2°. Call for papers: Track 6 - ENABLING CONDITIONS FOR CREATIVITY WITHIN TEAMS
Dear Colleagues,
We invite you to join us in the track 6 “Enabling conditions for creativity within teams” - XI Workshop of the Group of the Italian Scholars in Organizational Studies, to be held at University of Bologna - School of Economics and Alma Graduate School, June 17-18, 2010.
Instructions for papers:
The submitted papers should indicate the track selected, the title of the paper, authors' name and their contacts.
Papers must not exceed 40,000 characters (empty spaces and references included).
Papers must be submitted in electronic format (.doc) to the Conference Convener at the following e-mail address:
woa2010@almaweb.unibo.it within April 20, 2010.
Track 6 - ENABLING CONDITIONS FOR CREATIVITY WITHIN TEAMS
The aim of this track is to explore the organizational conditions indispensable for the development of creativity within teams. At the organizational level analysis, the literature looks for factors, which can improve or obstruct creativity (Woodman, Sawyer & Griffin,1993). In a literature review about determinants of organizational creativity, Andriopoulos (2001) identified five major organizational factors that enhance creativity at the team and individual, in a work environment: organizational climate, leadership style, organizational culture, resources and skills, the structure and systems of an organization.
Parallel, studies on team’s creativity inquire about the conditions which can improve or inhibit creativity in specific teams (Amabile,1996; Gilson & Shalley, 2004; Paulus, 2000). Our interest is to put together both levels of analysis, teams and organizations, aiming at distinguishing causally adequate conditions and causally accidental conditions for the work team’s creativity. These conditions indispensable for the development of creativity within teams can be explored through the social networks theories (Leenders, Van Engelen & Kratzer, 2003). Viewing organizations as social networks implies viewing the organization as a system built up by relationship between peoples, groups or organizations (Tichy et al., 1979). By studying these relationships, knowledge can, for example, be obtained on how different factors influences creativity performance of groups.
One question that we would like to raise is: what conditions within an organization, from a relational perspective, have a positive (or negative) impact on creativity activities at the team level? A higher level of connectivity does, for example, suggest a higher possibility to access knowledge and information since individuals and teams in those cases have more possible sources. Different sorts of connections have also been put forward when regarding the potential of different position
within a network. Examples of such connections are peripheral contacts, so-called weak ties (Granovetter, 1973), or more closely connected networks, communities of practice (Brown and Duguid, 1991; Wenger and Snyder, 2000; Wenger, 2001), which are often created informally. These difformal and the informal dimension of the organization into consideration.
Other types of explored relations are individuals’ and teams’ connectivity outside the organization. Who are the external connections? How are they involved? To which extent the degree of connection, within and outside the organization, and the team, is important to enhance team’s creativity? We will build on open and closed systems (Simon, 1958; Thompson, 1957) and the inward and outward approach of teams (Ancona, 2008). An example of a condition for team’s creativity is coupling and decoupling team’s activities within and beyond the organization while balancing internal focus and external interactions. How does the sequence in time of these activities according to the lifecycle of the team impact its creativity?
Empirical or theoretical papers, we invite all those who work with creativity in teams, independent of the teams’ classification adopted (formal and informal; globally distributed and collocated; innovators and entrepreneurships), to submit their conclusions.
Please distribute the announcement and the attachment to your network!
If you have any preliminary questions, contact us:
Rosana Silveira Reis, University of Bologna,
rosana.reis@unibo.it
Christine Baldy Ngayo, HEC Paris,
christine.baldy-ngayo@mailhec.net
Jennie Björk, Chalmers University of Technology,
jennie.bjork@chalmers.se
More informations in the WOA 2010 site:
http://www.almaweb.unibo.it/en/almags/eventi/jpage.plp?idj=31147&idEvento=31143
Rosana Silveira Reis
Department of Management Sciences
University of Bologna - Alma Mater Studiorum
Via Capo di Lucca, 34 Bologna - Italy 40126
Phone:+39 338 9444092
Fax:+39 051 2098074
Email:
rosana.reis@unibo.it
Site:
http://www.sa.unibo.it/