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No description available.

This study investigates individual creative performance in the context of social networks in medium sized work groups (n = 15 - 25) by combining individual, contextual, and social network antecedents. It is an effort to build a balanced model that takes into account the position of the individual within the social system, as well as individual motivation and perceptions of organizational context. The results show that the effects of motivational and contextual factors on creative performance are mediated by creative behavior performed by the individual. The individual's position in the social network and the nature (strong or weak) of the individual's ties with others in the network, in contrast, exercise both direct and indirect effects (via creative behavior) on creative performance. As predicted, intrinsic motivation, empowerment, and organizational support had positive effects on creative performance. Surprisingly, formal structure also exerted a positive influence on creative performance. Another unexpected finding is that both local brokerage and weak ties exerted overall negative effects on creative performance. As hypothesized, centrality exerted a strong positive effect on creative performance. The results, which are in part inconsistent with previous findings, suggest that the direction of the effects of both social network position and tie strength on creative performance may depend on group size, and that ego network characteristics also affect perceptions of the organizational context. The preferred model showed a strong fit to the data, providing support for the inclusion of network variables in any comprehensive theory of creative behavior in organizations.

This study explored the effects of cognitive style and expected evaluation on creativity. Past research has shown that an expectation of evaluation can have a negative impact on creativity, and those individuals classified as field-independent rather than field-dependent are more likely to have higher creativity scores. An interaction between expected evaluation and cognitive style was hypothesized. Participants created a collage to measure creativity, either with or without an expectation of evaluation, and then cognitive style was measured. The hypothesis was partially supported. The more field-independent an individual, the higher the creativity score. Those in the evaluation condition scored higher in creativity than those in the non-evaluation condition, but this effect disappeared when controlling for time and previous art experience. The effect of expected evaluation is discussed in terms of the experimental situation and the conceptualization of motivation. Further investigations of cognitive style and motivational conditions are suggested. / Department of Educational Psychology

There is no abstract available for this dissertation.

There is no abstract available for this dissertation.

There is no abstract available for this dissertation.

The resource-based view (RBV) approach bases the strengths of firms on two concepts; resources and capabilities. / Thesis (PhD)--University of South Australia, 2008.

Thesis (M.S. in Psychology)--Vanderbilt University, Dec. 2007. / Title from title screen. Includes bibliographical references.

Thesis (Ph. D.)--University of North Texas, Aug., 2007. / Title from title page display. Includes bibliographical references.