Creativity: The Influence of Cultural, Social, and Work Contexts

Abstract

The present article aims to answer the question of whether creativity is universal or culture-specific. We develop a conceptual framework that expands the existing knowledge in two ways. First, it distinguishes between the two dimensions of creativity -novelty and usefulness, and their relationship to culture. Second, it clarifies how the social context moderates the relationship between culture and creativity. We focus on the social context where cultural differences are likely to be more salient because of the presence of others, relative to the private work context where no one observes whether a person performs in a normative or a unique way. In addition, we propose that task structure, whether a task is tightly or loosely structured, is an important contextual characteristic that moderates the relationship between culture and creativity. Lastly, we offer several propositions to guide future research.

Uncertainty, reflection, and designer identity development

“…Some studies have also shown that a high tolerance for uncertainty is associated with greater creativity (Kornilova & Kornilov, 2010;Erez & Nouri, 2010). Finally, high NCC has been related to impulsive decision-making and increased likelihood of anxiety and depression (Rosen et al, 2014).…”

“…NCC describes the individual's desire to achieve closure in UNCERTAINTY AND IDENTITY 9 order to resolve situational uncertainty or to avoid closure and preserve ambiguity; as with IU and IA, this motivation is located along a continuum (Rosen et al, 2014). While these three constructs overlap, they also capture slightly different aspects of uncertainty-related cognition, affect, and behavior, and all may play an important role in understanding how individual designers interact with uncertainty in the design space.Strong empirical findings link high IU (and high IA to a lesser extent) with affective, cognitive, and behavioral outcomes such as clinically-significant anxiety and depression, increased stress, maladaptive coping, lower quality of life, avoidance of novel situations, information processing and recall biases (favoring absolutists interpretations and recall of uncertainty-marked information), diminished behavioral performance, and impulsive decisionmaking (Birrell, Meares, Wilkinson, & Freeston, 2011;Dugas et al, 2005;Erez & Nouri, 2010;Kornilova & Kornilov, 2010;Luhmann, Ishida, & Hajcak, 2011; Rosen et al, 2014). Some studies have also shown that a high tolerance for uncertainty is associated with greater creativity (Kornilova & Kornilov, 2010;Erez & Nouri, 2010).…”

Indivíduo, Liderança e Cultura: Evidências de uma Gestão da Criatividade

“…No contexto da criatividade, não é diferente. Os valores, as crenças, os rituais, dentre outros, podem ser usados no sentido de facilitar, ou de dificultar, um ambiente criativo (Erez & Nour, 2010). Nesse sentido, as práticas, as políticas e as normas podem refletir uma situação de incentivo ou barreira à criatividade coletiva.…”

Creativity in 21st-century education

“…The notion of creativity as being value-laden and culture specific has been discussed by a number of researchers (e.g. Craft, 2003;Chiu and Kwan, 2010;Erez and Nouri, 2010 Fleith (2011) describes the press for creativity in South America (Brazil) as a socio-cultural and contextually embedded phenomenon, with the effects of cultural factors paralleling those manifested worldwide. In India, the potential of creativity to contribute to economic growth is increasingly recognised, although schools still favour rote learning ).…”

“…Erez and Nouri (2010), working in Israel but reviewing research from around the world, focused on what they describe as the two dimensions of creativity (novelty and usefulness) and the nature of the tasks used (tight or loose) for generating creative thinking and concluded that context was the crucial component for success. Although his work was done in the context of design and technology, is possible to translate Kimbell's (2000) ideas about the processes underpinning creativity into any classroom context.…”