Creativity in organizations.

Abstract

Group diversity and group size were manipulated in a laboratory experiment for their influence on the quantity and quality of creative performance. Student subjects were preselected to high and low diverse groups and were randomly assigned to dyads, four-person groups, or individual work. The task was the identification of unusual uses for three common objects. The quantity criterion was the number of non-duplicate uses produced by each group. The quality criterion was the extent to which the uses identified were unusual for the whole sample. The prediction that dyad groups would demonstrate the greatest creative performance was generally not supported. With respect to the number of ideas produced, dyad groups outperformed four-person groups. In the quality of creative performance there was no difference found between dyad and four person groups. For both quantity and quality measures, dyad and four-person groups were outperformed by individuals in nominal groups. Contrary to the prediction that dyads would show the greatest influence of diversity, no difference in creative performance was found in either dyad or four-person groups due to the diversity condition. The influence of diversity was, however, found in both the quantity and quality of creative performance of individuals in nominal groups. Results indicate that for the particular task of producing a number of quality creative ideas, the one-to-one dyad condition is superior to the group, but individuals, working independently, outproduce members in either of the group conditions. Explanation for the unpredicted results explore a number of "group effects" as intervening variables between group size and performance. Considering the nature of the task it was concluded that social loafing is the most likely group effect.