How can a firm stimulate creativity through task motivation among employees?

How can a firm stimulate creativity through

task motivation among employees?

6171761 Ritesh Tikai

Amsterdam Business School

Business Administration – Entrepreneurship & Innovation track Dr. W. van der Aa

29 June 2015

Statement of Originality

This document is written by Student Ritesh Tikai who declares to take full responsibility for the contents of this document.

I declare that the text and the work presented in this document is original and that no sources other than those mentioned in the text and its references have been used in creating it.

The Faculty of Economics and Business is responsible solely for the supervision of completion of the work, not for the contents.

Abstract

With this paper I attempted to make a distinction between several ways of (de)motivating creativity. This led to the following research question: “How can a firm stimulate creativity through task motivation amongst employees?” The research was conducted as a case study at the headquarters of Rabobank in Utrecht, the Netherlands. For this research 10 participants of the Human Resources Department were interviewed. To find an answer to the research question a conceptual framework was developed with help of the KEYS-Scales. This framework consist of positive intrinsic motivation, negative intrinsic motivation, positive extrinsic motivation and negative extrinsic motivation.

Academic literature points out intrinsic motivation is more important than extrinsic motivation in stimulating creativity. To come up with new ideas an employee must have a deep interest for the subject. My findings are for a great part confirmed by the literature. This paper shows that employees who are challenged positively are eager to do their job the best they can. This stimulates intrinsic positive motivation. However, they need constructive feedback on their work and ideas. Not receiving enough feedback will form a negative impact on the motivation to be creative. If they don’t have the feeling their manager has interest in their work and creative solutions, they will stop thinking of new ideas. This explains how intrinsic positive behaviour and intrinsic negative behaviour relate to each other.

Table of content

Introduction 4

Literature review 5

Method 11

Results 19

Analyses & Discussion 32

Conclusion 36

Limitations & Further Research 38

Managerial Implications 39

References 41

Appendix 44

Introduction

Businesses can benefit from creative employees. In the academic literature one can find several ways to stimulate creativity amongst employees. Stimulating creativity plays an important role in the search for innovation ( Amabile, 1996a; Oldman et al., 1996). Some individuals can be considered as more creative than others. Those individuals have specific skills and have the capability to use both parts of the brains, of ratio and creativity (Christensen et al., 2009). However, skills are not all that is needed for creativity. Motivation is one of the ways to increase creativity (Amabile, 1996; Oldman, 1996; Woodman et al., 1993).

Rabobank has foreseen a problem for the company within the coming decades. The conditions in which Rabobank operates are in a transition (Van Wijk & Van Den Bosch, 2000). In order to survive, the company must consider changing current direction. Rabobank may consider attracting different kind of personnel. Instead of the regular banking professionals, the bank can attract more creative professionals. However, is it necessary to attract new people? It may be so that the current employees have the right skills, but are not motivated the right way (Wrzesniewski & Dutton, 2001) . This paper will investigate the current stimulation of creativity through task motivation (Amabile, 1996; Woodman et al., 1993; Ahmed, 1998; Scheider et al., 1996). This research is designed to answer the question: How can a firm stimulate creativity through task motivation among employees?

Purpose

This paper will try to explain the relationship between task motivation and creativity for employees. First, this paper will look at the definition of creativity and what components are needed to form creativity. Next, this paper will look at what influences task motivation and how task motivation specifically can affect the forming of creativity. This research paper states the benefits of increasing creativity through task motivation.

This leads to the following research question: How can a firm stimulate creativity through task motivation among employees?

The sub questions to answer the research question are: - What is creativity?

- In what ways can task motivation influence creativity?

Literature review

- What is creativity?

This sub question will first explain the meaning of creativity in business. This will be followed with the explaining of the factors that form creativity.

If managers desire more creative employees, they could hire more creative people. They could deliberately influence the recruitment process to find such employees (Taylor & Bergman, 1987). However, how does a manager know what makes an employee creative? And if a manager knows what creativity is, could he not trigger creativity in his current employees? One way to recognize creativity is by consensual assessments (Amabile, 1996a) observers that decide what creativity is within the specific field by pointing out what is of the ordinary. Nevertheless, they just observe. They do not actively help define creativity. Boden (1995) explains how creativity is not just a process of conceptual restructuring, but also process where an individual makes incremental steps under full awareness to solve a problem. Amabile (1996a) defines creativity as “the production of novel and useful ideas in any domain”. Woodman et al. (1993) looks more specifically to creativity within the organization and explains organizational creativity as “the creation of a valuable, useful new product, service, idea, procedure, or process by individuals working together in a complex social system. This paper will focus on those individuals. Woodman explains how organizational creativity is formed through group creativity, which in its turn is decided through the creativity of individuals. The creativity of individuals is formed by four factors: Knowledge, personality, cognitive abilities and intrinsic motivation. This paper will focus on motivation specifically, but to give a better

understanding all four factors will be shortly explained. Firstly, knowledge is explained as a domain relevant skills. These skills are also seen as

1996a) With factual knowledge an individual may be in possession of knowledge that will grant him to recognize opportunities within that field. He can also choose to search actively for opportunities Shane (2000) explains this as using prior knowledge to discover new ideas. Akin (1990) confirms this and explains expertise not only helps to recognize creative solutions, but also to restructure the domain within the provided solution. Expertise can even turn creative acts into procedural knowledge. Akin describes the aim of procedural knowledge as ”to sustain a certain qualitative end through the production of a continuous stream of novel performances or which cannot be accomplished by others with the same skill or ease”. This definition points out the part where performances are not

accomplished by others, which makes the performance unique. Creativity can be seen as offering solutions that other would not think of or not able to think of.

Secondly, personality can be linked to creativity. Barron and Harrington (1981) point out that creative employees have certain characteristics. These characteristics are : high valuation of aesthetic qualities in experience, broad interests, attraction to complexity, high energy, independence of judgment, autonomy and intuition. Recognizing and stimulating these characteristics can increase the chance on recognizing creative individuals.

Thirdly, cognitive abilities also help form creativity (Woodman et al., 1993). Amabile ( 1996) describes creative thinking skills as “something extra”. This extra may result from personal traits, experiences in other fields, social skills and cognitive abilities. Cognitive abilities is seen as the understanding of complexities and the ability to solve problems. This should however not be confused with intelligence. Guilford ( 1986) explains that intelligence and creativity have a low correlation. Torrence (1966) developed the Torrence Test of Creative Thinking (TTCT) to test the creative thinking abilities of individuals. This test consists of four scales: Fluency, the number of useful ideas you can think of in an instant. Flexibility, the number of ideas that can be put in a similar group. Originality, which involves the uniqueness of the idea. And finally, there is Elaboration, which discusses how detailed an idea is. Guiltford (1986) agrees and points out these four scales also involve divergent thinking. Divergent thinking gives an individual the possibility to come up with creative ideas through several solutions. This paper will take in account both the concept of creative thinking an divergent thinking to explain creativity of individuals within an organization.

Finally, intrinsic motivation can play an important role In forming creativity. Amabile (1996) describes motivation in intrinsic and extrinsic values. Intrinsic motivation is explained as a deep interest for the work. Intrinsic motivation is important, because it has the ability to let employees go further than they would normally go (Organ, 1988). Amabile (1998) points out that from the components (expertise, creative thinking skills and motivation), motivation less difficult and time consuming to change. Motivation is explained as the factor that can most easily be changed out of all four factors (Woodman, 1993). As mentioned earlier, this paper will look deeper into intrinsic motivation in the next sub question to help explain in what ways intrinsic motivation can influence creativity. Next to intrinsic motivation this paper will also include extrinsic motivation as stimulator of creativity.

This sub question helped explain the perspective on creativity in this paper. Furthermore, four factors were explained that help form creativity. Out of all factors, motivation is the factor that can be changed most easily to stimulate creativity.

- In what ways can task motivation influence creativity?

This sub question will first explain motivation intrinsically and extrinsically and their effect on creativity. Next, this sub question will show the influence of stimulating behaviour on task motivation and behaviour that can work negatively on task motivation. Furthermore, this paper will show how an increase in task motivation can lead to an increase in creativity.

Amabile (1998) explains how a firm has direct influence on creativity and innovation by choosing how to motivate, reward and assign people. Yet, some managers have difficulties stimulating creativity and often even kill it within the company. Reasons for killing creativity is to increase productivity and gain more control over tasks. However, when firms do stimulate creativity positively, they will be able to profit from it.

In this paper we will focus on motivation as one of the factors needed to get creativity. Motivation can be described as behaviour people undertake and persist on under various

circumstances (Atkinson, 1958). Motivation can be divided in intrinsically and extrinsically. Intrinsic motivation is motivation that an employee can get out of his work. Hackman & Oldman (1976)

describe how individuals can be motivated intrinsically in their jobs if the psychological state for doing the jobs is present. The characteristics of the job and needed resources can create the

psychological state of creating a deep interest in the job. However intrinsic motivation is more than this. It can be described as their passion and interest. Intrinsic motivated employees are driven by this passion and find joy in their tasks. Intrinsic motivation, with deep interest as its main driver, will make people more creative. This is described as the ‘Intrinsic motivation principle of

creativity’(Amabile, 1998). Amabile (1996b) compared projects of high creativity with projects of low creativity. Projects of high creativity showed higher results on Challenging Work (M=3.25), Managerial Encouragement (M=3.12), Work Group Supports (M=3.30) and Organizational Encouragement (M=2.83). Projects of lower creativity showed higher results on Organizational Impediments (M=3.83). These involve competition, risk taking, processes and structure. Workload Pressure and Sufficient Resources were perceived as equal in projects of high creativity and low creativity(Amabile et al., 1999).

Intrinsic motivation is also strongly correlated with empowerment. Empowerment gives employees the authority to make decisions. Empowerment is seen as an alternative for traditional management, which can result in more creative thinking and innovation (Thomas & Velthouse,1990). Instead of posing rules to get the job of the employee done, employees should be learned to focus on aligning their goals with the goals of the company and give them the responsibility to achieve this goal in their own way. Employees will then find meaning in their work (Berlew, 1986; Block, 1987; Thomas & Velthouse, 1990). Wrzesniewski and Dutton ( 2001) go a step further and explain how giving employees the opportunity to craft their own job creates an opportunity for employees to fulfil their job better from their own perspective, which raises individual motivation. An important factor is that an employee gets sufficient resources to craft his job. Furthermore, Oldman & Cummings (1996) explain how personal and contextual factors at work can help stimulate creativity through intrinsic motivation. They show how creativity-relevant personal characteristics is positively and significantly related to job complexity (r = 0.22), non-controlling supervision (r = 0.08) and supportive supervision (r=0.12). This would result in the findings that the probability of employees acting more creative if they perceive their job as more complex or challenging, have the freedom to work without supervision

and are supported by the manager. Extrinsic motivation goals can be achieved aside from the work. This can for example be a bonus, but when the individual receives the bonus he might not have the motivation to continue the job unless he gets another extrinsic motivation. Woodman et al. (1993) see extrinsic motivation as a distraction from intrinsic motivation. Individuals will do work for reasons that will not involve the deep interest of the job. When the deep interest is present, an individual will be prepared to come up with more creative ideas. Amabile (1998) agrees and points out that a cash reward does not help people to find a job more interesting when their heart is not into it. Nonetheless, Zhou et al. (2001) contradict the importance of intrinsic motivation as only trigger for creativity. They claim that if employees are forced to do work because of the good salary which they can’t get anywhere else or if they can’t get a job somewhere else, they can still become creative through contextual conditions. Thus, if people are held on their job position because of golden hand cuffs, they will look at their surrounding and form it to a situation that will work for them. This can be useful feedback from other employees, help and support, and perceived organizational support for creativity. However, Amabile (1998) explains why intrinsic motivation is more important than extrinsic motivation through her ‘creative maze’- example. The creative maze is explained with comparing people with a mouse that knows he gets a reward after he gets out of the maze. This reward may be in the form of a piece of cheese. For this piece of cheese, the mouse is extrinsically motivated to take the easiest route out of the maze, the route which it already knows. On the other hand, if people are show how to love

walking through the maze, they will be intrinsically motivated to walk and explore the maze. The will come across a lot of dead ends, but you will also increase the chance they find a better and shorter route.

This paper will discuss the effects of motivation on creativity. Amabile et al. (1996b) explains the importance of motivation in creating a climate for creativity and developed and validated this through the KEYS-model. This paper will build upon the KEYS-model and look at how motivation can rise and lower amongst employees. With the fluctuation of motivation the creativity of employees will also rise and lower. These can be explained as two variables of motivation. Furthermore,

third variable of motivation. Finally, employees can be motivated through the given resources to do a job. These resources can include budget, hard facilities and soft facilities. This is the fourth variable called extrinsic motivation. As motivation is described as behaviour, it can be assumed it can be triggered by other behaviour (Atkinson, 1958). Task motivation for example, can be influenced by stimulating certain behaviour among employees. This leads to the following model with four variables which influence creativity:

Positive Intrinsic Motivation Management Practices

Challenging Work

Managerial Encouragement Work group supports Organizational Motivation Organizational encouragement Organizational impediments Outcome Creativity

Negative Intrinsic Motivation Management Practices

Challenging Work

Managerial Encouragement Work group supports Organizational Motivation Organizational encouragement Organizational impediments Outcome Creativity

Positive Extrinsic Motivation Management Practices Challenging Work Managerial Encouragement Organizational Motivation Organizational encouragement Resources Sufficient Resources Workload Pressure

Negative Extrinsic Motivation Management Practices Challenging Work Managerial Encouragement Organizational Motivation Organizational encouragement Resources Sufficient Resources Workload Pressure

Model of four forms of motivation which influence creativity based on KEYS dimensions (Amabile, 1996b)

Method

Research approach

. The main approach will be inductive, however setting up the interviews will go through a deductive element. First, this research will look at academic literature. This will help form the base of the interviews that will be conducted at Rabobank Headquarters in the Netherlands. Rabobank is selected as case subject because of the cultural transition period the company is going through with the Culture Collective program(Rabobank,2014). The time period for interviews was March and April 2015. The data collected from participants is taken in a cross-sectional study, which means it is a snapshot of available data. The selected participants are employees of the Human Resources Department and all active participants in the Culture Collective program. HR is responsible for the attraction and training of employees. Knowing what elements are relevant for the HR department will help this paper to better understand the conceptual framework on creativity within the organization. To assess the stimulants and obstacles for creativity through motivation, the KEYS-scales will be used as base for this research. The benefit of KEYS is that it measures creativity on both organizational as individual level (Amabile et al., 1996b).

Data collection

To gain access I have used multiple contacts at Rabobank. The location of the interviews were held in the offices of each participant. The interviews started with structured questions to set the scene and ended with open-ended questions to discuss motivation and creativity. The interviews will establish the perspective of participants on the practices of their company. Ten participants were selected from the Learning & Development, Recruitment and Advice within the HR department. To maintain anonymous all participants are described as a letter instead of their real name. The following table will describe the job description of the chosen participants:

Participant A HR Assistant

Participant B HR Advisor

Participant C HR Coordinator

Participant D HR Advisor

Participant E HR Account Manager

Participant F HR Advisor

Participant G HR Assistant

Participant H HR Recruiter

Participant I HR Coordinator

Participant J HR Assistant

Table of selected participants

Selected questions

For this research 18 items have been selected from the 78 items of the KEYS-scales (Amabile, 1996b). 5 items involve the management practices within the organization, 8 items involve the organizational motivation, 4 items involve the resources and 1 item involves creativity as an outcome. The next paragraphs will explain which questions were selected and how they relate to the variables of motivation. The questions are divided into Intrinsic motivation and Extrinsic motivation. The answers of the participants will decide whether it involves a positive or negative effect on motivation. Intrinsic Motivation: Amabile et al. (1996b) explain how creativity can be influenced by the

dimensions Management Practices and Organizational Motivation. In this paper Management Practices will involve Challenging Work, Managerial Encouragement and Work Group Support . If employees consider their tasks more challenging, they will find more satisfaction out of the tasks and

even think up ways to improve the completion of the tasks (Wrzesniewski and Dutton , 2001). This leads to the following question: “ How do you feel challenged by the work you’re currently doing?” Managerial encouragement can stimulate an employee to think of new ideas. This will occur when he is willing to listen to new ideas. This leads to the following question: “Is your boss open to new ideas?” Employees will feel more eager to bring up suggestions when they feel the support of their managers within the work group. This leads to the following question: “Does your boss support your work group within the organization?” Employees are more motivated to develop new ideas if they can reflect with their manager on their work. This leads to the following question: “In what ways do you get constructive feedback about your work?” Support from colleagues in a work group can also motivate employees to think of new ideas. An employee will be more motivated to come up with new ideas if he knows other employees will help him. This leads to the following question: “How are people in your workgroup willing to help each other?” Amabile et al. (1996) explain that the

dimension Organizational Motivation can be divided into Organizational Encouragement and Lack of Organizational Impediments. Organizational Encouragement consist of three types of

encouragement as mentioned in their KEYS model. The first involves encouragement of risk taking and idea generation. Organ (1988) points out that employees are prepared to indulge more in new ideas if they know they have support of other employees. Employees will be prepared to take more risks to exceed on these ideas if they are supported. This leads to the following question: “In what way are people encouraged to take risks in this organization?” The second encouragement involves the fair and supportive evaluation of new ideas (Amabile et al., 1996b). This leads to the following question: “Do you perceive ideas are judged fairly in this organization?” The final encouragement involves reward and recognition of creativity. This leads to the following question: “Are people recognized for creative work in this organization?“ Employees may be more motivated to be creative if they are aware how they will be rewarded. This leads to the following question: “In what way are people rewarded for creative work in this organization?” Employees can be motivated to push new ideas if they have a vision of what the company is working towards. This leads to the following question: “Do the people in this organization have a shared vision of where you are going and what you are trying to do?” Amabile et al. (1996b) explain within the dimension Organizational

Motivation an employee can be influenced with Lack of Organizational Impediments. These can be seen as all forms of obstruction. If a firm has too many protocols and rules it can be considered as rigid. The danger of too rigid organizations can occur when employees stop thinking because the rules are all set out for them. Not thinking leads to a situation of a lack of imagination, which on its turn leads to a lack in creativity (De Bono, 2009, Amabile, 1998). A firm considers this way of working because it is the most efficient way. It also minimizes the risk of production deviance, which to employees hurting the company by not doing their job as best as they can or as good as they could do it. However, this can affect the motivation of employees to come up with better solutions and creative ideas, because they are told to strictly follow the rules (Robinson & Bennet,1995; De Bono, 2009). This leads to the following question: “How strictly is the organization controlled by upper

management?” and “How do you perceive procedures and structures in this organization?” Another obstruction may be that employee see each other as competitors. Competition is an ambiguous concept. Within competition, all employees can push each other to come with the best ideas to get rewarded at the cost of the others. However, competition may also lead negative form of collaboration where employees keep ideas from each other and prohibiting others to do their tasks as good as possible. This can end up costing the firm more money and resources than needed (Hansen, 2009). This leads to the following question: “How do you perceive competition within this organization?” If an employee perceives himself as creative, he will be more rapid to come with creative solutions. This leads to the following question:” Do you perceive yourself as creative in the work you are currently doing?”

Extrinsic Motivation: Amabile et al. (1996b) explain the importance of motivation in creating a climate for creativity and developed and validated this through their model. Within the KEYS-model, resources are seen as all that assists the organization which lead to innovation. Resources can be seen as budgets, supply, time and rewards given to employees. These are variables that help increase extrinsic motivation. Deci & Ryan (1985) describe extrinsic motivation as a means to an end and divide extrinsic motivation in external regulation. External regulation refers to rewards and pressures. Firms can influence behaviour by giving employees bonuses or punish them with fines if they break the rules of the company. This leads to the following question: “ In what way are people

rewarded for creative work in this organization?” Firms can also give an employee the supplies needed to fulfil his tasks as good as possible, as office space, a laptop, mobile phone or a car. This leads to the following question: : In what way are facilities you need for work are readily available to you?” and “In what way can you get the resources I need for your work?”. Next to supplies and facilities, an employee can also find motivation in monetary form to select the best people needed to join a project. This leads to the following question: In what way can you get the resources you need for your work?

Amabile et al (1996b) explain how within the dimension Resources there are both the variables Sufficient Resources and Realistic Workload Pressure. The latter refers to how much time an employee has to finish his tasks. If an employee is pressured, he will not only deliver work of less quality, but it will also increase the chance an employee is less motivated to do a good job. Lee et al. (1999) explain how time can even have more value than money. Having more time has a greater effect on individuals than receiving more money. Thus, time and money have a substitutional relationship. Therefore time can be seen as a factor of extrinsic behaviour. Having a lack of time would mean a negative effect on extrinsic negative behaviour. Having plenty of time to do a job, gives an employee the opportunity to think of new ideas. This leads to the following questions: “Do you have enough time for the work you have to do?” and “Can you describe time pressure in your work?”

Interview questions

A firm can motivate his employees to increase creativity. Amabile (1998) points out managers can build environments that will realize more creativity. Building this environment can be formed by knowing what already motivates your employees and what will increase motivation among the employees. To obtain the needed information the following questions have been summarized from the academic literature (Amabile, 1996):

Management Practices Challenging work

- How do you feel challenged by the work you’re currently doing? Can you give examples? Managerial Encouragement

- Is your boss open to new ideas?

- Does your boss support your work group within the organization? - In what way do you get constructive feedback about your work? Work group supports

-How are people in your workgroup willing to help each other? Organizational Motivation

Organizational encouragement

- In what way are people encouraged to take risks in this organization? - Do you perceive ideas are judged fairly in this organization?

- Are people recognized for creative work in this organization? Can you give examples? - In what way are people rewarded for creative work in this organization?

- Do the people in this organization have a shared vision of where you are going and what you are trying to?

Lack of Organizational impediments

- How do you perceive competition within this organization?

- How do you perceive procedures and structures in this organization? - How strictly is the organization controlled by upper management? Resources

Sufficient resources

- In what way are facilities you need for work are readily available to you? - In what way can you get the resources you need for your work ?

Workload pressure

- Do you have enough time for the work you have to do? - Can you describe time pressure in your work?

Outcome Creativity

- Do you perceive yourself are creative in the work you are currently doing?”

Data is collected through semi-structured interviews. The interview questions are based on the KEYS scales around creativity, which help assess the perception of the participants within the organization (Amabile, 1996). The data collected in the interviews will first be coded and placed within

Management practices, Organizational motivation and Resources. Next, they will be identified as intrinsic or extrinsic. This will be followed by identifying it the code is positive or negative. Finally, the code will be placed in the four variables around motivation. With axial coding patterns and relationships between categorized questions will be found towards the four variables of motivation. Existing relationships will be verified with the academic literature. New relationships will be integrated and formed to create new theory through selective coding (Saunders et al., 2012). To give an overall picture of the analyses I have selected subjects within each variable to illustrate my findings and see how they relate to each other compared to the literature.

Code Example

Challenging work B: Yes, the challenges lay especially in getting my organization and my colleagues further with my work. I’m always glad when I notice that my work shows results. And that I can make a difference by offering people something they are satisfied with. New ideas G: When I bring in a new idea, I notice that my managers takes

it in serious consideration. It has to be fitting within the area though

Managerial support F: With a lot of things I don’t even feel the need to inform my manager. I’m under the impression that she believes that what I do is the right thing to do.

Feedback J: I did get feedback on my results. Only, never on me as person. And how I did my job as the person I am.

Work group support J: If it is someone from somewhere else within the department who can’t solve an issue or needs help, you need to ask explicitly for help. We’re not just going to hand it to you from my team.

Risk encouragement I: But I think Rabobank is risk averse in creating such an environment by following rules that discourage competition if it is not necessary.

Fair treatment F: I believe that if you have a good idea, you can either go to your manager or his boss to put it on the table.

Recognition J: At the end of an international wholesale program I was asked to stand in front of a group of 60 participants and thanked for all my help in the back office and received a book as well. I also received another job opportunity there, because of the appraisal of my manager

Rewards E: Well you do notice that we get bigger projects now, like project WTF. One portfolio account manager for example took on that whole project. And you notice now that he gets larger projects than the others.

Vision A: Yes we have collective goals. These goals for example involve around sustainability and innovation. For our department we also have goals.

Competition F: Within HR it is not that much. Everybody grants each other a lot.

Procedures E: Yes we are very process focused. This makes the teams work closely. We have a work process called RLC. This describes perfectly what steps a process should go through, to put a project on the market. So yes, process wise we have an example function.

Structure E: Clarity, that is what it is designed for. Especially with new people. For new people you just say: These are the work processes. Now you’re going to learn to work within your position. And if you see crazy things let us know. Then we will change those and maybe it will get better and faster.

Upper management control H: For everything there seems to be a club here. It is something you notice at every large organisation. This makes decision making slower.

Hard facilities B: Yes the facilities are enormous. The resources you have are extended. We have systems that support that. The new way of working also makes work more flexible. You can plan in your own time. That gives a lot of freedom and space.

Soft facilities G: Yes, if I look at the development opportunities that are offered to me, I can say only one thing. There are high facilities which are accessible for everybody. But in my case.. ehm.. I notice that my current manager looks very carefully at what my specific education need is, my specific ambition and I also get the chance to develop myself in that direction.

Time management A: Once a month we have a global learning call.. So it is a challenge to sit with people from Australia and US. Try to do that at one specific moment. Instead of one moment you can also try to do it in 2 calls That’s something I’m working on right now and you can do it in different ways.

Time pressure A: That’s a challenge yes. I used to have 2 managers. Now I have 4! And they all demand time. Yet, I still have the same amount of time.

Outcome Creativity F: Well I always thought I wasn’t creative, but according to my colleagues I am very creative.. Creativity also lays in bringing things together and seeing relationships between initiatives. And I believe that is something that I can do and am doing now.

Results

The results were coded back and into three parts: Management practices, Organizational motivation and Resources. From that view they were coded to the four variables of positive intrinsic motivation negative intrinsic motivation, positive extrinsic motivation and negative extrinsic motivation. The results of the research show a significant importance of intrinsic motivation over extrinsic motivation. Most participants explain how a deep interest in their task description is at the essence to think of new solutions or ideas. The participants who did not have a deep interest in their task were less motivated to be creative within their tasks. The results of the interviews are summarized within the following paragraphs. An elaboration of the results is given in the appendix.

Positive intrinsic motivation Management Practices Challenging Work

The results show that the participants that overall believed their task is challenging showed a deeper interest in their task. Participants described challenging work not only as the diversification of the task and the drive to help others with solutions. It can also mean having perspective in the work you are doing now and the career options you create by doing these tasks.

F: I believe my role is very challenging. I’m a junior HR-advisor now. This means I will grow into medior and senior later. So.. I still have a lot of growth opportunities.

They explained that with a deep interest in their work came the urge to come up with ideas related to their tasks. Challenging work also resides in how willing an employee is to learn new things to complete his tasks. One participant points out that how older and longer an employee works at a company, the harder it will get to change the way of working. However this is just about changing the mind-set of employees. The participant points out that having the mind-set to enjoy learning new things, increase the motivation to indeed learn new things. This mind-set will also help motivate other employees around you.

C: In what way I feel challenged? I’m a bit older of course. But I enjoy keeping up with the latest developments. However, I notice that I’m getting older and that I don’t learn things as quickly as people who are born with a computer in their cradle.

Managerial Encouragement

The manager can play an important role in the stimulation of creativity by motivating his or her employees. If an employee brings up a new idea, he needs the approval of the manager for execution. All participants agree that their manager listens to their ideas and values their idea’s. However they point out that having a good idea isn’t enough for a manager to implement it. there are always restrictions, like budgets and planning. But those restrictions can be manageable. Some participants even agreed on the fact that if their idea falls within planning and budget, they don’t even have to

inform their manager to certain actions. The

manager entrusts them to make the needed decisions. This trust is based on the believe the employee

will do the right thing. Also, the employee is expected to have the expertise to make decisions.

B: You can always mention new ideas. If they will be honoured is a different story. They have to be align with the planning and budget. But the opportunity to bring up new ideas is always there. It actually get stimulated to come with new ideas.

E: She is always open for new ideas. There is trust in my expertise. And that is because I work in a lot of segments where I gain a lot of experiences.

Feedback plays an important role in finding motivation to be creative. Constructive feedback creates the right circumstances to conceive new ideas. However, there seems to be a lack in feedback from the manager to employees. All participants are aware of this lack and ask for feedback when needed. Getting feedback does not only depend on how the manager handles the situation. The receivers, in this case the employees, are just as important. One participant explicitly describes how he evades feedback when he feels it coming. He explains it as part of the culture.

F: I get feedback when I ask for it. Or when I need it yes sure…When I need feedback she always gives it to me and it is always in a way I can work with. I always get eager to do something with it. D: I don’t believe I receive all the feedback I should have. I have found my defences and ways to achieve this. Ehh.. It is something one should be aware of and one must wonder himself,.. What am I afraid of?

Workgroup support

All participants pointed out they were willing to help others in their work group. There were a few conditions that were pointed out. It had to be a member of their work group to automatically receive help, for any member outside the workgroup they would be more hesitant and help needed to be ask. Another condition would be the ability to help. Within a workgroup there can be different specialties. Not all members can support each other on those fields.

F: Personally.. everybody is prepared to help each other within my group.

I: Ehm.. Near colleagues within my group yes. If their outside the group then they need to ask for help.

Participants explain how they have daily and weekly meetings at the beginning of the day or week. In these meetings they discuss what they are working on and if they need assistance. Assistance is mostly work related. Yet, one participant explains how members of a work group not only help with work related matters, but also on personal matters.

D: Yes, well.. We had an advisor who had a difficult situation at home. She couldn’t hold her head above water anymore. We decided she could go home early from time to time. At the moment the problem was shared with colleagues, 2 or 3 colleagues offered to step in her place.

Organizational Motivation Vision

Participants all show awareness of the vision of Rabobank. They do explain that aside from the corporate vision, each department has his own vision aside from it. Those visions should be aligned with each other. But sometimes participants notice that priorities of individuals or teams aren’t completely aligned with the vision. Some participants point out they believe in equality, but that equality isn’t realistic because of politics in the organisation. However, all participants believe the organisation as a whole tries to encourage fair treatment. One participant describes how teams get confronted for bending the rules around fairness and how they area put on their place. If this happens they normally immediately listen and adapt their behaviour. This goes align with the vision of the organisation. Furthermore, in alignment with the vision, participants explain how the end goal is that the clients of the bank must come first. Several participants pointed out it was clear this was the end goal, but due to the transition of Rabobank it is not clear yet how to make this vision possible. However, they are hopeful that the management teams will help them make the right decisions.

F: Well it is such a big company with shared goals. But because we’re so big you see the department have their own goals and within the teams also have their own goals. And it could just be so that one of those goals is pointed more to the left while all the others are pointed to the right. But overall, the end vision is the same for everyone.

Lack of impediments

Participants experience little open competition within HR. They explain they can do their job without being compared with the results of others. They believe collaboration has the upper hand. One participant explains how there is more collaboration than competition in HR, but that having competition could also increase the creativity amongst employees.

All participants all describe Rabobank as a bureaucratic organisation. Some participants see the structure of Rabobank as necessary. It shows how an employee should handle situations at each step. It clearly shows new members how the processes work and current employees what steps to undertake. Also, if steps seem illogical or inefficient. There is consideration to change those steps. One participant even explains that within the bureaucratic frameworks, an employee has all the space to be creative. But borders are needed to keep processes in control. But you do not want to control everything too much, because you will then lose creativity.

E: Clarity, that is what it is designed for. Especially with new people. For new people you just say: These are the work processes. Now you’re going to learn to work within your position. And if you see crazy things let us know. Then we will change those and maybe it will get better and faster.

D: Yes I experience a lot of bureaucratic processes. But it doesn’t bother me at all. Because I

believe… everybody needs his borders and within these borders you can be creative. And whenever a person says he has problems with those borders it is unclear to me why that is…

Outcome Creativity

All interviews ended with: “Do you perceive yourself as creative within your task description?” With this question you see every participant take on a modest attitude. Most participants do not see themselves as creative, but they do have examples of having creative solutions within their tasks.

F: Well I always thought I wasn’t creative, but according to my colleagues I am very creative.. Creativity also lays in bringing things together and seeing relationships between initiatives. And I believe that is something that I can do and am doing now.

Negative intrinsic motivation Management Practices

Challenging work

Some participants admitted they felt challenged because they lacked the proper knowledge to fulfil their task. Being too much challenged had a negative impact on their motivation. One participant claims it as challenging for HR not to take over the tasks of the business. HR is here to support the business. Not to do the job of the business. Because that wouldn’t be sustainable. To achieve such a thing it has to give the business insights. However, it is challenging to let the business realise that.

D: I feel very much challenged.. like I said.. I wasn’t trained for this. So my learning curve is very high. It has been high seen I made the change into HR

Managerial Encouragement

Participants claim there manager does agree with their idea, but don’t follow through with them as the participants wanted. Participants complain in twofold. Firstly, There are ideas presented to the

manager, who changes it a bit and gives it to his manager. This manager makes some changes as well and the end product eventually is something different than the original idea. This has a demotivating effect on bringing new ideas. Employees will believe their ideas on itself aren’t good enough.

Secondly, employees present ideas and get a positive response from their manager. However, after the response, the employees get no support in executing their ideas. Participants all agree that they don’t get enough feedback from their manager. They often have to ask for it themselves.

D: What you see is, that within the organisation, a lot of initiatives go lost at the bottom. They get translated differently at the top in how managers believe they should go. And that something.. I

personally, because it would be contrary to what I just told you, never experienced it. But I do see a great part of the organisation struggle with that.

Work group support

One participant claims that the attitude of most colleagues isn’t flexible enough. Employees don’t feel the responsibility to assist others if they believe it is not part of their task. This gets supported by other participants as well. Participants claim there is a culture where people are afraid to give each other feedback and ask for help. Once asked, people are prepared to help. One participant pointed out that if employees wanted, they can always make time to help others because of new way of working. However, another participant explains how she is always prepared to ask for help and give help within the work group, but due to unclear structure outside the work group, she has the fear of doing the work of other people.

F: What you see is that it is sometimes unclear who is responsible for a task. Our HR department consist out of 700 employees and that’s quite a lot, so it is difficult to determine who is responsible for what. Then I knock on someone’s door and that person cannot help me. And he doesn’t know who can help me either. And someone that wants to help me also thinks: This is not my job…. And you have to watch for the fact that you don’t solve everybody’s problem. And that’s sometimes difficult.

Organizational motivation Organizational encouragement

Participants don’t all agree that all ideas that come in are treated fairly. But they differ in their reasoning. Politics and misinterpretation are given as reasons of unfair treatment. There seems to be a lack of transparency in how other ideas from members in the work group are treated by the manager.

All participants describe what they call “the coffee moment”. It is an event every two weeks. Where the management team makes announcements and looks at what is new in the department and organisation. It is also a moment where employees with achievements are being praised openly in front of the whole department. Participants like to get recognition. All find it to be a positive influence

on their motivation to get recognition. Yet, a few do not want it to be in front of the whole department.

C: Every 2 week there is this coffee moment. This is where they tell us about the latest developments and pat our shoulders for doing a good job. But the way they do it.. It goes against my nature. People aren’t waiting for compliments in public. Just walk towards somebody and say: Good job! I believe that will have more impact than being publicly humiliated.

Vision

Most participants can describe the new vision of Rabobank is at this moment. This consist of four points: Being a strong bank, to act as a soulful cooperation, to go back to the customer and to empower employees. A few participants claim it is not possible to realise this vision with the current structure. The vision asks for change in structure and procedures. Change brings risks. One

participants find it difficult to talk about risk in banking. But does realize it is a static world where changes are difficult to make. Yet, most participants are willing to take risk if necessary, although it is not supported from the organization. All participants agreed on the processes and structure on one thing: It is bureaucratic and there is room for improvement. Participants described the ways of working now as circuitous. One participant describes this as part of the DNA of the organisation. All participants claim there are too many rules, which makes decision making slow. Some participants admit it had a negative impact on their motivation to push an idea through the bureaucratic process.

J: There are too much rules and procedures. I think standardisation is necessary in a large

organisation to deliver equal quality. But if I need 20 autographs it does not have a positive impact on my tasks and my suggestions.

One participant points out an important matter on the question: Do you consider yourself as creative within your task description? Even if she sees herself as creative. The organisation has to do

something with it, otherwise the creativity will fade away.

I: I experience myself as creative in my tasks, with creative solutions, new ways of thinking. Ehm.. Creative in general as less. Because I see I get the recognition, but they do not do anything with it.

Positive extrinsic motivation Management Practices

Managerial Encouragement

Employees can have the intrinsic motivation to think to be creative. However, the employees should also have the means to execute ideas. These means can be seen as budget and facilities. A participant could give an example of an idea that was budgeted after being presented to the manager and received very positively. To support the idea the employee was given the necessary resources to fulfil the idea and even bend the procedures to get the budget.

F: And they as MT wanted to join the teambuilding exercise. So I believe they really thought yes what a nice initiative let’s do this! Rules or no rules. We are going to make sure there is a budget for it and we will start it up.

Another participant was able to explain how Rabobank was able to cut in cost and increase the chance of ideas being presented by encouraging managers not to focus on the content, but managers who are focussed on managing. This can be achieved by making managers responsible for a larger group of employees. By doing so, employees were also given more autonomy on the content.

D: One of the ambitions of the culture program is to increase the span of control. This would mean that one will be in charge of a minimum of employees and not just two employees for example. This would mean a cost reduction, because it would lead to the delayering of management control. But more importantly, manager will be busy managing instead of focussing on the content. Let’s say

you’re responsible of 4 people. That gives you a lot of time for the opinion on the content. However, if you’re responsible for 20 people, you will be forced to manage them and delegate the content to them.

Work group support

A few participants explain they cannot always just ask for help of colleagues. If the time of an employee is needed, this specific timeframe needs to be budgeted for the specific task needed. The colleagues then will be ‘hired’ from their function. The problem here lays that you may not be able to get them on the time you need them. So you have to negotiate the possibilities. However, this is something which is always solvable between employees.

B: But in principles I have got colleagues that can think with me. I can call them into the job. That is something that can always be arranged. Maybe not always on the time you hoped for, but certainly a bit later yes.

Organizational Motivation Rewards

Participants give several examples of how they get rewarded when presenting new ideas. This varies from recognition and a compliment to better career perspectives.

E: Well you do notice that we get bigger projects now, like project WTF. One portfolio account manager for example took on that whole project. And you notice now that he gets larger projects than the others.

Resources

New way of working

The new way of working gives employees more freedom to work whenever and where they want. The only needed resources to work with are a laptop and a mobile phone. All participants where pleased with this development and confirmed they were able to do their job better with these resources. Asides from ‘hard’ facilities, like office space, laptops and mobile phones, employees also described

‘soft’ facilities. These are tools for employees to help them further develop themselves. These can consist of courses and education.

A: I see it as an enrichment to be able to work everywhere we want. You look what type of job you have and you seek a fitting spot in the office to do it. For more routine work you can sit between the other people and for other moments you can switch to a separate room. I see this as something very important to me. Also the freedom.. to start a bit later or earlier or to work at home. It’s just great.

Time

Participants in general claim to have enough time to do their job. It depends on the specific task within the workgroup. All examples given around time pressure are explained as exceptions. Participants point out that careful planning can help in decreasing the chance of time pressures. One participant claims time pressure doesn’t have negative consequences for motivation. It can also increase motivation. The new way of working is also described as a way to decrease time pressure.

E: Ehh.. That is the trap of mobile working actually haha. There is always work to do. But in principle those things are there. I have sufficient time to do my job yes. ….Yes I actually enjoy it. If next week something has to be delivered. Then I can divide my own time on it.

Negative extrinsic motivation Management Practices

Managerial Encouragement

Employees can have the motivation to be creative, but if there are no resources available, the creativity may fade away. The employee might have the feeling he can’t put his creativity at work anyway. Some participants complained how ideas may be considered as good by their managers, but get put on hold because managers claimed to lack budget.

A lack of budget may seem to block ideas. Yet, If the employee somehow is able to secure the budget for an approved idea. He may be allowed to effectuate the idea.

B: Luckily, I had a client from within the business, who said he wanted it. So I convinced my manager that it would be paid from the business, so there is budget. The resources are there. And I believe this is the way to go. This was honoured and I was able to put it in motion

Work group support

One participant explains that colleagues can’t always be asked for help, but have to be planned in. This leads to a delay in work. One participant explained how some initiative were put on hold due to a lack of human resources. A participant points out that due to cuts the department has to watch its budgets. However, through managerial flaws, budget gets wasted to unnecessary needs. It can demotivate an employee if he has to put his ideas on hold or to see money get lost on such things and to not have money for their ideas

B: But what you see is, they have their agenda planned in at full capacity. And if you want to claim that time you have to make those hours available for you. And sometimes they say they don’t have the time so maybe in a month. That can happen, so sometimes you have to organise the capacity you need.

Organizational Motivation Structure

A participant points out that due to cuts the department has to watch its budgets. However, through managerial flaws, budget gets wasted to unnecessary needs. It can demotivate an employee to see money get lost on such things and to not have money for their ideas.

C: These days, we are told to do everything as cheap as possible. To really watch even the little bills. And I know 2 years ago, I noticed that on a training location, a laptop was hired every single time. Those things are not cheap. Look at how much money that costs. We don’t need to hire a laptop for

that. Most of our people already have a laptop. I told this to my manager and he agreed. He told me I did a good job and abolished it.

Lack of Organizational Impediments

Some participants point out they always have to deal with politics to get resources. Knowing you have to’hunt’ for the budget, will work demotivating on the motivation of an employee to come with new ideas. A participant explains how in some cases they are told not to take risks. Because risks cannot be afforded.

Resources Hard facilities

Employees at Rabobank all agree they get every resource they need and have access to all facilities. However, there seems to be a lack in one specific facility. Participants claim that sometimes they lack the needed meeting room to have private meeting in the office. Every department is built in such a way that everybody can sit anywhere to make use of the new ways of working. But there is a shortage of meeting rooms for conversations which have to maintain private. On busy days these rooms are always booked.

F: You see that there are not a lot of meeting areas. And that can be difficult. If I need space to have a private meeting. And ehm.. especially when it is a confidential conversation. It makes it hard for employees to talk if they have to look if people are around.

Soft facilities

Participants are not laudatory on cuts that are being made on development opportunities. They realise the business isn’t doing so well, but disagree that cuts should be made in this area. This is an

D: Well if you look at the facilities for development. You see they are under pressure. Because of the transformation, the business model is under pressure, the earnings are under pressure. What you notice is that development trainings and courses are the first things that are put under pressure. This is normal for all companies. This conservative way of working. It is regretful. I believe it should be the other way around.

Time

Participants partly agree they feel time pressure. The reasons are align with the transition concerning Rabobank. One participant points out she wasn’t able to do the job in the needed time due to the lack of development.

F: Yes Yesterday I had a very busy moment. With the reorganisation you have several applications to the board for approval to really implement the applications. But I am dependant of other managers for that specific application. And he had to make some changes and delivered it very late. However, it still had to be done yesterday evening. I had a moment where I thought this could have been done more efficiently. If we just planned it in sooner.

Analyses & Discussion

The goal of this paper was to explain how intrinsic and extrinsic motivation can stimulate creativity. This led to the research question: How can a firm stimulate creativity through task motivation among employees?

All participants describe Rabobank as an bureaucratic organization. According to Amabile (1999), Rabobank would be classified as an organization with low creativity. This would result in lower scores on Challenging Work, Managerial Encouragement, Work Group Support and Organizational Encouragement and higher scores on Organizational Impediments. All participants confirm the level of Organizational Impediments. However, participants described their task at Rabobank as very challenging and pointed towards high Managerial Encouragement. This is not align with the results of Amabile. A possible explanation may be that Rabobank doesn’t classify as low or high creative, but

somewhere between those two options, which would result in medium. Amabile (1996b) did not take in account this category, because it was not align with her goal to create a model as simple as

possible. An extra category would mean extra complexity. Oldman & Cummings (1996) showed a positive relation between creativity-relevant factors at work, job complexity and supportive supervision. The participants in this research confirmed this with their responses around challenging work and managerial encouragement.

Previous studies pointed out the importance of intrinsic motivation (Oldman & Cummings, 1996; Woodman et al. 1993). This study confirms that employees find intrinsic motivation more important than extrinsic motivation as stimulation for creativity. Participants were more prepared to do their task the best they can and think of new ideas if they had a deep interest in their tasks. When participants come up with creative solutions they seek recognition from their superiors. Recognition can come in the form of a shoulder pat or compliments in front of the department or team.

Recognition can also come in the form of getting more responsibility and bigger projects or a higher position in the raffle shell for promotion. This increases the intrinsic motivation. Extrinsic motivation also is indispensable. Participants explain if they come up with an idea, they need the resources, space and time to execute the idea. If the manager gives recognition to creative solutions, but neglects them by not handing the needed resources for the solution or changes the solutions to something the employee doesn’t recognize as his idea, the employee will feel his suggestions do not matter. This

will lead to an increase in negative intrinsic motivation. It is also important to notice how intrinsic and extrinsic motivation are related to each other.

Participants complained about cuts being made on their development possibilities. This is a decrease in extrinsic motivation. These cuts were explained as necessary, because of the hard times the bank is in. Not having full access to these ‘soft’ facilities also decreases the intrinsic motivation. Participants pointed out they need the proper knowledge to do their job optimally. With the optimization of training and education, also comes the optimization of developing new ideas within their expertise.

Discussion points

In this paper we described extrinsic motivation through the resources and time available to come with new ideas. Participants describe how they sometimes lacked those resources. But for ideas they really felt the urge to push through, they found other ways to for example finance it. They turned to the businesses they conducted with as external financers for their ideas.

All participants point out the importance of feedback. Oldman and Cummings (1996) explain this can be seen as supportive management and shown this is positively related to the creativity of employees. All participants agree they value the feedback they get from their manager. Yet, there also seems to be an agreement they don’t get enough feedback. The participants describe this as something they expect from their manager. However, one participant admits he has his ‘ways’ to avoid feedback if he isn’t interested. This shows the problem doesn’t only lay in giving feedback, but also in receiving feedback. This specific participant was aware of avoiding feedback. It may be that more employees avoid feedback without being aware of it. A reason may be they don’t prefer

feedback on the specific task they are working on. An important aspect several participants described, was that they were allowed to make a lot

of decisions without consulting their manager. The manager gave them the freedom and autonomy to work within given borders. This is in line with the academic literature that empowerment leads to a higher intrinsic motivation (Thomas & Velthouse, 1990; Amabile, 1998).

All participants described their manager as the person that listens to them and helps them with their ideas. All ideas that were discarded were explained to the employees for budgetary reason or for the infeasibility of a project. No participant could give an example an idea that was rejected as ‘not good’. This brings the question: Were there no bad ideas? Or did the manager want to spare the feelings of his employees and did he just say there was no budget? It may also be that the participants did not want to give an example of a bad idea, because they see this as a moment of weakness.

Weakness was indirectly described by several employees as asking for help and feedback. Most employees explained they hardly did this. They preferred it if their manager just gave feedback and offered advice and help. All participants explained they only ask for feedback when they really need it. This may work demotivating for the intrinsic motivation for creating new ideas. If

employees are not sure what to do with ideas in a certain project, and the manager doesn’t clearly point out what the options are for the employee, good ideas might get lost. Employees will not execute them, because they were not sure about the opinion of their manager.

All participants explained how every two weeks there is a ‘coffee moment’, a moment to discuss the latest developments within the organisation and to compliment employees if they performed exceptional. This moment has a positive effect on intrinsic motivation in two ways. Firstly, it increases positive intrinsic motivation by showing employees will get recognition for the work they have done. Secondly, It will decrease negative intrinsic motivation. Dissatisfied employees experience they will get the same recognition if they perform the same way. Zhou & George (2001) describe this as perceived organizational support which can also be seen as a gesture to these employees that the organization is pleased with their suggestions for improvement and shows their input is considered as meaningful.

Within positive extrinsic motivation, all participants agreed they were glad with the new way of working. The resources give them the freedom to work whenever and wherever they please. These resources also directly affect positive extrinsic behaviour. The employees feel the trust of the manager that they will succeed in their tasks within their own planning. Some participants even described how they also have the freedom to make decisions within given borders and budgets without consulting their manager. Amabile (1998) applauds this act and explains this form of autonomy with climbing a mountain. If the task itself is reaching the top of the mountain, employees might find surprising new and maybe better ways if they have the freedom to do it their way.

Unexpected results

It was unexpected to find that participants described they all managed to do their tasks within the given time, but felt an aversion to fulfil other tasks if it wasn’t clear if it felt under their

responsibilities. Yet, if a person asks them for help they are eager to assist, but kept the fear of ‘doing someone else his job’. This can almost be described as an illusion of support in corporate life.

Amabile (1998) explicitly explains how a workgroups must be mutually supportive to stimulate creativity and share three features: excitement over the team’s goal, willingness to help teammates