Creativity - Publications - Faculty & Research

May 2006 (Revised February 2009)
Teaching Note

1995
Working Paper

Assessing the Work Environment for Creativity

By: Teresa M. Amabile, Regina Conti, Heather Coon, Jeffrey Lazenby and Michael Herron

June 2024
Article

The Diversity Heuristic: How Team Demographic Composition Influences Judgments of Team Creativity

By: Devon Proudfoot, Zachariah Berry, Edward H. Chang and Min B. Kay

Despite mixed evidence for the relationship between demographic diversity and creativity, we propose that observers hold a lay belief that demographic diversity increases creativity and apply this lay belief in judgments about teams and their creative work. Across... View Details

Keywords: Diversity; Race; Gender; Groups and Teams; Perception; Creativity

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fall 1997
Article

Motivating Creativity in Organizations: On Doing What You Love and Loving What You Do

By: T. M. Amabile

Creativity in all fields, including business, flourishes under intrinsic motivation- the drive to do something because it is interesting, involving, exciting, satisfying, or personally challenging. This article presents the Componential Theory of Organizational... View Details

Keywords: Creativity; Motivation and Incentives; Situation or Environment; Organizational Culture

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28 Aug 2018
News

Three Science-Backed Tricks To Improve Your Creativity

Research Summary

Helping at Work

By: Teresa M. Amabile

This research focuses on collaboration and helping in creative project teams. Colin Fisher (UCL), Julianna Pillemer (NYU Stern School), and I developed a multi-year research program examining help received and given, including successful and unsuccessful helping... View Details

Keywords: Collaboration; Helping; Creativity; Creative Industries

January 2013
Article

Not Just for Stereotyping Anymore: Racial Essentialism Reduces Domain-General Creativity

By: Carmit Tadmor, Melody Chao, Ying-yi Hong and Jeff Polzer

Individuals who believe that racial groups have fixed underlying essences use stereotypes more than do individuals who believe that racial categories are arbitrary and malleable social-political constructions. Would this essentialist mind-set also lead to less... View Details

Keywords: Prejudice and Bias; Creativity; Race

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20 May 2016
News

The Most Creative People in Business 2016

Illustration by Peter Arkle for Fast Company Illustration by Peter Arkle for Fast Company Fast Company recently released its Most Creative People in Business 2016 list, and HBS alumni claim 5 of the 100 spots. They run the gamut, ranging... View Details

February 2007 (Revised April 2010)
Case

Wyeth Pharmaceuticals: Spurring Scientific Creativity with Metrics

By: Robert S. Huckman, Gary P. Pisano and Mark Rennella

Describes the reorganization of the drug discovery organization at Wyeth Pharmaceuticals and focuses on the decisions to: (1) centralize decision-making within drug discovery and (2) institute numerical metrics--jointly affecting all R&D scientists--for the progression... View Details

Keywords: Decision Making; Measurement and Metrics; Business Processes; Organizational Structure; Research and Development; Science-Based Business; Creativity; Pharmaceutical Industry

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28 Apr 2022
Research & Ideas

Can You Buy Creativity in the Gig Economy?

workers to get their creative juices flowing. “It turns out, on average, these gig workers are very responsive to competition,” says Zhu, who co-authored the forthcoming article Competition, Contracts, and Creativity: Evidence from Novel... View Details

Keywords: by Pamela Reynolds

Aug 30 2017
Interview

Break the Daily Rhythm to Foster Creative Insights

2020
Article

Subjective Semantic Surprise Resulting from Divided Attention Biases Evaluations of an Idea’s Creativity

By: Goran Calic, Nour El Shamy, Isaac Kinley, Scott Watter and Khaled Hassanein

The evaluation of an idea’s creativity constitutes an important step in successfully responding to an unexpected problem with a new solution. Yet, distractions compete for cognitive resources with the evaluation process and may change how individuals evaluate ideas. In... View Details

Keywords: Creativity; Cognition and Thinking

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