Creativity as privilege

Abstract

Organizational gatekeepers rely on tacit proxy signals of quality to evaluate creative work: status and status characteristics, elite networks, cultural capital, and a set of signals we refer to as symbolic dexterity. We argue that this reliance is due to the “push” of uncertainty and the “pull” of the culturally dominant person-centered view of creativity. Evaluators are “pushed” toward these proxy signals because the quality of creative work is fundamentally uncertain. Evaluators are “pulled” toward these proxy signals because the person-centered view of creativity makes these signals legitimate and easily available decision heuristics. Since members of privileged social groups are advantaged in producing and understanding the importance of such signals, we argue that access to creative work and success within it are largely a privilege. Given that privilege-based selection in creative work is both entrenched and ethically problematic, we explore its implications for organizational performance and organizational reputation and propose strategies that may help organizations reduce its discriminatory impact. We conclude by presenting questions for future research arising at the intersection of the literatures on evaluation in creative work and on social inequality.