This paper analyses the role of creativity in business organizations by examining the core ideas of an article published sixty years ago as a way to elucidate how relevant they are today in view of the research literature. The paper proposes the use of computational social simulations to support systematic reasoning about some of these longstanding issues around organizational creativity. An example of an agent-based simulation to study team ideation is presented to support systematic reasoning about the role of creativity in business organizations and to articulate future lines of inquiry. Get the full paper: http://www.drs2016.org/286

1. 60 years of creativity in
business organisations
Ricardo Sosa, Pete Rive, Andy Connor
http://www.drs2016.org/286

2. Randall, F. D. (1955) Stimulate your executives to think creatively. Harvard Business Review, 33(4), p121-128.

3. The Evolution of Office Design: http://www.morganlovell.co.uk/articles/the-evolution-of-office-design

4. Creative Office. 5 Ways to Build an Inspiring Environment: www.inproma.biz/creative-office-part-2-5-ways-to-build-an-inspiring-environment

6. A Bruising Workplace: www.nytimes.com/2015/08/16/technology/inside-amazon-wrestling-big-ideas-in-a-bruising-workplace.html

8. “Five outstanding individuals… or 500?”
A few obvious* questions:
◌ A ‘creative class’ or a creative atmosphere? When?
◌ What individual and group behaviours nurture creativity?
◌ How may new ideas be selected and implemented?
◌ What conditions favour marginal or radical ideas?
◌ How to manage team size across stages?
◌ What information and decision structures?

9. Sosa, R. & Connor, A. (2015) A computational intuition pump to examine group creativity: building on the ideas of others.
International Association of Societies of Design Research IASDR 2015, Brisbane, Australia.

10. Sosa, R. (2016) Computational Modelling of Teamwork in Design. Experimental Design Research, pp. 173-186. Springer

11. Group creativity: essential models
Extensions to the Axelrod model:
◌ Individual dissent in group convergence (low prob)
◌ Two types of agent interaction: idea-giving and idea-taking
◌ Degree of dissent: from marginal to radical changes
This paper: parameter sweep of agent interaction and degree of
dissent with 9 agents, 10 features, 10 traits…
◌ Dependent variable: collective changes triggered by individual
dissent (‘revolutions’)

12. Pumping intuitions…
Computational models to help us think

13. Increased participation has a marginal effect (or may even have a
negative effect) when dissent is incremental, but it has significant
positive effects when dissent is radical

14. Wider participation may only matter
when team members are allowed/able
to make bold contributions.
If efforts are put on increasing participation that
yields incremental ideas, then not only the
levels of group creativity may fail to increase,
they may actually decrease.

16. Diminishing returns for group participation: adding more 'idea-
giving' agents brings a significant increase in group revolutions only
when participation is low, and it slows down thereafter

17. The management of creative groups: to
continuously shape strategies & resources
to balance participation with risk

18. Dilemma: efficiency/exploration
Dilemma: participation levels
Dilemma: idea-giving/idea-taking
Dilemma: incremental/radical

19. 60 years of creativity in
business organisations
Ricardo Sosa, Pete Rive, Andy Connor
http://www.drs2016.org/286