Cultural intelligence, knowledge hiding, & individual and team creativity August 28, 2017
Posted by Miha Škerlavaj in cultural intelligence, experiment, field study, innovation, knowledge hiding, team.comments closed
Working across cultures is a thing of past, present, and hopefully also future. The question is now what contributes to good knowledge and innovation processes in such context. Sabina Bogilovic, Matej Cerne and Miha Skerlavaj in their article Hiding behind the mask? published in latest European journal of Work and Organizational Psychology argue that it is the cultural intelligence that enables both individuals and their teams to overcome social categorization, decrease knowledge hiding and improve creative outcomes.
Culturally diverse colleagues can be valuable sources for stimulating creativity at work, yet only if they decide to share their knowledge. Drawing on the social exchange theory, we propose that cross-cultural interactions among individuals from different national backgrounds can act as a salient contingency in the relationship between knowledge hiding and creativity (individual and team). We further suggest, based on the social categorization theory (e.g., the categorization process of “us” against “them” based on national differences), that cultural intelligence enhances the likelihood of high-quality social exchanges between culturally diverse individuals and, therefore, remedies the otherwise negative relationship between individual knowledge hiding and individual creativity. Two studies using field and experimental data offer consistent support for this argument. First, a field study of 621 employees nested among 70 teams revealed that individual knowledge hiding is negatively related to individual creativity and that cultural intelligence moderates the relationship between knowledge hiding and creativity at an individual level. A quasi-experimental study of 104 international students nested in 24 teams replicated and extended these findings by implying that individual knowledge hiding is also negatively related to team creativity. We discuss the implications for practice and future research.
Relational leadership and creativity August 21, 2017
Posted by Miha Škerlavaj in creativity, leadership, relations at work.Tags: Arnhild Grimstad, European Management Journal, Matej Černe, Stine Berg
comments closed
What kind of leader-employee relationships matter most in terms of creativity? This is the question Stine Therese S. Berg (OSM Aviation Management), Arnhild Grimstad (Google Ireland), Miha Škerlavaj (BI Norwegian Business School), and Matej Černe (University of Ljubljana, Slovenia) asked ourselves in the most recent publication from European Management Journal with the title Social and economic leader-member exchange and employee creative behavior: The role of employee willingness to take risks and emotional carrying capacity .
Here is the abstract:
In the current study we explore the relational aspect of leadership for stimulating employee creative behavior. Drawing on leader-member exchange (LMX) theory, we propose that the association between two distinct types of leader-member exchange relationships (social [SLMX] and economic [ELMX]) and creative behavior is mediated by employee willingness to take risks and moderated by emotional carrying capacity. Based on two-wave data from a sample of 147 employees, we surprisingly find only marginal support for the association between SLMX and creative behavior, and, as expected, we find no support for the association between ELMX and creative behavior. We do find evidence of the full mediation of willingness to take risks in these two associations. Furthermore, we also find a positively significant interaction of SLMX with emotional carrying capacity (ECC), but no support for the interaction of ELMX with ECC in predicting employee creative behavior. We contribute to a deeper view of understanding the leadership of employee creativity as a relational process, contingent upon both employee characteristics as well as the nature of leader-member exchange.
HRMJ – knowledge hiding and innovative work behavior April 7, 2017
Posted by Miha Škerlavaj in innovation, job design, knowledge hiding.comments closed
In our recent study published at the Human Resource Management Journal and special issue on HRM and innovation, we show that job design (task interdependence and autonomy) and mastery climates can reduce the negative association between knowledge hiding and innovative work behavior.
This study investigates the multilevel interplay among team-level, job-related, and individual characteristics in stimulating employees’ innovative work behavior (IWB) based on the theoretical frameworks of achievement goal theory (AGT) and job characteristics theory (JCT). A multilevel two-source study of 240 employees and their 34 direct supervisors in two medium-sized Slovenian companies revealed significant two- and three–way interactions, where a mastery climate, task interdependence, and decision autonomy moderated the relationship between knowledge hiding and IWB. When employees hide knowledge, a team mastery climate only facilitates high levels of IWB if accompanied by either high task interdependence or high decision autonomy. In the absence of one of these job characteristics, knowledge hiding prevents higher levels of IWBeven in the case of strong team mastery climate. The results suggest that multiple job design antecedents are necessary to neutralize the negative influence of knowledge hiding on micro-innovation processes within organizations.
Journal of Organizational Behavior – Special Issue on knowledge hiding December 8, 2016
Posted by Miha Škerlavaj in knowledge hiding.Tags: Journal of organizational behavior, knowledge hiding
add a comment
To all the researchers interested in better understanding of knowledge hiding, here is the link to the special issue of Journal of Organizational Behavior. Guest editors Catherine Connelly, Anders Dysvik, Miha Skerlavaj, and Matej Cerne are interested in both quantitative and qualitative work that advances the field. Submission deadline December 1st, 2017. Welcome!
MKWCI TV2: Student creativity at its best! November 17, 2016
Posted by Miha Škerlavaj in change management, innovation, prosocial motivation, relations at work.comments closed
MSc students at BI Norwegian Business School have been working hard over the semester at our course Managing knowledge work, creativity and innovation to come up with 13 innovation stories under the umbrella of MKWCI TV2. These are stories about success, growth and scaling-up, they are also stories about learning from failure. Narratives about technological, process and service innovations, about innovation process, change agency, prosocial motivation, startup cultures, challenges of scaling up, as well as about the innovation outcome itself. Video testimonials come from private and public sector, from healthcare and social care, shipping, transport, green economy, municipalities, IT sector, sports, dealing with technological distractions and behavioral change through gamification, and shared economy. Lessons learnt? Good innovation stories are all around! And it is remarkably engaging to learn about them as innovation journalists. Enjoy the show!
Virtual Special Issue: Good organization in Management Learning September 29, 2016
Posted by Miha Škerlavaj in learning organization, prosocial motivation.comments closed
What is good organization and how do we pursue it as practitioners, students and scholars of organizations? That is the theme for this virtual special issue in Management Learning. Good organization is a theme of perennial relevance; a topic defined more by the ethical vitality of how we entertain a set of open-ended and contested questions than a body of knowledge with final answers. Recently this set of questions have moved from issues of excellence and innovation to matters of corporate social responsibility and sustainability, and from there to renewed interest in prosocial motivation, giving behavior at work and to compassion and care as burgeoning research fields of their own.
To read the full introduction, please click here.
– Arne Carlsen, Miha Skerlavaj and Anders Dysvik
Job crafting – where does it come from and what can leaders do about it? August 27, 2016
Posted by Miha Škerlavaj in job crafting, job design, leadership.comments closed
Welcome to read and comment our recent research piece on autonomy, job crafting, and leadership – Sut I Wong, Miha Škerlavaj and Matej Černe (2016): Build Coalitions to Fit: Autonomy Expectations, Competence Mobilization, and Job Crafting, Human Resource Management.
Job crafting offers several beneficial organizational outcomes, yet little is known about what makes employees engage in it. In particular, the role of leaders in influencing their subordinates to engage in job crafting has been insufficiently studied. Drawing on role theory, we suggest that the congruence of leader-subordinate autonomy expectations nurtures subordinates’ experiences of having their competences adequately utilized in their jobs. This experience, which involves the competence mobilization of their work roles, subsequently fosters subordinates’ engagement in job-crafting behavior. A two-stage field study of 145 leader-subordinate dyads using cross-level polynomial regression and response surface analysis supported the (in)congruence hypotheses. The results also demonstrated that subordinates’ perceived competence mobilization mediates the relationship between autonomy expectation (in)congruence and job crafting. In addition, leader coalition as a moderator strengthens the effect of perceived competence mobilization as a psychological condition for job crafting. Implications for practice and future research are discussed.
Leading highly creative ideas to innovation (video lecture) May 3, 2016
Posted by Miha Škerlavaj in Capitalizing on creativity, creativity, innovation.add a comment
What can leaders do to utilize the potential of creative ideas? A question that inspired 42 authors across four continents to go on a journey of discovery and publish the book called Capitalizing on creativity: Fostering the implementation of creative ideas in organizations . Here are my five cents on leadership of highly creative ideas to innovations from the Leadership toolbox lecture at BI Norwegian business school April 29th, 2016.
Btw. if interested in the book, feel free to use author event discount SKER35 to get it 35% off.
Capitalizing on creativity – New book March 16, 2016
Posted by Miha Škerlavaj in book, creativity, innovation.comments closed
Proud! Happy! Excited to see our new book Capitalizing on Creativity launched! It does not happen every day to ripe the fruits of several years of work with a dream team – Matej Černe, Arne Carlsen, & Anders Dysvik. And it would not happen without dedicated support of Jana Krapez Trost, the Edward Elgar professional team as well as every single one of 42 engaged authors from four continents involved. Hope you will enjoy the read as we have been enjoying the process of making.
Interview in Advantage February 24, 2016
Posted by Miha Škerlavaj in change management, creativity, innovation, interviews, knowledge hiding, leadership.comments closed
Advantage (BI alumni magazine) is out. Among many interesting reads, featuring an interview with my humble self. A really good opportunity for a bit of self-reflection when engaged with such a thoughtful conversationist. https://issuu.com/bi_business_school/docs/advantage
