The relationship between multicultural experience and creativity : do you really become more creative by engaging in multicultural experiences?

The relationship between multicultural experience and

creativity

Do you really become more creative by engaging in multicultural experiences? Charlotte Ornstein

Student id: 10165193 Date: 09.06.2015

Supervisor: Daniël Sligte Amount of words abstract: 127 Amount of words: 5861

Index

Abstract………..3

Multicultural experience and creativity, a positive relationship?..………4

1 Acculturation strategies……….7

1.1 Which acculturation strategy enhances creativity?...9

2 The mediators between multicultural experience and creativity………..10

3 Moderators of the relationship between multicultural experience and creativity……….14

4 Discussion & Limitations………..16

5 Practical implications………18

Abstract

In a technologically fuelled marketplace, where globalisation is becoming more and more predominant to business success, multicultural experiences are nowadays seen as an essential part of becoming more creative. The positive effect of multicultural experience on creativity is indeed supported by research. The aim of this paper is to examine the boundary conditions under which multicultural experience leads to an enhancement in creativity. Apparently, creativity is only enhanced when making use of an integration strategy. This is a strategy whereby someone identifies with both the host culture and the home country culture. The integration strategy enables cognitive flexibility and integrative complexity to occur, which both have a positive effect on creativity. Moderators of this effect will be discussed as well. Finally, limitations and practical implications are discussed.

Introduction: Multicultural experience and creativity, a positive relationship? “ The heart and soul of the company is creativity and innovation” – Bob Iger, CEO of the Walt Disney Company.

As Bob Iger already stated, creativity is essential for organizational survival. It causes the creation of knowledge and innovation, and can be seen as a crucial aspect of the long term-success of not only individual careers, but firms and nations as well (Benedek, Fink &

Neubauer, 2006). As a consequence, many people make the decision to work or study abroad. They have the idea that this will enhance their résumé. It makes them more creative and it ‘broadens’ the mind (www.globaljobbing.nl). However, this investment can be very costly, and therefore it is important to research how living abroad is exactly related to creativity. Research has indeed shown that there exists a positive relationship between

multicultural experience and creativity. Multicultural experience entails individuals who live abroad as well as individuals who are bicultural. These definitions will be later on discussed more extensively. Different researchers have found a positive effect of multicultural

experience on creativity. Chang, Hsu, Shih and Chen (2014) looked at the relationship

between being bicultural and creative. The aim of their research was to examine if adolescents from bicultural families performed better on creative tasks than adolescents from

monocultural families. According to their research, adolescents from bicultural families did outperform adolescents from monocultural families on creativity tasks. Leung and Chiu (2008) also concluded that multicultural experiences enhance creativity. Moreover, in their research, Tadmor, Satterstrom, Jang and Polzer (2012) found that when multiple individuals within a team had previously engaged in a multicultural experience, collective creativity was enhanced even more than when an individual on his own engaged in a multicultural

experience. Multiple employees in a team with multicultural experience had a superadditive effect on the creativity of the team. Thus, not only on an individual level, but as well on a group level, multicultural experience enhances creativity. But how can creativity actually be defined?

Amabile (1996) defined creativity as the ability to produce ideas that are novel and relevant. Fee and Gray (2012) state that people who are creative, have four different abilities: first, they can produce a large number of ideas in order to solve problems. This is ideational fluency. Second, they are able to produce uncommon or unexpected ideas. This is called originality. Third, they can elaborate on difficult matters and make these matters more

useable. For example; a mathematician is able to explain a difficult formula in a simple way to his student. Finally, creative people are able to re-frame problems and look at situations from different perspectives. This is cognitive flexibility. The four components mentioned define an individual’s creative abilities. Creativity results from either using one of those factors or the combination of them. The question remains why multicultural experience could enhance creativity.

When engaging in a multicultural experience, people learn about a new culture and their norms, values, customs, institutions and political systems. Therefore, there is rationale to believe those people will acquire a broader scope of information than people who have not engaged in those experiences. As a consequence, they are likely to produce a large number of ideas, come up with uncommon ideas, elaborate on difficult matters and are able to look at situations from different perspectives. Why this is exactly the case, will be discussed later on in this thesis.

What is multicultural experience exactly? In order to ascertain this answer, it is important to know how culture is defined. Culture can be defined as a set of ideas and practices produced and reproduced by a network of interconnected individuals (Leung, Maddux, Galinsky & Chiu, 2008). Multicultural experience refers to all direct and indirect experiences of encountering or interacting with the elements and/or members of foreign cultures (Leung et al., 2008). However, in this essay, multicultural experience is defined in a slightly different way. The definition maintained in this essay has two elements; people who have lived abroad and people who are bicultural. First of all, I take into account individuals who have lived abroad for a minimum of six months. This entails students who have studied abroad and expatriates, people who spend a certain period of time working and living in a foreign country (Fee & Gray, 2012). Many researchers confirm that there is a positive relationship between time spent living abroad and creativity (Maddux & Galinsky, 2009; Leung et al., 2008). However, it has remained unclear what the exact necessary amount of time living abroad is in order to enhance creativity. Many researchers use studying abroad as a measure of living abroad. This is one semester, thus I will use a period of six months as a threshold for the definition of living abroad (Leung et al, 2008; Maddux & Galinsky, 2009). In order to let creativity occur, individuals need to deeply immerse themselves in a foreign country. When someone is living abroad, that person has many incentives and opportunities to let cognitive and behavioural changes occur. When travelling, on the other hand, it is not necessary to change one’s cognitive perceptions in order to navigate through the country (Leung et al, 2008). Therefore, travelling will not be discussed as it does not have a

relationship with creativity.

Besides people who have lived abroad, biculturals also engage in multicultural experiences. Those are people who have experienced and internalized more than one culture (Benet-Martínez, Leu, Lee & Morris, 2002). This could be, for example, people who have parents with different nationalities. They also are exposed to a wide range of information, due to their knowledge of both cultures. A critical note to this definition is that it is important that, whenever people engage in a multicultural experience, the two cultures are perceived as distant from each other. When the cultures are too similar, there is no new knowledge

acquired, since the knowledge probably is not new to the person engaging in the multicultural experience. The moderating effect of perceived cultural distance will be discussed later on in this thesis. In conclusion, people who have lived abroad for a minimum of six months and people who are bicultural will both be incorporated into the definition of multicultural experience.

Now that it is clear that multicultural experience is positively related to creativity (Chang et al., 2014; Leung et al., 2008; Tadmor et al., 2012), the question remains if multicultural experience always leads to enhanced creativity. Therefore, this thesis will investigate the boundary conditions under which multicultural experience leads to high creativity. Firstly, I will discuss the acculturation model of Berry (1997), which suggests that creativity is only enhanced when one certain strategy is being used. Secondly, I will delve into the mediation processes by which multicultural experience leads to creativity. Finally, I will look at some important moderators that influence this positive relationship.

1. Acculturation strategies

As previously mentioned, when people engage in a multicultural experience, their frame of reference is enlarged. They learn more about a new culture and therefore learn a lot of new information. But what do they actually do once they have acquired this new information? Berry (1997) suggested that people have different ways of dealing cognitively with those new cultures and in turn, invented acculturation strategies. The use of those strategies can have large consequences for the way they deal with all this new information. Therefore, it is important to examine those strategies closely. In this paragraph, Berry’s (1997) acculturation strategies are discussed first. Second, the rationale behind the difference in acculturation strategies is discussed. Finally, the strategy that enhances creativity will be discussed as perhaps the most important area of his theory. Now, I turn to the theory of acculturation strategies.

Berry (1997) stated that when people get in touch with the culture of a host country, they make use of acculturation strategies. Acculturation strategies are the individual changes in behaviours, attitudes, values and customs, that are due to long-term contact between cultures. Berry created a model for this (fig 1). On one end of the axis the maintenance of the own culture is described and the other end of the axis describes in to what extent the person should become involved in other cultural groups, or only stay with his own group.

Fig 1.

There are four different strategies that are used; namely integration, assimilation, separation and marginalization. Integration means identifying with both the host culture and the home culture identity. People who use this strategy are called biculturals (this is not the same as bicultural individuals who possess two different cultural identities). The second strategy is assimilation, whereby someone completely identifies with the host country culture and rejects his own home country culture. Separation is the opposite of assimilation; it entails completely rejecting the host country culture and only identifying with the home country culture. The final strategy is that of marginalization; in this case someone identifies very little with his new and very little with his old culture. In summary, people make use of different acculturation strategies when they have a multicultural experience, and the difference in those strategies lead to different outcomes of creativity. However, this model does not seem to be complete.

A missing point in Berry’s model is the lack of a description of why people differ in acculturation strategies. Tadmor and Tetlock (2006) argue that this is due to differences in accountability. This is the need to justify your thoughts and actions to people who are

important to you. People experience accountability pressure because they have a fundamental need for social approval. Accountability can come in different forms: a single audience,

where people share the same perspectives, and a mixed audience, whereby there are at least two different cultural perspectives. When people are only accountable to a single audience, where there are only people from their own culture, they will adopt a separation strategy. An example of this is to only have Chinese friends as a Chinese person. On the other hand, when the audience consists only of people from the host culture, it is likely that an assimilation strategy will be adopted. Hereby, for instance, a Chinese person only has American friends. When people are accountable to a mixed audience, they will adopt an integration strategy. An example of this is a Chinese person who has Chinese and American friends. People who are accountable to a mixed audience, experience high cognitive dissonance; they want to get rid of this cognitive dissonance, and this can only be done by deeply processing the cognitive schemas of both cultures and thus attempt to integrate both cultures.

It can be concluded that people differ cognitively in which manner they deal with new cultures. This depends on the audience they are accountable for. Since the differences in cognitive processes define the level of creativity when engaging in a new culture, one can question if there is a strategy that enhances creativity the most.

As might be expected, these strategies are not applicable to biculturals, since they do not have one specific home country culture and one host country culture. They can feel as if they belong equally to both cultures. They do differ in their Bicultural Identity Integration (Benet-Martínez & Haratitos, 2005). This means that they can either perceive an overlap or a lack of overlap between their two cultures (Saad, Damian, Benet-Martínez, Moons & Robins, 2013). These differences and their effect on creativity will also be taken into account. For now, it is important to figure out which strategy enhances creativity.

Which acculturation strategy enhances creativity?

As mentioned previously, people who make use of the integration strategy, identify both with the host country culture and the home country culture. In order to let creativity occur, it is important to incorporate the information that has been acquired from the new culture together with the information from the home culture. This will enable them to produce uncommon ideas. People that use the separation strategy as well as the assimilation strategy only adjust to one culture. The marginalization strategy does not adjust to any culture. All those three strategies therefore have a loss of information since they do not acquire

information from both cultures. Therefore, there is rationale to believe that only the use of the integration strategy will lead to enhanced creativity. This finding is supported by research and will be discussed in the following section.

Research does support the notion that only the use of the integration strategy leads to enhanced creativity. People who make use of the integration strategy score higher on

creativity tasks than people who use the other strategies (Tadmor, Galinsky & Maddux, 2012). The notion that integration can be seen as the most successful strategy, is supported by further research. The integration of two cultures has a positive relationship with creativity (Cheng, Burks & Lee, 2008). If an individual has a high level of identity integration, he sees his two cultural identities as congruent instead of opposing each other (Benet-Martinez & Haratitos, 2005). This is exactly what someone does who makes use of an integration

strategy; he blends his two cultures together and takes out aspects from both cultures in order to make them compatible. Even more research has supported the notion that when biculturals blend their two cultures together, enhanced creativity takes place (Saad et al., 2013).

That said, it could be concluded that the integration strategy seems to be the most successful strategy to enhance creativity. The other strategies do not have a positive relationship with creativity. The positive relationship between the integration strategy and creativity is due to the accountability pressure that those people perceive. They are

accountable to a mixed audience. This causes cognitive dissonance, and in order to get rid of this, they need to deeply process the cognitive schemas of both cultures, thereby integrating both cultures. When this happens, enhanced creativity occurs. They adopt different

perspectives and need to integrate them as a whole.

In summary, it seems to be the case that the use of an integration strategy is a premise for a positive relationship between multicultural experience and creativity (Tadmor et al., 2012; Cheng et al., 2008). Furthermore, I suggest that integration is similar to high Bicultural Identity Integration as they both enable the two cultures to become compatible. Biculturals that score high on Bicultural Identity Integration, are able to identify with both the cultures and do not view those cultures as conflicting (Chen, Benet-Martínez & Bond, 2008). Thus, only individuals who make use of this strategy will become more creative. But what are the cognitive processes that actually take place, when this strategy is adopted? The following paragraph will look into the mediating processes in the positive relationship between multicultural experience and creativity.

2. The mediators between multicultural experience and creativity In the previous paragraph, it was mentioned that multicultural experiences enable more information to become available to the individual. When an individual gets in touch with a new culture, he learns about their ways of thinking, priorities and habits. Thus, someone who

engages in a multicultural experience, has much more information available than someone who does not encounter this experience. However, there is only an increase in information when someone makes use of an integration strategy and thus actively integrates the new information with the existing information. But what does happen when someone makes use of this strategy and what is the impact on creativity? In order to let creativity occur, it is

important to make uncommon combinations (Fee & Gray, 2012). In multicultural experience, this could be done by combining and integrating multiple perspectives from both cultures. This is called integrative complexity. Furthermore, in order to make uncommon

combinations, it is important as well to switch between the new knowledge that is obtained in the new culture, and the knowledge already obtained in the old culture. This is called

cognitive flexibility. Integrative complexity as well as cognitive flexibility enable creativity to occur, thus they are the mediators in the relationship between multicultural experience and creativity. Both those processes and their effects are further explained in the following paragraphs.

First of all, in order to let integrative complexity as well as cognitive flexibility occur, the deep processing of information is necessary. When individuals in a multicultural

experience pay close attention to new stimuli (and thereby process information deeply), this can lead to permanent changes in the brain, making novel connections (Maddux, Adam & Galinsky, 2010). Therefore, the integration strategy is a premise for the enhancement of creativity. However, there is more needed to let creativity occur.

Integrative complexity is the first process that enables creativity to occur. This is a capacity to process information, and involves considering and combining multiple

perspectives. Therefore, more connections between ideas are made and, as a consequence, new ideas are created. People who make use of the integration strategy are more actively processing cognitive conflicting mental frameworks than people who do not make use of this strategy (Tadmor, Tetlock & Peng, 2009). This is because they experience accountability pressure to a mixed audience. This results in the appearance of those cognitive conflicting mental frameworks. In order to get rid of their cognitive dissonance, they will put a lot of effort into the integration of those frameworks. On the other hand, when individuals learn more about their own culture, their knowledge becomes deeply ingrained and automatized (Chiu & Hong, 2013). This helps those individuals to make sense of their environment and coordinate their behaviours with people from their own culture. Therefore, it is likely that many people prefer to adopt an assimilation or separation strategy. However, only adapting to one culture often results in stereotypical thought processes. Biculturals automatically inhibit

stereotypical information, and as a consequence they have a more divergent thought process (Crisp & Turner, 2011). Due to those conflicting mental frameworks, individuals have the opportunity to engage in those deep thought processes and therefore become more creative. An example of integrative complexity can be illustrated in the following way; on an episode of the popular Dutch television show about different cultures called ‘Metropolis’, a Muslim man in the Netherlands wanted to make a traditional Dutch sausage bun with halal meat. He loved sausages buns, but they were only available with pork in them. Therefore, he came to this invention. This is a typical example of integrative complexity; by balancing out

inconsistent cognitions this man was encouraged to think deeply about the integration of those two cultures. Thus, integrative complexity seems to be one of the mediators of the positive relationship. But this is not the only mediating process in the positive relationship between multicultural experience and creativity. Even though integrative complexity enables the generation of more uncommon ideas, this process does not enable someone to switch between cognitive frameworks, thereby making more easily novel, previously, unrelated connections.

This does happen through the mediating process of cognitive flexibility.

Research supports the existence of this mediating process. There appears to be a causal link between diversifying experiences, these are active involvements in an unusual event (thus what people do when they make use of an integration strategy) and cognitive flexibility (Ritter et al., 2012). This is the ability to break old cognitive patterns, overcome functional fixedness, and therefore make novel associations between concepts. Thus, cognitive flexibility also seems to be a mediator in the relationship between multicultural experiences and creativity. Fee & Gray (2012) confirm the existence of this mediator. In their research, they focused on expatriates. According to them, when people live abroad they take cultural cognitive maps along with them. These cognitive maps however, do not work in this new culture. Therefore, those one-dimensional routes are replaced by multiple schemes and as a result, novel situations are processed more flexibly as one can switch quicker from one scheme to the other. Creativity and cognitive flexibility are positively related, and experience living abroad is positively related to overall creative thinking. Enhanced cognitive flexibility helps to let creativity occur in the experience of living abroad. This idea is supported by more research; Maddux, Adam and Galinsky (2010) state as well that there is a positive relationship between multicultural experience and creativity and that this is also due to cognitive

flexibility. On a side note, they state, that this is strongest when the multicultural experience is a learning experience and when this learning experience is made salient again. Reactivating multicultural experiences enables the reactivation of those cognitive and behavioral scripts

that occurred in the initial experience (Maddux et al., 2010). Priming a multicultural experience will not be beneficial for someone who has not had a multicultural experience previously, since the experience has to be available in the person’s memory.

Overall, it can be concluded that integrative complexity and cognitive flexibility both enhance creativity. They operate in a slightly different way; integrative complexity accepts the competing perspectives on the same issues and makes links between those perspectives (Crisp & Turner, 2011). So the mind is literally broadened by new links that are created. On the other hand, cognitive flexibility enables the mind to constantly switch between two cognitive schemas, since it has learned that the two cultures cannot be completely congruent (Maddux et al, 2010; Fee et al., 2012). Thus, integrative complexity causes the development of multiple links and cognitive flexibility causes the quick movement between those links. However, they do have in common that they both accept the competing perspectives between the cultures. In the following scheme (fig 2) the whole process from multicultural experience to enhanced creativity is displayed.

Fig 2.

In summary, when the integration strategy is being used, the deep processing of information causes cognitive flexibility and integrative complexity to occur, and therefore the individual’s level of creativity is enhanced. This is even more enhanced when the

multicultural experience is made salient again (Maddux et al., 2010). And yet, people who do make use of the integration strategy are not always resistant against moderators that influence this relationship. Perceived cultural distance, cognitive closure and Openness to Experience all have a great impact on the positive relationship. Therefore, those moderators are discussed in the following section.

Multicultural

experience Integration strategy

Integrative complexity & cognitive flexibility Enhanced creativity

3. Moderators of the relationship between multicultural experience and creativity Even though multicultural experience does enhance creativity when making use of the

integration strategy, there are several factors that can decrease or increase this positive effect. Personality as well as other variables may play a bigger role than might be expected. In their meta-analysis, Leung, Maddux, Galinsky and Chiu (2008) pointed out the most common ones, namely perceived cultural distance, Openness to Experience and cognitive closure. The first one to be discussed is perceived cultural distance, since this variable seems to play an exceptionally moderating role in the process.

Perceived cultural distance

When someone from the United Kingdom decides to study abroad in Australia, that person will encounter some cultural differences. For example, in Australia they have the unique tradition to play the game ‘two-up’ on Anzac Day, the national Memorial Day for soldiers. On the other hand, there are also many similarities between those two cultures. Given the information previously discussed, is multicultural experience enough to let

enhanced creativity occur, even when the two cultures are quite alike? Research suggests it is not. Therefore the effect of perceived cultural distance is discussed. But what is perceived cultural distance exactly?

Perceived cultural distance can be defined as a difference measure between individuals of the perceived discrepancies between one culture and the other (Cheng & Leung, 2012). This is different from Hofstede’s (1980) definition of cultural distance whereby the extent into which the shared norms and values in one country differ from those in the other are measured (Drogendijk & Slangen, 2006). Thus, I focus on the perceptions of the individual. When people have a multicultural experience, they engage in the processing of information from two different cultures. These cultures have to be quite distinct from each other. If they are not very distinct, the cognitive frameworks of both cultures are in many aspects similar. Therefore the deep processing of incompatible cognitive frameworks is not necessary and thus does not enhance creativity. Furthermore, research stresses as well the importance of the person adopting a dissimilar mindset; thus someone has to look at the differences between the cultures, in order to enhance creativity (Cheng & Leung, 2012). When someone views the two cultures as very similar, it is unlikely that the person will need to make use of divergent thinking to combine the cultures. A lack of divergent thinking causes automatic processing of information and therefore does not cause creative thinking.

other (Tadmor & Tetlock, 2006). Thus, it will remain unclear when this is exactly the case. For now, it is important that the individual perceives the cultures as distinct enough and is able to see dissimilarities between both cultures. Besides perceived cultural distance,

personality factors play a moderating role in the relationship between multicultural experience and creativity as well. Those will be discussed in the next part.

Need for cognitive closure

Getting into a new culture is accompanied with receiving a lot of new information, and this new information is not always immediately comprehensible. People who score high on Need For Cognitive Closure (NFCC), the propensity for individuals to prefer firm answers and to dislike ambiguities, have a preference for cultural conventions (Fu et al., 2007). This will make them less receptive to foreign ideas, and as a consequence this will cause a negative relationship with creativity. The experience of encountering a new culture can work as a double-edged sword. People can either become very excited and interested in the new culture, or they can become frightened by all those new experiences (Leung et al, 2008). This is especially the case for people high on NFCC; it is impossible to immediately understand the new culture, causing a lack of cognitive closure. Research states that time pressure activates the need for firm answers (Leung & Chiu, 2010). When there is time pressure, and therefore NFCC enhances, people resist ideas from other cultures. This makes it very difficult to integrate the two cultures; people are not willing to even learn from a new culture. This will, most likely, lead to a separation strategy, and this will not lead to intensive cognitive

processing, and thus not to creativity. In conclusion, it can be stated that the need for

cognitive closure has detrimental effects on creativity. NFCC can either be a personality trait or it can be activated by time pressure. Need for cognitive closure is probably negatively related to openness to experience, because when someone wants to hold on to cultural conventions, it is not very likely that that person will be open to new experiences. The effect of openness to experience on the relationship between multicultural experience and creativity, will be examined in the next part.

Openness to experience

Much research argues there is a positive relationship between openness to experience and creativity (McCrae, 1987; George & Zhou, 2001). However, is there a positive

relationship as well when the relationship between multicultural experience and creativity is taken into account? Research indeed suggests there is. People who score high on the Big 5 personality trait Openness to Experience, appreciate novel ideas and experiences and are

interested in interpreting multiple perspectives (Leung & Chiu, 2008). This will lead to a positive relationship with creativity in a multicultural experience; the individual is willing to learn new ideas, makes use of divergent thinking, and thus becomes more creative. Open individuals have the tendency to be flexible when they are in uncertain situations, making them easy to adapt to the new situation (Fugate, Kinicki & Ashforth, 2004).

Unfortunately, people who have a high need for cognitive closure and who are not very open to new experiences remain even more in their old cognitive patterns than people who are solely not very open to new experiences or have a high need for cognitive closure. As a consequence, those people exhibit even less creative behavior. But not only Openness to Experience and need for cognitive closure are related, but Openness to Experience and perceived cultural distance are related as well. How those concepts are exactly related, is discussed in the final section.

The interaction between openness to experience and perceived cultural distance People who are not open to new experiences, experience their own culture as very different from their new culture (Benet-Martínez & Haritatos, 2005). They may believe that it is not possible to combine their two identities together. This creates high perceived cultural distance, but in such a way, that people view the cultures in more simplistic ways, because the ‘two cultures can not be congruent’. Thus, being not open to new experiences could enhance perceived cultural distance, and in this case, decrease creativity.

Openness to Experience, perceived cultural distance and need for cognitive closure are all factors that influence the relationship between multicultural experience and creativity. This is either in a positive way through highly perceived cultural distance (Cheng & Leung, 2012) and Openness to Experience (Leung & Chiu, 2008) or in a negative way through need for cognitive closure (Leung & Chiu, 2010). Those factors can even influence each other and have an even more extreme effect on creativity. Thus, even if someone engages in the integration strategy, creativity will not automatically occur. Personality traits and the perceived cultural distance have a bigger impact than many researchers previously expected. In conclusion it can be stated that the positive relationship between multicultural experience and creativity is affected by moderators.

Discussion & Limitations

This overview had the aim to examine the boundary conditions under which multicultural experience leads to enhanced creativity. Even though research supports the notion that

multicultural experience leads to enhanced creativity, the relationship is not as simple as might be expected. The occurrence of creativity depends on the strategy someone uses when encountering those new cultural experiences. Only the use of the integration strategy will lead to an enhancement in creative thinking. When someone makes use of this strategy, he

broadens the mind by linking the cultures, thereby creating unconventional concepts. This causes cognitive flexibility and integrative complexity to occur. Those processes directly enhance creativity. Even when using this strategy, creativity is not always enhanced as there are different moderating effects. When two cultures are too similar, it is not necessary to engage in deep processing and therefore creativity is not enhanced. Furthermore, someone has to be open to this new experience, and should not have the urge to completely understand everything immediately (thus have a high need for cognitive closure). Moreover, when being not very open to new experiences and experiencing a high need for cognitive closure, the effects of multicultural experience on creativity can diminish even further. Finally, when someone is not very open to new experiences, he sees the two cultures as incongruent of each other, thereby experiencing such a high level of perceived cultural distance, that he sees the two cultures as incompatible. One should note that one moderator could have strong effects on the other moderators, thereby reducing the positive effect of multicultural experience on creativity even more. Unfortunately, the literature this relationship is based on, is not free from limitations. Those are discussed in the next section of this thesis.

Limitations

The relatively new field of research on this topic, is far from complete. Certain shortcomings of this research will now be discussed. In this overview, biculturals and people who have lived abroad were merged into the definition of living abroad. However, there seems to be a problem with the conceptualization of biculturals. Existent literature has not made a clear definition of biculturalism and has not been able to demarcate this concept. For example, bilingualism and biculturalism have not been segregated, although it is very likely that they affect each other. Therefore, future research should closely examine the distinction between being bicultural and bilingual. This would help in finding out what exactly the effect is of being bicultural on creativity. For now, it is difficult to decide if it is truly being bicultural that causes creativity to enhance.

Another point of criticism is the relationship between the mediators and creativity. Do those mediators fully explain enhanced creativity? Fee and Gray (2012) found in their

flexibility. This means that the construct of creativity entails more than this. When engaging in a multicultural experience, fluency, elaboration and originality do not seem to influence creativity. Thus, it could be possible that the previous articles have made hasty conclusions about the positive relationship. Future research should closely examine if multicultural experience also enhances specifically fluency, elaboration and creativity. On the other hand, I wrote in my definition of creativity that only the use of one of those factors could already lead to an enhancement in creativity. Fee and Gray (2012) may have been stricter with this

definition than other researchers.

Finally, in the existent literature, the conceptualizations of the mediating processes are described differently, even though they seem to state the same. For example, in Leung et al. (2008) they describe the existence of conceptual expansion. Hereby, attributes of seemingly irrelevant concepts are added to an already existing concept. This is similar to the mediator of integrative complexity. Saad et al. (2013) stated that ideational fluency, which is the greater generation of ideas, was the mediator. This is comparable to integrative complexity as well. Future research should stress the importance of finding one appropriate name for both those mechanisms, thereby reducing the confusion over this subject. All in all, the research on the positive relationship between multicultural experience and creativity is far from complete. It should make a clear distinction between biculturalism and bilingualism, it should more closely examine the mediators in this process and as well define clear conceptualizations for those mediators. However, the existent literature is a promising starting point for not only future research, but also for practice. Some implications for practice will be addressed in the final part of this thesis.

Practical implications

The positive relationship between multicultural experience and creativity has great implications for practice. Companies that aim to get a stronger position in the global economy, should keep in mind that simply sending their employees to another country will not immediately make them more creative. Training those employees in the cognitive processes that take places, thereby stressing the importance of adopting an integration

strategy, could help individuals to become more creative and therefore more successful. After letting those individuals encounter multicultural experiences, it is important to keep those multicultural experiences salient. This could be done by organizing frequent meetings where those experiences are discussed. Finally, when selecting individuals for a globally-oriented

company it is important to base the selection as well on personality traits as Openness to Experience as on a low need for cognitive closure. Moreover, companies are advised to hire biculturals and encourage them to integrate their identities. In conclusion, simply being

brought up bicultural or having encountered in multicultural experience is not enough to make you more creative, the way you cognitively deal with it will ultimately make the difference.

List of literature

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