Affective reactions, individual behaviors and social dynamics in creative process

Abstract

We investigate the creative process in five cross-functional teams. Our analysis of interviews and video data showed how the enactment of idea generation and experimentation triggered both positive and negative affective reactions and how some teams were able to overcome emergent problems while others were not. We contribute to the creativity and innovation literatures in two main ways. First, we show how and why both positive and negative emotions can lead to challenges in the creative process, such as interruption in idea generation and interruption in experimentations. Second, we provide new underpinning mechanisms that describe how both individual-level behavior and social dynamics can amplify or help to overcome emergent challenges.