Reference: Gro Ellen Mathisen, Ståle Einarsen, Reidar Mykletun, (2012) "Creative leaders promote creative organizations", International Journal of Manpower, Vol. 33 Issue: 4, pp.367-382, https://doi-org.ezproxy.aut.ac.nz/10.1108/01437721211243741
Abstract: – The purpose of this paper is to examine the role of leaders’ creativity as a predictor of organizational creativity. The authors expected that creative leaders would promote creativity directly by functioning as a model and inspiration for their followers and indirectly by promoting a creativity‐supporting work climate. Significant positive associations were found between leaders’ creative behavior, organizational creative climates, and organizational creative behavior. Mediation analyses revealed that the relationship between leaders’ creative behavior and organizational creativity was mediated by organizational creative climate.
My comments: Interesting to have evidence to support such basic ideas. The core ideas reveal important methodological issues, ways of seeing the problems that are shaped by the quantitative lens, i.e.: "A positive relationship exists between leaders’ creative behavior and organizational creativity". I mean, it's reasonable to test for such positive relationship, but what does that really tell us about the nature and shape of such relationship? Not much. The study was conducted in small Norwegian restaurants, via questionnaires -and it's always interesting to see the criteria and procedure of data collection. They measured the following constructs: "leader personality", "creative work climates", and two outputs: "organizational creative behaviour" and "organizational creative outputs". I find it incredibly frustrating that one of the most crucial aspects is often omitted in these papers, namely: What and how exactly did you ask participants? Here, only two sample items are made explicit: “we generate new ideas or proposals” and “we accomplish our new ideas or proposals”. What the (highly diverse) group of respondents may have interpreted by that is a "black box" as is usually the case in questionnaire-based approaches. Anyway. Perhaps even more problematic, this is how "creative outputs" was measured: "external evaluators were asked to assess the extent to which the restaurant was considered creative according to ten different areas when compared with other similar restaurants"... meaning what the researchers really measured was the perception of a very peculiar group: "employees at public offices for the advisory of employees and apprentices within the hotel and restaurant sector" via another questionnaire (which we also don't get to see). I mean, I do understand the strength of quantitative approaches, but for all the objectivity claimed for this type of studies, it's always remarkable how obscure and ambiguous are some of the core steps. An "overview" of the items used to ask these people how different a restaurant is, includes: interior decoration, menu layout, meal appearance, and children's menu. I mean, as if the entire area of "experience design" didn't exist.
Of course, also based on the methodological tools used, any conclusions formulated by the study (seem quite reasonable, by the way) lack any explanatory power in terms of the causality -it is entirely possible that the type of leadership and the perceived differentiation by public employees are but effects of something else not addressed by the researchers. But yes, this study can be cited as "preliminary support" (words of the authors) of the elementary idea that the disposition of a leader is connected to the performance of the organisation in factors related to originality and creativity.
Abstract: – The purpose of this paper is to examine the role of leaders’ creativity as a predictor of organizational creativity. The authors expected that creative leaders would promote creativity directly by functioning as a model and inspiration for their followers and indirectly by promoting a creativity‐supporting work climate. Significant positive associations were found between leaders’ creative behavior, organizational creative climates, and organizational creative behavior. Mediation analyses revealed that the relationship between leaders’ creative behavior and organizational creativity was mediated by organizational creative climate.
My comments: Interesting to have evidence to support such basic ideas. The core ideas reveal important methodological issues, ways of seeing the problems that are shaped by the quantitative lens, i.e.: "A positive relationship exists between leaders’ creative behavior and organizational creativity". I mean, it's reasonable to test for such positive relationship, but what does that really tell us about the nature and shape of such relationship? Not much. The study was conducted in small Norwegian restaurants, via questionnaires -and it's always interesting to see the criteria and procedure of data collection. They measured the following constructs: "leader personality", "creative work climates", and two outputs: "organizational creative behaviour" and "organizational creative outputs". I find it incredibly frustrating that one of the most crucial aspects is often omitted in these papers, namely: What and how exactly did you ask participants? Here, only two sample items are made explicit: “we generate new ideas or proposals” and “we accomplish our new ideas or proposals”. What the (highly diverse) group of respondents may have interpreted by that is a "black box" as is usually the case in questionnaire-based approaches. Anyway. Perhaps even more problematic, this is how "creative outputs" was measured: "external evaluators were asked to assess the extent to which the restaurant was considered creative according to ten different areas when compared with other similar restaurants"... meaning what the researchers really measured was the perception of a very peculiar group: "employees at public offices for the advisory of employees and apprentices within the hotel and restaurant sector" via another questionnaire (which we also don't get to see). I mean, I do understand the strength of quantitative approaches, but for all the objectivity claimed for this type of studies, it's always remarkable how obscure and ambiguous are some of the core steps. An "overview" of the items used to ask these people how different a restaurant is, includes: interior decoration, menu layout, meal appearance, and children's menu. I mean, as if the entire area of "experience design" didn't exist.
Of course, also based on the methodological tools used, any conclusions formulated by the study (seem quite reasonable, by the way) lack any explanatory power in terms of the causality -it is entirely possible that the type of leadership and the perceived differentiation by public employees are but effects of something else not addressed by the researchers. But yes, this study can be cited as "preliminary support" (words of the authors) of the elementary idea that the disposition of a leader is connected to the performance of the organisation in factors related to originality and creativity.
