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On voit apparaõà tre une nouvelle litte rature traitant de la cre ativite et de l'innovation dans les groupes et les e quipes. Bien que de nombreaux facteurs inhibent la cre ativite des groupes, nos investigations et analyses indiquent que l'interaction dans les groupes et e quipes serait une source fe conde d'innovations et d'ide es cre atives. On pre sente dans cet article un modeÁ le the orique de la cre ativite dans les groupes producteurs d'ide es et l'impact sur le travail en e quipe et les recherches aÁ venir.There is an emerging literature on group and team creativity and innovation. Although there are many factors that appear to inhibit creativity in groups, our review and analysis suggests that interaction in groups and teams can be an important source of creative ideas and innovations. A theoretical model of creativity in idea-generating groups is developed and implications for teamwork and future research are presented.

Research on group brainstorming has demonstrated that it is less effective for generating large numbers of ideas than individual brainstorming, yet various scholars have presumed that group idea sharing should enhance cognitive stimulation and idea production. Three experiments examined the potential of cognitive stimulation in brainstorming. Experiments 1 and 2 used a paradigm in which individuals were exposed to ideas on audiotape as they were brainstorming, and Experiment 3 used the electronic brainstorming paradigm. Evidence was obtained for enhanced idea generation both during and after idea exposure. The attentional set of the participant and the content of the exposure manipulation (number of ideas, presence of irrelevant information) influenced this effect. These results are consistent with a cognitive perspective on group brainstorming.

A series of studies examined the role of social influence processes in group brainstorming. Two studies with pairs and 1 with groups of 4 revealed that the performance of participants in interactive groups is more similar than the performance of those in nominal groups. A 4th study demonstrated that performance levels in an initial group session predicted performance on a different problem 2 sessions later. In a 5th study it was found that the productivity gap between an interactive and nominal group could be eliminated by giving interactive group members a performance standard comparable with the typical performance of nominal groups. These studies indicate that performance levels in brainstorming groups are strongly affected by exposure to information about the performance of others. It is proposed that social matching of low performance levels by interactive group members may be an important factor in the productivity loss observed in group brainstorming.

The authors predicted that individuals high in dispositional anxiousness would perform poorly when brainstorming in groups but not during solitary brainstorming. Experiment 1 demonstrated this result in a comparison of groups of 4 that were all high or all low in interaction anxiousness. In groups with 2 low-anxious and 2 high-anxious individuals, the low-anxious individuals lowered their performance in the direction of the high-anxious individuals. These results suggest that part of the productivity loss observed in interactive brainstorming groups may be due to the inhibited performance of individuals who are uncomfortable with group interaction. Moreover, these individuals may influence others in the group to lower their performance in line with that inhibited performance level. Experiment 2 demonstrated that the poor performance of socially anxious groups in interactive brainstorming is not dependent on whether group members have individual microphones or share 1 common microphone.The group brainstorming approach to idea generation is used widely under the assumption that it is more efficient than individual idea generation. The traditional procedure consists of a set of rules that presumably encourage high productivity (Osborn, 1957). These rules are: express all ideas that come to mind, the wilder the better; quantity is wanted, so the more the better; criticism is ruled out; and improve and combine ideas already presented. However, researchers repeatedly have found that nominal groups (combined performance of individuals brainstorming alone) are more productive than interactive brainstorming groups (i.e.

Despite laboratory evidence that group brainstormers produce fewer ideas than individual brainstormers, brainstorming groups remain popular in business and industry. Here the authors present a model of the cognitive factors involved in group idea generation. Simulations suggest that group interaction should be beneficial when one group member primes another into thinking of ideas they would not have considered alone, at least not in the context of the task at hand. Many concepts relevant to group cognition can be defined within the model framework (stochastic transition matrices) including fluency, flexibility, category accessibility, convergent/divergent thinking, attention to partners, and the relationship between the knowledge structures of the brainstorming participants. Attention plays a crucial role in the model, linking together individuals in a brainstorming group. Simulations also suggest that convergent group behavior may be the result ofcognitivefactors in addition to the socialfactors outlined by a number of researchers.

In many meetings and work sessions, group members exchange ideas in order to come up with novel, creative solutions for problems and to generate ideas for future innovations. This type of group idea generation or brainstorming process has been studied in detail, and we have discovered much about the cognitive and social processes that underlie group idea generation. It appears that the brainstorming performance of groups is often hindered by various social and cognitive influences, but under the appropriate conditions, group idea exchange can be quite effective. In this article, we summarize the present state of knowledge, point out some significant gaps in our knowledge, and suggest a cognitive-socialmotivational perspective to integrate the major findings and to guide future research in the area of group creativity and group idea generation. 250 Cognitive-Social-Motivational View of Brainstorming

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