Conceptualization of Emergent Constructs in a Multilevel Approach to Understanding Individual Creativity in Organizations

C H A P T E R

4

Conceptualization of Emergent Constructs in a Multilevel Approach to Understanding Individual Creativity in Organizations Soonmook Lee*, Jae Yoon Chang†, Rosemary Hyejin Moon† *

Sungkyunkwan University, Seoul, Republic of Korea, †Sogang University, Seoul, Republic of Korea

DUAL PROPERTIES OF INDIVIDUAL CREATIVITY IN ORGANIZATIONS As Agars, Kaufman, and Locke (2008) mentioned, a multilevel perspective is necessary for understanding organizational creativity. Although organizations have been considered in the form of “press” or environment in models of creativity, it has not been fully incorporated into empirical investigations. Moreover, what the general organizational creativity literature mostly lacks is a thorough understanding of the dual properties of creativity-relevant constructs including individual creativity: bottom-up and top-down processes (Kozlowski & Klein, 2000; Morgeson & Hofmann, 1999). The bottom-up processes refer to the emergent processes through which unit-level constructs (e.g., team creativity, organizational climate for creativity) are emergent at individual levels and manifest at unit levels including teams and other intermediate (e.g., dyad, department) levels in organizations. On the other hand, the top-down processes refer to downward processes through which contextual effect impinges upon individu-

Individual Creativity in the Workplace https://doi.org/10.1016/B978-0-12-813238-8.00004-8

83

© 2018 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

84

4.  UNDERSTANDING INDIVIDUAL CREATIVITY IN ORGANIZATIONS

GPs

UC

EPs Emergence Emergence ICRCs

FIG.  1  Emergence process in a cross-level model: ICRCs, individual creativity-relevant constructs; GPs, global properties; EPs, emergent properties; UC, unit creativity.

GPs 3

UC

EPs

1

1 2 ICRCs1

1

ICRCs2

FIG.  2  Top-down process in a cross-level model: 1,3, direct effect; 2, moderator effect; ICRCs, individual creativity-relevant constructs; GPs, global properties; EPs, emergent properties; UC, unit creativity.

als. The emergence and top-down processes are presented in Figs. 1 and 2 in the context of creativity research in organizations. Fig. 1 shows that individual creativity-relevant constructs (ICRCs) are the elementary resources based on which unit creativity-relevant constructs (UCRCs) are formed at higher levels in organizations. The major concepts for UCRCs are global properties (GPs), emergent properties (EPs), and unit creativity (UC). In terms of resources for conceptualization at unit levels, multilevel theorists have already addressed the distinction between global unit-level properties and emergent unit-level properties, with the latter defined as the emergent properties from lower- to higher- levels in organization levels (Kozlowski & Klein, 2000). Global properties at the organization level might be the responses of human resource managers (or

1.  CREATIVITY AND INNOVATION: LARGER CONCEPTS



Dual Properties of Individual Creativity in Organizations

85

organizational leaders) to questions regarding the unit-level information such as the number of patents, unit sizes, major technologies, and CEOs’ capabilities. The unit creativity may include creativity at different unit levels related to creative performance in organizations. However, the present study focuses on emergent properties at the unit levels since they represent a more complex aspect related to and contributed by individual creativity. Fig. 2 shows that once UCRCs come to form, they can exert downward contextual influence impinging on individuals, as a result leading to revision of ICRCs. Line 1s posit direct effects of global properties, emergent properties, and unit creativity on ICRCs. ICRCs can be ICRCs1 for predictors (e.g., climate for creativity perceived at individuals) and ICRCs2 for criteria (e.g., individual creativity). Line 2 posits the moderator effect that global and/or emergent properties can have on the relations between two ICRCs. Line 3 posits the direct effect of global and emergent properties on unit creativity at a unit level. The global and emergent properties may have two indirect effects on ICRCs2: (GPs and EPs) ➔ UC➔ ICRCs2; (GPs and EPs) ➔ ICRCs1 ➔ ICRCs2. In empirical research on individual creativity in organizations, it is the utmost challenge to understand that the bottom-up and top-down processes are not separate single-level phenomena. Although these two processes are not separate, they are distinct and composed of dual processes that are well discoursed in organizational literature (e.g., Kozlowski, Chao, Grand, Braun, & Kuljanin, 2013; Kozlowski & Klein, 2000; Morgeson & Hofmann, 1999; Rousseau, 1985). Once the UCRCs come to form, they can subsequently have an influence on the individuals who were the original resources in developing the UCRCs. Drawing on Giddens (1993), Morgeson and Hofmann (1999) call this two-way influence as duality of structure that is partly independent of the interaction that gave rise to it. This interwoven dual nature is totally missing in the current research of individual creativity in organizations. Due to this problem, there is no creativity study in organizations that takes the true sense of multilevel perspective. Even the most recent literature in individual creativity research can be characterized as single-level studies despite that many of the authors describe their studies as cross-level or multilevel studies. In studies of bottom-up processes, ICRCs were not modeled or analyzed when emergent constructs (e.g., team/group/organization level creativity defined as an aggregate variable of individual creativity) were analyzed at unit levels (e.g., Bechtoldt, Choi, & Nijstad, 2012; Gong, Kim, Lee, & Zhu, 2013; Gumusluoglu & Ilsev, 2009). In studies of top-down processes, UCRCs were not analyzed while studies were conducted at individual levels in organizations (e.g., George & Zhou, 2002; Taggar, 2002; Zhang & Bartol, 2010). Although both individual- and unit-level analyses are required together in consideration of the dual properties of individual creativity in organizations, research has just begun to consider creativity at cross- or

1.  CREATIVITY AND INNOVATION: LARGER CONCEPTS

86

4.  UNDERSTANDING INDIVIDUAL CREATIVITY IN ORGANIZATIONS

multilevels of systems (a total of 52 studies out of 452 creativity studies in organizations published from 1995 to 2009), with fewer studies connecting individuals and higher levels in organizations (James & Drown, 2012). Among the limited number of cross- and multilevel studies on creativity in organizations, top-down contextual influence, whereby higher-level phenomena influence lower-level phenomena, is “perhaps the only type of creative feedback that is really receiving much attention (James & Drown, 2012, p.28).” Even with these studies of top-down processes, parallelism is pervasive in analyzing the contextual effect of UCRCs on ICRCs, assuming that theoretical concepts defined at individual levels exist at unit levels with the same content as in the original levels and taking the aggregate of individual-level measures as the measures at unit levels. This parallelism is no less apparent in bottom-up studies. Overall it is a dominant practice to consider aggregate measures of individual creativity as measures of team or organizational creativity without theoretical and empirical justification of the parallelism as lamented by Sacramento, Dawson, and West (2008). There are two difficulties in conducting cross- and multilevel studies involving emergent constructs originated from individual creativity. The first is the challenge of conceptualization of creativity-relevant constructs at unit levels over and above individual levels. The other is the operationalization following such conceptualization for empirical research. It is apparent that research effort of individual creativity in organizational settings suffers the poor general conceptualization, in which presumed parallelism is dominant or implicitly assumed across levels and dual properties of individual creativity are not incorporated into empirical research. In order to guide creativity researchers regarding conceptualization of emergent constructs we adopted Kozlowski and Klein’s (2000) canonical work on emergence processes and modified to make them fit to creativity research in organizations. We expect the modified version of conceptualization to be helpful for researchers understanding the dynamics of individual creativity in organizations. Although issues related to operationalization are no less important than conceptualization, they will only be mentioned in the conclusion in passing due to space limitations.

CATEGORIES OF EMERGENCE Drawing on general systems theory (Boulding, 1956; von Bertalanffy, 1951) and other studies on the nature of collective constructs (Chan, 1998; Morgeson & Hofmann, 1999; Rousseau, 1985), Kozlowski and Klein (2000) provided a typology of six different conceptualizations of emergent properties on a continuum of isomorphic composition and discontinuous compilation (e.g., Kozlowski & Klein, 2000, pp. 65–73). In their framework, any emergent construct may be construed as a combination of composition and

1.  CREATIVITY AND INNOVATION: LARGER CONCEPTS



Kozlowski and Klein’s Typology

87

compilation. The former is characterized by isomorphism and the latter by discontinuity between constructs across levels in organizations. Moreover, the proportional degree of isomorphism and discontinuity determines where an emergent property would be located on a continuum of composition and compilation. However, instead of conceptualizing emergence on a continuum, the following considers the limitations in Kozlowski and Klein’s typology and proposes a “categorization” of emergence.

KOZLOWSKI AND KLEIN’S TYPOLOGY Kozlowski and Klein (2000) used three assumptions to distinguish ideal forms of composition and compilation on a continuum: (1) elemental contributions to higher-level phenomena (similarities vs. dissimilarities), (2) interaction processes and dynamics (incremental/stable/low dispersions vs. irregular/high dispersions), and (3) representations (linear convergences vs. nonlinear configurations). These three assumptions consider the nature of social-psychological interactions among individuals in a unit (Sacramento et al., 2008) and can be utilized as exemplars to delineate six types of emergence. However, variations between composition and compilation cannot be illuminated through social-psychological interactions alone as levels go up to organizations. Organizations have diverse components (e.g., culture, technology, structure, and management systems) in which control systems are required to coordinate the subunits and align them in order to achieve certain goals and missions. Such control systems are a unique nature of the emergence process that transforms complicated dissimilarities or differences within units into emergent constructs manifest at higher levels (Massaro, Bardy, & Pitts, 2012). Overall, Kozlowski and Klein’s (2000) three assumptions are close to dimensions in appearance but do not clearly coincide with the continua, thus making their distinction between the emergence types less effective. Regarding the assumption of elemental contributions to higher-level phenomena, “similarity and dissimilarity” do not effectively explain the types and amounts of contributions. Moreover, “variance,” as an exemplar of emergence, is characterized by variable types and amounts of elemental contributions, which are not clearly mapped on the continuum of “similar vs dissimilar” (see Kozlowski & Klein, 2000, p. 67, Fig. 1.3, “variance” column). Regarding the assumption of interaction processes, “minimum/ maximum” (another exemplar of emergence) is not described by low vs. high dispersion while low vs. high dispersion is used on a dimensional scheme (see Kozlowski & Klein, 2000, p. 67, Fig. 1.3, “Min/Max” column). Regarding the assumption of representation, linear convergence and nonlinear configuration are used to map different exemplars of composition and compilation on a continuum. However, nonlinearity is hardly

1.  CREATIVITY AND INNOVATION: LARGER CONCEPTS

88

4.  UNDERSTANDING INDIVIDUAL CREATIVITY IN ORGANIZATIONS

accommodated on the same continuum as linearity, since linearity and nonlinearity are qualitatively different. Furthermore, Kozlowski and Klein’s (2000) typology is biased, judging from our viewpoint of examining creativity in organizations; that is, “creativity” and “diversity” in their scheme are the two exemplar constructs that directly represent creativity. However, despite its relative importance in the field of creativity, “variance” (the emergence exemplar of these two constructs) is only considered as one of the six exemplars, thus making the coverage of creativity too narrow. Considering the theoretical gap between what Kozlowski and Klein (2000) meant by “exemplars of emergence” and what can be construed using their three dimension-like assumptions, their typology can be reconsidered for theoretical consistency and our purpose of studying creativity-relevant constructs in organizations. For this purpose, we take the Roschian approach to categorization drawing upon the concepts of prototypes and exemplars in cognitive psychology. Table  1 presents the categories of emergence for creativity-relevant constructs as a modification of Kozlowski and Klein’s (2000) typology of emergence.

ROSCHIAN APPROACH TO CONCEPTUALIZATION A classic view of “concept” had been based on necessary and sufficient attributes for definition until the middle of 1970s when Rosch and her colleagues (Rosch, 1973; Rosch, Mervis, Gray, Johnson, & Boyes-Braem, 1976) developed a categorization approach to conceptualization of natural and conceptual types including objects, behaviors, psychological concepts, and situations. However, in this approach, a focal construct is not defined by necessary and sufficient attributes, but by prototypes which are hypothetical cases that best represent a focal construct. That is, instead of a definition-based model (e.g., a bird may be defined by features such as feathers, beak, and ability to fly), Roschian prototype theory would consider a category like bird as consisting of different elements which have unequal status (e.g., a sparrow is more prototypical of a bird than, say an ostrich). As shown in Table 1, there are three categories of focal constructs: (1) composition emergence, (2) complementarity emergence, and (3) compilation emergence. Categories are specified in terms of their features (Cantor, Smith, French, & Mezzich, 1980) and prototypes are an ideal type described by the features. For example, in Table 1, each category of emergence includes three features (i.e., problem type, individual contributions, and outcome of interactions) and the likelihood of a construct’s classification into a category is based on its typicality, which is generally determined by its similarity or resemblance (Rosch et al., 1976) to the prototype. The prototypes for these three different categories of emergence are or-

1.  CREATIVITY AND INNOVATION: LARGER CONCEPTS



TABLE 1  Categories of Emergence for Creativity-Relevant Constructs Composition

Complementarity

Compilation

Prototypes

Organizational climate for creativity

Diversity-based group creativity

Integrational innovation

Exemplars

Team ideational fluency Shared belief, climate, efficacy, motivation, and attitude Performance of a focus group solving an assigned problem

Culture strength Norm crystallization Diversity of unit (team, organizational) personality Leader-member exchange Competence of a team solving an unprecedented problem

Knowledge spirals Team productivity Organizational performance Other types of innovations

Problem type

Closed problem Well-defined problem

Closed/open problem Mixed problem

Open problem Ill-defined problem

Individual contributions

Within-unit similarity among individuals Type: similar contents Amount: similar Functional equivalence

Within-unit variability and interrole dependence among individuals Type: variable, but related contents Amount: variable Functional equivalence

Within-unit dissimilarity among individuals Type: dissimilar contents Amount: dissimilar Functional equivalence

Outcome of interactions within unit and with environment

Sharedness of cognitive processes

Sharedness of cognitive processes and knowledge of one another

Controlled pattern of coordinating goals and directions

Roschian Approach to Conceptualization

1.  CREATIVITY AND INNOVATION: LARGER CONCEPTS

Conceptualization

Emergence

89

90

4.  UNDERSTANDING INDIVIDUAL CREATIVITY IN ORGANIZATIONS

ganizational climate for creativity (Amabile, 1996), diversity-based group creativity (Bechtoldt et al., 2012; Goncalo & Staw, 2006; Kozlowski & Klein, 2000), and integrational innovation (Massaro et al., 2012; Sternberg, Pretz, & Kaufman, 2003), respectively. We chose these three prototypes based on three criteria: (1) they should connote levels higher than individual levels as prototypes of emergence are constructs manifested over and above individual levels; (2) they should be directly related to creativity; (3) the mechanisms embedded in the prototypes should reflect the meanings of corresponding emergence. They are closer to some features and less close to or farther from other features specifying the category. Any construct can be on the borderline or in between two categories, especially if it fails to include significant features of the prototype (Cantor et al., 1980). Given the prototype and exemplars, it is possible to construe which emergent constructs belong to which categories of emergence. Thus the following section discusses each emergence category in detail.

CONCEPTUALIZATION OF COMPOSITION EMERGENCE Features of Composition Emergence In terms of problem type, composition emergence may be observed in closed or well-defined problems. A closed problem is well defined in terms of methods to get to solutions before participants begin creative work. This contrasts with an open problem, in which the participants are required to find, invent, or discover any problem (Unsworth, 2001). When faced with well-defined problems, individuals are likely to constrain alternative choices, thus yielding high sharedness of cognition in a given unit. Conversely, as the openness of a problem increases, variability in a unit also increases, which, in turn, causes dissimilarities in individuals’ behaviors and activities. Regarding individual contributions, similarity (isomorphism) is the main theme characterizing within-unit similarity and functional equivalence. A within-unit similarity has been described as a “similarity in the type and amount of elemental content” (Kozlowski & Klein, 2000, p. 62). It has also been referred to as a “structural similarity” (Morgeson & Hofmann, 1999) or “structural equivalence” (Kozlowski & Klein, 2000), that is, the consensual quality of individual contributions within a unit. This feature constrains the structure of collective constructs, allowing researchers to treat the focal phenomena isomorphic across levels. Functional equivalence refers to the same theoretical function between higher- and lower- level constructs, meaning that constructs at more than one level hold the same positions or roles in multilevel models

1.  CREATIVITY AND INNOVATION: LARGER CONCEPTS



Conceptualization of Composition Emergence

91

(Kozlowski & Klein, 2000; Morgeson & Hofmann, 1999; Rousseau, 1985). For all categories of emergence, functional equivalence is expected to be held across levels since constructs at unit and individual levels do not function differently. Regarding the outcome of interactions within the unit and with the environment, composition emergence is described in such a way that individuals in a unit are seen as individual cognitive systems that “have specific roles and functions that contribute to creative and noncreative thinking, and … play the roles of these cognitive components in such a way that the group [unit] works as if it had an overall mind” (Sacramento et  al., 2008, p. 278). Within-unit similarity and functional equivalence across levels gear similarity among individuals toward the sharedness of cognitive processes. Moreover, such similarities induce attraction just like birds of a feather flocking together (Forsyth, 2010), whereby members share psychological meanings that render same constructs across levels. Through these isomorphic cognitive processes, UCRCs emerge as shared (unit) properties (Kozlowski & Klein, 2000); that is, similarity-based attraction promotes the sharedness of beliefs, climate, efficacy, motivation, and attitude within a unit.

Prototypes and Exemplars of Composition Emergence In this section, prototypes and exemplars are described in accordance with the features of composition emergence. The prototype is “organizational climate for creativity” (Amabile, 1996). When an individual’s job in a unit has well-defined guides and rules, shared perceptions of some types of climate such as climate for unit creativity will develop. Regarding individual contributions, if unit members share the same job guided by rules and regulations (similar contents), their personal investments in terms of quantity would be similar. As the outcome of interactions, individuals eventually have common cognitive processes, including information, perspective, knowledge, and finally interpretation. Based on these shared cognitive processes among participants, we derive the collective construct of “organizational climate for creativity,” which is a suitable prototype for composition emergence. As an extreme example, the performance of a focus group (i.e., a team) to solve a well-defined problem (like climbing as a team) is considered. In this case, the problem is a conjunctive one (Steiner, 1972) since the slowest member’s performance becomes the team’s performance. More specifically, as the team members are given a clear definition of their task describing how to solve the problem, the best way to solve the problem is to follow the given method as quickly as possible. Although the type of behaviors may be similar or identical, the amount of individual contribution is never similar because every member does her best to shorten her working time.

1.  CREATIVITY AND INNOVATION: LARGER CONCEPTS

92

4.  UNDERSTANDING INDIVIDUAL CREATIVITY IN ORGANIZATIONS

Only the slowest member’s time is considered in the emergence process of the team’s performance, while the longest time taken by the last member will be the collective performance. This may make the emergent construct look atypical in the category of composition emergence. However, it is still closer to composition, in comparison to complementarity or compilation. In order to utilize composition models for conceptualizing UCRCs as emergent properties, researchers should provide theoretical underpinnings on how a conceptual definition for UCRCs is related to an individual-level counterpart. For example, suppose that organizational climate for creativity is used as a construct for organization levels and psychological climate for creativity is used as a construct for individual ones. Then, UCRCs, following James’s (1982) composition theory for climate, may be viewed as a shared “understanding of how individuals in general impute meaning to environments [units], and especially, how individuals in general will respond to environments [units]” (James, 1982, p. 220). The sharedness of psychological climate for creativity among individuals within the unit will emerge as a collective construct (UCRCs) based on the social interactions between individuals and contexts (Morgeson & Hofmann, 1999). This category of composition emergence is consistent with parallelism, which is assumed in many cross-level studies on creativity in organizations (Chen, Bliese, & Mathieu, 2005; Sacramento et al., 2008). However, the remaining two categories do not entail parallelism across levels.

CONCEPTUALIZATION OF COMPLEMENTARITY EMERGENCE Features of Complementarity Emergence In terms of problem type, complementarity emergence may be observed in closed problems that are not entirely closed or open problems that are not fully open. These problems are well described elsewhere (cf., Unsworth, 2001). The present study refers to such problems as “mixed problems.” To the extent that methods of solving a problem are well defined, the problem is closed, as in the emergence of culture strength and norm crystallization with sharedness of cognitive processes emphasized. To the extent that methods of solving a problem are ill defined, the problems are open, as seen in the emergence of unit creativity, diversity of unit personality, and leadermember exchange with knowledge of each other emphasized. While the shared cognition in composition emergence is individual cognition, it is extended to interpersonal construction of cognition in complementarity emergence. Moreover, in contrast to within-group variance being treated as error variance in composition emergence, within-group variance can serve as another conceptualization of a focal construct in complementarity emergence.

1.  CREATIVITY AND INNOVATION: LARGER CONCEPTS



Conceptualization of Complementarity Emergence

93

In mixed problems, individual contributions are characterized by variability which ranges from high to low in the types and amounts of individual contributions (Kozlowski & Klein, 2000) and role interdependence among individuals. Role interdependence is observed when outcomes of each member’s work are dependent on those of other members in the unit, subsequently leading to shared knowledge of one another’s role, strength/weakness, etc. The addition of such knowledge within a unit makes a qualitative difference between composition and complementarity emergence at the unit level. This knowledge also increases as members become more aware of others’ preferences, strengths, and weaknesses, especially in terms of their functional roles and responsibilities within the unit (Cannon-Bowers & Salas, 2001). This distributed cognition can maximize the overall performance of a unit when encountered with open (illdefined) problems. Moreover, as the problem expands from closed to open, the need for complementarity among the members for coping with various environmental challenges increases as the knowledge of other members constructed through social interactions is emphasized. However, the variability of individual contributions is limited (to some extent) since problems are not fully open and individuals are related in roles. Hence, functional equivalence holds across levels, as is necessary in the nature of emergence. Finally, the outcome of interactions is characterized by the knowledge of other members, in addition to the sharedness of cognitive processes in composition emergence. Faced with “not entirely closed” problems, individuals tend to seek role interdependence in order to reduce uncertainty. Moreover, the need of complementarity induced by role interdependence increases acceptance for variability among the members when dealing with open problems. At the same time, individuals are attracted to one another, thus leading them to share information and to thus have single mode in the distribution of individual contribution (Kozlowski & Klein, 2000).

Prototype and Exemplars of Complementarity Emergence This section considers the group creativity taking advantage of diversity (Kozlowski & Klein, 2000) in dealing with closed/open problems as the prototype of complementarity emergence. Researchers (e.g., Bechtoldt et  al., 2012; Goncalo & Staw, 2006) report studies on relationships between creativity and individualism-collectivism. As groups encounter more open and challenging problems, individual uniqueness and group diversity tend to conduce to creativity than group harmony or cooperation does. In such group settings, “competition, lack of comfort, and individualism are supposed to stimulate creativity because they lead to differentiation and unique … contributions” (Bechtoldt et al., 2012, p. 838). This type of creativity converges on Kozlowski and Klein’s (2000) group

1.  CREATIVITY AND INNOVATION: LARGER CONCEPTS

94

4.  UNDERSTANDING INDIVIDUAL CREATIVITY IN ORGANIZATIONS

creativity exploiting diversity. Diversity in groups is utilized to encourage different perspectives and to complement each other’s lacking knowledge and skills. The benefit of diversity is maximized when an individual knows where his or her colleagues are stuck and exchanges experience of failure to complement each other’s deficiency. Regarding individual contributions, diversity-based group creativity typically emerges through variability in the types and amounts of individual contents as well as through interrole dependence among individuals, which are typical characteristics of individuals working on challenging tasks that need diverse thinking and skills. As unhealthy differences among individuals tend to be limited, individuals working on mixed problems share a process flow; in other words, one’s role-based performance becomes input for others (interrole dependence), promoting a single mode of distribution (Chan, 1998). For example, in customer satisfaction teams of a home-shopping company, there are many professional counselors trained to respond to customers’ complaints. In this case, the counselors largely benefit from sharing one another’s knowledge regarding products, types of complaints, actions, and outcomes. Furthermore, function of their actions is equivalent in terms of dealing with customers’ complaints either individually or as a collective across levels. Regarding the outcome of interactions, the counselors should know who is specialized in which product, in addition to sharing their knowledge, experiences, and outcomes in dealing with customers. The importance of knowledge of each other increases as the nature of the problem becomes more open. Finally, exemplars of complementarity emergence include culture strength, norm crystallization, and diversity of unit personality, which Kozlowski and Klein (2000) categorized into a “variance” exemplar between composition emergence and compilation emergence. However, it is notable that in our modified categorization, interpersonal construction of emergent constructs is predicated on low-to-high variability in complementarity emergence. In this regard, low diversity in individual contributions with emphasis on the sharedness of cognitive process predicates culture strength and norm crystallization, while high diversity with emphasis on interrole dependence develops diversity of unit personality or competence to solve unprecedented problems.

CONCEPTUALIZATION OF COMPILATION EMERGENCE Features of Compilation Emergence In terms of problem type, compilation emergence may be observed in open or ill-defined problems. Voluntary artistic or scientific endeavors

1.  CREATIVITY AND INNOVATION: LARGER CONCEPTS



Conceptualization of Compilation Emergence

95

that are classified into proactive creativity (Unsworth, 2001) generally represent open problems. Moreover, in organizations, organizational productivity/performance, knowledge spirals, or innovations represent the constructs related to open problems, since there are no clear methods for obtaining solutions to certain problems. In open problems, individual contributions are characterized by dissimilar but patterned processes of describing “episodes of changes in behaviors exhibited by an individual or by a … [unit] rather than the specific behavioral acts or perceptions” (Chan, 1998, p. 241). In addition, the types and amounts are dissimilar across individuals, while functional equivalence holds across levels. For example, a process characterized by dissimilar types and amounts of individual contributions can be in the form of knowledge representation, which has prevailed in the field of semantic memory (e.g., Goldsmith, Johnson, & Acton, 1991; Schvaneveldt, Durso, & Dearholt, 1985). The process can also be in the form of networks of individual contributions, by which performance is configured at the unit level (Kozlowski & Klein, 2000). With compilation emergence, control systems regulate the outcome of interactions, especially regarding dissimilarity or discontinuity in individual contributions for coordinating goals and directions. Control systems are routines and procedures that are formally used for altering or maintaining configurational patterns of diverse behaviors and activities emergent at the unit level. The addition of control system defines unique qualitative difference from previous two emergence processes at the unit level. Patterns of competing or conflicting behaviors are also compiled into complex constructs at higher levels through some type of control in the higher units (Massaro et al., 2012). Thus control system is necessary (in addition to the sharedness of cognitive processes and the knowledge of other members) for describing the mechanism of composition and/or complementarity emergence.

Prototype and Exemplars of Compilation Emergence This section considers integrational innovation (Massaro et  al., 2012; Sternberg et  al., 2003) as the prototype of compilation emergence. Organizational differentiations (Lawrence & Lorsch, 1967) into dissimilar subunits generate rivalry/incongruence in goals as well as dissimilarities in contributions of individuals or subunits. Faced with this hard-to-­ coordinate situation, organizations must integrate within-organization processes to keep individuals or subunits aligned toward increasing profits and decreasing losses. In this case, control systems are necessary for coordinating dissimilar goals and directions as well as integrating knowledge across subunits (Massaro et al., 2012). Sternberg et al. (2003) referred to this integration as “a type of innovation.” For example, management

1.  CREATIVITY AND INNOVATION: LARGER CONCEPTS

96

4.  UNDERSTANDING INDIVIDUAL CREATIVITY IN ORGANIZATIONS

control systems are formal and information-based systems used to maintain/alter patterns in organizational behaviors and activities (Massaro et  al., 2012). Through such systems, ideas from distinct types are integrated to yield innovations for organizations (Sternberg et al., 2003). Regarding individual contributions, organizational specialization and differentiation bring about within-unit dissimilarity in terms of the types and amounts of individuals devoted to the emergence of higher-level constructs. In this case, individuals or the subunits are in disagreement, rather than agreement, regarding the sharedness of knowledge and experiences. However, through the integration process, behaviors, activities, and relations among the dissimilar individuals are coordinated and transformed into controlled patterns that can contribute to innovations. As a result, controlled patterns are obtained as the outcome of this compilatory interaction. In the same way, such exemplars as patterns of the association or relationship among individuals come into emergence of knowledge spirals, team productivity, organizational performance, or the seven types of innovations mentioned in Sternberg et al. (2003). Finally, the relationships among the three categories of emergence are not clearly distinct, since the categorization is based on fuzzy sets that blur the boundaries between the categories. In addition to the emergence of composition and compilation, Kozlowski and Klein (2000) showed several fuzzy composition processes between the two ends (Tay, Woo, & Vermunt, 2014). For example, early notions of mental models that assume the sharedness of knowledge among team members (e.g., Cannon-Bowers, Salas, & Converse, 1993; Klimoski & Mohammed, 1995, recited from Kozlowski & Klein, 2000) are exemplar constructs of composition emergence. However, Kozlowski, Gully, Salas, and Cannon-Bowers (1996) indicated that the knowledge of different members in a unit complement one another in the unit, which makes the team’s mental model an exemplar construct of complementarity emergence. Moreover, if the team members assume different roles and compete with one another, then a control system is necessary to achieve team performance. In this case, the team’s mental model is an exemplar construct of compilation emergence.

CONCLUSION Through the history of creativity research in organizational settings, vast knowledge about creativity has been accumulated at the individual and unit levels, mostly in manners of single-level studies. A multilevel modeling approach to research on individual creativity is still in its infancy since the dual property of individual creativity has not been thoroughly understood and practiced. On one hand, individuals become resources as ICRCs operate at individual levels above all, and the individuals give rise

1.  CREATIVITY AND INNOVATION: LARGER CONCEPTS

Conclusion

97

to UCRCs as they interact with others and units. Many concepts describing behaviors and activities at different unit levels are derived from the emergence processes although there are global properties at the unit level that tend to exist without emergence processes (Kozlowski & Klein, 2000). On the other hand, individuals are affected by unit-level phenomena that are in part formed by individuals’ interactions. Once the emergent constructs or global properties at the unit level are established, they exert influence over the ICRCs. This duality of process and structure (Morgeson & Hofmann, 1999) raise questions about the validity of single-level studies on individual creativity in organizations. Therefore it is compelling that a multilevel approach be accepted as a norm in creativity research in organizations. Even among a handful of cross-level or multilevel studies on creativity in organizational settings, we found that bottom-up emergent processes have been largely neglected, in comparison to top-down contextual processes (James & Drown, 2012; Kozlowski et al., 2013). A critical reason for such negligence is that the conceptualization of emergent constructs has not yet been established. In relation to this problem, we noticed a fuzziness in Kozlowski and Klein’s (2000) conceptualization of the different types of emergence. Hence, the present study introduced the Roschian approach, which utilized a fuzzy set-theoretic classification scheme. This attempt led to a framework that applied three categories of emergence, which were more parsimonious and efficient in categorizing the different exemplars of emergent constructs for creativity research. We also introduced the mechanism of system control in organizations, which coordinates dissimilar types and amounts of individual contributions, and ensures functional equivalence across organizational levels, especially in situations where unit-level constructs emerge through compilation. The introduction of system control as emergence mechanisms enhances the meaning of compilation over and above social-psychological interactions, which is considered the key explanatory mechanism in Kozlowski and Klein’s (2000) discourse. Regarding operationalization part of UCRCs given the current status of conceptualization, there has been some advance for composition emergence. As models that can be used to operationalize emergent constructs in empirical research, consensus models are dominantly used, assuming the validity of parallelism in conceptualization. Consensus models specify that the simple mean of ICRCs is interpreted as a valid measure of relevant UCRCs. Although researchers are responsible for demonstration of validity, they had been forced to draw a parallel between similar unitand individual-level constructs and to employ models for operationalization of UCRCs, even though such parallelism has not yet been proved. Chen et  al. (2005) recognized this problem of unjustified parallelism in multilevel research and suggested advanced conceptual framework and

1.  CREATIVITY AND INNOVATION: LARGER CONCEPTS

98

4.  UNDERSTANDING INDIVIDUAL CREATIVITY IN ORGANIZATIONS

statistical procedures for delineating and testing parallelism. However, the other two categories of emergence have not garnered so much attention as composition emergence in terms of models to operationalize UCRCs and measures to unit levels (Chan, 1998; Kozlowski et al., 2013; Kozlowski & Klein, 2000). This lack of advance in empirical research is not an isolated problem from the issue of conceptualization. As Kozlowski and Klein (2000) lamented, “the dominance of composition models … has tended to limit consideration to shared models of emergence” (Kozlowski & Klein, 2000, p. 61). The present study supports Kozlowski and Klein’s statement since some important emergent constructs such as organizational creativity and innovation are the prototypes or exemplars of the other two neglected types of emergence: complementarity and compilation emergence. These two categories represent the bottom-up emergence in which increasingly open problems lead to a more dynamic emergence of constructs in contrast to composition emergence. More importantly, empirical studies currently practiced have encountered a major limitation (i.e., indirect access to emergence processes through survey questionnaires). Kozlowski et al. (2013) argued that computation modeling or agent-based simulations provide a direct access to the dynamics of emergence, which can open a new approach to investigating more complicated emergence phenomena, especially compilation emergence. Although typical composition models based on the sharedness of cognitive processes will increase even more in the near future, they should not be unconditionally endorsed in multilevel theoretical research. Moreover, in very recent studies employing composition emergence that assumed parallelism of constructs across levels, the authors did not clarify the underlying rationale regarding why they chose the specific category of emergence. Consequently, this insufficient rationale brought about the critique arguing that parallelism across levels has been adopted without justification (Sacramento et al., 2008). Finally, our focus on emergent constructs at the unit level might have created a bias for emergent constructs, excluding the importance of global properties. In order to avoid such a misperception, a warning is in order to emphasize the utility of global indices at the unit level. In addition, researchers are encouraged to collect global properties that are relevant to organizational creativity. As problems change from closed to open types, environmental demands are not limited to human behaviors/activities. Instead, organizational variables such as strategies, structures, technologies, sales volumes, amount of investments, returns on investments, and new product developments may be required as predictors or outcomes of creativity at unit levels as UCRCs are related to ICRCs. Researchers who wish to avoid uncertainties embedded in the aggregate data collected at individual levels may believe that they could gain access to UCRCs

1.  CREATIVITY AND INNOVATION: LARGER CONCEPTS

REFERENCES 99

through unit-level data (Rousseau, 1985), while others may argue that using global-unit measures only hinders researchers from looking into ecology at individual levels, thus causing ecological fallacies (Robinson, 1950). Of course, using only individual-level data or ICRCs to infer upper-level phenomena or UCRCs can be equally dangerous causing an atomic fallacy (Kozlowski & Klein, 2000).

References Agars, M. D., Kaufman, J. C., & Locke, T. R. (2008). Social influences and creativity in ­organizations: a multi-level lens for theory, research, and practice. In M. D. Mumford, S. T. Hunter, & K. E. Bedell-Avers (Eds.), Vol. 7. Multi-level issues in creativity and innovation (pp. 3–62). New York: JAI Press. Amabile, T. M. (1996). Creativity in contexts: update to the social psychology of creativity. Boulder, CO: Westview Press. Bechtoldt, M. N., Choi, H. S., & Nijstad, B. A. (2012). Individuals in mind, mates by heart: individualistic self-construal and collective value orientation as predictors of group creativity. Journal of Experimental Social Psychology, 48, 838–844. Boulding, K. E. (1956). General system theory skeleton of science. Management Science, 2, 197–208. Cannon-Bowers, J. A., & Salas, E. (2001). Reflections on shared cognition. Journal of Organizational Behavior, 22, 195–210. Cannon-Bowers, J. A., Salas, E., & Converse, S. A. (1993). Shared mental models in expert team decision-making. In N. J. Castellan Jr. (Eds.), Current issues in individual and group decision making (pp. 221–246). Mahwah, NJ: Erlbaum. Cantor, N., Smith, E. E., French, R. D., & Mezzich, J. (1980). Psychiatric diagnosis as prototype categorization. Journal of Abnormal Psychology, 89, 181–193. Chan, D. (1998). Functional relations among constraints in the same content domain at different levels of analysis: a typology of compositional models. Journal of Applied Psychology, 83, 234–246. Chen, G., Bliese, P. D., & Mathieu, J. E. (2005). Conceptual framework and statistical procedures for delineating and testing multilevel theories of homology. Organizational Research Methods, 8, 375–409. Forsyth, D. R. (2010). Group dynamics. Stamford, CA: Cengage Learning. George, J. M., & Zhou, J. (2002). Understanding when bad moods foster creativity and good ones don't: the role of context and clarity of feelings. Journal of Applied Psychology, 87, 687–697. Giddens, A. (1993). New rules of sociological method: A positive critique of interpretive sociologies (2nd ed.). Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press. Goldsmith, T. E., Johnson, P. J., & Acton, W. H. (1991). Assessing structural knowledge. Journal of Educational Psychology, 83, 88–96. Goncalo, J. A., & Staw, B. M. (2006). Individualism-collectivism and group creativity. Organizational Behavior and Human Decision Processes, 100, 96–109. Gong, Y., Kim, T.-Y., Lee, D.-R., & Zhu, J. (2013). A multilevel model of team goal orientation, information exchange, and creativity. Academy of Management Journal, 56, 827–851. Gumusluoglu, L., & Ilsev, A. (2009). Transformational leadership, creativity, and organizational innovation. Journal of Business Research, 62, 461–473. James, L. R. (1982). Aggregation bias in estimates of perceptual agreement. Journal of Applied Psychology, 67, 219–229. James, K., & Drown, D. (2012). Organizations and creativity: trends in research, status of education and practice, agenda for the future. In M. Mumford (Ed.), Handbook of organizational creativity. New York: Academic Press.

1.  CREATIVITY AND INNOVATION: LARGER CONCEPTS

100

4.  UNDERSTANDING INDIVIDUAL CREATIVITY IN ORGANIZATIONS

Klimoski, R., & Mohammed, S. (1995). Team mental model: construct or metaphor? Journal of Management, 20, 403–437. Kozlowski, S. W. J., Chao, G. T., Grand, J. A., Braun, M. T., & Kuljanin, G. (2013). Advancing multilevel research design: capturing the dynamics of emergence. Organizational Research Methods, 16, 581–615. Kozlowski, S. W. J., Gully, S. M., Salas, E., & Cannon-Bowers, J. A. (1996). Team leadership and development: theory, principles, and guidelines for training leaders and teams. In M. Beyerlein, D. Johnson, & S. Beyerlein (Eds.), Vol. 3. Advances in interdisciplinary studies of work teams: Tea leadership (pp. 251–284). Greenwich, CT: JAI Press. Kozlowski, S. W. J., & Klein, K. J. (2000). A multilevel approach to theory and research in organizations: contextual, temporal, and emergent processes. In K. J.  Klein & S. W. J.  Kozlowski (Eds.), Multilevel theory, research, and methods in organizations. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass. Lawrence, P., & Lorsch, J. (1967). Differentiation and integration in complex organizations. Administrative Science Quarterly, 12, 1–30. Massaro, M., Bardy, R., & Pitts, M. (2012). Supporting creativity through knowledge integration during the creative processes: a management control system perspective. Electronic Journal of Knowledge Management, 10, 258–267. Morgeson, F. P., & Hofmann, D. A. (1999). The structure and function of collective constructs: implications for multilevel research and theory development. Academy of Management Review, 24, 249–265. Robinson, W. S. (1950). Ecological correlations and the behavior of individuals. American Sociological Review, 15, 351–357. Rosch, E. (1973). On the internal structure of perceptual and semantic categories. In T. E. Moore (Ed.), Cognitive development and acquisition of language. New York: Academic Press. Rosch, R., Mervis, C., Gray, W., Johnson, D., & Boyes-Braem, P. (1976). Basic objects in natural categories. Cognitive Psychology, 8, 382–439. Rousseau, D. M. (1985). Issues of level in organizational research: multi-level and cross-level perspectives. In B. M.  Staw & L. L.  Cummings (Eds.), Research in organization behavior (pp. 1–37). Greenwich, CT: JAI Press. Sacramento, C. A., Dawson, J. A., & West, M. A. (2008). Team creativity: more than the sum of its parts? In M. D. Mumford, S. T. Hunter, & K. E. Bedell-Avers (Eds.), Vol. 7. Multi-level issues in creativity and innovation (pp. 3–62). New York: JAI Press. Schvaneveldt, R. W., Durso, F. T., & Dearholt, D. W. (1985). Pathfinder: Scaling with network structures (Memorandum in Computer and Cognitive Science, MCCS-85-9, Computing Research Laboratory). Las Cruces: New Mexico State University. Steiner, I. D. (1972). Group process and productivity. New York: Academic Press. Sternberg, R. J., Pretz, J. E., & Kaufman, J. C. (2003). Types of innovations. In L. Shavinina (Ed.), The international handbook of innovation (pp. 158–169). Mahwah, NJ: Elsevier Science. Taggar, S. (2002). Individual creativity and group ability to utilize individual creative resources: a multilevel model. Academy of Management Journal, 45, 315–330. Tay, L., Woo, S. E., & Vermunt, J. K. (2014). A conceptual and methodological framework for psychometric isomorphism: validation of multilevel construct measures. Organizational Research Methods, 17, 77–106. Unsworth, K. (2001). Unpacking creativity. Academy of Management Review, 26, 289–297. Von Bertalanffy, L. (1951). General system theory: a new approach to unity of science. Human Biology, 23, 303–361. Zhang, X., & Bartol, K. M. (2010). Linking empowering leadership and employee creativity: the influence of psychological empowerment, intrinsic motivation, and creative process engagement. Academy of Management Journal, 53, 107–128.

1.  CREATIVITY AND INNOVATION: LARGER CONCEPTS