Thinking inside the box: How conformity promotes creativity and innovation

Kaplan, Seth A.; Brooks-Shesler, Luke; King, Eden B.; Zaccaro, Steve

doi:10.1108/s1534-0856(2009)0000012012

Cited by 19 publications

(17 citation statements)

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“…For example, Sutton (2002) suggested that to promote creativity firms should actively hire employees who break the rules and resist adapting to norms because these "misfits" offer new perspectives and initiate different solutions to problems. This logic is evident in a spate of recent research arguing that conformity pressure is useful for the implementation of new ideas, but stifles the generation of new ideas (Kaplan, Brooks-Shesler, King & Zaccaro, 2009), that psychological states that reduce CONFORMITY PRESSURE AND CREATIVITY 4 conformity also increase creative problem solving (Galinsky, Magee, Gruenfeld, Whitson & Liljenquist, 2008), and that mere exposure to incidental cues representing conformity reduce individuals' ability to generate creative solutions on subsequent tasks (Forster, Friedman, Butterbach & Sassenberg, 2005). Others are somewhat more optimistic and suggest that conformists may play a role in the creative process, but they do so by providing a supportive environment for their more creative counterparts rather than themselves being a source of creative ideas (Kaplan, et.…”

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Follow the crowd in a new direction: When conformity pressure facilitates group creativity (and when it does not)

Goncalo

Duguid

2012

Organizational Behavior and Human Decision Processes

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Adopting a person by situation interaction approach, we identified conditions under which conformity pressure can either stifle or boost group creativity depending on the joint effects of norm content and group personality composition. Using a 2 x 2 x 2 experimental design, we hypothesized and found that pressure to adhere to an individualistic norm boosted creativity in groups whose members scored low on the Creative Personality Scale (Gough, 1979), but stifled creativity in groups whose members scored high on that measure. Our findings suggest that conformity pressure may be a viable mechanism for boosting group creativity, but only among those who lack creative talent. AbstractAdopting a person by situation interaction approach, we identified conditions under which conformity pressure can either stifle or boost group creativity depending on the joint effects of norm content and group personality composition. Using a 2 x 2 x 2 experimental design, we hypothesized and found that pressure to adhere to an individualistic norm boosted creativity in groups whose members scored low on the Creative Personality Scale (Gough, 1979), but stifled creativity in groups whose members scored high on that measure. Our findings suggest that conformity pressure may be a viable mechanism for boosting group creativity, but only among those who lack creative talent.Keywords: Group creativity, conformity pressure, individualism-collectivism; group personality composition CONFORMITY PRESSURE AND CREATIVITY 3Follow the Crowd in a New Direction: When Conformity Pressure Facilitates Group Creativity (And When it Does Not)To remain competitive, many organizations actively seek out creative ideas that may lead in profitable new directions (Amabile, 1996). A creative idea is defined as one that is both novel and useful (Amabile, 1983). The classical research on group creativity has assumed that because creative ideas are initially out of the ordinary, even deviant, (Moscovici, 1976), pressure to conform to a group majority stifles creative expression (Crutchfield, 1962;Nemeth & Staw, 1989;Woodman, Sawyer & Griffin, 1993). This argument reached its clearest and most extreme form in Nemeth & Staw (1989) who claimed that creativity and conformity are a direct one-toone tradeoff; the freer people are to deviate from shared expectations, the more likely they are to suggest creative solutions.A decade ago, Flynn and Chatman (2001) tried to turn the tables on this perspective by proposing that conformity pressure can reinforce creativity relevant norms and thereby increase rather than stifle creative performance. This alternative point of view on group creativity suggests a number of exciting possibilities. Yet ten years later, the empirical evidence that would either definitively support or refute this prediction has not materialized.Indeed, the classical assumption that conformity necessarily stifles creative expression is a logic that many researchers of creativity still find appealing. For example, Sutton (2002) suggested that to pr...

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Follow the crowd in a new direction: When conformity pressure facilitates group creativity (and when it does not)

Goncalo

Duguid

2012

Organizational Behavior and Human Decision Processes

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“…In contrast, conformity and uniformity are traditionally perceived as constraints for new idea generation (Andriopoulos, ; Nemeth & Staw, ). In fact, conformity, defined as “the act of team members changing their behaviours to promote and express team unity” (Kaplan, Brooks‐Shesler, King, & Zaccaro, , p. 232), relates to complying with prevailing and existing standards, attitudes and practices, whereas creativity is associated with the development of variations (Breslin, 2012). In organizations that have a strong orientation towards conformity and promote control, individuals cannot make divergent decisions because of group pressure (Amabile, 1988; Chirumbolo, Areni, & Sensales, ; Nemeth & Staw, ).…”

Section: Introduction: Resolving the Tension Between Creativity And Cmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…However, another perspective is proposed by more recent works that emphasize the positive effects of conformity for idea implementation (Goncalo & Duguid, 2012;Miron-Spektor, Erez, & Naveh, 2011). Because ideas need to be accepted by multiple audiences during the creative process (Cattani, Ferriani, & Allison, 2014;Csikszentmihalyi, 1996;Ford, 1996), compliance with previous customers' frames of reference and compatibility with the existing organizational structure and processes facilitate the positive assessment of new ideas (Kaplan et al, 2009;Miron-Spektor et al, 2011). Certain sectors have enhanced the uniformity of practices and currently need to reinvent their practices and offerings (Blake & Burkett, 2017).…”

Section: Introduction: Resolving the Tension Between Creativity Andmentioning

confidence: 99%

Creativity within boundaries: Social identity and the development of new ideas in franchise systems

et al. 2018

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The aim of this paper is to analyse one paradox of creativity that involves balancing novelty and conformity. Using a social identity perspective, we differentiate between organizational and expertise identities to understand how different types of identities impact the creative process in terms of novelty generation as well as conformity in the context of franchising. Franchise systems are a specific organizational context in which tensions between different identities may arise and ideas are selected by multiple audiences. Furthermore, because franchising is based on standardization, franchisors need to find a balance between maintaining the uniformity of the system through conformity and enhancing new idea deployment in the network for the purpose of adaptation. We conduct a comparative case study analysis of 17 franchise systems based on 20 narrations. The findings from our qualitative empirical study show that identification plays a major role in the creative process. Social control, which may be exerted by manipulating the group identity, is an efficient lever to increase both the diffusion of an idea and its variation from existing standards, which leads to important managerial implications. Networks of individuals can promote both idea generation and a uniform diffusion of those ideas by enhancing organizational identity with a strong entrepreneurship orientation or expertise identity based on occupation‐specific knowledge acquired through experience.

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“…It is usually believed that constraints inhibit creativity, so removing constraints enhances creativity; see, e.g., [6], [10], [21] and references therein. This idea leads to recommendations that it is helpful for creativity to think outside the box, to break the rules, etc.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Do constraints facilitate or inhibit creative problem solving: A theoretical explanation of two seemingly contradictory experimental studies

Villaverde

Kosheleva

Ceberio

2012

2012 Annual Meeting of the North American Fuzzy Information Processing Society (NAFIPS)

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Thinking inside the box: How conformity promotes creativity and innovation

Cited by 19 publications

References 125 publications

Follow the crowd in a new direction: When conformity pressure facilitates group creativity (and when it does not)

Follow the crowd in a new direction: When conformity pressure facilitates group creativity (and when it does not)

Creativity within boundaries: Social identity and the development of new ideas in franchise systems

Do constraints facilitate or inhibit creative problem solving: A theoretical explanation of two seemingly contradictory experimental studies

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