1973). An open climate, in which employees actively commit, includes a work environment, with a positive judgment on the reception of management to employee communication or the trustworthiness of information being disseminated in the organization. Openness of the top management and the
involvement of the employees in the decision-making process will increase trust in the organization and its management (Guzley, 1992). Ouchi (1981) claims that trust, more than any other feature leads to a high level of commitment. Mccauley and Kuhnert (1992) on the other hand also argue that employees monitor their work environment and along with this the communication climate in the company while deciding whether or not to trust their management. An open and trustworthy climate will
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increase their feelings of being part of the organization. Enhancement of their sense of belonging to and their involvement with the organization will strengthen their
identification (Smidts et al., 2001; Guzley,1992). Thus,
Hypothesis 6. A positive communication climate leads to employees having a stronger identification with the organization.
Hypotheses and expected model
This study presupposes that diversity in a start-up company leads to innovation. For this link to take place, one must first adopt the theory of Smidts, Pruyn & Van Riel (2001), which stated that the communication in the organization must be one that is conducive for the organizational climate as perceived by the employees. The
expectation is that employees will identify with the organization if the communication climate is a positive one.
The identification with the organization is however also needed for employees to be willing to contribute and add to the overall creativity (Dutton et al., 1994). Creativity on the other hand occurs when something out of the ordinary takes place; hence a diverse thinking set of member is needed. Having a diverse team disables groupthink and enables the team to trigger each other’s creative side (Jehn, Northcraft, Naele, 1999). It is then expected that the creative team will lead to innovation. In other words, the start-up will be innovative, if the company has a positive communication climate, the employees identify with the company, are diverse, and are individually creative and willing to communicate their creativity to the team. Hence the following model is proposed in figure 1:
13 Method
This section elaborates on the methods used in this study, which include the data collection, measurement instruments and the sample and response.
In order to test the hypotheses a questionnaire was distributed. The
relationship between diversity, communication and innovation was investigated in regard to individual and team creativity, organizational identification and
communication climate in several start-up companies, in total 250 questionnaires distributed.
Data Collection
This study made use of an electronic questionnaire and was conducted from November 13th till December 31st 2014. The start-up companies or individuals working at a start-up were approached through two social networking websites, namely LinkedIn and Facebook, and also by searching for start-up companies through the search-engine Google. Doing this an introduction message was sent which also included the hyperlink to the survey. The message explained that this study was with regard to a master thesis for the Corporate Communication track at the University of Amsterdam. Absolute anonymity was stressed upon and guaranteed in the
introduction message of the questionnaire.
In some cases, groups of entrepreneurs and start-up companies were searched for and joined. After which the group leaders, and individuals in the group were personally approached. All respondents also had the option to contact the thesis supervisor and master student in case they might have any questions or remarks.
To increase responses, all messages were made personally, by adding the names of the respondent at the beginning or by going through the respondents Facebook page and looking at what their interest, or start-up company is. In addition to this, respondents who had recently posted a message on one of the group-pages were also approached by giving a response to their post in a personal message. Respondents who then reacted to the personal messages were made small talk with, usually delving further into the topics of the survey. An agreement was made with
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certain respondents promising to send them the final thesis after this has been submitted.
In order to further increase the response rate, respondents whom did not react to the personal Facebook message after three weeks, were approached again and asked if they managed to find the time to respond or needed any further explanation. After this they were given 2 more days to respond.
Measurement instrument
Next to the respondents’ demographical background data, the questionnaire
comprised six parts: (1) Communication Climate, (2) Organizational Identification, (3) Diversity, (4) Individual Creativity, (5) Team Creativity and (6) Innovation. These items of the questionnaire could be answered on the basis of a 5-point Likert scale, ranging from 1=totally disagree to 5=strongly agree (see appendix 1 for the items)
As in the study of Smidts et al. (2001), in regard to their communication climate scales, the 6-item sub-dimensions trust and openness were used. An example item was: ‘When my supervisor tells me something, I trust that he/she is open and honest.’ This scale was sufficiently reliable with a Cronbach’s α=.83. Organizational identification was measured with a 4-item scale according to the scale of Ashfort and Mael (1989). An example item was: ‘When I talk about my organization I usually refer to “we” rather than “they.” This scale was also reliable with a Cronbach’s α=.75. Diversity was measured according to a 6-item scale derived from Hofhuis et al. (2012), in which an example item was: ‘In this organization we openly discuss the employees’ different cultures.’ With a Cronbach’s α=.74, this item too was reliable. Individual creativity, and team creativity were measured on 2 scales both containing 10 items according to Zhou & George (2001). Some example items were: ‘I am a good source of creative ideas’ and ‘ My team comes up with creative solutions to problems.’ Individual creativity was reliable with a Cronbach’s α=.84 and team creativity was also reliable with a Cronbach’s α=.94. The last variable, namely organizational innovation was measured on a 5-item scale, according to Wang & Ahmed (2004). An example item was: ‘Our new products and services are often perceived as very novel by customers.’ For this scale after running a reliability test the 5th item namely “When we see new ways of doing things, we are last at adopting them“ was deleted, making the Cronbach’s alpha rise from α=.56 to α=.59.
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Table 1 shows the means, standard deviations and correlations between the different concepts used in the questionnaire. What is remarkable is that all means are very high as well as the deviations. Another point is that all variables correlate positively with one another. The lowest correlation is between the individual creativity and the communication climate. Next to this, team creativity and communication climate seem to correlate the highest.
Sample and response
With the target being 100 respondents, of the total of 250 messages sent to out, 83 useful responses were returned (n=83). This caused for a response rate of 33%.
Literature on response rates show that this percentage is common and deemed reliable in a research where the researcher does the recruitment (Badger & Werret, 2005). Revision of the sent messages revealed that at the beginning some had grammatical errors, this could indicate why some respondents ignored the message. In addition to this the months of November and December, in which the study was conducted, are months in which most people focus on the holiday season and/or are on vacation. During these holidays they would rather not spend their time on filling out a survey and seldom have good Internet connections, as some respondents replied.
The demographics of the respondents were as followed: 46 (58.2%) were male, while 33 (41.8%) was female, the rest choose not to disclose their gender. Because the survey was distributed internationally, the respondents worked in organizations in a wide variety of countries, varying from Europe to countries like Japan, Portugal and also several islands in the Caribbean. 11 (12.6%) respondents
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have been working at their current organization for more than 2 years, while a few outliers mentioned in the comments that they did not change overall organizations, but started a new team under that organization within the past year. The rest of the respondents have worked at the organization for months ranging from 1-21 (Penrose, 1959). While the public (n=37) and private (n=32) sector employees had an almost even amount, the respondents working at a non-profit sector were 7 (8%). In regard to the degree of education, 64 respondents (77%) had a professional degree or higher. The average age of the respondents was 31,17 years (M=31.21, SD=9.87) and the ages ranged from 18 to 60.
After the response period was finished a dataset in SPSS was created in order to perform statistical analysis. For the moderating hypothesis, standardized variables were constructed in order to test the multiple regressions.
Results
In this section the result of the previously mentioned hypotheses will be presented. All measures in the hypothesis have been tested on a 95% confidence interval.
Hypothesis 1. Individual creativity positively influence the creativity of a team In order to test this hypothesis a regression analysis was conducted with individual creativity as the independent variable and team creativity as the dependent variable. The regression model is significant (F(1,78)=12.670, P=.001). The results of the regression indicated that individual creativity significantly predicts team creativity (B=.551, p=.001). Individual creativity explains a small percentage of the variance in team creativity (R²=.140). (See appendix 2 for table).
Hypothesis 2. A creative team, causes the organization to be more innovative As seen in hypothesis 2, this third hypothesis was tested using a linear regression analysis. The analysis was conducted with team creativity as the independent variable, while innovation served as the dependent variable. The regression model is significant (F(1,78)=19.700, P<.001). The results of the regression indicated that team creativity significantly predicts innovation (B= .342, P<.001). Team creativity also explained a small variance in innovation (R²=.202). (See appendix 3 for table).
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Hypothesis 3. A creative team mediates the relationship between a creative individual
and innovation.
In order to test this hypothesis a mediation analysis was conducted according to the method of Baron and Kenny (1986). A linear regression of individual creativity on team creativity, as seen in hypothesis 1, shows significant effect of the independent on the dependent variable (B=.551, p=.001) and also a small amount of the variance explained (R²=.140, F(1,78)=12.670, p=.001). For the effect of team creativity on innovation, the results indicated that team creativity significantly predicts innovation (B= .342, p<.001). Team creativity also explained a small variance of team creativity in innovation (R²=.202, F(1,78)=19.700, p<.001). The test effect of individual
creativity on innovation shows that individual creativity significantly predicts innovation (B=.500, P<.001), in this interaction individual creativity also explains a small variance of innovation (R²=.200, F(1.81)=20.27, p<.001).
Since all effects are significant a mediation effect was tested in which individual creativity and team creativity served as predictors of innovation (R²= .290,
F(2,77)=15.70, p<.001), this tested significantly, but the difference in the effect of individual creativity (B= .359, p=.003), which remained significant indicated that controlling for team creativity removes some of the effect of individual creativity, therefore partial mediation can be expected, which was tested by calculating the Sobels z (B= .500, p=<.001, B’=.359, p=.003; Sobel’s Z=3.200, p=.001). The results show that there is partial mediation of team creativity between individual and
innovation. (See appendix 4. for mediation table).
Hypothesis 4. Diversity moderates the relationship between individual creativity and
team creativity. The creativity of individuals in a team is triggered by a positive diverse input of other individuals.
In order to test the moderating effect of diversity between individual creativity and team creativity a multiple regression analysis was conducted. The regression model tested significant (F(3,760)=5.29, p= .002). The findings show that a small variance of the model is explained in team creativity (R²=.17). While the overall model tested significant, there was no moderating effect found of diversity between individual creativity and team creativity (B= .060, P=.461). (See appendix 5. for moderation table).
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Hypothesis 5. Organizational identification moderates the relationship between
diversity, individual creativity and team creativity. High Identification is needed for diverse members to be creative in the team.
For this hypothesis a 3-way interaction analysis was conducted between the moderators organizational identification and diversity, independent variable
individual creativity and the dependent variable team creativity. The regression model tested significant (F (7,72)=3.70, p=.002). The findings show that a small variance of the model is explained in team diversity (R²=.27). Even though the overall model tested significant, there was no moderating effect found of organizational
identification and diversity between individual creativity and team creativity (B=.117, p=.218). (See appendix 6. for 3-way interaction table).
Hypothesis 6. A positive communication climate leads to employees having a stronger
identification with the organization.
In order to test this hypothesis a regression analysis was conducted with
communication climate as the independent variable and organizational identification as the dependent variable. The regression model tested significant (F(1,83)=21.82, p<.001). The result of the regression indicated that communication climate
significantly predicts organizational identification (B= .456, p <.001). Communication climate also explained a small percentage of the variance in organizational identification (R²=.21). (See appendix 7. for table).
19 Conclusion and Discussion
The main aim of this study was to analyze how the interplay of communication and diversity could lead to innovation in a start-up company. Within this interplay identification with the company, individual creativity and team creativity were also studied. Communication could positively influence employees to the point that they identify with the company and through this identification, make them willing to make sacrifices, which could be prosperous to the company.
According to the predictions, individual creativity positively influences the creativity of the team, as seen in hypothesis 1. With the initial creative incentive usually stemming from an individual with an idea, who then passes it on to his or her own close network, this is also confirmed. The team cannot be creative unless the individuals are receptive to creativity and pass it on. This also confirms the phenomenon that takes place when individuals are confronted with each other’s differing ideas as Hagardon and Bechky (2006) argued. It is during this confrontation the predictable lines of thinking of the individual are challenged, causing the team members to buildup on each other’s ideas (Chen, 2006). The relationship however showed that a small percentage of individual creativity is explained in team creativity, which could indicate that there are other factors, which also influence team creativity.
These results lead to hypothesis 2, which confirms that a creative team positively influences the organization to be more innovative. While innovation starts off as an idea of an individual, which then can be elaborated on in a team, this team can add different insights to the overall creative idea.
Hypothesis 3 on the other hand expects partial mediation to be found when a creative team mediates between the individual and innovation. With this result, the result of the first hypothesis can also be elaborated on. When a creative individual comes up with an innovative idea and then passes it on to a team, who has different skills, expertise, backgrounds and knowledge, the innovative idea does not differ, but can only get better with the input of the team. The initial ideas can be challenged and improved (Woodman et al., 1993; Amabile et al., 1996; Bain et al., 2001). Although these two independent variables together explain for a low percentage of the variance in innovation, this percentage is higher than the individually explained percentages. Indicating that together these two variables have more power to predict innovation.
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As seen in hypothesis 4, diversity and individual creativity are explained in team creativity, this is however low. From these results on can see that adding diversity only minimally increases the variance explained in innovation, indicating that diversity does not have a main effect for the creativity of a team. Diversity however does not moderate the relationship between individual and team creativity, which indicates that diversity is not needed for individuals to be creative in a team. While hypothesis 3 shows that a team significantly adds to the innovation of an organization, this could indicate that any composition of groups could influence the social interactions, as seen explained by the minimal influence in hypothesis 4. Although Bartels (2007) states that diverse groups will outperform homogeneous group, allowing the team to generate novel ideas, this might not be the case in start-ups. In a start-up other factors might be more important than the diversity. These factors could be, as mentioned by Woodman et al. (1993), the composition of the group, the size, cohesiveness and the groups processes and strategies. During the different phases of a company’s life cycle, diversity usually does not come in until the company has reached its growth phase. The results do indicate what has already been predicted in several previous literatures concerning business growth. This is the phase where new employees are hired and management systems are set-up (Gallagher & Stewart, 1986). At the start-up phase a non-diverse team, may work equally as well as a diverse team would, in a company at a latter life cycle. If at the starting phase an individual influences the creativity of a team, as seen in hypothesis 1., there should be more variables which cause the phenomenon of an effective team to take place.
While the 3-way interaction of organizational identity, diversity and individual creativity, in hypothesis 5 was partly explained in team creativity. No moderating effect of diversity and organizational identification between individual creativity and team creativity can be expected. The fact that significance of the model can be expected, and therefore organizational identification, diversity and individual creativity could lead to team creativity is supported and the fact that there is a direct effect of organizational identification, could stem from what is argued by several authors. If individuals identify with the organization, they will show behaviour that benefits the company (Kutzberg & Amabile). Creativity on the other hand remains a skill of individual as argued in hypothesis 2, 3 and 4, and is enhanced by
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the organization they will actively participate in the organizational practices, causing them to actively share their differing insights.
In hypothesis 6, a positive organizational identity can be expected if the communication climate is also positive. If the employees perceive the communication in the company to be one in which they can fully express themselves, they will also feel like they can identify with the organization (Guzley, 1992; Ouchi, 1981). Since organizational identification indicated to have a direct effect on members in a team, and team creativity leads to innovation, the reaction of communication on
identification could also be explained in the interactions mentioned in the previous hypothesis.
In conclusion, individual creativity in a start-up does lead to the creativity of a team and innovation, because each member has an input on which the other team-members can build. The input of the individuals causes the team-members to be cognitively triggered to not think allong their predictable thinking lines. For this reason seeking a team, in a start-up has a positive influence on the overall creativity, because every member sheds light from another perspective, if they actively participate (Hagardon & Beckhy, 2006; Somech &Zachary, 2013; Woodman et al., 1993).
The active participation of the members however has to be fed and catered to by providing the members mutual opportunities to identify with the organization. In a start-up the focus should therefore be on allowing each individual the opportunity to identify with the organization. The identification in its turn allows the individuals to have a more positive attitude towards the organization and it also allows the
individual to be active in the team (Ashforth & Mael, 1989; Dutton et al., 1994). Since the creativity of the team leads to innovation (Bain et al., 2001; Amabile et al., 1996) the communication climate between individuals needs to be a positive one. The communication climate in a start-up company positively influences the overall knowledge, through the exchange of knowledge, and identification with the company, causing the organization to be more creative and innovative. Knowledge can only be fostered, when individuals interact. Innovation is therefore an information processing activity (DeMeyer, 1985; Moenaert et al., 2000) in which creativity is communicated and elaborated on with others.
Several authors (Ashfort & Mael, 1989; Hall & Schneider, 1972; Mowday et a., 1979) have mentioned that the identity of the organization is shaped through the internal communication and over time this causes the employees to fully stay
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committed. One can therefore state that the internal communication in a start-up is the creation of identification and leads to creative moments where every member’s input in included, which end in an innovative enhancement.
For these reasons one can state that there is no interplay of communication and diversity in a start-up leading to innovation, but rather an interplay of organizational identification and communication which lead to creativity. Through the
communication, individuals build the organizational identity, also allowing them to identify with the identity they built. This identification in its turn allows the
employees to also feel like the organization is a part of them to which they have to contribute. From this contribution the entire team which they are a part of benefits, due to the different creative input. These different creative inputs then lead innovation in the organization as also explained by several authors (e.g. Amabile et al., 1996; Somech & Drach-Zahavy, 2013; Chen, 2006; Pirola-Merlo & Mann, 2004). It is both the creativity of an individual as well as the communication climate and the
organizational identity within a start-up that leads a creative team and eventually leads to innovation.
Limitations and Implications
In this research certain limitations have to be acknowledged. Next to these limitations, managerial implications for research are also proposed. First, not all literature on start-ups and all the variables used, have been exhausted in this study. Next to this the period in which this study was conducted was a period in which most people celebrate the holidays and would rather not participate in any research. The period was also a bit too short, which could have psychologically put a time constraint on the
participants, allowing them to feel like their participation had to be rushed, after which they decided to not participate at all. In the future the period of this research should thus be longer, maybe a three-month period excluding the summer and the holidays, allowing sufficient time to the respondents. Thirdly, the recruitment of the participants could be more precise, which would allow only start-ups that have been active for between a certain period of time to participate. Since it takes a company up to 5 years to exit the start-up phase, as seen in this paper it would be advisable to choose start-ups, which have been active between 1 to 4 years. A start-up, which is at its very beginning, usually does not have any steady team (Harrison, 1981). For this
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reason in the future one could look into recruiting companies, which have already been up for about a year and have gone through all the seasons in that year. The countries in which the companies are located could also all be researched separately, this way one could see whether diversity and communication have a different effect in different countries due to their varying ways of communication as Peltokorpi (2007) and Gudykunst (1997) explained in their studies on intercultural communication and high and low context cultures. Finally, acquiring more
participants could lead to different findings or spark further interest for different models.
In the future one might also consider testing a new model, which proposes that a positive communication climate positively influences the organizational
identification, and this in its turn positively influences the team creativity leading to innovation. This model could then be elaborated on by testing whether organizational identification serves as e mediator between communication climate and team
creativity, or if there is a 3-way interaction between communication climate, organizational identification, individual creativity and team creativity.
Managerial implications
This research has shown that individual creative’s could make a team creative. In order to do this the communication in that team needs to be clear, precise, identifiable, open and trustworthy. Managers should therefore focus on being leaders by creating an environment in which the communication climate is one where individuals feel understood, and are willing to participate, by shaping the organization with the team’s ideas. Shaping the organizational identity with the employees or team and drawing from the team’s heterogeneity can create an identification and environment, in which the team is willing to work. Anny addition to the team has to also feel as if they “re-shape” the identity and fit it to their preference, through the reshaping of the
communication. This communication should then not exclude incentives from new members, but also consider them and fully explain to each new member where the company stems from, what is taking place and where they plan on going to in the future. In today’s fast changing environment organizations need innovation to survive and most of all they need to indentify with the innovation. Communication therefore shapes the identity and the identity shapes future communication.
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http://links.jstor.org/sici?sici=1047-7039%28199611%2F12%297%3A6%3C615%3ADDCAWG%3E2.0.CO%3B2 -Z Appendix Appendix 1 Survey Items Organizational Identification
I am very interested to know what other people think of my organization
When I talk about my organization, I usually refer to “we” rather than “they.”
When my organization is successful with something, I feel like it’s partly my own success.
When somebody makes positive comments about my organization, I feel like that’s partly my own success.
Communication Climate
When my colleagues tell me something, I trust that they are telling the truth
When my supervisor tells me something, I trust he/she is open and honest
My direct supervisor is open to the suggestions I give him/her
Here, when you say something, you are taken seriously
When the higher management tells us how to do our work, I trust that they are being truthful My colleagues are open to the suggestions I give them
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Organizational Innovation
Our organization encourages people to think and behave in original and novel ways Our new products and services are often perceived as very novel by customers
Our recent new products and services are only minor changes from our previous products and services
We are constantly improving our business processes
When we see new ways of doing things, we are last at adopting them
Individual and Team creativity I am a good source of creative ideas
I come up with creative solutions to problems I often have new and innovative ideas I often have a fresh approach to problems I suggest new ways of performing tasks I develop adequate plans and schedules for the implementation of new ideas
I exhibit creativity on the job when given the opportunity to
I am not afraid to take risks
I promote and champion ideas to others I search out technologies, processes, techniques and/or product ideas Diversity climate
In this organization there is room to live and work by one's own culture
In this organization we take into account different cultural traditions and habits of employees (such as religion, holidays, etc.) In this organization we openly discuss the employees' different cultures
In this organization it is seen as an advantage to work with people of different cultural backgrounds
In this organization people think it is positive when employees have different cultural backgrounds
In this organization people understand and value different cultural backgrounds
