Standing on the shoulders of others : network ties, cognitive strategy and individual creativity

Abstract

Social network theorizing of individual creativity (SNT) suggests that network ties especially weak ties may inspire individual creativity through structural accesses to non-redundant information, yet empirically, the relationships between network ties (i.e. strong ties) and behavior outcomes are found to be incomplete, which calls for more compelling investigation. Drawing on the resource-based view, integrative bunch of resources that resided in network may may contribute to individual creativity. Besides, social capital theory explicates that structural advantages and solidarity benefits can be induced by network ties. Grounded upon these viewpoints, I propose a knowledge-cognition interactionist model to explain how different ties strength affects individual creativity in structural and relational aspects. The interactivist model emphasizes the key role of knowledge in fueling individual creativity, most importantly, highlights how cognitive strategies may interact with knowledge features to promot individual creativity. Network ties function as intellectual reservoir of both knowledge and cognitive referent frame. In specific, weak strengthened ties characterized of distant relationship and less frequent communication exhibit structural benefits. Non-redundant social clusters are more probable to offers distinctive knowledge, which is dissimilar to the focal individual’s knowledge base, therefore to expand one’s knowledge scope in horizontal dimension. Conversely, strong strengthened ties characterized by commitment, emotional attachment and frequent communication prescribe considerable relational benefits in knowledge transferring and interpretation process, which can be summarized as “strong tie effect” (the joint efforts of willingness and cooperation norms on knowledge conveyance and interpretation). In strong ties, knowledge recipient is more likely to initiate knowledge seeking behavior and get constructive controversy or feedback from frequent, in-depth communication, thereby, recipient can develop integrated and deep knowledge through strong ties. Complimentary to knowledge feature of non-redundancy of uniqueness in accordance to SNT, I further delineate how knowledge breadth and depth bridge the loose connections between different-strengthened ties and individual creativity as mediators. Simultaneously, this article emphasizes the contingent roleof cognitive strategyin that how it may modify the extent to which knowledge feature (i.e. breadth, depth) can be appropriately captured and effectively utilized for creativity. Dual explanatory paths are leveraged to address the moderating effects of cognitive flexibility and cognitive complexity respectively. Other than psychological lens highlighting the intermediate motivational mechanism, our research is supplementary to creativity research in that it investigates the influences of knowledge breadth and features on creativity contingent on one’s cognitive ability for the first time to date. Two time-lagged survey studies were administrated to test hypotheses, and the findings identify the value of network ties structural as well as relational mechanisms in knowledge transferring and interpretation to inspire individual creativity. At the same time, extant study further reveals the interplay between knowledge features and individual-level differences in cognitive strategies. This research also entails important practical implications for managers to encourage employees to utilize the structural as well as relational mechanisms of network ties to broaden knowledge horizon and reinforce knowledge depth, in turn to generate employee creativity.