Creativity at work: exploring role identity, organizational climate and creative team mindset

Abstract

Both individual and organizational factors affect creativity at work. An area to be further studied is the role of the team factor in explaining creativity. In this study, the construct of creative team mindset was developed and investigated, along with individual and organizational factors. A false feedback paradigm was also used to examine the impact of organizational climate on creativity. In line with previous research, results showed that creative role identity and organizational creative climate positively affected creative behavior. Specifically, the more employees perceived their organization climate to be creative and indicated they had a creative role identity, the stronger their creative behavior. Furthermore, creative team mindset was related to creative behavior (divergent thinking). A final model indicated that creative team mindset was related to creative behavior through its relationship with creative role identity. It appears that creativity in groups is also an important factor that can increase understanding of creativity and foster such creativity. Implications for creativity management in organizations were discussed.