Title:
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Creativity in small groups: the cognitive, affective, and social consequences of shared representations for group creativity
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Research on group creativity has focused on the ability of group members to improve
their divergent thinking by interacting with others who have different perspectives. I argue
that this research has ignored the issue of how groups converge around highly creative ideas.
I suggest that the processes that facilitate divergent thinking can also reduce the ability of the
group to build on and integrate information in creative ways. Moreover, differing
perspectives disrupt the cognitive, affective, and social processes necessary for the group to
select creative ideas. Thus, in organizational groups charged with developing creative
outputs, diversity of perspective can actually reduce the group's overall level of creativity. In
contrast, when group members share a common framework for thinking about the task (i.e.,
have a shared representation), they can generate creative ideas by building on and integrating
the ideas of multiple members and recognize and select the most creative of these ideas. I
develop a theory of group creativity based on the challenges for groups in making intuitive,
creative judgments. I argue that shared representations of the group task - rather than
diversity of perspectives - are the basis for group creativity, because they help groups to
converge around highly creative ideas.
I test these ideas with a multi-method approach. The first exploratory study in the
asset management industry reveals the importance of shared representations to group
creativity. The second field study tests the role of shared representations in individual
cognitive, affective, and social processes. The third study is an experiment that demonstrates
these affects and their impact on creativity at the group level. The final study presents
quantitative evidence of these effects in the asset management industry
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