From autonomy to creativity: a multilevel investigation

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From autonomy to creativity: a multilevel investigation

Master thesis, MSc Human Resource Management University of Groningen, Faculty of Economics and Business

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ABSTRACT

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1. INTRODUCTION

‘Players win games, teams win championships’ (Taylor, 1991).

Almost twenty years ago, Woodman, Sawyer, and Griffin (1993) argued that creative behaviour is a function of the interaction between person and context, with the context as an important determinant of creativity. The context can be understood among other things as the team or the colleagues around the employee, and creativity depends on this context. Working in teams is a very relevant topic at the moment. There is a strong belief that teams make people more creative and that teamwork is good for social interactions at work. Like the famous basketball coach Bill Taylor (1991) said in his quotation above, teams have advantages above individual players; for example, it is often expected that teams are more creative than individuals. But how is creativity in teams determined and which group process create creativity?

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There is much evidence that autonomy has a positive influence on creativity at the individual level (Greenberg, 1992; Amabile et al., 1996; Oldham & Cummings, 1996). However, there is less evidence of this relationship on team level, while (semi-) autonomous teams are booming in organizations at the moment. Therefore the autonomy-creativity relationship will be examined at the team level. More in particular, three questions will be addressed. The first question is whether results at the individual level generalize to the team level and whether team autonomy is related to team creativity.

Autonomy at the individual level and the team level may be correlated. If this is the case, the second question that will be examined is: does team autonomy predict team creativity over and above individual creativity? Further, are team outcomes a result of the process occurring at the individual level, or does a unique process exist at the team level? Different studies showed that outcomes at the team level are more than simply the aggregation of individual outcomes (Kirkman, Tesluk, & Rosen, 2001; Quigley, Tegleab, & Tesluk, 2007). On the contrary, Pirola-Merlo and Mann (2004) found in their study that team creativity could be explained as the average of individual creativity. One focus of this research is studying the relationships among individual level and team level autonomy and creativity.

Autonomy creates the opportunity to be creative and proactively change the situation. The degree to which people actually engage in proactive creative behavior may depend on creative self-efficacy. The third question that will be examined is: does creative self-efficacy moderate the autonomy-creativity relation at the individual level? And does creative team-efficacy moderate this relationship at the team level? The strength of this study is the inclusion of the variables creativity, autonomy, and creative efficacy at both the individual and team level. In sum, the following research question will be answered:

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2. LITERATURE REVIEW AND HYPOTHESES

The theoretical framework for this study is depicted in figure 1. The essence of this model is that there are two levels of analysis (individual and group level), and the relationship between autonomy, self-efficacy and team-efficacy, and creativity will be studied at both levels.

Team-efficacy

Hypothesis 6

Team autonomy Team creativity

Hypothesis 4

Hypothesis 2 Hypothesis 1

Hypothesis 3

Individual autonomy Individual creativity

Hypothesis 5

Self-efficacy

Figure 1. Conceptual framework.

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stimulation (Paulus, 2000). For this reason this thesis will focus on creativity at the individual as well as the team level.

Creativity at the individual and group level are likely correlated. On the one hand, for creativity at the group level to occur, creative individuals are needed. For example, Pirola-Merlo and Mann (2004) concluded that creativity can occur when individuals work separately on a task, but it can also occur when several individuals work together, interact with each other and share ideas. According to them, teams can only be creative when the individual team members are creative. Also Taggar (2002) suggested that individual creativity can be utilized to achieve team creativity; individuals establish the right sort of social environment with creativity-supporting behavior. Therefore, individual creativity could lead to team creativity, resulting in a positive correlation between individual and team creativity.

On the other hand, working in a creative team may stimulate individual creativity. Ford (1996) studied the link between intra-individual characteristics and individual creativity, and concluded in his Theory of Creative Individual Action that social contacts facilitate creative ideas of individuals. Many problem-solving groups are used in organizations to create ideas or solutions to problems. Especially in cross-functional teams, different perspectives could be stimulating in solving problems (Uhl-Bien & Graen, 1998). These studies indicate that team creativity leads to individual creativity, and this reverse direction of causality also suggests that individual and team creativity will be positively correlated. In line with these findings, the following hypothesis is formulated.

H1: There is a positive relationship between creativity of individuals and creativity of teams.

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work and in determining the procedures to be used in carrying it out” (Hackman & Oldham, 1980, p. 79), and is a property of persons or teams. Individual autonomy in this case is applicable to individual workers, who can regulate their own activities. People are more likely to be intrinsically motivated when they can freely choose to pursue their activities, or in other words: are autonomous (Gagné, 2003).

Team autonomy can be considered as the team-level parallel of individual autonomy and exists when the group as a whole has freedom of choice in activities (Van Mierlo, Rutte, Vermunt, Kompier, & Doorewaard, 2006; Cordery, Mueller, & Smith, 1991; Kirkman & Rosen, 1999). Van Mierlo et al. (2006) found that individual autonomy is positively related to team autonomy in case of high levels of support. This means that autonomous team members can make the team autonomous, and vice-versa; increased team autonomy will result in increased individual autonomy (Van Mierlo et al., 2006). In line with this earlier research, a positive relationship between individual and team autonomy is expected, because individual and team autonomy influence each other.

H2: There is a positive relationship between autonomy of individuals and autonomy of teams.

Autonomy-creativity relationship. Besides hypotheses about individuals and teams, also relationships between creativity and autonomy are expected, at the individual as well as the team level. This reasoning is based on self-determination theory of Deci and Ryan (2000), which includes autonomy as an aspect of self-determination. Among others, self-determination means that individuals and teams decide by themselves what they do with creative ideas. According to James, Clark, and Cropanzano (1999), autonomy provides greater freedom to think creatively as an important contextual factor that can promote creativity in individuals and groups.

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motivation is in turn an important driver of creativity at the individual level (Elsbach & Hargadon, 2006). The reasoning leads to the following hypothesis at the individual level.

H3: There is a positive relationship between autonomy and creativity of individuals.

Also at the team-level, autonomy is seen as an antecedent of creativity “in that self-determination theory of Deci and Ryan (2000) suggests that a direct focus on autonomy is crucial for identifying contextual factors that promote creativity” (Liu, Chen, & Yao, 2011, p. 294). James, Clark, and Cropanzano (1999) theorized that a high degree of autonomy will facilitate creativity in groups, and allow group members to more fully use their own particular knowledge and skills in the creative process. The mentioned theory above lead to the following hypothesis at the team level.

H4: There is a positive relationship between autonomy and creativity of teams.

It is possible that autonomy in itself is not enough to explain creativity at the individual and the team level. For this reason, the two moderating factors of self-efficacy and team-efficacy are defined, that could positively influence the relationship between autonomy and creativity.

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opportunity to be creative, but only if the individual has sufficient creative self-efficacy and is motivated to be creative, creativity will be expressed. Because of the interplay between opportunity and ability, creative self-efficacy will strengthen the autonomy-creativity relationship at the individual level.

H5: The positive relationship between individual autonomy and individual creativity is stronger in case of high creative self-efficacy.

Team-efficacy. Team-efficacy can be defined as the members’ belief in the team or the degree of confidence in their team1. Members of teams with high team-efficacy are more supportive of each other and experience more commitment to their team in comparison with groups with low team-efficacy (Kirkman & Rosen, 2000).

As suggested in the fourth hypothesis, a positive relationship between autonomy and creativity in teams is expected. When team members have trust in each other and a collective belief in the team, this relationship will be stronger. Autonomy provides the opportunity to be a creative team, as an antecedent of proactive behavior (Parker, Williams, & Turner, 2006). It is the opportunity to proactively improve one’s working conditions and functioning. However, opportunity alone may not be enough, because people may only engage in proactive creative activities when they perceive that these activities will be successful. Indeed, derived from creative self-efficacy defined by Tierney and Farmer (2002), creative team-efficacy taps the confidence of the team that they can be creative in their role as a group. Consequently, the autonomy-creativity relationship will be more positive if the team is high in creative team-efficacy and has the confidence that it can deal with divergent ideas (Grawitch, Munz, Elliott, & Mathis, 2003).

H6: The positive relationship between autonomy and creativity in teams is stronger in case of high creative team-efficacy.

1_{Team-efficacy has related constructs, like team potency and collective self-efficacy (Collins & Parker,}

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3. RESEARCH METHOD

3.1 Participants

The participants in this field study were employees in teams in three different business units of the international dairy cooperative FrieslandCampina Domo, which supplies ingredients worldwide to producers of mainly infant nutrition, and also produces medical nutrition, cell cultures for biopharmaceutical medicines and microbial diagnostics for the pharmaceutical industry (FrieslandCampina, 2012). All three business units have the same goal: safety and quality at the highest level to create ingredients that are essential to promote healthy growth.

The focus of this study was on the employees and teams in the production and packaging area, to create a homogeneous sample to study the autonomy-creativity relationship. 18 production and packaging teams, with teams consisting of three to six employees, were asked to participate in the study. The response rate was 94.4%; out of the 18 teams who were asked to participate in the study, 17 teams eventually did. 57 employees of FrieslandCampina Domo filled out the questionnaire, including 56 men and 1 woman. Of these 57 employees, 17 were team leaders, and they were additionally interviewed to assess team creativity.

3.2 Measurement

The items of the questionnaire (see appendix 1) were taken from validated scales. The items were translated into Dutch, because this is the first language of the respondents. Autonomy at the individual and team level, individual creativity, self-efficacy, and team-efficacy were quantitatively measured by questionnaires among team members. Creativity at the team level was assessed through a structured interview with the team leader (see appendix 2).

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good role model for creativity’. Cronbach’s α for the items measuring individual creativity was .93.

Team creativity. Creativity at the team level was assessed through a structured interview to prevent common source and method problems. The structured interview was conducted with team leaders, who have a broad and reliable overview of creativity in their teams. Team creativity was assessed with three items from the Creativity-Relevant Personal Characteristics Scale of Oldham and Cummings (1996). These were adapted to the team context, using a 7-point Likert scale ranging from 1 (strongly disagree) to 7 (strongly agree). The team leaders were asked to indicate the extent to which the team output was creative (1), original and practical (2), and adaptive and practical (3). Cronbach’s α for the items measuring team creativity was .83.

Individual autonomy. The construct of individual autonomy was measured by the Dutch Questionnaire on the Experience and Evaluation of Work (VBBA), in which the respondents indicated the extent of control over their work situation (Van Mierlo, Vermunt, & Rutte, 2008). This questionnaire consisted of 11 items, measured using a 4-point Likert scale ranging from 1 (never) to 4 (always). Examples of items are: ‘Do you have influence on the pace of work?’ and ‘Do you yourself resolve problems arising in your work?’. Cronbach’s α for the items measuring individual autonomy was .82.

Team autonomy. The construct of team autonomy was also measured by the Dutch Questionnaire on the Experience and Evaluation of Work (VBBA), using the referent-shift consensus model: the individual autonomy items were adapted to refer to the team. This questionnaire consisted of 11 items, measured using a 4-point Likert scale ranging from 1 (never) to 4 (always). Examples of items are: ‘Does your team have influence on the pace of work?’ and ‘Does your team itself resolve problems arising in its work?’. Cronbach’s α for the items measuring team autonomy was .90.

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in my ability to create new ideas’. Cronbach’s α for these three items of the Creative Self-Efficacy Scale was .94.

Team-efficacy. Team-efficacy was measured by the same three items as self-efficacy from Tierney and Farmer (2002), but these items were adapted to the team level. In this case, the scale reflects employees’ beliefs in the ability of the team to be creative at work. These three items were also measured using a 7-point Likert scale ranging from 1 (very strongly disagree) to 7 (very strongly agree). Examples of items are: ‘I have confidence in my team’s ability to solve problems creatively’ and ‘I have confidence in my team’s ability to create new ideas’. Cronbach’s α for these three items was also .94.

3.3 Procedure

The researcher distributed the questionnaires personally during the shift of the operators in the control room, as was recommended by the managers of the three business units, to reach the best response rate. According to them, employees are more motivated to fill in a questionnaire by distributing it personally than when it is handed out by the manager or by e-mail. A further advantage of this personal distribution was that employees could ask questions directly to the researcher. In the introduction of the questionnaire it was emphasized that the answers on the 37 questions would be administered anonymously. The questionnaire consisted of five parts: individual autonomy, team autonomy, individual creativity, creative self-efficacy, and creative team-efficacy (appendix 1).

Team creativity was assessed by a structured interview with the team leader, as described above. During the shift, the researcher made an appointment with the team leader to conduct the interview by asking him three structured questions.

3.4 Data analysis

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4. RESULTS

4.1 Correlation analysis

In table 1, the means, standard deviations, and correlations among individual and team creativity, individual and team autonomy, self-efficacy and team-efficacy are presented. Two of the variables, team autonomy and team-efficacy, are conceptualized as team-level constructs, but were measured at the individual level. For construct validity it is needed that within teams, team members show agreement in their ratings of these constructs. Therefore, the intra-class correlation was computed for these variables. As is described in table 1, team autonomy as well as team-efficacy had no significant intra-class correlation (ICC = .08, n.s., respectively ICC = .07, n.s.). These non-significant intra-class correlations mean that there was more variance at the individual level in comparison with the team level. For this reason, the results involving team autonomy and team-efficacy have to be cautiously interpreted, because it is based on aggregated scores of items at the team level with the assumption of agreement of scores within teams.

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TABLE 1

Descriptive statistics and (intra-class) correlations between the variables

M SD ICC(1) Correlations IC TC IA TA SE TE IC 3.33 1.02 .93 TC 5.35 1.09 .62** .83 IA 2.63 .41 .44** .52* .82 TA 2.70 .51 .08 .45** .32 .77** .90 SE 4.16 1.44 .77** .47 .39** .36** .94 TE 4.80 1.33 .07 .62** .54* .46** .44** .63** .94 Note 1: Individual Autonomy (IA) and Team Autonomy (TA) is measured by a 4-point Likert Scale, Individual Creativity (IC) by a 6-point Likert Scale, and Team Creativity (TC), Self-Efficacy (SE), and Team-Efficacy (TE) by a 7-point Likert Scale.

Note 2: Cronbach’s alpha is shown on diagonal.

** Correlation is significant at the 0.01 level (two-tailed) * Correlation is significant at the 0.05 level (two-tailed)

4.2 Multilevel analysis

The multilevel analysis took place at the individual level (level 1) in order to test the third and fifth hypotheses. The independent variables were standardized, and a multilevel analysis was carried out with individual autonomy, self-efficacy, and their interaction as independent variables and individual creativity as the dependent variable. The results of this multilevel analysis are summarized in table 2.

As shown in table 2, individual autonomy was not significantly related to individual creativity (τ = .16, p = .10), which was not in line with the third hypothesis: the expected positive relationship between autonomy and creativity of individuals. However, the relation was in the expected direction and significant at the .10 level. Self-efficacy was significantly related to individual creativity, as shown in table 2 (τ = .73, p < .01), which is evidence for higher individual creativity when self-efficacy is high.

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TABLE 2

Results multilevel analysis with individual autonomy (IA) and self-efficacy (SE) as independent variables

95% Confidence Interval Parameter Estimate SE t Sig. Lower Bound Upper Bound IA .16 .09 1.70 .10 -.03 .34

SE .73 .09 7.98 <.01 .54 .91 IA * SE -.03 .08 -.39 .70 -.18 .12 Dependent variable: Individual Creativity (IC)

4.3 Regression

Next, a regression was carried out at the team level (level 2) in order to determine the relationships between autonomy and creativity on this level. The items of team autonomy (M = 2.70) and team-efficacy (M = 4.80) were aggregated. This aggregation process led to one value per variable per team (N = 17). As mentioned above, results have to be cautiously interpreted, because of the low and non-significant intra-class correlation for team autonomy and team-efficacy.

As shown in table 3, team autonomy did significantly relate to team creativity (b = .22, p = n.s.). This result was not in line with the fourth hypothesis that there is a positive relationship between autonomy and creativity in teams. Also team-efficacy did not relate significantly to team creativity (b = .47, p = n.s.). To study the moderating influence of team-efficacy on the autonomy-creativity relationship at the team level, a product term of the two independent variables was needed. Also this product term of team autonomy and team-efficacy did not significantly relate to team creativity (b = -.19, p = .54), which was not in line with the expectation of a stronger positive relationship between autonomy and creativity in teams in case of high team-efficacy (hypothesis 6).

TABLE 3

Results regression analysis with team autonomy (TA) and team-efficacy (TE) as independent variables

95% Confidence Interval Parameter b SE t Sig. Lower Bound Upper Bound TA .22 .36 .61 .55 -.55 .99

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Because of the relatively high correlations between individual autonomy, individual creativity and team creativity (table 1), an additional regression with autonomy and creativity at the individual level as predictors and team creativity as dependent variable could be interesting. The results of this analysis are shown in table 4. Indeed, individual autonomy did significantly relate to team creativity (b = .29, p < .10). Individual creativity, however, was not related to team creativity (b = .29, p = n.s.). This result means that high individual autonomy is positively related to a high experience of team creativity.

TABLE 4

Results regression analysis with individual autonomy (IA) and individual creativity (IC) as independent variables

95% Confidence Interval Parameter b SE t Sig. Lower Bound Upper Bound IA .29 .15 1.92 .06 -.01 .59

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5. DISCUSSION

5.1 Findings

The purpose of this study was to explore whether team autonomy has a positive relationship with team creativity, and under which conditions this was the case. Also the degree to which this effect is independent of the relationship between autonomy and creativity at the individual level was studied. This study was executed among production and packaging teams in a multinational dairy cooperative, of which 57 team members of 17 teams filled out a questionnaire, and the 17 team leaders of these teams were also interviewed to assess team creativity.

Relation between individual and team level constructs. It was hypothesized that creativity of individuals is positively related to team creativity. The results of the correlation analysis show a significant positive relation between individual creativity and team creativity. This means that when creativity occurs at the individual level, it will also be experienced at the team level. The positive relationship between individual and team creativity is consistent with the findings of Taggar (2002), who found that individual creativity can be utilized to achieve team creativity, but is also consistent with the Theory of Creative Individual Action that social contacts facilitate creative ideas of individuals (Ford, 1996). Concluding, the relationship between individual and team creativity may be bidirectional: on the one hand is individual creativity needed to achieve team creativity, and on the other creative teams could stimulate individual creativity.

In the correlation analysis, a significant positive relation between individual autonomy and team autonomy was found, which was in line with the second hypothesis. This means that when individuals experience substantial freedom in determining activities, the experience of team autonomy will also be high. This result is in line with the findings of Van Mierlo et al. (2006), who found a positive relationship between individual and team autonomy in case of high levels of support. The contribution of this study is that there also is a significant positive relationship without moderating variables.

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hypothesized, it indicates that one needs creative efficacious members to have creative efficacious teams; or vice versa, that high creative team-efficacy may be beneficial for creative self-efficacy.

Autonomy-creativity relationship at the individual level. Results of the multilevel analysis showed that individual autonomy had no significant relation with individual creativity, although this relation was positive and significant at the .10 level. Perhaps with more teams than in this study (N = 17), a stronger significant result could have been found. A further possible explanation of the non-significant result is that autonomy is not enough supported by the work environment in this sample. A couple of years ago, the organization worked with self-directed work teams, where autonomous teams were more essential and autonomy was more supported, among others by the management team. With the introduction of team leaders a few years ago, employees experienced less freedom in their job and a loss of autonomy, and perhaps became less creative as a result. Deci and Ryan (2000) suggested in their self-determination theory that employees become more creative in an autonomy-supportive work environment. If the environment does not support autonomy, these researchers suggest that this should be changed to get more creative employees. Also Amabile (1996) emphasized the importance of work environment autonomy in improving individual creativity. In future research, more attention has to be directed at autonomy-supportive environments instead of the individual experience of autonomy, and how to stimulate such environments to create more creativity.

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constructs have conceptual overlap. Indeed, self-efficacy explained 59% of the variance in individual creativity, which could be another reason why the effect of autonomy failed to reach significance.

However, creative self-efficacy had no significant moderating influence on the autonomy-creativity relationship at the individual level: the product term of individual autonomy and creative self-efficacy was not significantly related to individual creativity. An explanation for this non-significant result could be the low sample of N = 57, which may be not enough to result in a significant moderating influence. By using more participants in future research, other conclusions can be found. Another reason for this result could be the strong relationship between individual creativity and creative self-efficacy. As mentioned above, creative self-efficacy explained 59% of the variance in individual creativity, which could be an explanation why the effect of the interaction failed to reach significance. Besides, autonomy and creative self-efficacy could have independent effects on individual creativity, but simply do not interact with each other. Indeed, the independent effect of creative self-efficacy on individual creativity is earlier concluded by Zhou and Long (2011). Also the independent effect of autonomy on individual creativity is earlier suggested by Deci and Ryan (2008), who theorized that autonomous employees and an autonomy-supportive environment will promote one’s creativity at the individual level.

Autonomy-creativity relationship at the team level. It was found that intra-class correlations for team autonomy and team-efficacy were low and non-significant, indicating that most of the variance was within teams rather than between teams. A possible reason for the low variation among teams in team autonomy and team-efficacy, is that all the teams of the production and packaging divisions have – besides their team leaders – one operational manager. It could be that teams are quite similar with regard to team autonomy and team-efficacy, because of this work in similar contexts under the same operational manager.

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autonomy is not enough supported in the work environment and for that reason creativity is not stimulated. Another explanation for this non-significant result can be the low sample size of teams (N = 17) to get reliable results. When in future research more attention will be focused on the autonomy-supportive environment and more teams will be studied, other conclusions can be the result.

It was also expected that the positive relationship between autonomy and creativity in teams is stronger in case of high creative team-efficacy. Unfortunately, this moderating effect was not significant, as shown in the regression analysis. An explanation for this result is the low sample of teams (N = 17). Another explanation of this result is the earlier mentioned possible unreliable measure of team autonomy and creative team-efficacy, because of the low variation among teams in these variables. Team autonomy should provide the opportunity to be creative, which should be used mainly when creative team-efficacy is high. But if the measures are not reliable, no strong conclusions can be drawn. In future research, teams have to be used whose members experience clear cohesion within their team and less outside their team, so that there is less within group variation and more between groups variation. In line with this assumption, Joo, Song, Lim, and Yoon (2012) found that team cohesion is positively related to team creativity, which is an extra argument to use more cohesive teams in future research.

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between autonomy and creativity does not exist. However, individual autonomy does significantly relate to team creativity. This result suggests that the influence of individual autonomy in this context was more important than team autonomy on team creativity.

5.2 Implications

This study is complementary to earlier research, by providing insight in autonomy and creativity at the individual level as well as the team level. The first finding in this study confirmed the expectation that individual creativity and team creativity are positively related. While the direction of this relationship is still unknown, the positive relationship is an extra confirmation of earlier research. Another conclusion is that autonomy at the individual and the team level are positively related. The concluded influence of individual autonomy on team creativity was not hypothesized, but nevertheless is an interesting finding which can be built on in future research. This result implicates that individual autonomy is more important than team autonomy in influencing team creativity. Giving individuals more autonomy could result in more creative teams.

The findings of this study are useful for different kinds of organizations. The correlations between individual and team creativity and between individual and team autonomy are substantial and these influences have to be taken into account, for an example when recruiting new employees. By selecting a creative individual, a more creative team could be the result in the long run and this in turn could improve productivity. Teams and team members can be stimulated to be more autonomous by creating an autonomous environment in the organization. A possible solution is to re-implement self-directed work teams, where individual autonomy is highly valued and supported in the work environment. Besides, this re-implementation of self-directed work teams can also prepare for more team creativity in organizations, because it may stimulate individual autonomy, which in turn may lead to higher creativity.

5.3 Limitations and future directions

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sample. First, only 17 teams and 57 team members participated in the study. This low sample size of teams and team members could have influenced the results, and studying more teams and members can lead to other, more reliable conclusions. Besides, the sample consisted of blue-collar workers, who perform mainly manual labour. The sample consisted also of participants who are mainly men (56 men, 1 woman). In future research, it is better to include a more variable sample to get more reliable conclusions. Moreover, the study was executed at only one organization. When different kinds of organizations participate, this can lead to other valuable insights with regard to autonomy and creativity at the individual level as well as the team level. All in all, in future research a larger, more broad sample consisting of different jobs and organizations is desirable.

Another limitation of this study is the assumed causal relation between autonomy and creativity. The first two hypotheses were based on correlations, with no direction of the relationship determined. However, in the multilevel and regression analysis, individual and team creativity was assumed to be the dependent variable and autonomy was assumed to be causally related to creativity. Because of the use of a cross-sectional survey, no causal conclusions were possible. It is important to take this limitation into account in future research, for example by executing an experiment or a longitudinal study in order to be able to draw causal conclusions.

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5.4 Conclusion

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relationship to creative performance. Academy of Management Journal, 45(6), 1137- 1148.

Tierney, P., Farmer, S. M., & Graen, G. B. (1999). An examination of leadership and employee creativity: the relevance of traits and relationships. Personnel psychology, 52, 591-620.

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APPENDIX 1 – QUESTIONNAIRE

Beste medewerker,

In het kader van een beter begrip van de processen binnen de ploegen en ten behoeve van mijn afstudeeronderzoek, ontvang je hierbij een korte vragenlijst. In deze vragenlijst ligt de aandacht op je zelfstandigheid en je creativiteit, met als doel om hier een duidelijk beeld van te krijgen. Het invullen van de vragenlijst duurt ongeveer 10 minuten. Geen enkel antwoord is goed of fout, het gaat om jouw mening; omcirkel het antwoord dat het meest op jou van toepassing is. Je individuele antwoorden zullen uiteraard strikt anoniem behandeld worden en komen niet in handen van anderen. Daarnaast zullen je antwoorden na de uitvoering van dit onderzoek vernietigd worden.

Alvast hartelijk bedankt voor het invullen! Anouk Schoemaker

De volgende vragen gaan over jouw individuele zelfstandigheid bij het uitvoeren van je werkzaamheden, in hoeverre je zelf de inhoud en de uitvoering van je werk kan bepalen. 1. Heb je vrijheid in het uitvoeren van je werkzaamheden?

1 (nooit) 2 (soms) 3 (vaak) 4 (altijd)

2. Heb je invloed op het plannen van je werkzaamheden?

3. Heb je invloed op je werktempo?

4. Kun je zelf bepalen op welke manier je je werkzaamheden uitvoert?

5. Kun je je werk voor een korte tijd stopzetten wanneer je dat noodzakelijk vindt?

6. Kun je de volgorde bepalen waarin je je werkzaamheden uitvoert?

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7. Neem je deel in beslissingen over wanneer iets af moet zijn?

8. Kun je zelf beslissen hoeveel tijd je voor een bepaalde werkzaamheid nodig hebt?

9. Los je zelf problemen op in je werk?

10. Kun je je werk zelf organiseren?

11. Kun je zelf de inhoud van je werkzaamheden bepalen?

In de volgende vragen wordt de zelfstandigheid van je ploeg als geheel gemeten; in hoeverre je met je ploeg in staat bent om beslissingen te nemen.

12. Heeft de ploeg vrijheid in het uitvoeren van de werkzaamheden?

1 (nooit) 2 3 4 (altijd)

13. Heeft de ploeg invloed op het plannen van werkzaamheden?

14. Heeft de ploeg invloed op het werktempo?

15. Kan de ploeg bepalen op welke manier werkzaamheden worden uitgevoerd?

16. Kan de ploeg het werk voor een korte tijd stopzetten wanneer zij dat noodzakelijk vinden?

17. Kan de ploeg de volgorde bepalen waarin de werkzaamheden worden uitgevoerd?

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18. Neemt de ploeg deel in beslissingen over wanneer iets af moet zijn?

19. Kan de ploeg zelf beslissen hoeveel tijd er voor een bepaalde werkzaamheid nodig is?

20. Lost het team zelf problemen op in het werk?

21. Kan de ploeg het werk zelf organiseren?

22. Kan de ploeg zelf de inhoud van de werkzaamheden bepalen?

In de volgende vragen gaat het erom of je je creativiteit in je werkzaamheden kwijt kunt. Het gaat niet om de beoordeling van een ander, maar hoe je er zelf over denkt.

23. In mijn werkzaamheden kan ik mijn originaliteit kwijt.

1 2 3 4 5 6

Helemaal niet Helemaal op

op mij van mij van

toepassing toepassing

24. Ik neem risico’s wanneer ik nieuwe ideeën in praktijk breng.

1 2 3 4 5 6

op mij van mij van

25. Ik bedenk nieuwe manieren om bepaalde werkzaamheden uit te voeren.

1 2 3 4 5 6

op mij van mij van

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26. Ik los problemen op die anders moeilijkheden hadden veroorzaakt.

1 2 3 4 5 6

op mij van mij van

27. Ik probeer nieuwe ideeën uit en pas deze toe.

1 2 3 4 5 6

op mij van mij van

28. Ik zie mogelijkheden voor nieuwe producten en processen.

1 2 3 4 5 6

op mij van mij van

29. Ik bedenk nieuwe, uitvoerbare werkgerelateerde ideeën

1 2 3 4 5 6

op mij van mij van

30. Ik ben een goed voorbeeld van een creatieve werknemer.

1 2 3 4 5 6

op mij van mij van

31. Ik bedenk revolutionaire ideeën in ons werkveld.

1 2 3 4 5 6

op mij van mij van

32. Ik denk dat ik goed ben in het bedenken van nieuwe ideeën.

1 2 3 4 5 6 7

Helemaal Helemaal

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33. Ik heb er vertrouwen in dat ik problemen creatief op kan lossen.

1 2 3 4 5 6 7

Helemaal Helemaal

niet mee eens mee eens

34. Ik heb er aanleg voor om ideeën van anderen verder te ontwikkelen.

1 2 3 4 5 6 7

Helemaal Helemaal

Met deze laatste vragen is het de bedoeling om een beeld te vormen van hoe creatief je ploeg is en in hoeverre jij het idee hebt dat je met je ploeg tot goede resultaten kan komen.

35. Ik denk dat mijn ploeg goed is in het bedenken van nieuwe ideeën.

1 2 3 4 5 6 7

Helemaal Helemaal

36. Ik heb er vertrouwen in dat mijn ploeg problemen creatief op kan lossen.

1 2 3 4 5 6 7

Helemaal Helemaal

37. Mijn ploeg heeft er aanleg voor om ideeën van anderen verder te ontwikkelen.

1 2 3 4 5 6 7

Helemaal Helemaal

Hartelijk bedankt voor het invullen van de vragenlijst! Indien u nog opmerkingen heeft, kunt u deze hieronder vermelden.

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APPENDIX 2 – SCRIPT STRUCTURED INTERVIEW

Welkom

In het kader van een beter begrip van de processen die zich afspelen in teams voor mijn

afstudeeronderzoek van de studie HRM, zal ik dit interview bij je afnemen. Hier ligt de aandacht op de creativiteit van je ploeg als geheel, wat door jou wordt beoordeeld.

Het interview duurt ongeveer 10 minuten. Geen enkel antwoord is goed of fout, het gaat om jouw mening. Je antwoorden zullen uiteraard strikt anoniem behandeld worden en komen niet in handen van derden. Daarnaast zullen je antwoorden na de uitvoering van dit onderzoek vernietigd worden.

Heb je nog vragen?

1. In welke mate zijn de uitkomsten van de ploeg origineel?

1 2 3 4 5 6 7

Helemaal niet Heel erg

origineel origineel

2. In welke mate zijn de uitkomsten van de ploeg creatief?

Creatief is een combinatie van origineel en toepasselijk/uitvoerbaar.

1 2 3 4 5 6 7

Helemaal niet Heel erg

creatief creatief

3. In welke mate zijn de uitkomsten van de ploeg praktisch uitvoerbaar?

1 2 3 4 5 6 7

Helemaal niet Heel grote

mate