Deepening our understanding of creativity in the workplace: A review of different approaches to creativity research.

TL;DR: A review of previous theories and research on creativity in the workplace can be found in this article, focusing on three types of psychological processes (motivational, cognitive, and affective).

Abstract: At the societal level, creativity is essential for economic growth and social progress (Florida, 2004; Schumpeter, 1939). At the individual, team, and organization levels, it has also been argued that creativity is a key enabler and contributor to performance, entrepreneurship, growth, and competitiveness (Amabile, 1996; Oldham & Cummings, 1996; Shalley, 1991; Woodman, Sawyer, & Griffin, 1993; Zhou, 1998; Zhou & Shalley, 2008a). More important, this theoretical notion has started to receive encouraging, although at this stage still largely suggestive, support from empirical studies (Gilson, 2008). In the past 10 years, there have been a number of comprehensive reviews concerned with creativity in organizations. Therefore, in this review, our goal is to categorize previous theorizing and research on creativity into three broad approaches that capture three types of psychological processes—motivational, cognitive, and affective—rather than to provide an exhaustive list of variables investigated to date and details of previous studies’ designs and findings. It is our hope that by organizing previous theory and research into these three broad categories that represent different aspects of psychological processes, we can assist researchers to delve deeper into an understanding of what factors promote or inhibit creativity, how they influence creativity, and, above all, why these effects occur. Toward this goal, we only review representative studies in each of the three conceptual categories and briefly mention some other studies so that interested readers can follow up on them if they wish. Selection criteria of studies included are (a) studies conducted in the workplace and (b) studies conducted in a controlled environment, such as behavioral laboratories, with the variables investigated having clear implications for creativity in the workplace. We refer interested readers to several comprehensive review articles, the majority of which have been published in the past few years: Anderson, De Dreu, and Nijstad (2004); Mumford and Gustafson (1988); Shalley, Zhou, and Oldham (2004); and Zhou and Shalley (2003), as well as a recently published volume devoted to covering theorizing and research on creativity in the workplace, Handbook of Organizational Creativity edited by Zhou and Shalley (2008b).