Conceiving opposites together: Cultivating paradoxical frames and epistemic motivation fosters team creativity

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Author(s)Miron-Spektor, Ella
Author(s)Emich, Kyle
Author(s)Argote, Linda
Author(s)Smith, Wendy K.
Date Accessioned2022-08-18T14:11:28Z
Date Available2022-08-18T14:11:28Z
Publication Date2022-05-10
DescriptionThis article was originally published in Organizational Behavior and Human Decision Processes. The version of record is available at: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.obhdp.2022.104153. © 2022. This manuscript version is made available under the CC-BY-NC-ND 4.0 license https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/. This article will be embargoed until 05/10/2025.en_US
AbstractTo successfully generate creative solutions, teams must reconcile inconsistent perspectives and integrate competing task demands. We suggest that adopting a paradoxical frame - a mental template that promotes recognizing and embracing the simultaneous existence of seemingly contradictory elements - helps teams navigate this process to produce creative ideas, if team members are epistemically motivated. Our results from two laboratory studies (N = 950) suggest that teams that adopt paradoxical frames and have high epistemic motivation develop more creative solutions than teams with paradoxical frames and low epistemic motivation or epistemically motivated teams with frames that only encourage information sharing. Teams with paradoxical frames and high epistemic motivation are more creative because they engage in idea elaboration – they exchange, consider, and integrate diverse ideas and perspectives. By contrast, other teams settle on suboptimal middle-way solutions that do not address task demands. Our research advances knowledge of why and when paradoxical frames benefit team creativity, by unpacking the processes that enable teams to leverage task and team tensions. We show that when teams collectively work through their tensions and elaborate their diverse ideas they become more creative.en_US
SponsorWe thank Francesca Gino for her contribution and advice in early stages of the project, and to the participants of the Academy of Management Annual Meeting and of the Paradox Subtrack, EGOS for their feedback. We appreciate the generous funding from The Center for Organizational Learning, Innovation, and Performance, Carnegie Mellon University and from the Technion-The Israel Institute of Technology.en_US
CitationMiron-Spektor, Ella, Kyle J. Emich, Linda Argote, and Wendy K. Smith. “Conceiving Opposites Together: Cultivating Paradoxical Frames and Epistemic Motivation Fosters Team Creativity.” Organizational Behavior and Human Decision Processes 171 (2022): 104153. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.obhdp.2022.104153.en_US
ISSN0749-5978
URLhttps://udspace.udel.edu/handle/19716/31206
Languageen_USen_US
PublisherOrganizational Behavior and Human Decision Processesen_US
dc.rights.urihttps://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/
Keywordscreativityen_US
Keywordsparadoxical frameen_US
Keywordsepistemic motivationen_US
Keywordsidea elaborationen_US
Keywordsgroups and teamsen_US
TitleConceiving opposites together: Cultivating paradoxical frames and epistemic motivation fosters team creativityen_US
TypeArticleen_US
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