An experiment on creativity in virtual teams

Abstract

The organization of work and the characteristics of tasks have undergone considerable changes in recent years. The developments include (i) an increased relevance of virtual teams and (ii) a higher demand for non-routine tasks in organizations, including creativity. Existing research on creative teams focuses on one-shot or existing teams, overlooking the importance of the formation phase of teams. This formation phase is particularly relevant for teams working in a virtual workplace setting, where communication and coordination may be constrained by the environment. Next to virtual work, hybrid working models ascend, also for teams. Therefore, we examine the influence of workplace settings and changes in these settings on creative performance of teams. We also investigate whether the individuals’ ability to choose their workplace affects creative performance. We answer those questions by conducting a 2-phase experiment with dyadic teams in the lab and online to model a presence and a virtual workplace setting and account for the formation phase of teams. We implemented the “Unusual-Uses Task” as non-routine creative task. Our results showed that teams working in presence outperform those working online. Interestingly, working at least one phase in presence induces higher creative performance than entirely working online, underscoring the relevance of hybrid workplace settings. Moreover, no significant effects of self-selection on performance were found.