Novelty and Usefulness Trade-Off: Cultural Cognitive Differences and Creative Idea Evaluation

Creativity and innovation have become critical organizational capabilities in today’s global environment, and leveraging creative potential of employees across various cultural contexts has become increasingly important. Although recognized among researchers, cross-cultural differences in creativity...

Full description

Saved in:
Bibliographic Details
Published in:Journal of cross-cultural psychology 2018-02, Vol.49 (2), p.171-198
Main Authors: McCarthy, Marina, Chen, Chao C., McNamee, Robert C.
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Cognition
Cognition & reasoning
Creativity
Cultural Differences
Cultural factors
Global environment
Innovation
Innovations
International trade
Multiculturalism & pluralism
Organizational Climate
Social norms
Teams
Usefulness
Work environment
Citations: Items that this one cites
Items that cite this one
Online Access:Get full text
Tags: Add Tag
No Tags, Be the first to tag this record!
Description
Summary:Creativity and innovation have become critical organizational capabilities in today’s global environment, and leveraging creative potential of employees across various cultural contexts has become increasingly important. Although recognized among researchers, cross-cultural differences in creativity are not yet well understood. We contribute to this line of research by constructing a theoretical model that focuses on cultural differences in cognition (i.e., holistic vs. analytic thinking) that affect the evaluation of creative ideas. The cultural cognition perspective allows us to theorize about the interrelationship between an idea’s novelty and its usefulness. We propose that to the extent there is a trade-off between an idea’s novelty and usefulness, cultural differences in cognition will systematically influence the trade-off relationship such that Easterners will perceive a stronger trade-off between novelty and usefulness as compared with their Western counterparts. Such effects of cultural cognition, however, can be reduced by contextual factors of multicultural exposure, cognitive team diversity, and organizational climate for innovation. Our cultural cognition perspective complements the extant cultural value and social norms perspectives on cross-cultural differences in creativity and innovation.
ISSN:0022-0221
1552-5422
DOI:10.1177/0022022116680479