Cross-cultural creativity in organizations

This chapter starts by taking an overview of how explicitly defined national cultures affect the form and definition of creativity. We shall review the traditionally cited research that pits Eastern and Western creativity against each other before questioning the usefulness of this strict dichotomy in an increasingly networked world. This leads to an examination of the tension between national, organizational, and personal cultures. Ironically, while technological advances have led toban increase in culturally diverse virtual teams, these same advances may reduce travel and in-person cross-cultural contact, solidifying national identities within an organization as time zones and language connect geographically proximal areas.The ubiquity of cross-cultural experiences in organizations requires skills which fall under the umbrella of cultural intelligence. A review of cultural intelligence highlights the importance of metacognitive processes toa skilled interaction with other cultures. These processes, we argue, can be distributed and scaffolded by firms’ organizational cultures and are thus best conceived of as systemic