In the middle of things : how ego networks and context perceptions influence individual creativity in work groups

This study investigates individual creative performance in the context of social networks in medium sized work groups (n = 15 - 25) by combining individual, contextual, and social network antecedents. It is an effort to build a balanced model that takes into account the position of the individual within the social system, as well as individual motivation and perceptions of organizational context. The results show that the effects of motivational and contextual factors on creative performance are mediated by creative behavior performed by the individual. The individual's position in the social network and the nature (strong or weak) of the individual's ties with others in the network, in contrast, exercise both direct and indirect effects (via creative behavior) on creative performance. As predicted, intrinsic motivation, empowerment, and organizational support had positive effects on creative performance. Surprisingly, formal structure also exerted a positive influence on creative performance. Another unexpected finding is that both local brokerage and weak ties exerted overall negative effects on creative performance. As hypothesized, centrality exerted a strong positive effect on creative performance. The results, which are in part inconsistent with previous findings, suggest that the direction of the effects of both social network position and tie strength on creative performance may depend on group size, and that ego network characteristics also affect perceptions of the organizational context. The preferred model showed a strong fit to the data, providing support for the inclusion of network variables in any comprehensive theory of creative behavior in organizations