【学术视点】团队中建议和个人创造力的网络视图：经纪人驱动的，社会永续的现象

A Network View of Advice-Giving and Individual Creativity in Teams: A Brokerage-Driven, Socially Perpetuated Phenomenon

Yuan Li *; Ning Li; Jingzhou Guo; Jingyu Li; T. Brad Harris

Academy of Management Journal

About the author

Yuan Li, Tongji University

Ning Li, The University of Iowa

Jingzhou Guo, Shanghai Jiao Tong University

Jingyu Li, Texas A&M University

T. Brad Harris, Texas Christian University

Keywords

Creativity; advice-giving network; advice brokerage; psychological safety, longitudinal analysis; multi-method

Abstract

One potential benefit of team contexts is that members can share knowledge and ideas to help one another solve problems (e.g., advice-giving), thereby lifting members’ creative potential. Yet, individuals’ advice-giving actions do not guarantee increases in recipients’ creativity and, in some cases, may even be a creative liability for the giver’s own subsequent creativity (Mueller & Kamdar, 2011). We argue that considering advice givers’ brokerage in the team’s advice-giving network (i.e., advice brokerage) may clarify this phenomenon. Specifically, we posit that advice given from a brokerage position contains more non-redundant content that boosts recipients’ creativity. Further, we expect advice brokerage to positively influence a giver’s own creativity, though this effect is at least partially explained via recipients’ proximal creativity gains (e.g., recipients’ creativity change mediates the relationship). Recipients’ perceptions of psychological safety accentuate these relationships. Longitudinal field data support the main hypotheses, but also suggest that advice brokerage has more immediate proximal effects on givers’ creativity; an additional qualitative study elucidates several mechanisms by which brokered advice boosts creativity, including two associated with generating diverse ideas (idea integration, perspective-taking), two associated with domain-specific knowledge accumulation (knowledge accumulation, reflection), collective creativity, and creative feedback. The study yields several important implications.