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Abstract

Dominance complementarity, which is the tendency for people to respond oppositely to others along the control dimension of interpersonal behavior, is a means by which people create and perpetuate informal forms of interpersonal hierarchy within social relationships (Tiedens, Unzueta, & Young, 2007b). In the present chapter, I explore the likely effects of such complementarity on group creativity. I propose specifically that expressions of dominance, even those borne not out of formal hierarchy but rather out of such factors as expertise and enthusiasm for the task, are likely to elicit submissive responses from fellow group members when the group is trying to generate creative ideas. As group members behaving submissively are likely to contribute fewer ideas to group discussion, I argue that group members who behave dominantly may, through their influence on other group members, reduce both the number and diversity of ideas generated within the group. I, therefore, propose that dominance complementarity may impair groups' abilities to generate creative ideas.

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... These disadvantages might affect the group members, in applying their creative knowledge and skills. For example, Wiltermuth [32] showed that a dominant group member may influence other submissive members in coming out with fewer ideas to group discussion. This leads to a reduction of the number and diversity of ideas produced by the group, which impairs the capability of the group in generating creative ideas. ...
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... These disadvantages might have affected the students, which employed group work, in learning and applying creativity knowledge and skills. For example, Wiltermuth (2009) showed that a dominant group member may influence other submissive members in contributing fewer ideas to group discussion. This leads to a reduction of the number and diversity of ideas produced by the group, which impairs the capability of the group in generating creative ideas. ...
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Creativity is a significant element in design education, and frequently a significant competency during recruitment for design professions. Group work and individual work are widely employed in higher education. Many studies have highlighted the merits of employing group work in design education, cultivating collaborative design abilities and fostering sought-after employability skills. Although the benefits of group work in design practice and education are widely recognised, few studies have shown evidence that group work outperforms individual work regarding creative design activities in higher education contexts. Therefore, the aim of this research is to explore whether group or individual work is more beneficial for fostering students in generating creative designs in STEM design education. A case study, involving two cohorts of second-year undergraduate students studying a UK Engineering degree Industrial Design programme, is reported. The case study compares the design outputs produced by the two cohorts tackling the same design challenge in a product design module but employing individual and group work, respectively. The case study results show that no significant differences have been found between the design outputs produced by group work and individual work, considering novelty, usefulness and overall creativity. Further analysis reveals that a student’s academic performance is not significantly related to the level of creativity of the design produced. This research indicates design educators should employ both group and individual work to complement each other in design education, and suggests potential solutions to enhance students’ design creativity.
... Here, an artificial agent might influence creativity by changing dynamics in the dyad. For instance, when there's a conflict, closer interaction with the artificial agent might signal depending on the context, creative inferiority or greater power (Magee and Galinsky, 2008;Wiltermuth, 2009). ...
... On a more positive note, if the powerful person is respected and respectful, and places structure and order into the team that others appreciate, the power differences may lead to successful outcomes. In addition, in negotiations and power research, hierarchies of power (Keltner et al., 2003;Tiedens, Unzueata, & Young, 2007) can lead to a structure of complementarity of dominance and deference of members that leads to integrative and creative outcomes (Wiltermuth, 2009;Wiltermuth, Tiedens, & Neale, 2011). We suggest that it may be useful to examine whether all members agree on who the powerful person is, and if the person who believes they are the powerful member is actually perceived that way by others. ...
Chapter
Purpose – There are a number of ongoing debates in the organizational literature about conflict in groups and teams. We investigate two “conflicts about conflict” (i.e., two meta-conflicts) in the literature: we examine whether and under what conditions conflict in workgroups might be beneficial and we also explore the idea that group members may not always perceive the same levels of conflict. Design/approach – We bring together the research and theorizing of the past 15 years to inform the current state of literature and move forward research on these conflicts about conflict. We examine and develop the two meta-conflicts to illustrate the importance of studying these ideas and to provide guidance for future research. Findings – These two meta-conflicts in the conflict literature are important to investigate as conflict is a multifaceted construct that contains many dimensions that may influence group outcomes. We explore these two issues by briefly reviewing the literature on conflict and then highlighting some of the recent research on the conflict debate (i.e., is conflict constructive or destructive?) and conflict asymmetry in workgroups. Originality/value – We identify interesting areas that future researchers could explore with respect to team conflict and conflict asymmetry.
... A study by Wiltermuth (2009) suggested that if group members are buoyed by dominance complementarities, then creative idea generation is reduced in the group. This was supported by Kaplan and colleagues (2009) and Bolinger et al. (2009). ...
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... The dominant parties gain validation of their power and status, and the submissive parties gain support and security. For both parties, uncertainty about authority roles is reduced, preventing conflict and competition and facilitating the pursuit of common goals (Bendersky & Hays, in press;Tiedens, Chow, & Unzueta, 2007;Wiltermuth, 2009). When complementarity is lacking, individuals often focus on jockeying for position, which can create anxiety and distract attention and energy away from task completion (Smelser, 1961). ...
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... On a more positive note, if the powerful person is respected and respectful, and places structure and order into the team that others appreciate, the power differences may lead to successful outcomes. In addition, in negotiations and power research, hierarchies of power ( Keltner et al., 2003;Tiedens, Unzueata, & Young, 2007) can lead to a structure of complementarity of dominance and deference of members that leads to integrative and creative outcomes ( Wiltermuth, 2009;Wiltermuth, Tiedens, & Neale, 2011). We suggest that it may be useful to examine whether all members agree on who the powerful person is, and if the person who believes they are the powerful member is actually perceived that way by others. ...
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Increasing competition resulting from the global and technological nature of markets has heightened the need for businesses to rely on cross-functional new product teams to produce innovations in a timely manner; yet functionally diverse teams' inevitable disagreements often appear to prevent this. In a study of 43 such teams, we found that the effect of task disagreement on team outcomes depended on how free members felt to express task-related doubts and how collaboratively or contentiously these doubts were expressed. Implications for managing the journey from disagreement to agreement in cross-functional new product teams are discussed.
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Two experiments suggested differential determinants of the activation versus content of counterfactual thinking. Activation refers to whether counterfactuals consciously come to mind and was assessed by thought-listing and response-latency measures. Content refers to which antecedent forms the basis of the counterfactual and was assessed using categorical codings of thought-listings. Counterfactual activation was facilitated by negative as opposed to positive outcomes, and this effect was mediated by affective experience. Expectancy violation did not influence counterfactual activation. Normality (whether an outcome was preceded by exceptional versus normal events) had no effect on activation, but it did influence content in such a way that counterfactuals more often mutated exceptional than normal antecedents. These findings are consistent with a functionalist depiction of counterfactual thinking.
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Cet article présente une synthèse des recherches et théories qui éclairent notre compréhension de la créativité et de la mise en œuvre de l’innovation dans les groupes de travail. Il semble que la créativité apparaisse essentiellement au cours des premières étapes du processus, avant la mise en œuvre. On étudie l’influence des caractéristiques de la tâche, des capacités et de l’éventail des connaissances du groupe, des demandes externes, des mécanismes d’intégration et de cohérence de groupe. La perception d’une menace, l’incertitude ou de fortes exigences entravent la créativité, mais favorisent l’innovation. La diversité des connaissances et des capacités est un bon prédicteur de l’innovation, mais l’intégration du groupe et les compétences sont indispensables pour récolter les fruits de la diversité. On examine aussi les implications théoriques et pratiques de ces considérations. In this article I synthesise research and theory that advance our understanding of creativity and innovation implementation in groups at work. It is suggested that creativity occurs primarily at the early stages of innovation processes with innovation implementation later. The influences of task characteristics, group knowledge diversity and skill, external demands, integrating group processes and intragroup safety are explored. Creativity, it is proposed, is hindered whereas perceived threat, uncertainty or other high levels of demands aid the implementation of innovation. Diversity of knowledge and skills is a powerful predictor of innovation, but integrating group processes and competencies are needed to enable the fruits of this diversity to be harvested. The implications for theory and practice are also explored.
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Creativity is essential for research and development efforts. Research and development endavours are typically organized in teams. Unfortunately, little is known about how the polarity or in other words the conflict potential determines the creativity of such teams. Based on a sample of 51 research and development teams (R&D teams), this study examines the effects of polarity on team creativity and attemps to explore situational conditions when conflict potential is detrimental or facilitating R&D team creativity. The results show that foremost in the conceptualization phase of R&D efforts polarity positively influences the creative performance of R&D teams, whereas at lower degrees of complexity or in situations later in the development cycle polarity negatively impacts the creative performance of R&D teams.
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Thirteen previously unacquainted males lived together for ten days under simulated fall-out shelter conditions. Subjects' attitudes regarding 44 issues were assessed one day prior to the beginning of confinement and positive and negative sociometric choices were assessed at the end of the first, fifth, and ninth days of confinement. Attraction to other group members, as assessed by sociometric choices, was significantly and positively related to two indices of attitude similarity on each of the three assessment days. Relevant to critics' comments regarding laboratory based findings, attraction and preacquaintance attitude similarity were shown to be significantly related when (a) similarity and dissimilarity are not explicity communicated to Ss by the experimental procedures and (b) previously unacquainted Ss interact freely over an extended period of time.
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Although previous research indicates that nominal groups generally outperform interactive groups at brainstorming tasks, companies still favor group interaction because of its presumed benefits beyond the brainstorming task. This study assesses the effectiveness of both types of groups in two domains that follow idea generation: selection of ideas and satisfaction with the process. Results indicate no superiority of interactive over nominal groups in these two domains. In addition, this study compares group effectiveness for groups selecting from their own sets of ideas and groups selecting ideas generated by another group.
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Organizations use groups to improve performance on tasks that require problem solving. Is this belief in the problem solving benefits of groups misplaced given the process-losses often experienced by brainstorming groups? This study of 94 intact autonomous work groups performing multi-part tasks revealed that group creative performance increased multiplicatively (exponentially) with the number of highly creative group members composing the group. However, this occurred only when Team Creativity-Relevant Processes (TCRP) within the group were relatively high. When TCRP were relatively low, group creative performance decreased multiplicatively with the number of highly creative group members within it. When TCRP were about average for the sample, group performance increased only linearly with the number of highly creative members within a group.
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This study investigates the effects of prior experience, task instruction, and choice on creative performance. Although extant research suggests that giving people choice in how they approach a task could enhance creative performance, we propose that this view needs to be circumscribed. Specifically, we argue that when choice is administered during problem solving by varying the number of available resources, the high combinatorial flexibility conferred by a large choice set of resources can be overwhelming. Through two experiments, we found that only individuals with high prior experience in the task domain and given explicit instruction to be creative produced more creative outcomes when given more choice. When either of these two conditions is not met (i.e., low prior experience or given non-creativity instruction), more choice did not lead to more creative performance. Theoretical and practical implications of these findings are discussed.