Minority dissent as teamwork related mental model: Implications for willingness to dissent and group creativity

Thinking Skills and Creativity 22 (2016) 86–96

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Minority dissent as teamwork related mental model: Implications for willingness to dissent and group creativity Petru Lucian Curs¸eu a,b,∗ , Thijs ten Brink c,d a b c d

Department of Psychology, “Babes¸-Bolyai” University, Cluj-Napoca, Romania Department of Organisation, Open University of the Netherlands, Heerlen, The Netherlands Avidual, The Netherlands Department of Organisation Studies, Tilburg University, The Netherlands

a r t i c l e

i n f o

Article history: Received 6 November 2015 Received in revised form 17 June 2016 Accepted 7 September 2016 Available online 9 September 2016 Keywords: Minority dissent Group creativity Cross-cultural research

a b s t r a c t Traditionally, minority influence literature has conceptualized minority dissent (MD) as a driver of divergent thinking (DT) at the individual and group level of analysis. In this paper we argue that DT and MD have a more complex interdependence and DT could in fact be conceptualized as a prerequisite of MD. In an experimental study carried out in two cultural contexts (The Netherlands and China), we tested the effect of an intervention aimed at emphasizing the value of DT on the MD related mental model change, on willingness to engage in MD and ultimately on group creativity. Our results show that members of groups that received the DT manipulation had less negative evaluations of MD compared to members in groups that did not receive the DT manipulation. However, DT triggered group members to engage in MD only in individualistic groups and not collectivistic ones and ultimately led to less creative performance in groups that operated in a collectivistic cultural context. Our study also contributes to the extrapolation of cultural differences in creative performance from individual to the group level of analysis and shows that groups operating in collectivistic cultures have a lower creativity in a divergent thinking task as compared to groups operating in an individualistic culture. © 2016 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

“Healthy groups have deviants and dissenters in their midst” (Jetten & Hornsey, 2014; p. 479) Minority dissent (MD) is an important and ubiquitous phenomenon in group dynamics with positive consequences for group creativity and group decision quality (Nemeth & Kwan, 1985, 1987; Nemeth, 1985, 1986, 2012; Ng & Van Dyne, 2001; Ng, 2003). Minority dissent reflects a situation in which one or few (a minority of) group members openly voice their disagreement with group decisions, norms, actions or with the opinions expressed by the majority of the group (Jetten & Hornsey, 2014; Nemeth, 1985, 1986). Because group debates are a vehicle for sharing information held by the individual group members, disagreements and opinions that challenge the status quo in groups are often expressed (or experienced) by those who work in groups. While working in groups, members develop mental models related to the task (task related mental models) and teamwork interactions (teamwork related mental models) (Mathieu, Heffner, Goodwin, Salas, & CannonBowers, 2000), therefore minority dissent, as a relational construct can be conceptualized as part of the teamwork related mental model (Eby, Meade, Parisi, & Douthitt, 1999).

∗ Corresponding author at: Republicii 37, Cluj-Napoca, 400015, Cluj, Romania. E-mail address: [email protected] (P.L. Curs¸eu). http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.tsc.2016.09.002 1871-1871/© 2016 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

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The exposure to ideas expressed by minorities increases divergent thinking and originality (Nemeth & Kwan, 1985), stimulates extensive information search to validate the alternative viewpoints (Nemeth & Rogers, 1996; Schulz-Hardt, Jochims & Frey, 2002) and ultimately fosters creativity (Nemeth, 1985), innovation (De Dreu, 2002) and group cognitive complexity (Curseu, Schruijer & Boros, 2012). In order to engage in minority dissent however, groups members have to differentiate themselves from the majority (Nemeth, 1986) and be willing to express alternative viewpoints to the ones expressed by the majority. Minority dissent and divergent thinking could therefore reciprocally enforce each other (Larey & Paulus, 1999; Nemeth & Kwan, 1987; Nemeth, 1986). In other words, it is not only MD that triggers divergent thinking, but also a positive attitude towards the value of divergent thinking could trigger one’s intention to engage in MD. It is therefore important to understand the extent to which encouraging group members to “think differently” will ultimately stimulate them to engage in minority dissent in groups. The first aim of this paper is to test to what extent attempts to stimulate divergent thinking change the participant’s representation of MD. The second aim of this paper is to test the extent to which individualism-collectivism influences the association between divergent thinking (DT) on the one hand and willingness to engage in minority dissent and ultimately foster group creativity on the other hand. Culture and cultural values play an important role in one’s intention to engage in interpersonal behaviors. Because MD often challenges the status quo in groups and perturbs their social harmony (Curs¸eu et al., 2012; Nemeth. 1985; Nemeth, Brown & Rogers, 2001; Rijnbout & McKimmie, 2012) the individualistic-collectivistic cultural orientation is one of the contextual factors that could influence willingness to engage in MD. In collectivistic contexts, group members are expected to engage in behaviors aimed at building and maintaining social harmony within groups (Ng, 2003). Collectivistic cultures are therefore less accepting of divergent thinking (Jaquish & Ripple, 1984) and less stimulating of MD (Ng & Van Dyne, 2001) as compared to individualistic cultures. 1. Minority dissent as teamwork related mental model Group members form evaluative cognitions in order to understand group functioning and to adapt to the dynamic nature of interpersonal interactions in groups. These evaluative cognitions are often organized in coherent cognitive structures that form an individual’s teamwork related mental model and impact on group engagement, task involvement and ultimately influence group performance (Eby et al., 1999; Mathieu et al., 2000; Vîrg˘a et al., 2014). The literature to date has explored a variety of dimensions, mostly related to group processes and emergent states, relevant for the teamwork related mental models (Eby et al., 1999), yet so far no research explored MD as a teamwork related mental model. Minority dissent is a prevalent interpersonal behavior in groups and it is central to information elaboration and group performance (Jetten & Hornsey, 2014; Nemeth, 1985, 2012), therefore given the relational nature of MD, in line with Mathieu et al. (2000) we argue that MD is an important dimension of teamwork related mental models. Willingness to dissent is influenced by various group and organizational factors like intergroup competition and organizational values related to past dissent (De Dreu, De Vries, Anssen & Altink, 2000) or participative safety (Nijstad, Berger-Selman, & De Dreu, 2014). Because minority dissent is contextual, each group member may, at a certain moment act as a deviant or dissenter in the group (Jetten & Hornsey, 2014). Therefore, due to the pervasive and contextual nature of MD, while working in groups people either engage themselves in MD or experience dissent when others openly disagree with the group. As a consequence, group members develop evaluative cognitions related to MD in groups. As we argued before, minority dissent has positive systemic consequences as it increases task conflict and information elaboration in groups (Nemeth & Rogers, 1996; Nemeth, 1986, 2012), yet minority dissent has also negative consequences as it perturbs the group climate and generates relationship conflict (Curs¸eu et al., 2012; Nemeth et al., 2001; Nemeth. 1985; Rijnbout & McKimmie, 2012). The evaluative cognitions that form one’s MD related mental model have both positive as well as negative valued elements. Given the negative consequences of engaging in dissent (or witnessing dissent), group members may hold rather negative MD related mental models. We argue that interventions that emphasize the cognitive group level benefits of divergent thinking could lead to the development of more positive MD related mental models. We expect however, that pre-existing cultural values interfere with the attempt to change the MD related mental models. In line with the congruity principle of attitude change (Osgood & Tannenbaum, 1955), attempts to induce cognitive change interfere with existing attitudes towards the source in such a way that the “changes in evaluation are always in the direction of increased congruity with the existing frame of reference” (Osgood & Tannenbaum, 1955; p. 43). As attitudes towards MD are expected to be more negative in collectivistic cultures rather than in individualistic ones, we expect that the attempt to change the MD mental models through DT interventions are more effective in an individualistic rather than a collectivistic cultural context. We therefore hypothesize that: H1. Interventions aimed at emphasizing the value of divergent thinking enforce the positive evaluation of MD in groups and this effect is stronger for group members in individualistic than collectivistic cultures. 2. Willingness to engage in minority dissent Throughout their lives, most people engage in or experience minority dissent in their groups (Jetten & Hornsey, 2014; Moscovici, 1980). These experiences are most likely marked by negative emotionality, as the dissenters are often rejected and

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marginalized because they disturb the social harmony within the group (Curs¸eu et al., 2012; Nemeth et al., 2001; Rijnbout & McKimmie, 2012) and it is therefore demotivating to adopt such a position in a group. As the value attached to dissent is one of the important antecedents of willingness to dissent (De Dreu et al., 2000; Nijstad et al., 2014) messages that emphasize the value of being/thinking different are likely to change these rather negative MD evaluations and stimulate people to engage in dissent. The attitudes towards dissent as well as the willingness to engage in dissent vary across individuals and the context in which the group members operate impacts on both the attitude and willingness to engage in dissent (De Dreu et al., 2000). In terms of contextual factors that influence the extent to which people engage in dissent, individualism-collectivism is one of the most important factors described so far in the literature (Ng & Van Dyne, 2001; Triandis & Gelfland, 1998; Zha, Griffith-Ross, Tobacyk, & Walczyk, 2006). Group members in collectivistic cultures are less likely to engage in dissent because these cultures are marked by a tendency to maintain harmonious group relations (Schwartz, 1999). In collectivistic cultures, people often develop an interdependent self and as such may be less willing to engage in behaviors that disturb the social harmony of their groups (Ng, 2003). We expect that the DT manipulation will increase the likelihood of engaging in MD, especially for group members operating in individualistic rather than collectivistic cultures. A message that puts lots of emphasis on individual differentiation, on being different and on thinking different comes at odds with the core of collectivistic values that emphasize the opposite, namely fit with the groups and sacrifice one’s individual interest for the collective. Persuasive messages that emphasize individual differentiation are expected to have a lower persuasive value in collectivistic cultures in which social harmony and positive interpersonal interactions in groups are highly valued. To conclude, in terms of behavioral intentions, the cultural context is expected to play a moderating role in the relationship between DT manipulation and willingness to engage on MD. DT manipulation is expected to be more effective in individualistic as opposed to collectivistic cultures in generating individual intentions to engage in dissent. H2. Interventions aimed at emphasizing the value of divergent thinking increase the willingness to engage in MD and the effect is stronger for group members in individualistic rather than collectivistic cultures.

3. Divergent thinking and group creativity During group interactions, group members prime each other into thinking of ideas they would not have considered alone (Nemeth, 1985; Nemeth & Wachtler, 1983; Nemeth et al., 2001), and divergent thinking is needed in order to increase group creativity (Paulus, 2000; Paulus & Nijstad, 2003). Minority dissent is therefore one of the key antecedents of creativity and innovation in groups (De Dreu & West, 2001; Jetten & Hornsey, 2014; Nijstad et al., 2014). Research to date shows that the cultural context plays a role in creativity in groups (Bechtoldt et al., 2010; Goncalo & Staw, 2006) as well as in the acceptance of minority dissent (Bond & Smith, 1996; Ng & Van Dyne, 2001; Triandis, 1989). The generic cultural context reflects shared cultural values, which are representations of desirable behavior in a particular society or social context (Schwartz, 1999). Individualism versus collectivism is one of the most important dimensions on which cultural values were explored in the literature (Hofstede, 1980; Triandis, 1989; Triandis & Gelfland, 1998). As group creativity is closely related to differentiation processes (e.g., divergent idea generation), collectivistic values may harm group creativity because they lead to conformity while individualistic values are supposed to stimulate creativity because they lead to differentiation and emphasize unique individual contributions to the task (De Dreu & Beersma, 2005; Goncalo & Staw, 2006). It is often argued that collectivistic groups will have a lower acceptance of minority dissent as compared to individualistic groups (Kim & Markus, 1999). Empirical evidence shows that the interdependent self-construal specific to collectivistic cultures leads to conformity and is detrimental to creative performance, while the independent self-construal specific to individualistic cultures is conducive for creativity (Ng, 2003; Triandis, 1989). Research has also shown that collectivistic cultures tend to lower the creative potential of individuals (Zha et al., 2006) and to discourage the search for differentiation compared to individualistic cultures (Heine & Lehman, 1997; Kim & Markus 1999) which will ultimately lead to lower group creativity. Nevertheless, because collectivistic cultural norms tend to prioritize usefulness over originality and novelty (De Dreu, 2010) we also expect that groups operating in collectivistic contexts will produce more useful ideas (although less original) compared to groups operating in individualistic cultures. To summarize, we argue that (1) interventions that emphasize the value of divergent thinking will eventually stimulate groups to engage in idea generation and ultimately foster group creativity; 2) the attempt to make MD related mental models more positive will increase group creativity in individualistic rather than collectivistic cultures and 3) the usefulness of ideas generated is higher in collectivistic as compared to individualistic groups. Therefore we hypothesize that: H3. DT manipulation has a positive effect on group creativity and the effect is stronger in individualistic rather than collectivistic cultures. H4. Groups operating in a collectivistic context produce more useful ideas as compared to groups operating in an individualistic cultural context.

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Table 1 Descriptive statistics for the Dutch and Chinese samples.

Number of women (No of men) Average group size (Range group size) Mean age (SD age)

Dutch sample

Chinese sample

69 (96) 3.58 (3;4) 22.07 (2.76)

81 (19) 3.64 (3;4) 22.90 (3.29)

4. Methods 4.1. Sample Two hundred and sixty five students (150 women, with a mean age of 22.38 years old) recruited from one Dutch and one Chinese university participated in this study. The descriptive statistics for the Dutch and Chinese samples are presented in Table 1. The participants were asked to participate when they were attending a social science course and the procedure, aimed at illustrating group creativity, was part of an interactive lecture. Because the study was embedded in their curricular activities, the participants did not receive credits, or other rewards for participating in this research. The participants were organized into 75 groups (28 groups were from the Chinese university), 37 received a manipulation aimed at fostering divergent thinking while 38 groups received no manipulation (control groups). The experiment was designed as part of curricular activities and in the debriefing students were told the role of minority dissent for group dynamics and creativity. 4.2. Procedure Participants were first asked to fill in a pre-task questionnaire that evaluated cultural values (Triandis & Gelfand, 1998), willingness to engage in MD and MD related mental models. Second, the students were asked to perform a timed divergent thinking task. The task consisted of writing as many possible uses for an apple (fruit) in two minutes. After the individual divergent thinking task, students were randomly assigned to groups of 3 or 4 members and asked to perform a creative group task. Before starting with the group task, the experimental groups (37) received the manipulation aimed at fostering divergent thinking consisting of watching a one-minute video clip. The control groups (38) received no manipulation and were asked to start directly with the group task. Previous research on attitude change shows that short videos are effective ways of inducing attitude change in participants (Parker, Stradling, & Manstead, 1996; Vrij, Schie, & Cherryman, 1996). The video clip is part of the “Think different” advertising campaign of a highly successful company that emphasizes the value of being different, thinking different and expressing views that differ from those of the majority. The whole text used in the video is presented in Appendix A. After watching this short video, all groups were asked to imagine that their group is a marketing team and that they have to generate, discuss and write as many slogans aimed at selling an apple (fruit) to specific target groups. They were also instructed to match each slogan with a specific target group. The time they could use for this divergent thinking task was eight minutes. After the group task the second questionnaire was filled in measuring: conflict, psychological safety, personal engagement in MD and MD related mental models. After filling in the second questionnaire, participants were asked to hand in the forms and were then debriefed. 4.3. Instruments and measures 4.3.1. MD mental models in groups In order to evaluate the change in the MD related mental models, we used a procedure similar to the one described in Vîrg˘a et al. (2014). This procedure builds on the approach used to evaluate a teamwork related mental model proposed by Eby et al. (1999), in which authors asked group members before starting the group task to evaluate their expectations about various teamwork dimensions. Previous research used this approach to evaluate the change in teamwork related mental models by evaluating the difference between team members’ expectations in the pre-task conditions and their post-task evaluations (Vîrg˘a et al., 2014). Because minority dissent is a key process that influences group dynamics and effectiveness, we have used a similar approach and asked the participants to first evaluate their expectations about minority dissent in groups and then after the group task we evaluated their perceptions of minority dissent during the task. In the pre-task condition we asked participants to rate the extent to which members of effective groups engage in dissent (“. . .one team member often disagrees with the rest of the team”, “. . .one team member often expresses ideas completely different than those of the other team members”, “. . .one team member consistently challenges the views expressed by other team members”, “. . .. . .the opinions of one team member are different from the rest of the team”). In the post task we asked participants to answer the same items, this time referring to their own group. Answers were recorded on a 5-point Likert scale (from 1 = fully disagree to 5 = fully agree). The Cronbach’s alpha for the scale was 0.74 in the pre-task condition and 0.82 in the post task condition. In order to evaluate the change in participants’ MD-related mental model, we computed the difference between the post-task and the pre-task score. A positive score indicates that the MD during the group task is evaluated more positively than the pre-task expectation.

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4.3.2. Willingness to engage in MD In order to evaluate participants’ willingness to dissent we have used a similar approach to the one used to evaluate the change in MD-related mental models. Because dissent is a concrete interpersonal behavior, we have used a single item to evaluate willingness to dissent in the pre-task condition (“While working with others in a group I am inclined to openly disagree with the opinions expressed by the majority of the group”). In the post-task condition, we have evaluated the dissent by asking participants to rate the extent to which they engaged in dissent while working on the task (“I was inclined to disagree with the opinions expressed by the majority of the group”). Answers were recorded on a five-point Likert scale (1 = never, 5 = very often). Single item measures of behavioral intentions are often used and they provide reliable estimates of one’s intention to engage in concrete (social) behaviors (Bergkvist & Rossiter, 2007; Gardner, Cummings, Dunham & Pierce, 1998). Individual and group creativity quotient was computed using the adjusted creativity quotient (Snyder et al., 2004; Lucas, Wijst, Curs¸eu, & Looman, 2013). Two coders evaluated the results of the individual divergent thinking task and ultimately the ideas generated were clustered in 13 categories. In the first step, 142 ideas generated by 15 participants were individually analyzed and after discussing the trends, the two coders agreed on ten categories. However, after individually categorizing 1.023 ideas generated by 115 Dutch participants, it was decided to add three more categories. All the ideas generated by these 115 participants were looked at again in order to make changes if necessary. To reach consensus between the two coders on the use of the 13 categories, every participant was discussed individually. Nearly all the differences came down to differences in interpretation that were discussed and consensus was reached on all these differences. Considering that uses generated by the participants were not equally creative, we used the weighing procedure described in Lucas et al. (2013) and ultimately computed an adjusted creativity quotient score using the following formula: CQ =

N 

log2 (ωj nj + 1)

j=1

where N equaled the number of categories and nj the number of uses in each category, and ␻j was a vector which specified weights for each category [1,2,3]. We used a similar procedure to compute the group quotient and we used the number of possible target groups generated by each group. Similar with the individual creativity quotient, two coders analyzed the results of 20 groups and five categories of target groups were identified. All answers generated by the groups were then coded using these five categories and based on the frequencies of these categories we defined the ␻j vector as [1,2] (only the category specifying uncommon social groups received a weight of 2). 4.3.3. Group creativity In addition to computing the creativity quotient, we evaluated group creativity using an approach described in Curs¸eu (2010) and the set of group slogans generated by each group was considered as the group creative product. Group creativity was evaluated by asking two coders to rate the novelty and distinctiveness of each slogan using the following items: “The slogan has important distinctive features when you compare it with other slogans”, “This slogan has a distinct identity”, “The slogan has memorable elements” (answers were recorded from 1-fully disagree to 5-fully agree). We computed the group creativity score by summing the three individual item scores for each slogan and then we averaged this score across the number of slogans generated by each group. Cronbach’s alpha for these items is 0.98 reflecting an excellent internal consistency of the creativity scale. 4.3.4. Usefulness The usefulness of the slogans was evaluated by asking two independent raters to evaluate the fit between the slogan and the target group using the following items: “The slogan has enough content to be appealing to the target group” (answers were recorded from 1-fully disagree to 5-fully agree), “Please evaluate the fit between the target group” (answers were recorded from 1-no fit at all to 5-perfect fit). Cronbach’s alpha for these two items is 0.97 reflecting a very good internal consistency of the usefulness scale. In order to check within group consistency of the usefulness ratings we computed the within group agreement index (Rwg). The average Rwg score was 0.89 ranging from 0.78 to 1.00, scores that reflect substantial agreement in the ratings of the usefulness of the slogans generated by each group. As such, slogan usefulness is a meaningful indicator for the group as a whole. For computing the group usefulness score we used a procedure similar to the one used to compute the group creativity score. We summed the score for the two items for each slogan and then averaged the scores for the number of slogans generated by each group. 4.3.5. Control variables For the individual level of analysis, gender and age were used as control variables and gender was dummy coded (0 = male, 1 = female). We have also controlled for the individual cultural value orientations: horizontal individualism (HI), vertical individualism (VI), horizontal collectivism (HC) and vertical collectivism(VC) as evaluated by the scales introduced by Triandis and Gelfand (1998). Moreover, because the change in the MD related mental models and the willingness to dissent are likely to be influenced by the atmosphere generated through group interactions, we have used, psychological safety, task and

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relationship conflict as control variables. These variables were shown to be related to minority dissent in previous research, groups that experienced dissent report higher levels of conflict and lower levels of psychological safety (Curs¸eu et al., 2012). Task conflict was evaluated using 3 items (e.g., “To what extent are there differences of opinion in your team?”) and relationship conflict was also evaluated using 3 items (e.g., “How much jealousy or rivalry is there among the members of your team”) from a scale originally developed by Jehn (1994). Cronbach’s alpha for task conflict is 0.80 and for relationship conflict is 0.73. Psychological safety was evaluated with four items (e.g., “It is safe to take a risk on this team”) selected from a scale developed by Edmondson (1999). Cronbach’s alpha for this scale is 0.53. 4.4. Preliminary analyses 4.4.1. Randomization checks Participants were randomly assigned to the experimental conditions, yet in order to check whether there are systematic differences in individual creativity between participants assigned to the experimental or control conditions, we ran an ANOVA with experimental condition and cultural context as factors and with the individual creativity as dependent variable. For the main effect of the experimental condition, the F values are not significant F(3,261) = 0.31 (p=0.57) ␩2 = 0.001, while the cultural context has a significant effect F(3,261) = 6.67 (p = 0.01) ␩2 = 0.02, indicating that Chinese participants have lower creativity quotients (M = 4.93, SD = 0.99) as compared to the Dutch participants (M = 5.36, SD = 1.51). The interaction effect between the experimental manipulation and the cultural context is not significant F(3,261) = 0.54 (p=0.46) ␩2 = 0.002. Based on these results, we can conclude that individuals allocated to the groups in the experimental versus control condition did not differ significantly in their individual creativity. Participants in the two cultures though differ significantly in their individual creativity, yet these differences are aligned with previous empirical cross-cultural findings on creativity scores (Zha et al., 2006). The two conditions (DT manipulation and the cultural context) seem to be orthogonal, as illustrated by the not significant interaction effect reported earlier. 4.4.2. Consistency of the group creativity and usefulness scores To check for inter-rater subjectivity, the 453 slogans generated by the 47 Dutch groups were coded based on the above mentioned scales. All slogans were first coded by two coders individually and after the individual coding, the individual results were compared and consensus was reached on all 453 slogans. To reach consensus between the two coders, each slogan was discussed and if there were differences, a consensus was reached through discussion. The scores on which the two coders agreed, and the ones generated through discussion, were kept as final scores for group creativity and usefulness. Given the substantial agreement and intensive effort to reach consensus on the Dutch data, we decided to code the Chinese data with a single coder, without further checking for consistency. Another step in checking for the accuracy of creativity and usefulness evaluation was to check the extent to which creativity and usefulness scores were consistent across the multiple slogans generated by each group. We computed the within group agreement index, considering the slogans generated by each group as the pool of scores. The formula for the within-group agreement index (RWG) is: J[1 − s2 xj / 2 E ]

rwgj

J[1 − s2 xj / 2 E ] + s2 xj / 2 E where s2 xj is the mean of item variance for the creativity and usefulness evaluations of the slogans generated by each group, J is the number of items in each evaluation scale and  2 EU is computed as:  2 EU = (A2 − 1)/12 because we assume a uniform distribution of the scores for the slogans generated by each group (assuming that creativity is a group property), where A is the number of intervals on the Likert scale used to evaluate the slogans (James, Demaree, & Wolf, 1993). For the creativity evaluation the RWG ranged from 0.65 to 0.98 with an average of 0.88 reflecting a very good within group consistency of creativity scores. For the usefulness scores, the RWG ranged from 0.78 to 1.00 with an average of 0.89 reflecting a high within group consistency of usefulness scores. These results support the claim that groups are consistently more or less creative in the slogans they have generated. All in all, we can conclude that our creativity and usefulness evaluations accurately reflect the underlying group level constructs. 5. Results Table 2 includes the descriptive statistics for, and the correlations between, all the study variables. In line with previous research using the adjusted creativity quotient (Lucas et al., 2013), our results reveal small gender differences in the adjusted creativity quotient, namely, men tend to obtain slightly higher scores than women. Moreover, people in the individualistic culture have higher scores on the adjusted creativity quotient than the ones in collectivistic culture, supporting previous results that divergent thinking tasks tend to favor people in individualistic cultures (Ng, 2003; Niu & Sternberg, 2002; Zha et al., 2006). Also in line with previous research on teamwork related mental models (Vîrg˘a et al., 2014), emergent states (task conflict and psychological safety) influence the post-task evaluation of MD related mental models. Task conflict has a positive, while psychological safety has a negative association with the evaluative MD related

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Table 2 Means, Standard Deviations, and Correlations. Mean SD 1. Gender 2. Age 3. DT manipulation 4. Culture 5. TC 6. PS 7. HI 8. VI 9. HC 10. VC 11. TWMMD pre-task 12. TWMMD post-task 13. Change TWMMD 14. WD pre-task 15. WD post-task 16. Change WD 17. AdjCQ

1

0.57 0.49 1 22.38 2.99 0.05 0.49 0.50 −0.00 −0.38** −0.08 −0.12 0.00 −0.14* 0.00 0.05 −0.05

0.62 7.42 15.75 19.49 15.76 21.22 18.98 3.26

0.48 2.25 2.29 3.76 4.19 3.03 3.73 0.68

2.49

0.84 −0.07

−0.76 0.94 −0.02

2

3

4

5

6

7

8

9

10

11

1 0.03

1

12

13

14

1 0.16** 0.13* −0.11 0.15* 0.07 −0.04 −0.01

1 −0.19** −0.08 0.05 0.00 −0.08 0.06

1 .13* −0.01 0.26** 0.01 0.04

1 0.16** −0.11 0.03 0.12*

1 0.04 1 0.09 0.22** −0.06 0.04

−0.06 −0.01

0.04

0.49**

−0.22** 0.07

−0.01 0.13*

0.04

0.38**

−0.23** −0.02 0.02

−0.08 0.01

−0.50** 0.70** 1

0.02

0.07

0.02

0.12*

0.00

0.04

0.20**

0.05

0.06

0.18** 0.10

0.16**

0.06

0.01

0.00

−0.10 0.09

0.06

−0.00 0.15**

0.07 0.06 0.30** 0.14*

0.02 0.06

0.04 0.08

−0.02 −0.15* −0.12* 0.01 −0.12* 0.01 0.11 0.04

0.06 0.08

0.04 0.04

15

16

1 −0.07 1 −0.13* −0.03 0.00 0.01 −0.12* −0.07 −0.09 −0.06

−0.02 −0.03 0.02 0.02 0.05 0.08 0.02 −0.20**

3.34

0.94 −0.09

3.58

0.86 −0.21** −0.01 −0.01

0.08

0.24 1.17 −0.08 −0.03 −0.07 14.33 7.26 −0.24** −0.04 −0.02

−0.02 −0.05 0.05

0.24**

1

−0.01 −0.06 1 1

−0.68** 0.60** 1 0.13* 0.33** 0.14*

Notes: DT – divergent thinking; TC – task conflict; PS – psychological safety; HI – horizontal individualism; VI – vertical individualism; HC – horizontal collectivism; VC – vertical collectivism, TWMMD – minority dissent related teamwork mental model; WD – willingness to dissent; Change TWMMD = TWMMDpost-task- TWMMDpre-task; Change WD = WDpre-task-WDpost-task; Culture is coded as a dummy variable: The Netherlands = 1; China = 0; Gender is coded as a dummy variable: Woman = 1, Man = 0; DT manipulation is coded as a dummy variable: with DT = 1, Without DT = 0. * p < 0.05. ** p < 0.01. Table 3 Results of the multilevel analyses for change in MD-related mental models. Change in MD-related mental models

Gender Age DT manipulation Culture Task conflict Psychological safety HC VC HI VI Culture x DT manipulation

B (SE)

t(sig)

95% CI

0.01 (0.11) 0.001 (0.01) −0.36 (0.13) −0.13 (0.16) 0.15 (0.02) −0.06 (0.01) −0.02 (0.01) 0.01 (0.01) 0.003 (0.01) −0.001 (0.01) 0.22 (0.22)

0.14 (0.88) 0.09 (0.92) −2.69 (0.008) −0.81 (0.41) 6.02 (<0.000) −2.48 (0.01) −1.07 (0.28) 1.09 (0.27) 0.25 (0.80) −0.05 (0.95) 0.98 (0.32)

[−0.21, 0.24] [−0.03, 0.03] [−0.63, −0.09] [−0.45, 0.18] [0.10, 0.20] [−0.11, −0.01] [−0.05, 0.01] [−0.01, 0.04] [−0.02, 0.03] [−0.02, 0.02] [−0.22, 0.66]

Note. Men are the reference category for gender, participants in the control group are the reference category for the MD manipulation, and Chinese participants are the reference category for culture.

mental models. From the individual cultural values evaluation, only vertical individualism has a significant correlation with the cultural context, namely participants in the collectivistic context reported lower scores on vertical individualism than participants in the individualistic culture. Multilevel analysis was used in order to test Hypothesis 1, stating that the change in MD-related mental models is more positive for participants that received the DT manipulation (have seen the movie) as compared to the participants that received no manipulation. Because the post task evaluation of MD is likely to be influenced by various group level emergent states (see for details Vîrg˘a et al., 2014) and cultural values as well, we controlled for psychological safety, task conflict as well as individualist and collectivist cultural values. Moreover, in order to check whether the effectiveness of the DT manipulation depends on the cultural context we included culture and collectivistic values as predictors and we also included the crossproduct term of culture with DT manipulation in the analyses. Because the shift in MD mental models is likely to show a within group dependency we used multi-level analyses carried out with the Mixed Model analysis in SPSS software package version 21. The results are presented in Table 3. After accounting for the non-independent nature of observations and controlling for group emergent states and cultural values, our results show that the DT manipulation had a significant effect in the change of the MD mental model. Our results show that in general participants tend to report more negative scores for MD after the group task, therefore the

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Table 4 Results of the multilevel analyses for willingness to dissent. Change in willingness to dissent

Gender Age DT manipulation Culture Task conflict Psychological safety HC VC HI VI Culture x DT manipulation

B (SE)

t(sig)

95% CI

0.13 (0.15) −0.02 (0.02) −0.07 (0.18) −0.39 (0.22) 0.02 (0.03) 0.03 (0.03) −0.05 (0.02) −0.02 (0.02) 0.007 (0.02) −0.008 (0.01) 0.62 (0.30)

0.84 (0.39) −1.13 (0.25) −0.43 (0.67) −1.80 (0.07) 0.79 (0.42) −1.04 (0.29) −2.27 (0.02) −1.30 (0.19) 0.36 (0.71) −0.46 (.64) 2.05 (0.04)

[−0.17, 0.44] [−0.07, 0.02] [−0.43, 0.28] [−0.83, 0.03] [−0.03, 0.09] [−0.03, 0.10] [−0.10, −0.01] [−0.06, 0.01] [−0.03, 0.04] [−0.04, 0.02] [0.02, 1.22]

Note. Men are the reference category for gender, participants in the control group are the reference category for the MD manipulation, and Chinese participants are the reference category for culture.

Fig. 1. The interaction effect between cultural context and DT manipulation on change in willingness to dissent.

group interactions decrease their original positive perceptions of MD. This negative shift is aligned with results previously reported for other dimensions of teamwork related mental models (Vîrg˘a et al., 2014). However the negative shift in MD related mental models is smaller for groups that received the MD manipulation (p = 0.008, 95% CI [−0.63, −0.09]). Moreover, the effect of culture is not significant (p = 0.41, 95% CI [−0.45, 0.18]) and the interaction effect between the MD manipulation and culture is also not significant (p = 0.32, 95% CI [−0.22, 0.66]), showing that our attempt to change the MD mental models was successful and is not dependent upon the cultural context in which the groups operated. Therefore, the first hypothesis was only partially supported in that the moderation effect stated in the hypothesis was not significant. In order to test Hypothesis 2 we used a multilevel modeling approach, suitable due to the nested nature of our data (individuals nested in teams) and due to the fact that willingness to engage in MD is likely to also be influenced by the emergent group level properties (conflict and psychological safety). We have also controlled for psychological safety, task conflict (indicators of group climate conducive for dissent) as well as individualist and collectivist cultural values as reported by the respondents. The results of the multilevel analysis are presented in Table 4. The multilevel analysis for willingness to engage in MD showed no significant effect for culture (p = .07, 95% CI [−0.83, 0.03]) and no significant effect for the MD manipulation (p = .67, 95% CI [−.43, .28]) . However the interaction effect between culture and MD manipulation was significant (p = .04, 95% CI [.02, 1.22]), showing that the MD increased the likelihood of engaging in MD in the Dutch sample but not in the Chinese sample, providing support for Hypothesis 2. The interaction effect is depicted in Fig. 1. In order to test Hypothesis 3 (related to group creativity), analyses were performed at the group level of analysis. Hypothesis 3 stating that the MD manipulation has a stronger positive effect on group creativity in individualistic rather than collectivistic cultures was tested using ANOVA. We have controlled for group size, and because the randomisation checks showed that Chinese participants had lower individual creativity scores that Dutch participants, we also controlled for the average within-group individual creativity as well as for the standard deviation of individual creativity within groups. For group creativity as evaluated by experts, the ANOVA results show a significant effect of culture F (1,68) = 5.50 (p = 0.02),

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Table 5 Results of the ANOVA analyses for expert rated group creativity, group creativity quotient and usefulness. DT Manipulation

Cultural context

N

Group creativity quotient

Expert-rated group creativity Usefulness

No DT Manipulation

China The Netherlands

14 24

Mean

SD

Mean

SD

Mean

SD

6.03 6.56

1.97 2.18

9.00 9.36

1.03 1.01

6.32 6.06

0.81 0.88

With DT manipulation

China The Netherlands

14 23

5.47 7.68

1.06 1.81

7.96 9.49

1.29 0.79

6.27 6.03

0.99 1.42

Total

China The Netherlands

28 47

5.75 7.11

1.58 2.06

8.48 9.42

1.27 0.90

6.29 6.05

0.89 1.16

Note: DT – divergent thinking; group size, average individual creativity quotient and within group SD of individual creativity quotient were used as controls.

␩2 = 0.07, the observed power is ␲ = 0.63 on group creativity. Although the main effect of culture is significant, there is a difference in the effect that the manipulation has on the groups in the two conditions, as shown by the means and standard deviations reported in Table 5. The interaction between manipulation and culture is also significant F (1,68) = 5.60 (p = 0.02), ␩2 = 0.07, the observed power is ␲ = 0.64. Dutch groups have a higher creativity when they received the manipulation aimed at fostering DT (M = 9.49; SD = 0.79) than Chinese groups who have received the DT manipulation (M = 7.96; SD = 1.29), while no significant difference is obtained for the comparison between Dutch (M = 9.36; SD = 1.01) and Chinese (M = 9.00; SD = 1.03) groups that did not receive the DT manipulation. Therefore, the results fully support Hypothesis 3 as the interaction effect between manipulation and culture clearly affects group creativity. In order to check the robustness of our findings we have ran the same ANOVA analyses for group creativity quotient (we used the same control variables as for the previous analyses). The results reveal a similar pattern as for expert rated group creativity. The effect of culture on group creativity quotient is significant F (1,68) = 4.90 (p = 0.03), ␩2 = 0.07, the observed power is ␲ = 0.58. However, the effect of the DT manipulation on group creativity quotient is not significant F (1,68) = 0.10 (NS). Although the main effect of DT is not significant, there is a significant interaction effect with culture F (1,68) = 4.08 (p = 0.04), ␩2 = 0.06, the observed power is ␲ = 0.51. This result supports Hypothesis 3. For both sets of ANOVA results (group creativity quotient and expert rated group creativity), Levene’s test for equality of error variance is not significant, therefore the results are robust. We tested Hypotheses 4 by running an additional ANOVA analysis with usefulness as dependent variable and DT manipulation and cultural context as factors. Although in general the Chinese groups had higher scores for usefulness (see Table 5), the influence of the cultural context is not statistically significant F(1,71) = 0.90 (NS). We can therefore conclude that Hypothesis 4 was not supported. 6. Discussion Our study conceptualized MD as mental model and argued that evaluative cognitions related to MD are part of the teamwork related mental models. MD related mental models are evaluative cognitions with positive (benefits for creativity and innovation) as well as negative (conflicts and marginalization associated with MD) valued elements. We argued that interventions aimed at emphasizing the positive (systemic) benefits of DT are effective ways of generating positive MD related mental models and ultimately foster group creativity. Our results show that group interaction generally decreases the positivity of MD related mental model evaluations. In line with previous results (Vîrg˘a et al., 2014) experiencing real group interactions leads to a decline in the positivity of the teamwork related expectations (post interaction evaluations yield scores lower than the expected values in the pre interaction condition). Based on the correlations reported in Table 2, group members that experience high (as opposed to low) levels of task conflict also reported a lower decline in the positivity of their MD related mental models, while members of groups with high levels of psychological safety reported a significant decline in their MD evaluations. Groups that experienced task related disagreements tend to have rather positive post-task evaluations of MD while members of groups with high psychological safety tend to have less positive evaluation of the MD in the post-task condition. As MD disrupts the social harmony of the group, it comes as no surprise that once a sense of psychological safety is established in the group, the group members tend to preserve this safety climate and to devaluate MD. The existence of task related disagreements during group interactions however, seems to create a group climate in which the decline of positive evaluation of MD is lowered, fact that is also in line with the DT manipulation. We can therefore conclude that messages that emphasize the value of DT and a group climate conducive for task disagreements decrease the chance that group members will devaluate MD. We expected that the cultural context in which groups operate influences the strength of the association between the interventions aimed at emphasizing the value of DT and MD related mental model on the one hand and willingness to dissent on the other hand. Our results supported this moderation hypothesis only for the willingness to dissent and showed that interventions aimed at emphasizing the value of divergent thinking slightly increase willingness to engage in MD in the groups operating in an individualistic culture and actually decrease the willingness to engage in MD in groups operating in collectivistic cultures. A plausible explanation for this effect is the attempt to resolve the cognitive dissonance created by

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the DT manipulation. Our results show that the DT manipulation changed the MD related mental models irrespective of the cultural context, and probably created a larger dissonance with pre-existing attitudes for members of collectivistic groups than for members of individualistic groups (the DT manipulation emphasized the value of MD, while the collectivistic cultural preclude MD). In line with the cognitive dissonance theory (Festinger, 1957), stating that efforts to resolve dissonance are more intense when the dissonance is substantial we believe that members of collectivistic groups mobilized more efforts in attempting to solve the dissonance between the evaluative change created by the DT manipulation and their cultural beliefs. In line with the congruity principle of attitude change (Osgood & Tannenbaum, 1955), members of collectivistic groups probably solved this cognitive dissonance by enforcing behavioral tendencies consistent with their existing cultural values. 6.1. Study limitations Our study shares some of the benefits and limitations of general experimental designs, in that we can draw causal conclusions about the claims made in our hypotheses, yet we cannot generalize our findings to more generic settings in which organizational groups perform creative tasks. Future research could further explore whether DT interventions can be used in real organizational settings to stimulate MD and ultimately group creativity. Another important limitation of our study is the unbalanced sample size across the two cultural contexts. The creative task used in the study was a divergent thinking task, rather additive in nature that allowed us to compute the adjusted creativity quotient. However, based on such task design, one cannot draw definite conclusions on group creativity in tasks with a high degree of interdependence. Finally, the class setting in which the manipulations were conducted might limit the standardization of our manipulations and future research could use more controlled lab settings for replicating these results. 6.2. Contributions With respect to the contributions to the debate on culture and creativity, our results are among the first to generalize the findings from the individual level of analysis to the group level. We show that the creativity of groups operating in collectivistic contexts is lower than the creativity of groups operating in individualistic context and as such, we emphasize the critical role of culture for group creativity. Although our DT manipulation had no direct group level consequences in terms of creativity, its interaction with the cultural context in which the groups operate was significant. As such the DT manipulation slightly increased group creativity in groups operating in the individualistic culture and it actually decreased the creativity of groups operating in collectivistic culture. This pattern of results overlaps with the one identified at the individual level of analysis for the willingness to engage in MD. Interventions aimed at fostering group creativity should therefore take into account the cultural context in which they are exerted. The same attempt to bolster DT (and ultimately group creativity) led to the expected effect when applied to groups in the individualistic culture and to the opposite effect in the collectivistic context. Our results are in line with previous evidence reported in Goncalo and Staw (2006) showing that the instructions to “be more creative” fostered creativity in groups with individualistic rather than collectivistic value orientations. In their study however, cultural orientations were induced, while in our study we tested the effect of the real cultural context on groups’ adherence to attempts aimed at stimulating their DT. Acknowledgement PLC was supported by a grant of the Romanian National Authority for Scientific Research, CNCS – UEFISCDI, project number PN-II-ID-PCE-2011-3-0482. The funders had no role in study design, data collection and analysis, decision to publish, or preparation of the manuscript. Appendix A. The text of the video “Here’s to the crazy ones. The misfits. The rebels. The troublemakers. The round pegs in the square holes. The ones who see things differently. They’re not fond of rules. And they have no respect for the status quo. You can quote them, disagree with them, glorify or vilify them. About the only thing you can’t do is ignore them. Because they change things. They push the human race forward. And while some may see them as the crazy ones, we see genius. 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