Creativity in organizations - a fundamental process improved by ethical leadership? An investigation of the organizational creativity evaluation process and the impact of ethical
leadership on the process
Master thesis, MSc, Human Resources Management University of Groningen, Faculty of Economics and Business
2 ABSTRACT
Key words: Creativity, Idea Evaluation, Idea Selection, Ethical Leadership
In this thesis, the relationship between the organizational process of follower idea evaluation and selection as executed by leaders is investigated. A look at possible biases in this process is taken. A conceptual model has been developed, illustrating the hypotheses that build the basis of this research. In the hypotheses it is stated, that idea evaluation has a positive impact on the final idea selection and can be additionally enhanced by ethical leadership. The conceptualiza-tion has been tested in a field study, by interviewing leaders and their followers, from organi-zations in The Netherlands and Germany, with a survey on the topics mentioned. The results have been analyzed in SPSS and Stata.
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INTRODUCTION
Innovation is a keyword of our time, that is used by many people in many different contexts (Crossan & Apaydin, 2010). Innovations are built on creative ideas and thus the development, evaluation, and selection of creative ideas, as well as the implementation of innovations, is an important process in and determines the success of many organizations (Anderson, Potočnik, & Zhou, 2014). An “ideal” creativity process, the evaluation positively influences the idea se-lection (Keum & See, 2017). In the organizations, the process of creative idea evaluation and selection is very important, since it determines the development of new processes, products, and strategies, by collecting and improving creative concepts, that individuals bring in (George, 2007).
It appears, that some organizations are more successful than other organizations, when it comes to the development and implementation of creative ideas and the process of evaluating and selecting the “best” ideas (Anderson et al., 2014; Oldham & Cummings, 1996). To enhance the process of creative idea evaluation and selection for organizations, and for them to be able to develop strategies for effective creativity evaluation and management, it is necessary to identify factors that hinder creativity and threaten the implementation of ideas and find possibilities positive improvement of the process (George, 2007; Oldham & Cummings, 1996; Shalley, Zhou, & Oldham, 2004).
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biases as an influence on creative idea evaluation and selection, as done by leaders. These biases lie partly in the natural bias many people have against creativity, and that has been found in past research (Mueller, Melwani, & Goncalo, 2012). Other bias lies in aversion that leaders often feel against creativity, because creativity is connected to uncertainty, that people nega-tively reject, and especially leaders may feel threatened by creativity, because the function as gate-keepers within their organizations for the current “status quo”, and therefore see no need to apply new ways of thinking or new practices (Sijbom, Janssen, Van Yperen, 2014). Due to the power leaders have in the process of idea evaluation and selection, this bias can be a serious threat for an organizations success (Shalley & Gilson, 2004).
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The described issues will be investigated with the help of several theories. The creativity pro-cess in organizations, as already mentioned, consists of the steps of creative idea evaluation, on the basis of criteria on what is defined to be a creative idea, and a final selection of ideas to be retained (Yuan & Zhou, 2008). Leaders and their behavior play an especially important role as raters of creative ideas, who have a certain motivation and who can be subject to biases, which can influence their evaluation behavior and the outcomes of the whole creative process with the power over and responsibility for the final selection (Harris, 1994; Mueller et al., 2012; Shalley & Gilson, 2004). Especially the concept of ethical leadership behavior in the context of evalu-ation and selection of creative ideas could be a possibility to enhance creative processes in organizations (Chen, & Hou, 2016; Stenmark & Mumford, 2011). Ethical leaders can enhance decision-making and idea evaluation and selection, as well as the treatment of and relationships with followers, by emphasizing fairness, trust, and transparency in teams and organizations (Brown & Treviño, 2006; Schaubroeck et al., 2012; Chen, & Hou, 2016).
With the theoretical conceptualization of organizational external creative idea evaluation and selection, I will investigate the relationship between these two steps of the organizational crea-tivity process. Furthermore, I will test, if ethical leadership has moderating, strengthening effect on this relationship, enabling leaders to finally select an idea after evaluation, even though they may be naturally biased (Herman & Reiter-Palmon, 2011; Zhu, Ritter, Müller et al., 2017; Mueller et al., 2012, Kratzer, Leenders, & Van Engelen, 2008; Sijbom et al., 2014).
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THEORETICAL BACKGROUND AND HYPOTHESES The evaluation and selection of creative ideas Idea Evaluation and Selection
The evaluation of creative ideas can be defined as a process, in which one idea or a set of ideas are assessed against certain standards or a benchmark, that may orientate on the definition of creativity as “the development of ideas about products, practices, services or procedures that are (a) novel and (b) potentially useful to the organization” (Mumford, Scott, Gaddis, & Strange, 2002; Shalley et al., 2004; Zhu, Ritter, Müller, & Dijksterhuis, 2017). This “assess-ment” is the idea evaluation, resulting in a final selection, including the decision over imple-mentation, rejection, or revision (Herman & Reiter-Palmon, 2011). In the context of an organ-ization, leaders often have the role of the rater in the idea evaluation and selection process, and rate the creative ideas, that have been generated by their followers (Anderson et al., 2014).
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2011). In the broader picture of organizational creativity, the process of creative idea evaluation is crucial. A leader has the responsibility to identify the best ideas for selection, that have the potential to help the organization to be successful (Faure, 2004; George, 2007; Shalley & Gilson, 2004).
Following the evaluation of creative ideas, in the final selection phase, both components, nov-elty or originality and usefulness, are taken into account by the leader to make a decision (Zhu, Ritter, Müller et al., 2017). Idea selection can be defined as the rater’s final decision for an idea to be implemented (Keum & See, 2017).
To make the selection of the best idea possible, as already mentioned, criteria have to be set, that guide the final decision, and that may vary in different contexts and also depends on the organization, team, field, or industry (Herman & Reiter-Palmon, 2011). The evaluation and selection of ideas is partly influence by the subjective opinion, feelings, and situation of the rater, in this case the leader (Shalley & Gilson, 2004; Shalley et al., 2004; S. J. Shin & Zhou, 2003).
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But there can be factors disturbing the positive relationship, that will be pointed out in the fol-lowing.
Bias in creative idea evaluation and selection
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A leader, who evaluates or rates creative ideas, is in this process generally subject to situational and personal variables, that may influence his or her evaluation in a certain direction (Harris, 1994). These variables can have an impact on the behavior of the rater and finally positively or negatively influence or bias the evaluation and choices the rater makes concerning the creative idea that is evaluated or rated. (Harris, 1994; Bernadin, Thomason, Buckley, & Kane, 2016).
But leaders also function as role-models, set courses of action, and “provide followers with a voice” concerning their creative ideas (Chen & Hou, 2016). A leader is an ambassador for his or her team within the organization and functions as a link of communication between internal and external networks, which enables creative processes (Kratzer, Leenders, & Van Engelen, 2008). If leaders in this role put the interest of their followers and the whole organization before their own, and act fair and transparent, they are less likely to be influenced by the possible negative bias (Gupta & Singh, 2015; Kratzer et al., 2008). The mentioned characteristics and actions are all part of ethical leader behavior (Brown & Treviño, 2006). If the ethical leader behavior can compensate the aversion against creativity and the self-interest of the leader, cre-ative ideas in organizations can be successful (Jung, Wu, & Chow, 2008). Given potential of these aspects to overcome negative bias, and the tendency in practice to actually implement new and creative ideas, the relationship between idea evaluation and selection by leaders seems generally to be positive, and ethical leadership might be the decisive factor to positively bias and partly enable creative idea evaluation and selection by leaders.
Hypothesis 1: Idea evaluation is positively related to idea selection.
Ethical leadership
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emphasized before, that this process can be influenced by certain factors and therefore be bi-ased, and it has also been suggested, that leaders, who engage in ethical leader behavior can overcome possible negative bias and therefore positively influence creative idea evaluation and selection with their way of leadership (Kratzer et al., 2008). So, in the following, ethical lead-ership will be analyzed on its role and impact in organizational creativity processes.
Ethical Leadership
Ethical leadership refers to leader behavior, that shows, that the leader has certain characteris-tics like fairness, trustworthiness, transparency, and integrity (Brown, Treviño, & Harrison, 2005). Leaders, who are perceived as engaging in ethical leadership behavior, are seen by their employees as having traits, displaying behaviors, and making decisions, that are attributed with being an ethical person (Treviño, Hartman & Brown, 2000).
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As stated previously, leaders who engage in ethical leadership, are less prone to be influenced by negative bias against creativity. Several arguments support this importance of ethical lead-ership as a positive improvement of the organizational creative idea evaluation and selection process.
Especially important for overcoming the leader’s natural aversion against creativity, is ethical leader behavior that includes putting their responsibility for the organization and their followers before their own interests (Maak & Pless, 2006). Leaders who recognize this responsibility, orientate on the collective interest, do not focus on their self-interest, and make fair and not egoistic choices (Bass & Steidlmeier, 1999). Additionally, they will in general use their deci-sion power in a responsible way, according to moral standards and the “greater good” (De Hoogh & Den Hartog, 2008). For creative idea evaluation and selection this again means, that leaders accept their responsibility for the interests of all stakeholders, who interested in the implementation of creative and innovative ideas (Maak & Pless, 2006). They also recognize, that their rejection or aversion against creative ideas might be unethical, and are motivated to make ethical decisions, that are perceived as fair (De Hoogh & Den Hartog, 2008).
Ethical decision-making, for example, connects especially to the decisions made within the process of creative idea evaluation. Ethical decision making includes fairness of decisions, con-sidering needs and goals of followers and the outcomes of the decision making process, as well as regarding benefit of others, and respect of others, in this case followers (Stenmark & Mumford, 2011). This can adapt to and influence the process and outcomes of the decisions made while evaluating and finally selecting creative ideas.
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or her actions, and psychological safety, which means, that the leader freely offers opinions (Palanski & Vogelgesang, 2011).
Fairness is an important aspect of ethical leadership for the creativity process, because fair lead-ers will recognize the importance of the needs of the organization and followlead-ers (Maak & Pless, 2006). Besides, it is linked to the building of trust in the relationship between the leader and followers, since the fair behavior will signal a trustworthy character to the followers, and this leader-follower-relationship is essential in the creativity process (Dirks & Ferrin, 2002; Shalley & Gilson, 2004). Trust is crucial for the creativity process in organizations, because followers will only make an information flow possible, share creative ideas with their leaders, and adapt ideas to feedback, if the leader appears trustworthy to them (Gupta & Singh, 2015). A leader, who shows transparency in the evaluation and decision process of follower ideas, positively influences the trust relationship in teams and besides, and a behavior like this has a positive influence on the perceived effectiveness of the team and the leader (Norman, Avolio, & Luthans, 2010).
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All the mentioned aspects of ethical leadership potentially enhance or positively bias the pro-cess of creative idea evaluation and selection in organizations, as described.
Hypothesis 2: The positive effect of idea evaluation on idea selection is strengthened by ethical
leadership.
FIGURE 1
Conceptual Model
(+)
Idea Evaluation Idea selection
Ethical leadership
15 METHOD Data collection
Procedure
The necessary data for testing the given hypotheses, has been gathered in a field study. For the field study, managers and a limited number, in the most cases between five and ten of their subordinates, from different organizations in the Netherlands and Germany were interviewed in a quantitative study by using an online questionnaire. The participants received access to survey individually via email and were questioned about the process of creative idea evaluation and selection and the influence of superior leaders on their behavior was be investigated.
Sample
The original data sample consisted of 232 leader-subordinate dyads. The response rate for the leaders was 68%, so that due to missing data for the variables, that are relevant for testing the hypotheses, 62 leader-subordinate dyads have been excluded, so that the final sample contained 170 leader-subordinate dyads.
Leaders
21 leaders were male (61,8%) and 13 were female (38,2%). Their ages ranged from 27 to 62 (M=50,27; SD= 8,81) and they worked on average 13 years in their organization (M=13,18, SD=9,99). 32 of the leaders (94,1%) work under a permanent contract, and 2 leaders (5,9%) under temporary contract. Most of the leaders, namely 21 (61,8%) has a degree from a univer-sity of applied since, whereas 8 leaders (23,5%) have a degree from a univeruniver-sity, 4 leaders (11,8%) have a PhD degree, and 1 leader (2,9%) has a vocational training.
Subordinates
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years (M=11,36, SD=10,04). 129 subordinates (75,9%) work under a permanent contract, whereas 38 (22,4%) have a temporary contract and 3 (1,8%) gave no information on that topic. 81 (47,6%) subordinates have a degree from a university of applied science, 44 (25,9%) have a vocational training, 34 (20%) have a university degree, 5 (2,9) graduated only from high school and 4 (2,4%) have a PhD degree. 2 subordinates (1,2) gave no information on their education.
Measures
Creative idea evaluation
Creative idea evaluation has been measured from the leader’s perceptive. For the evaluation they have been asked about the frequency of followers bringing in ideas, that are seen as being creative. This has been formulated as questions (see Appendix A) and the participants have been asked to rate the item on a 5-point scale, reaching from “1 = Never” and “5 = Almost always”. The variable for creative idea evaluation of follower ideas, as done by the leader is called “Idea evaluation” in the analysis.
Creative idea selection
Leaders were asked about idea selection. They were asked to rate the question “How often do you give follow-up to the creative ideas of the following people?”, again on a 5-point scale, reaching from “1 = Never” and “5 = Almost always”. This was constructed in the variable “Idea selection”.
Ethical leadership
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For this study a shorter version of the ELQ has been used, with items relevant ot the conceptualization, to keep the questionnaire doable in a reasonable timeframe (see Appendix A). The rating has been done on a 5-point scale, ranging from “1 = strongly disagree” to “5= strongly agree”. The variable for ethical leadership is called “Ethical leadership” and it reflects a rating of the leader’s ethical leadership by the followers. The Cronbach’s Alpha for the ethical leadership measure as rated by subordinates in the final data sample is .899.
Control variables
It has been controlled for several variables, that possibly influence the creative evaluation pro-cess, decision making and ethical leader behavior, as it has been done in past research (e.g. Chen & Hou, 2016, Shalley & Gilson, 2004). These control variables are “Leader age” (years), “Leader gender” (male, female), and “Leader organizational tenure” (years). The leader’s interaction with the subordinates has been constructed in the variable “Leader interaction sub-ordinate” and has been measured by asking “How often do you interact with the following people at work?”. This variable could show effects, since in the evaluation process an interac-tion between leaders and followers could have an influence on the outcomes of the process, so it could positively or negatively influence the idea evaluation and selection rating from both perspectives (Kijkuit & Van Den Ende, 2007; Norman et al., 2010).
Variables for supplementary analyses
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originality (Mueller et al., 2012; Zhu et al., 2017). So, the supplementary analyses serve the purpose to detect possible deviations from main analysis, that may offer different possibilities for interpretation of the hypotheses.
Data analysis
The analysis of the data was conducted using SPSS in the first step and Stata for the final anal-ysis. Firstly, preparing the original data set and analyzing the missing data, the decision was made, to delete all participants out of the data set, who did not fill out any questions or for which a big part of the necessary data for the analysis of the given hypotheses where missing.
The main regression analysis for testing the moderation model was conducted in Stata. Due to the nature and functioning of this program, it was a better solution handling the clustering in teams, based on the few data available. This was necessary, since the data included teams under leaders, and therefore the control for within-cluster error correlation is needed to obtain correct standard errors and p-values (Cameron & Miller, 2015).
19 RESULTS
In the following, the outcomes of the analyses that have been conducted, as described in the previous section, will be presented for the tested hypotheses, that have been stated on the theory section of the thesis.
Correlations
Table 1 summarizes the correlations between all variables in the analyses, that have been con-ducted for testing the hypothesis. There was a correlation between “Idea selection” and “Idea evaluation”, r(170)=.559, p<0.01. “Idea selection” correlated furthermore significantly with “Leader Age”, r(170)= -.235, p<0.01, “Idea originality”, r(170)= .494, p<0.01, and “Idea use-fulness”, r(170)=.549, p<0.01. “Ethical leadership” correlated significantly with “Leader tenure organization”, r(170)=.161, p<0.05.
Hypothesis 1
The following Table 2 shows the outcomes of the first regression analysis examining the rela-tionship of “Idea evaluation” and “Idea selection”. The relarela-tionship is significant, as indicated in the table (β=.54, p<.0001). The hypothesis is therefore supported.
TABLE 2
Regression Idea evaluation & Idea Selection
Notes. N=170. Standard errors between parentheses. †p<.10, *p<.05, **p<.01, ***p<.0001 Idea selection
Coef. Std. Err. P>t
Leader age -.01 .02 .67
Lead gender .00 .23 .98
Leader tenure organization -.00 .01 .99
Leader interaction subordinate -.10 .18 .58
Idea evaluation .54*** .09 .00
TABLE 1
Descriptive statistics and Intercorrelations
M SD 1. 2. 3. 4. 5. 6. 7. 8. 9. 1. Leader age 1968,7353 9,01448 Pearson Correlation 1 Sig. (2-tailed) 2. Leader gender 1,3588 0,48107 Pearson Correlation ,553** 1 Sig. (2-tailed) ,000 3. Leader tenure organ-ization 2005,7588 9,09357 Pearson Correlation ,167* ,021 1 Sig. (2-tailed) ,030 ,783 4. Leader in-teraction subordinate 4,2176 0,62939 Pearson Correlation ,106 ,034 -,008 1 Sig. (2-tailed) ,168 ,663 ,914 5. Idea Eval-uation 3,2765 0,91019 Pearson Correlation -,279** -,093 -,131 ,173* 1 Sig. (2-tailed) ,000 ,229 ,090 ,024 6. Idea use-fulness 3,4118 0,81834 Pearson Correlation -,345** -,182* -,142 ,078 ,601** 1 Sig. (2-tailed) ,000 ,017 ,064 ,314 ,000 7. Idea origi-nality 3,0235 0,77653 Pearson Correlation -,121 ,041 -,087 ,062 ,727** ,581** 1 Sig. (2-tailed) ,117 ,599 ,258 ,421 ,000 ,000 8. Ethical leadership 3,8529 0,69777 Pearson Correlation ,146 ,095 ,161* ,135 -,107 -,032 -,022 1 Sig. (2-tailed) ,058 ,219 ,036 ,079 ,165 ,677 ,776 9. Idea Se-lection 3,3059 0,89076 Pearson Correlation -,235** -,092 -,084 ,018 ,559** ,549** ,494** -,102 1 Sig. (2-tailed) ,002 ,233 ,274 ,818 ,000 ,000 ,000 ,184
Results for Hypothesis 2
For the main moderated regression analysis for this hypothesis, the relationship between “Idea selection” and “Idea evaluation” under the influence of “Ethical leadership” was examined. The following Table 3 shows the outcomes of this analysis. In this case the relationship between the “Interaction Idea evaluation & Ethical leadership” and “Idea selection” was positive and slightly significant (β=.11, p<.10). The individual relationship between “Ethical leadership” and “Idea selection” is not significant and negative (β=-.02, p>.10). Corresponding with the results of the analysis for hypothesis one, the relation between idea evaluation and idea selection is significant and positive (β=.48, p<.0001). The hypothesis is in this case partly supported.
TABLE 3
Moderated Regression Idea evaluation & Ethical Leadership with Idea selection Idea selection
Coef. Std. Err. P>t
Leader age -.02 .02 .74
Leader gender .02 .23 .95
Leader tenure organization .00 .01 .98
Leader interaction subordinate -.09 .17 .61
Idea evaluation .48*** .07 .00
Ethical leadership -.02 .07 .81
Interaction Idea evaluation & Ethical leadership
.11† .06 .09
R² .34
Notes. N=170. Standard errors between parentheses. Standardized values have been used for the calculation and regression of the moderation. †p<.10, *p<.05, **p<.01, ***p<.0001
22 FIGURE 2
Interaction plot Idea evaluation & Ethical Leadership with Idea selection
Supplementary analyses
To detect possible differences in the way that leaders evaluate creative ideas, when asked for specific characteristics of creativity instead of the frequency, with that followers bring in crea-tive ideas in general, the following supplementary analyses have been conducted.
Hypothesis 1
23 TABLE 4
Regression Idea Originality and Usefulness & Idea selection
Idea selection
Coef. Std. Err. P>t
Leader age -.01 .01 .54
Lead gender .01 .16 .93
Leader tenure organization .00 .01 .97
Leader interaction subordinate -.03 .16 .86
Idea originality .31*** .08 .00
Idea usefulness .40† .20 .05
R² .35
Notes. N=170. Standard errors between parentheses. †p<.10, *p<.05, **p<0.1, ***p<.0001
Hypothesis 2
24 TABLE 5
Moderated Regression Idea Originality and Usefulness & Ethical Leadership Idea selection
Coef. Std. Err. P>t
Leader age -.01 .01 .63
Leader gender -.00 .16 .99
Leader tenure organization .00 .01 .94
Leader interaction subordinate -.02 .15 .91
Idea originality .25*** .07 .00
Idea usefulness .34* .15 .03
Ethical leadership -.07 .08 .34
Interaction Idea originality & Ethical leadership
-.10 .11 .38
Interaction Idea usefulness & Ethical leadership
.01 .07 .85
R² .36
Notes. N=170. Standard errors between parentheses. Standardized values have been used for the calculation and regression of the moderation. †p<.10, *p<.05, **p<.01, ***p<.0001
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DISCUSSION
Basis of the conceptual model was the creativity process in organizations in which employees as followers of leaders bring in their creative ideas and afterwards the evaluation of creative ideas on basis of their usefulness and originality by leaders takes place, finished with the selec-tion of the “best” ideas by the leaders (Dean, Hender, Rodgers, & Santanen, 2006). In the fol-lowing, a short review of the most significant results will be provided, followed by theoretical and practical implications, as well as limitations of this study, and final concluding remarks.
Hypothesis 1
Hypothesis one concerned a positive influence of idea evaluation on idea selection, as rated by the leader for creative ideas generated by followers. This relationship has not been supported in the main analysis (Table 2), with the subordinate rating of ethical leadership as the dependent variable. Another important finding of the study is, that the control variable on the leader’s interaction with followers, is positively and slightly significantly related to the idea selection as rated by the subordinate (see Table 2).
Hypothesis 2
It has been found that if analyzing the model with leader selection of follower ideas as depend-ent variable, the interaction between ethical leadership and idea evaluation is significant and has a positive effect on the process (see Table 8). But in the same analysis the individual effect of ethical leadership on the leader rated idea selection was insignificant and negative, so it can not generally be said, that the hypothesis was supported in this analysis.
26 Hypothesis 1
The supplementary analysis was conducted with idea usefulness and idea originality instead of the main variable idea evaluation and their relationship with idea selection as rated by the leader. The outcomes of this analysis were also significantly positive, therefore did not differ from the main analysis. The hypothesis was here also supported.
Hypothesis 2
For an analysis with idea originality and idea usefulness instead of the main variable for idea evaluation, no significant effects of the interactions with ethical leadership on the leader rated idea selection could be found. In the version with the individual creativity components, the hypothesis was therefore not supported.
Theoretical implications
The findings of the regression analysis with idea selection as rated by the leader show, that the evaluation step of the creativity process is crucial for positive outcomes, enhances the decision quality and suggest, that a lot of attention has to be paid to a high-quality execution of this step (Lonergan, Scott, & Mumford, 2004). This finding also supports the theory of the “ideal” idea evaluation-selection relationship, without negative bias, as pointed out in the theory section (Keum & See, 2017). But the findings also imply, the perspective, completely taken by the leader, is crucial for the outcomes. The whole process can therefore be seen as an process that is mainly executed and directed by the leader, and that the leader has power on (Sijbom, Janssen, Van Yperen, 2014). This implies that the outcomes strongly depend on the leader’s situation, views, opinions and decisions, so there is actually a possibility for biases to play a role here (Sijbom, Janssen, Van Yperen, 2014, Zhang & Bartol, 2010).
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idea evaluation, implies, that leaders do in fact intuitively include originality and usefulness when generally evaluating the creativity of followers (Mueller, Wakslak, & Krishnan, 2014). A suggested aversion against only one of the components of creativity could not be shown. The outcomes show mainly, that the leaders in this study consider both aspects, originality, that makes an idea creative, and usefulness, when rating the possibility for implementation in the organization (Zhang & Zhang, 2014).
The findings of the main analysis for hypothesis two show quite odd results, concerning the significant effect of the individual variables ethical leadership and idea evaluation on the idea selection, which could imply, that from the perspective of the follower, ethical leadership has no influence on the general process, but could enhance single aspects of creativity. Ethical lead-ership may be a construct, that is too general or to abstract, to identify an interaction with the evaluation of creative ideas and it would therefore be necessary to test the model with individual aspects of ethical leadership, like it has been done in other research with, for example, empow-erment, integrity, or leader’s authenticity (Zhang & Bartol, 2010; Palanski & Vogelgesang, 2011; Semedo, Coelho, & Ribeiro, 2015).
Some researchers suggested, that different leadership styles are necessary in different parts of the creativity process, e.g. a good relation and contact with superiors may help in the final implementation phase, which may imply, that ethical leadership may only enhance individual aspects of the creative process, and other aspects of leadership could be helpful in some phases as well (Caniëls, De Stobbeleir, & De Clippeleer, 2014). But generally ethical leadership be-havior may, as already pointed out, enhances the most important parts of idea generation and the evaluation, and may also connect best to the leader’s special position in the process, by making him or her overcome negative bias and take a position as ambassadors for creative ideas and innovation (Chen, Chang, & Chang, 2015).
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For practice, the positive relationship of leader’s interaction with ethical leadership, as rated by the followers, implies, that leaders and their followers need to be in continual exchange and communication during creative evaluation and rating processes to ensure transparency and un-derstanding why certain ideas are rated better or worse (Jung, 2001). These behaviors could improve team dynamics as well as creative processes on organizations in general.
Practical implications of the fact, that leaders intuitively include originality and usefulness in their rating, are, that leaders need to be aware of the way they evaluate, and also of the im-portance their evaluation has for the outcomes of the creative process (Zhang et al., 2014). They can adapt their behaviors and strategies to reach the best possible result and create the creativity evaluation and selection process in their organizations in the ideal way.
The findings on the relationship of ethical leadership with idea selection as done by the leader corresponds with findings of previous research on the positive effects of ethical leadership, so generating an environment, that enhances and encourages creativity, improves the relationship of the leader and followers and spreads respect and trustworthiness (Chen & Hou, 2016). It also strengthens the suggestion, that the natural bias against creativity within leaders can be over-come by ethical leadership, and that this is in fact happening in organizations to ensure success of creativity (Jung et al., 2008). This implies for practice, that ethical leader behavior is im-portant and essential for a functional organization. Leaders need to be aware of, trained for, and adapt this kind of behavior to reach the best possible and most efficient outcomes together with their teams. Leader need also be aware of their role as ambassadors for the creative ideas of their teams (Kratzer et al., 2008), and their potential to increase the success of creative ideas in their organization through ethical leader behavior. An awareness like this would lead to an improvement of creativity process in many organizations and would enable a lot more innova-tions for the future (Amabile, Schatzel, Moneta, & Kramer, 2004).
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Along the way of conducting the research of this thesis, multiple limitations appeared, which are important to note for understanding the way this research was done and being able to inter-pret the results that have been found in a better way, and to make recommendations for future research.
Due to the specific target group of the research, namely the leaders and their teams, it was in the case of this research not possible to recruit a high number of participants, so, the relatively small sample size led to an underpowered study. The generally low number of participants led to a relatively small data set, that was even smaller after deleting all participants, who did not fill in the questions for the relevant variables completely. Missing data leads to an insignificance of outcomes (Busch, 2007), like it also has been found in the analyses conducted this research. The research of this thesis should therefore be done again with a bigger data set to receive reliable and significant results, that can be interpreted without doubt (Busch, 2007).
But the fact, that the research has been done in a field study also adds to the field of creativity research. Further research with field studies should be done, since in the past creativity has in the most cases been conducted in laboratory experiments, which do not reflect the reality in the economy, where creativity is an important and essential concept (Mueller et al., 2014; Zhu et al., 2017).
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A conceptual limitation could be the split of the idea evaluation and idea selection, since these two are often seen as part of the same process (Ritter, Van Baaren, & Dijksterhuis, 2011). So, it is not clear if a separation can be made or not, since both steps are closely connected. But the way this research has investigated the relationship between the two aspects, opened now possi-bilities to test the effect of other influences on the selection step individually. The split of idea evaluation and idea selection is a chance for future creativity research, to tests effects of all kinds of influencing factors individually and gain new insights on how the creative process works from different perspectives.
Another limitation of the study concerns the participants themselves. Leaders and their follow-ers from companies in The Netherlands and Germany have been asked to participate. For the Dutch participants a questionnaire in Dutch was available, for German participants only a ques-tionnaire in English was available. Participants may not fill in questions they do not understand or they will pick a random answer (Peña, 2007). This needs to be investigated further, and participants from other countries who could not answer in their own language could be asked about their experience with this kind if survey, which could be subject for a whole other field of research itself. The survey could be adapted specifically for the countries, in which it is conducted, meaning to adapt the language with correct translation methods to avoid misunder-standings and falsified results (Peña, 2007). But the fact, that participants from different coun-tries have been asked to participate, also broadens the perspectives, that have been considered in this research. In future research, the two groups could be investigated in two separate anal-yses and afterwards compared, to identify possible differences in creative processes and the influence of ethical leadership, between the different countries.
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pany to company (Hemsley-Brown, 2004). Besides, leaders from different levels of ment have been questioned, namely team leaders or middle managers as well as top manage-ment executives. Their times are therefore also from different hierarchical levels, so that a com-parison may be only possible in a limited way (Hemsley-Brown, 2004). But these two limita-tions can also be seen as the possibility to generalize the findings across hierarchical levels and industries. For future research this possibility to generalize implies, that in all field studies it should be tried to win participants from multiple hierarchical levels and from a diversity of organizations.
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have a special impact, it may be likely, that behavior of superior leaders can have an influence on the leaders evaluating and making decisions on follower’s creative ideas.
Conclusion
In sum one can say about the research conducted in this thesis, that it shed new light in the creative idea evaluation and selection process, by splitting the process in two parts and analyz-ing them separately for their influence on each other, and the influence of other factors. The role of leaders as raters and ambassadors for follower’s creative ideas in organizations has been emphasized and the possibility has been stressed, that the leader can be biased in their evalua-tion and decision. Ethical leadership has been shown to be a possible improving factor on the process, as well as a possibility for leader to overcome bias and manage the process positively.
The research has been conducted with a field study survey, including leaders and their followers from different organizations in The Netherlands and Germany, and the analysis of the data lead to interesting results. One main finding is, that the positive relation between idea evaluation and selection is existent, but only if taking the leaders perspective for both variables. Ethical lead-ership has, together with idea evaluation, only a partly enhancing effect on idea selection, so there are still factors unidentified in this research that lead to a complete improvement of the process. The findings support theories from other research, and imply practically mainly, that leaders need to be aware of how the creativity process works and how they can positively in-fluence it.
There was quite a number of limitations of the study to point out, that serve a chance for future research in the area of creativity and ethical leadership.
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43 APPENDIX A Questions creativity measurement
Leader Level
How often do the following people come up with creative ideas?
How new and original are the creative ideas of the following people usually?
How usable and useful are the creative ideas of the following people usually?
How often do you give follow-up to the creative ideas of the following people?
Subordinate Level
How often do you usually invent creative ideas?
How new and original are your own creative ideas usually?
How usable and useful are your creative ideas usually?
How often are your creative ideas followed up on by your supervisor?
The Ethical Leadership Questionnaire (Yukl et al., 2013)
44 My supervisor
1. Shows a strong concern for ethical and moral values.
3. Sets an example of ethical behavior in his/her decisions and actions.
4. Is honest and can be trusted to tell the truth.
8. Insists on doing what is fair and ethical even when it is not easy.
