About this Research Topic

Background

This Research Topic aims to shed light on the influence of culture on creativity in the workplace.

The concept of creativity at work is generally associated to the generation of novel ideas and outcomes that are consistent with the achievement of one or few goals. Creativity does not exist in vacuum. It relies on culture to take its form in terms of how it is perceived, expressed or evaluated. Organizational creativity may be influenced by multiple factors. It is also an adaptive/transformation process that drives organizational change. Although effects of culture on individuals' creativity, teams, organizations and institutions have started attracting more attention, research in this respect is sporadic and does not reflect the global nature of today’s business.

Despite the rising interest in organizational creativity by non-Western researchers, it seems that the main conceptual and empirical bases of investigations concerning this topic are still grounded in Western thought and culture. For example, concepts of novelty and usefulness, which are conceptual pillars of the most acknowledged definition of organizational creativity, are still dominated by Western thought. Moreover, most of the empirical research related to creativity in the workplace paid very little attention to the cross-cultural and intercultural perspectives of creativity. The possible cultural bias hidden in creativity research in the workplace may result in conceptual and empirical errors.

Therefore, it is plausible to argue that the relationship between culture and creativity in the workplace, which has widely been recognized as a critical issue, seems to be still overlooked. There is an emerging need to provide systematic and accurate frameworks on the cross-cultural and intercultural dimensions of creativity in the workplace.

This Research Topic aims to fill this gap by profiling the current conceptual and empirical research on two main levels: 1. The relationship between cultural diversity and organizational creativity; 2. The role of intercultural relationships in facilitating or obstructing creativity in the workplace.

There are a few questions emerging from the analysis of academic literature:

• Is organizational creativity a universal construct? Or does it vary depending on the different culture?
• Does cultural diversity impact individual, team and organizational creativity? If so, what is the role of cultural diversity in facilitating and fostering creativity in the workplace?
• What are other contextual and psychological factors that influence the relationship between diversity and creativity?
• Do intercultural encounters facilitate individual, team and organizational creativity or do these represent an obstacle for the development of creative methods at work?
• Do multilingualism and multicultural experiences have a positive impact on creativity at work? And how?
• What is the relationship between (positive) intercultural climates and climate for creativity in the workplace?
• What strategies, methodology and practices may favor the development of individual, team and organizational creativity in multicultural/global workplaces?
• What kind of organizational culture may foster creativity in global/multicultural organizations?

This Research Topic is open to conceptual, quantitative, and qualitative manuscripts from different disciplines: organizational psychology, organizational sociology, management, organizational behavior, etc. Multidisciplinary approaches are also welcome.

Keywords: Creativity, intercultural management, cross-cultural management, organizational diversity, workplace

Important note: All contributions to this Research Topic must be within the scope of the section and journal to which they are submitted, as defined in their mission statements. Frontiers reserves the right to guide an out-of-scope manuscript to a more suitable section or journal at any stage of peer review.

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