Creativity and Stress

Abstract

Involvement in an organizational change programme presented an opportunity to study relationships between stress and creativity in the organization. Levels of stress were close to population norms, whereas the scores from the Creative Climate Questionnaire indicated a stagnated (as opposed to innovative) organization. Strong negative correlations between stress and creative climate scores were found, especially for stress arising from relationships with others and from organizational structure and climate. In addition, differences in both stress and creativity scores were found between samples from five different levels in the organizations hierarchy. The higher the level, the less the stress and the better the perceived creative climate. It is suggested that this is a function of the type of culture pertaining in the organization.

Staff Members' Views of the Work Climate in Sheltered Homes for Adults with Autism Spectrum Disorders

“…The Creative Climate Questionnaire (CCQ) was developed during the 1980s within the scope of a research programme on the subject of organizational conditions (12). The reliability of the CCQ as indicated with Crohnbach's alpha was satisfactory in several studies > 0.80 (13,14). The instrument includes 50 items, 5 for each of the 10 dimensions: Challenge/Motivation (How challenged, emo- (12).…”

“…Creative organizations with clear aims, a collaborative leadership and an open work climate are health factors for staff members (13). The SOC Scale (8) was used to measure staff members' sense of coherence (14). The theory and questionnaire were developed to illuminate how people manage their lives despite high levels of stress (11).…”

Do Entrepreneurs Really Create Entrepreneurial Cultures? When Intentions do not Match Actions

“…The literature of change suggests that change events combined with uncertainty lead to stress (Lazarus and Folkman, 1984;Rafferty and Griffin, 2006). Consequently, stress is associated with decreased creativity (Talbot et al, 1992). Therefore the positive relationship expected between empowerment and creativity turns into a negative one.…”

The Effects of Social Exchange Perspective on Employee Creativity: A Multilevel Investigation

“…The influence of POS is likely to extend to creativity and innovation along with other outcomes, but this possibility has received little empirical attention (Clark & James, 1999). Similarly, empirical evidences indicated that supportive social relationships in organizations are crucial to predict individual creativity (Talbot, Cooper, & Barrow, 1992), especially support from top management (Zeldman, 1980). According to the social exchange theory, the support provided by immediate supervisors exerts an influence on subordinates' creativity (Amabile et al, 2004).…”