MASTER’S THESIS
Unboxing Creativity in the Workplace: The Moderating Role of Internal
Communication Climate
A cross-sectional Survey on Employees in Dutch Organizations
Graduate School of Communication
Master’s programme Communication Science
Written by: Wouter Jan Schoemaker
11162961
Supervised by: Fam te Poel
Abstract (100-350 words)
Employee creativity is measured in Dutch organisations. A total of 179 employees from 140 organizations reflect on Diversity, Task-conflict, the Internal Communication Climate and their self-perceived addition to the ‘product’ of Creativity in the workplace.
The study examines the current debate where ambiguous views on diversity and task-conflict exist. These concepts know clear theoretical divisions advocating either positive or negative effects on work-related outcomes and creativity. This study tries to offer a different perspective from which to consider employee creativity, attempting to provide direction for organisations that have been previously struggling to find an effective way to positively influence employee creativity. Besides the focus on antecedents of creativity, the organization’s ICC will be examined. Empirical evidence on how these concepts are related is scarce, therefore the present study will examine the interplay between internal communication and creativity in its moderating value on the relationships described above. Consequently, the model proposed here could be used to supplement the existing (internal) communication strategy making process by testing if accounting for ICC can help further improve employee creativity.
The central research question this study will attempt to answer is to what extent diversity and task-conflict are positively related to employee creativity, and if the organizations’ internal communication climate moderates this effect.
The study ultimately did not find supportive evidence for the direct effects of diversity and task-conflict, but did find a direct relationship between the ICC and employee creativity.
Keywords: Creativity; Workplace Creativity; Diversity, Conflict, Task-Conflict,
The Impact of Diversity and Task-Conflict on Creativity moderated by the Internal Communication Climate
In the current rapidly changing and highly competitive environments, organizations across all different sectors continuously struggle to stay relevant. Vital central questions arise on how to be flexible, adaptive, create new products, ensure organizational continuity, and further develop the organization in general. In this respect employee creativity has been a key subject for research (Amabile, 1996; Hargadon & Bechky, 2006; Kivimaki et al., 2000; Sarooghi et al., 2015).
Parallel to the continuous search for creativity, it has become increasingly important for firms to appreciate how best to define, integrate and align their internal communication climate (henceforth referred to as ICC) with respect to this overall corporate strategy. An organizations’ communication climate has been proven to either enable or impair employee perceived autonomy, control and creativity (Kurtzberg & Amabile, 2001). This is related especially to the business cliché saying that creative ideas only appear when one “thinks
outside of the box”, in that employees should feel enabled by their peers and superiors to
engage in this behavior.
Sometimes, the organization’s problems cannot be solved by applying a standard formula or following guidelines of what has been done before. Particularly when an organization is facing new problems, creative ideas generated by the employees are crucial to finding a fitting solution. Therefore, for starting and established companies alike, it is important to understand which practices and capabilities are needed to strengthen employee creativity to ultimately further innovation. This is especially true when in practice “creativity gets killed more often than it gets supported” (Amabile, 1998, p. 77).
Creativity has been linked to numerous concepts. The focus of the present study is on two predecessors of creativity namely diversity and task-conflict, which have both been argued to be crucial in enabling creative processes (i.e. Amabile, 1983; Csikszentmihalyi, 1988; Guilford, 1950; Kurtzberg & Amabile, 2001; Van Knippenberg et al., 2004) The goal of the present study is to clarify the interplay between these concepts and their relationship with employee creativity. Besides this focus, I am interested in whether this relationship will be different for a more positively perceived ICC.
The practical implications of the current study are that strategic communication practitioners are offered a supplementary perspective from which to consider employee creativity. Put differently, this paper can help provide direction for organisations that have been previously struggling to find an effective way to positively influence employee
creativity. The model proposed here could be used to supplement the existing (internal) communication strategy making process by testing if accounting for ICC can help further improve employee creativity.
The main theoretical value of this paper is its contribution to the current debate where ambiguous views on diversity exist, as illustrated by Van Knippenberg et al. (2004). This concept knows a clear theoretical division advocating either positive (i.e. Csikszentmihalyi, 1988; Hargadon & Bechky, 2006; Kurtzberg & Amabile, 2001), or negative (i.e. Hofhuis et al., 2012; Kirton, 1989; Van Knippenberg et al., 2004) effects on creativity. Generally speaking, for task-conflict findings are more congruent. However, some authors suggest avoiding conflict since they only recognize negative effects on work-related outcomes (Magee & Galinsky, 2008).
Furthermore, empirical evidence on how ICC and creativity themselves are related is scarce. Previous research has not measured the relationship between the ICC and employee creativity as defined here. The present study will attempt to addresses this gap in literature by 1) examining the interplay between internal communication and creativity and 2) its moderating value on the relationships described above. In summary, the current study attempts to provide new insights by broadening previous approaches. The present study will attempt to answer the following research question: To what extent are diversity and
task-conflict positively related to employee creativity, and does the company’s internal communication climate moderate this effect?
Theoretical Framework
Here an overview of relevant theories from conceptual- and empirical academic literature will be provided. In short, the following text will introduce and describe the central concepts and their interconnectedness in a more elaborate way. Figure 1 shows the relationships and their direction combined in a conceptual model.
Employee creativity
First it is crucial to discuss the overarching concept of creativity. Although creativity has proven difficult to make tangible, the concept most commonly boils down to creating new ways of solving problems (Kurtzberg & Amabile, 2001). According to Csikszentmihalyi (1988) this process of generating creative ideas is dependent of a multitude of external variables. Csikszentmihalyi found that any creative idea is affected by three main shaping
forces: (1) the field, (2) the domain, and (3) the individual. In this research the focus will primarily be on the latter.
Individual (employee-level) creativity is defined as being: “the product of novel and useful ideas by an individual or group of individuals working together” (Amabile, 1983).
Zeng et al. (2009) operationalize this definition by saying that these ideas must be appropriate, valuable, actionable, and benefit some actor, thereby facilitating a value-creation process. Employees generating ideas coherent to these conditions will result in them being identified as creative (Zeng et al., 2009). From a corporate perspective, creativity is commonly measured in terms of produced outcomes (i.e. products, services, solutions, or ideas) that are novel and valuable in the given context (Amabile, 1983; Grant & Berry, 2011). The research of Amabile (1983) fundamentally describes the process of creativity as an intersection of an individual’s domain-relevant skills, creativity-relevant skills, and motivation. Creativity in the present study will therefore be examined in terms of employee’s self-perceived personal contributions to the ‘product’ of creativity.
Kurtzberg and Amabile (2001) discuss other boundary conditions. They stress that creativity does not occur spontaneously or randomly, but can only occur when appropriate internal factors of knowledge, skill, and motivation are present which enable the individual to create new ideas. They found that a creative mind is skilled in “lateral” or associative thinking, in which thoughts can leap from category to category rather than simply following pre-existing paths of cognition (Kurtzberg & Amabile, 2001). This ‘divergent’ way of thinking means the individual seamlessly links associations from one topic to another, allowing the formation of divergent thoughts.
Many authors have found evidence to link the concept of creativity to innovation (Amabile et al. (1996); Sarooghi et al. 2015). Kivimaki et al. (2000) even concluded that innovation should be considered a logical successor to creativity, defining it as being
“one-step behind creativity”. Innovation effectively uses the aforementioned problem solving
abilities to transfer creativity into reality. Whereas creativity only happens in the mind of individuals, innovation is the process of translating these ideas into tangible artifacts (Kivimaki et al., 2000). Innovation can be distinguished from creativity in that it relates to implementation - rather than mere generation – of new ideas. This being said, however, innovation is difficult to quantify at the employee level, and is more frequently measured in its perceived effectiveness (i.e. Kivimaki et al., 2000). For this reason, the present study will not measure innovation as a separate construct, but will limit itself to creativity and two of its predecessors.
Diversity
The first of the hypothesized predecessors of employee creativity is diversity. Thus far, the present study has only described creativity in relation to internal motivations. Although these are all important predictors, Guilford (1950) underlined that a person’s base of knowledge and individual creativity is also continuously influenced by their environment. The author stressed that creativity “cannot happen in a vacuum” (Guilford, 1950).
Diversity in itself is related to individual differences in race, ethnic background, nationality, sex, and age (Milliken et al., 2003). However, the current study will look at diversity more from an organization’s point of view. The goal of diversity management in the workplace is to combine complimentary differences in individual characteristics which can in turn potentially positively affect processes and performance (Kurtzberg & Amabile, 2001). Consequently, the current study will focus on how the diversity climate is perceived on the organization level. The concept was operationalized as “individual employee reflections on
organization-level diversity culture”.
According to Van Knippenberg et al. (2004) there are two distinct main approaches or views on diversity. Firstly, from a social categorization point of view diversity is seen as a destructive force. The study of Dinsbach et al. (2007) highlighted the possibility that for high levels of diversity clashing cultural differences may arise. Subgroups can feel threatened because they are becoming a minority versus the majority. These differences between in- and out-groups can potentially lead to conflict. These diversity related conflict potentials will ultimately lead to lower performance. Van Knippenberg et al. (2004) also stress that small-group research has repeatedly demonstrated the pitfall of ‘small-groupthink’. This concept describes the potentially destructive decision making process of teams because of the absence of vocalized dissent. This ties into the similarity-attraction hypothesis by Byrne (1971) saying that people have a strong preference for those who are similar to themselves. If individual views are too similar, groups will not critically challenge the internal consensus in terms of ideas and decisions.
On the other hand, diversity as seen from a functional approach celebrates individuals having different functional and educational backgrounds, personalities, knowledge, experiences and skills. This approach considers diversity as something inherently positive, providing a multitude of complementary perspectives (Van Knippenberg et al., 2004). Moreover, the research of Knippenberg et al. (2004) suggested that people elaborating on task relevant info and their (different) perspectives can ultimately lead to job-related efficiencies, creative and innovative ideas, and well performing teams. They stress that it is not the mere
availability of differences, but employees communicating and discussing their skills and views productively. Both Kirton (1976) and Kurtzberg et al. (2001) further underline the importance of freely collaborating, sharing ideas and consequently building creativity together. They reason that a group can debate, critically reflect and ultimately create something more than what could have been achieved by individuals. In short, diversity can aid the creative process by presenting a heterogeneous set of perspectives for consideration, with the simple logic that more backgrounds lead to more potential ideas.
Consequently, diversity in an organization - if managed properly - helps: (1) create a diverse social environment which is ‘fun’ and inspiring. (2) provide images of social responsibility and CSR, organizations need to show that they are socially responsible and do not discriminate, (3) provide understanding society because employees represent different social groups, (4) create a platform for (critical) communication, interaction, and collaboration and (6) lead to more creative idea generation, flexibility and problem solving (Kirton, 1976; Kurtzberg et al., 2001; Van Knippenberg et al., 2004).
Regardless of which vision on diversity is predominant in an organization, Van Knippenberg et al. (2004) concluded diversity should never become ‘uncontrolled’. They state that this could ultimately lead to in-group biases associated with negative affective-evaluative reactions to the group and its members. These biases were proven to have negative consequences for employees, mainly because they disrupt elaboration of task-relevant information. Dinsbach et al. (2007) recommended that any diversity management strategy should focus on fostering elaboration and actively prevent intergroup biases. Also, the study of Dinsbach et al. (2007) showed that only when diversity practices are managed properly (by making employees feel that they are equally respected and part of the organization), creativity can be seen as a positive result of diversity. Or as Kurtzberg et al. (2001) concluded:
“Effective group problem solving occurs only with the right combination of personalities, the right amount of diversity, appropriate levels of resource and reward interdependence, cooperative process behaviors, and effective use of time.”
Therefore, I predict a direct relationship between a positive organization-level view on diversity and perceived employee creativity, as formulated in the following hypothesis:
Task-Conflict
The second hypothesized predecessor of creativity is task-conflict. In the current study, conflict as a whole is defined as “the process in which one party perceives that its
interests are being opposed or negatively affected by another party”.
Conflicts can arise at many different points in the (creative) work process. De Dreu et al. (2003) give a few examples, highlighting for instance conflicts on distribution of resources, procedures and policies, and judgments and interpretation of facts. They state that where relationship-conflicts are proven to hurt team effectiveness, task-conflict can be beneficial to team effectiveness. This is closely related to a statement by Kurtzberg et al. (2001), dictating that: “conflict needs to be kept on task level, since conflict on the
relationship- and process level were found to indicate deep interpersonal and/or coordination problems”.
Kurtzberg et al. (2001) have proven that task-conflict can help the development of new ideas by – similarly to a consequence of diversity - having different views ‘clash’, ultimately providing new insights. In other words, task-related conflicts are argued to have positive effects on employee creativity by broadening the platform from which problem-solving capabilities originate (Chen, 2006; Kurtzberg et al, 2001). In line with these previous studies, the concept of work-related conflict has been purposefully narrowed down and is only expected to occur “[…] when group members argue over alternatives related to the groups
task”. (DeChurch et al., 2001).
Erwin et al. (2010) also recognize the potential functionality of task-conflict by relating the concept to the potential strengthening value of resistance. Working through task-conflicts successfully is a useful thing, as solving task-conflicts and overcoming problems have a strengthening value on employee commitment and inter-employee relationships. These authors have found that this ultimately helps build to a new status quo.
In sum, the current study argues that task-conflict can have a positive direct effect on perceived employee creativity, as formulated in the following hypothesis:
H2. Task-Conflict is positively related to Creativity
Internal Communication Climate
To guide all the aforementioned processes and work-practices, strategic internal communication management is key. As Kurtzberg & Amabile (2001) found, the right communication climate can be an important environmental influencer for creativity. Frank and Brownell (1989) defined the overarching concept of communication climate as
“communication transactions between individuals and/or groups at various levels and in
different areas of specialization that are intended to design and redesign organizations, to implement designs and to coordinate day-to-day activities” (Frank & Brownell, 1989: 5-6).
Smidts et al. (2001) state that the most crucial components of an organizations communication climate are: “openness, perceived participation and supportiveness”. Openness includes values like trust and honesty in employee- and organization-level communication practices. Secondly, the perceived participation lies in the possibility to influence decision making processes and the feeling of having a voice in the organization. Finally, supportiveness mainly rests in the perceived the feeling of being taken seriously. These authors finally argued that the higher employees rate their company on these items, the more positive they will perceive the company’s communication climate. This ties into the finding of Amabile’s theory (1996) which reversely demonstrated that individuals will produce lower levels of creativity when they perceived their work environment as constraining or controlling.
The current study will solely focus on the internal communication climate or ICC. In short, the ICC mainly includes judgments on the receptivity of management to employee communication and the trustworthiness of information being disseminated in the organization (Guzley, 1992).
Although previous studies have not directly related the ICC to creativity, Clampitt and Downs (1993) claim that the main benefits of a well-managed internal communications audit include improved productivity, reduced absenteeism, higher quality of services and products, increased levels of innovation, fewer strikes and reduced costs. Verčič et al. (2010) underline this statement by saying that internal communication can motivate employees to ultimately create value for the company.
Kivimaki et al. (2000) state that managers could achieve a situation of high participation and innovation (which by their definition partially includes creativity) by reflecting to and keeping close contact with their employees. Consequently, by intensifying the frequency of purposeful communication, organizations can create a “continuous flow of feedback.” (Kivimaki et al., 2000). This flow of feedback can in turn diminish uncertainty in both managers and employees. Gassman (2001) builds on this statement by saying that: “the
internationalization of innovation processes demands an ever-higher degree of social competence from leaders.”.
The present study argues that the ICC could further improve the relationship between diversity and creativity. Organization-level diversity, as defined before, is mainly concerned
with to what extent the organization has a positive view on different backgrounds present in the workforce. Kirton (1976) say that effective internal communication can help “translate” the ideas of team members between different backgrounds. His research shows that internal communication processes can help manage the team’s different work related habits (Kirton, 1976). This is reversely advocated by research of Dinsbach et al. (2007) and Jansen et al (2015). These authors say that when employees perceive unequal treatment or feel discriminated by the organization (inclusion), they will show signs of withdrawal. Following their logic, low employee inclusion will lead to no elaboration, ultimately leading to a decrease in general communication.
The present study agrees with the general consensus that task-conflict between employees could indeed lead to new insights. However, this could be further increased by a positively perceived ICC. As mentioned before, the ICC can enable employees to feel trusted and respected. This can provide employees the courage and a level playing field for speaking up about any differences in opinions, regardless of how these differences arose.
Based on the findings discussed above, the present study argues that the positive relationship between diversity and task-conflict and employee creativity will be stronger when there is a positive view on the ICC. This is tested in the third hypothesis:
H3: The relationship between conflict and diversity on creativity is moderated by the
internal communication climate.
H3a: The more positive the internal communication is perceived, the stronger the relationship between Diversity and Creativity.
H3b: The more positive the internal communication is perceived, the stronger the relationship between Task-Conflict and Creativity.
FIGURE 1
Methodology Sample & Design
The cross-sectional online survey conducted for this study was distributed based on a non-probability convenience sampling method. Data were collected by making use of volunteering population members based on ease of availability and access.
The target population for this study were employees of Dutch organizations. This lead to the sampling frame being individuals who were at least 18 years of age and were currently working for a Dutch organization with at least 10 employees. This lower limit was established so that so-called ‘micro enterprises’ were excluded from the sample. Since the present study argues that a small organization is unlikely to be concerned with diversity management, the scale on which these organizations operate would be too limited.
A total of 353 participants were approached by e-mail, of which 222 individuals decided to partake in the survey. Therefore, the initial response rate was 63%. After removing incomplete responses and individuals that did not meet the above criteria, the sample size was further reduced. The sample ultimately consisted of N = 179 employees (working at 140 different organizations), corresponding to a response rate of 51%.
Characteristics of research units
Respondents were aged between 18 and 75 (M = 46.91, SD = 14.31), of which 75.4% (n = 135) was male. Sample members had an average corporate tenure of 9.75 years (SD = 10.00). The number of employees ultimately ranged between 10 (the lower limit as discussed previously) and 400,000 (an employee of Shell), with a median value of 425. In total, 139 (77.7%) of these individuals worked full-time, versus 40 (22.3%) part-timers. The average working week was found to be 35.45 hours (SD = 9.03).
The sample consisted of relatively highly educated high ranked people with a division of 0 lower-, 19 middle-, 57 higher- and 103 university schooled respondents (resp. 0, 10.7, 31.8 and 57.5 percent). Furthermore, they were hierarchically speaking placed highly within the organization, 50.8% (n = 91) of respondents said they worked in a manager or supervisor position, versus 49.2% (n = 88) being “regular” employees.
Procedure
Participants received an invitation to join the study via email, in which they received a link to the online survey platform Qualtrics. The survey first showed a brief introduction
followed by an informed consent. The introduction explained what respondents could expect, how many questions the survey had and how long it would take to fully complete (7 minutes on average). On the same page the informed consent form discussed the emphasis on assuring the anonymity of all responses as well as explicitly asking for consent. The page ensured a voluntarily response and provided respondents with an e-mail address for any further questions.
The survey itself started with questions on demographics and work-related information consisting of age, sex, education, current organization tenure, workload and position in the company. Employees were then asked to give individual self-reports about their view on the different levels of task-conflict, diversity, internal communication climate and creativity within the organization. All statements on these four variables had to be rated on continuous seven point Likert scales.
The survey ended with thanking the respondents for their time and effort of participating in this study. They were again presented an e-mail address which they could contact for complementary information, or if they had any questions.
Observed variables
An overview of all constructs and items are presented in appendix 1. As the statistics in this table show, all scales used in this study had Cronbach’s alphas exceeding .70. These could not be further improved.
Diversity was measured by a total of 7 statements adopted from Rynes et al. (1995). A principal components factor analysis (PCA) based on orthogonal (Varimax) rotation was conducted. This showed a clear division of two separate components (resp. EV = 2.13 and 1.43) with a total variance explained of resp. 30.38 and 20.35 percent. Only the first factor was found to be reasonably reliable (resp. α = .71 and α = .37). The resulting three item scale comprised of only negatively formulated items, which were recoded to reflect a mirrored and therefore positive score on diversity. The items were descriptions of how the organization itself describes diversity: “A discriminatory activity against White Males”, “A source of
increased grievance activity” and “A politically correct term for affirmative action”.
Task-conflict was assessed using a 6-item scale adopted from Chatman and Jehn (1994) and Veldhoven et al. (1994). The PCA showed factor loadings into one component of
EV = 3.53 explaining 58.81% of the variance. Sample items for task-conflict include “To what extent are there differences of opinions regarding the task in your work group”, “How
frequently are there disagreements about the task you are working on in this work group” and
“How often do people in your work group disagree about the work being done” (α = .85). Creativity was measured as an individual (employee-level) reflection. Employees were asked how creative they are, and how they perceive themselves to be enabled in their creative processes. Two items on self-perceived levels of creativity were based on the concept of International Personality Item Pool (IPIP) of Carroll et al. (2009), leaving the other 6 items to be adapted from Tierney et al. (1999). The latter were reformulated to reflect a self-report of individually perceived work-creativity instead of being an employer report. Two exemplary items were: “I tend to generates novel, but operable work-related ideas”, and “I am able to
come up with new and different ideas”. Again, the PCA only showed one component (EV =
4.35), corresponding to 62.12% variance explained. The selection of 8 items was based on two existing scales in the literature and proved to be very reliable (α = .90). Creativity was ultimately controlled for employee education, tenure and function. Education was recoded into two categories, reflecting low versus high schooling history (0/1). Tenure was a discrete value reflecting the number of years the employee has worked for the current organization. Finally, function measured if the respondent had a management- or ‘regular’ position (again 0/1).
Finally, employees reflected on how they perceive the internal communication climate (ICC). Employees rated the organization’s ICC in terms of openness and trust in communication, the experience to have a say in the organization and the level of supportiveness and the feeling that one is being taken seriously. The items were selected and adopted from 15 communication climate measurement statements by Smidts et al. (2001). Smidts et al. have in turn compiled these 15 items from existing instruments of Dennis (1975); Alutto & Vredenburgh (1977); Downs & Hazen (1977); Falcione et al. (1987). Sample items for ICC include: “My superiors (colleagues, subordinates) are open and honest
towards me”, “In this organization, we have ample opportunity to have our say” and “Other members pay careful attention to what I have to say in this organization”. The conducted
PCA gave a single component of EV = 4.77 with 59.57% total variance explained. The ICC was ultimately measured by 7 statements and proved to be very reliable (α = .90).
Results Descriptive statistics and correlations
Table 1 provides an overview of all measured constructs. For reasons of comprehensibility, composite scores for creativity, ICC, task-conflict, diversity and all demographic and control variables are presented. On average, respondents scored relatively high on employee creativity, being above the midpoint of the seven-point scale (M = 5.10, SD 0.94). Regarding the expected antecedents of creativity, respondents scored an average of 5.90 (SD = 0.93) on diversity, whereas on the level of perceived task-conflict they only scored an average of 2.56 (SD = 0.78).
Table 1 also shows three variables (resp. education, tenure and function) significantly correlating to the dependent variable of creativity. This means that these variables were kept as constants to correctly assess the hypothesized relationships.
Further analyses reveal the only marginally significant effect of employee education on creativity; b = -.40, SE = .21, t = 1.84, p = .067, 95% CI[-.04, -.01]. Furthermore, tenure was significantly related to employee creativity b = -.03, SE = .01, t = -4.47, p < .001, 95%
CI[-.04, -.02]. This means that the longer someone has worked for the organization, the less
creative they become. The third and final control variable was employee function. Analyses show that the longer someone has worked for the organization, the less creative they become. This is illustrated by; b = -.73, SE = .13, t = -5.50, p < .001, 95% CI[-.99, -.47].
Test of the Model
To test H1 and H2, which assume a positive correlation between both diversity and task-conflict on creativity, a multiple regression analysis was conducted. As discussed above, these relationships were controlled for the respondents’ education, organizational tenure and function.
The direct association between diversity and creativity was found not to be significant, as illustrated by; b = -.07, SE = .07, t = -.96, p = .337, 95% CI[-.20, .07]. This shows that diversity does not predict creativity, meaning H1 is not supported.
Task-conflict was also not proven to have a significant positive association with creativity, b = .01, SE = .08, t = .07, p = .942, 95% CI [-.15, .17]. Since task-conflict does not significantly correlate with creativity, H2 is rejected.
In total, the effect of diversity and task-conflict combined explained 9% of the total variance in creativity F(1,37) = 2.71, p = .009, as indicated by an adjusted R² = .09. This means that the overall model is significant.
Moderating analysis - PROCESS
To test the moderating effect of the ICC on the relationship between diversity, task-conflict and creativity two separate moderating analysis were conducted using PROCES (model 1). These relationships were again controlled for education, organizational tenure, and function.
H3a assumed the positive relationship between diversity and creativity would be stronger for high levels of ICC. The overall model for diversity was significant F(6,168) = 8.52, p < .001, R² = .32. The PROCESS analysis revealed that diversity (b = -.11, t = -1.67, p = .097, 95% CI [-.23, .02]) did not significantly predict employee creativity. The ICC, however, did have a significant positive relationship with creativity, as illustrated by; b = .26,
t = 2.75, p = .007, 95% CI [.07, .45]. The interaction effect - measuring the effect of the
moderator ICC - showed no significant predictive value (b = -.09, t = -1.09, p = .275, 95% CI [-.26, .07]). This means that between low, medium and high levels of perceived ICC there is no relationship between diversity and creativity.
Secondly the same analyses were done for employee perceived task-conflict. H3a assumed the positive relationship between task-conflict and creativity to be stronger for high levels of ICC. For this analysis, the model as a whole again proved to be significant F(6,168) = 12.80, p < .001 R² = .33, explaining 33% of the total variance in creativity. Task-conflict (b = .14, t = 1.59, p = .114, 95% CI [-.03, .31]) did not prove to significantly predict employee creativity. In consolidation to the correlations table and first PROCESS analysis, the ICC (b = .35, t = 3.46, p = .001, 95% CI [.15, .55]) again significantly predicted creativity. The PROCESS analysis did not reveal a significant interaction effect (b = -.15, t = -1.77, p = .078, 95% CI [-.31, .02]), ultimately rejecting hypothesis H3b.
TABLE 1
Descriptive Statistics and Correlations for Composite Variables
Variables M SD 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 1. Diversity 5.90 .93 2. Task-Conflict 2.57 .78 .02 3. ICC 5.76 .90 -.13 -.40 ** 4. Creativity 5.10 .94 -.06 .00 .31 ** 5. Age 46.91 14.31 .11 -.08 -.05 .05 6. Sex .25 .43 .00 -.08 -.01 -.12 -.36 ** 7. Education .89 .31 .07 -.00 .02 .19* .25 ** -.18 * 8. Tenure 9.75 10.00 .00 -.03 -.09 -.21** .49 ** -.20 ** .14 9. # Employees 10594.73 40707.39 .15 .02 .01 -.03 .07 -.05 .07 .16 10. Contract .22 .42 -.08 -.06 .10 .05 -.40 ** .16 * -.12 -.40 ** -.03 11. # Working hours 35.45 9.03 .08 -.06 .07 .08 .25 ** -.26 ** .27 ** .22 ** .10 -.43 ** 12. Function .49 .50 .02 .02 -.05 -.36 ** -.39 ** .32 ** -.28 ** -.19 * -.07 .25 ** -.33 ** 13. View on diversity 2.66 1.47 .22 ** -.07 .11 .13 .28 ** -.07 .06 -.19 ** .17 * -.08 .13 -.29 **
14. Org. div. manager .92 .27 -.17 -.00 .10 .02 .02 -.00 -.00 -.20 * -.43 ** -.06 -.00 .05 -.17 *
Discussion
This study attempted to find answers to the question to what extent diversity and task-conflict are positively related to employee creativity, and whether the organizations’ internal communication climate (ICC) moderates this effect. In short, no direct- or moderating effects were discovered for the hypothesized relationships. Only the direct positive relationship between ICC and creativity proved to be significant. The results of this research and possible underlying explanations will be discussed below.
Hypotheses
In this study, no direct relationship among organization-wide positive views on diversity and perceived individual creativity was found. This is an unexpected result, since literature on this subject has proven to be equivocal in empirically supporting both negative and positive effects (Van Knippenberg et al., 2004). While some assume diversity will lead to inherently positive effects for organizations that see the benefits of this phenomenon (i.e. Csikszentmihalyi, 1988; Hargadon & Bechky, 2006; Kurtzberg & Amabile, 2001), other authors propose that diversity in the workplace can be destructive (i.e. Hofhuis et al., 2012; Kirton, 1989; Van Knippenberg et al., 2004). One of the main reasons the present study did not find any significant effects may be due to its contrasting way of measuring diversity. As Kirton (1989) illustrated, the more individual employees differ with respect to their backgrounds and creative problem-solving approaches, the harder it can become for a team to work together toward common goals. Diversity in the present study, however, was measured at the organization-level. The adopted scale from Rynes et al. (1995) used to assess the concept meant that it reflected how the employees perceived their organizations’ view on diversity. In other words, since the measurement was only concerned with how the organization defines diversity, no actual interpersonal differences (i.e. sex, ethnic background, nationality, religion) were taken into account.
In the present study, task-conflict did not predict creativity. In accordance to Kurtzberg & Amabile (2001), task-level conflict was hypothesized to have a positive effect. They found that because different views that clash and are being “fought” over, can bring new ideas by means of necessity. These authors argue this conflict needs to be kept specifically on the task-level, since relationship- and process-conflict indicates personal and coordination problems. However, I did not find supportive evidence of this relationship. The present study only revealed a relationship between task-conflict and the ICC. This suggests that when an
employee perceives high levels of task-conflict in the workplace, they will have a less positive view on the ICC and vice versa.
Even though the present study regarded diversity and task-conflict as two separate constructs, Kirton (1989) argues they could influence each other to a certain extent. He found that high levels of diversity among team members can potentially cause conflicts through communication and coordination difficulties. The present study, however, did not find a significant relationship between the two.
Although no interaction effect was found between the ICC and the two independent variables diversity and task-conflict, the analyses did support evidence of a relationship between the ICC and creativity. This means that when the ICC is perceived as open, employees feels they are being taken seriously (by both management and co-workers), and in which individuals feel to have a voice, they will perceive higher levels of creativity. This positive direct relationship between the ICC and creativity perhaps builds on research by Kivimaki et al. (2000) who found that the ICC predicts perceived innovation effectiveness, which they defined as involving both creativity and its implementation.
Implications for theory and practice
This study makes several contributions to theory and practice. First of all, the present study contributes to the field of communication by providing a new insight in what could be a new predictor for creativity, namely an organizations’ climate of internal communication. Previous studies have only related either the general communication climate (including internal and external focus) to creativity (i.e. Kurtzberg & Amabile, 2001), or the ICC to innovation (i.e. Clampitt & Downs, 1993; Kivimaki et al., 2000). One could argue that the finding from the present study tentatively relates to the research of Kivimaki et al. (2000). These researchers found an influence of communication and organization characteristics on an organization’s innovation performance. They conclude that managing a continuous flow of internal communication may increase organizational innovation. Again, this research had more to do with innovation itself rather than the concept of creativity and was conducted organization-wide instead of on the employee level.
My results point to a practical implication for managers, suggesting that they should take ICC into account when attempting to create an environment in which creative employee behavior can flourish. Yet, the ICC must not be instated forcefully. Communication practitioners must stay wary of Amabile’s (1996) theory, warning organizations not to exempt
too much control. This research demonstrated that individuals will produce much lower levels of creativity when they perceived their work environment as constraining or controlling.
Finally, for certain high-ranking companies the ‘biased’ sample from this study can provide insights in the relatively select group it contained. In other words, some companies would benefit from a narrowly defined target sample as only high-ranking managers in (Dutch) organizations. The present study presents that on average managers are less creative than their subordinates.
Limitations and future research
Whereas other scholars have found empirical evidence supporting the predictive values of diversity and task-conflict on creativity, this research did not find significant relationships between these concepts. When interpreting the results, several limitations should be considered.
First and foremost, mainly because of the convenient sampling method the study contained a heavily biased population. With regard to function, age, sex, and tenure, a homogenous sample of respondents was surveyed. To put this in perspective, the average respondent was male, had a high education and had a relatively high position in the organization. Therefore, the target-population (being all adolescent Dutch individuals working in an organization of at least 10 employees) was ultimately not correctly reflected in the current sample.
Secondly, all items in this study were translated from English to Dutch, possibly resulting in subtle changes to what they effectively measured. Although many of the variables proved to load into one factor, diversity had to be reworked extensively only to create a small scale of 3 items to become reliable. Building on this criticism, not all of the dimensions of diversity provided by Rynes et al. (1995) were used to measure the construct as a whole. As discussed earlier only organization-level reflections were included, not measuring actual employee diversity. This ultimately meant that because of an invalid measure for diversity, the present study did not find any relationship between diversity and creativity.
Third, the control variables of 1) education, 2) organizational tenure and 3) the position of the employee have proven to be directly correlated with creativity. The present study did not take into account individual levels of diversity or inclusion (perceived equal treatment of employees). Jansen et al. (2015) have argued that employee inclusion can be seen as a key factor in understanding how perceived diversity approaches relate to both affective and productive work outcomes such as creativity. In other words, this sub-dimension of
diversity could perhaps have added more depth to the concept. For reasons of comprehensiveness I would suggest future research on employee creativity to at least include the aforementioned measures, with the addition of employee self-perceived inclusion. Regarding the measurement of all other variables, the adapted scales used for assessing task-conflict, ICC and creativity again proved to be very reliable. This means that the present study found further supportive evidence suggesting these scales - to a certain extent - correctly measure these constructs. Consequently, I would advise future researchers who are interested in examining any of these phenomena to again use these measures.
Finally, the finding of this study revealing the direct positive correlation between ICC and creativity can be an interesting topic for researchers to further examine. I suggest that future researchers dive into the implications and precise workings of this finding since there was lack of previous research explicitly testing the effects of ICC on creativity in the workplace.
Conclusion
The conclusion that can be drawn from the findings presented before is that none of the hypotheses formulated in this research were proven to be significant. In other words, in the current study diversity and task-conflict have not proven to be significantly related to employee-level creativity. The moderating effect of the organizations’ ICC was also not supported.
However, one interesting significant direct effect was found of the organizations’ ICC on the levels of perceived individual creativity. This means that employees that feel trusted, heard, have faith in their peers and managers, and feel that they are being taken seriously will act more creatively in the context of organizations.
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Appendix 1
List of all statements and scales
Scale items
Cronb. alpha
Diversity .71
"De organisatie waarin ik werk ziet diversiteit over het algemeen als: ..."
- Een beperkende of discriminerende activiteit ten opzichte van blanke mannen
- Een bron van onenigheid
- Een politiek correcte term voor positieve discriminatie
Task-Conflict .85
In hoeverre is er verschil van mening over de taak in uw afdeling/werkgroep? Hoe vaak zijn mensen in uw afdeling/werkgroep het oneens over de werkzaamheden? Hoe vaak is er binnen uw afdeling/werkgroep een discussie over de uit te voeren taken? Heeft u meningsverschillen met collega’s over de inhoud van de taken?
Heeft u meningsverschillen met uw directe leiding over de inhoud van de taken? Moet u uw werk doen op een andere manier dan u zou willen?
Internal Communication Climate .90
Als mijn collega’s mij wat vertellen, dan vertrouw ik erop dat zij de waarheid spreken.
Als mijn direct leidinggevende mij iets vertelt, dan vertrouw ik erop dat hij/zij open en eerlijk is. In deze organisatie hebben we ruimschoots de gelegenheid om ‘ons zegje’ te doen.
Als je hier iets zegt, word je serieus genomen.
Als het hoger management ons iets vertelt (over hoe wij ons werk doen) dan vertrouw ik erop dat het de waarheid vertelt.
Mijn direct leidinggevende staat open voor suggesties die ik hem/haar voorleg. Mijn collega’s staan open voor de suggesties die ik hen voorleg.
Creativity .90
Ik demonstreer originaliteit in mijn werk.
Ik los problemen op waar anderen moeilijkheden mee hebben. Ik vind nieuwe toepassingen voor bestaande producten of processen. Tijdens mijn werk neem ik risico's door nieuwe ideëen uit te proberen.
Ik genereer nieuwe en uitvoerbare werk-gerelateerde ideëen. Ik genereer ideëen die revolutionair zijn in mijn vakgebied Ik ben in staat om vernieuwende en frisse ideëen aan te dragen.
Ik word door mijn collega’s beschouwd als hebbende vernieuwende en frisse ideëen.
Note: The original sample items are presented in Dutch. The untranslated and/or original
