In the BI Leadership Magazine 2013/14, Matej Cerne, Christina Nerstad, Anders Dysvik and myself published a practitioner-oriented paper on the forthcoming February 2014 Academy of Management Journal article on knowledge hiding, motivational climate and creativity called Punished for withholding knowledge.
Media coverage on AMJ article in Slovenia and Norway
In essence, I see the point in our work about the positive impact we’d like to make to the lives of individuals at work as well as business performance. So I am really happy to see that Academy of Management Journal publication on detrimental effects of knowledge hiding for ones own creativity got really wide media coverage in Norway as well as some in Slovenia.
Below are the links to publications in Norwegian and Slovenian press:
- Knowledge hiding can be harmful for business – article in Dnevnik, Slovenian popular paper
- A million euro guy – coverage in Finance – Slovene popular finance daily paper here (free registration needed)
- in Hegnar.no
- Ukeavisen Ledelse
- Aftenposten (written by a well-known Norwegian journalist Katrine Aspaas) – p. 1 and p. 2,
- and Dagens Næringsliv (a leading Norwegian business daily!) – p. 1 and p. 2.
Lea and Matej in the spotlights
As a mentor I can say, that this is truly a rewarding role. Especially at times like these, where excellent news on my protegees just keep on coming. In was few days ago, when mag. Lea Pfajfar got an award as the Slovenian HR hope 2013 for her master thesis on work engagement and the role of organizational networks and job design. That was in addition to the runner-up award at the Student Business Conference.
Yesterday, dr. Matej Černe was officially promoted to the PhD title at the University of Ljubljana ceremony. It is worth to mention, that Matej is the first Slovenian ever to publish as the first author in Academy of Management Journal and one of four that ever managed to do so.
Publication in the Leadership
For those of us interested in leading creativity and innovation, there is a new publication of ours, fresh from the oven: Černe, M., Jaklič, M., & Škerlavaj, M. (2013): Authentic leadership, creativity, and innovation: A multilevel perspective, Leadership, 9(1): 63-85.
This study aims to propose and empirically test a multilevel model of cross-level interactions between authentic leadership and innovation at the team level, and perception of support for innovation and creativity at the individual level. We use data from 23 team leaders and 289 team members in a Slovenian manufacturing and processing firm engaged in producing innovative products and customer solutions and conduct a multilevel analysis using hierarchical linear modelling (HLM). The results indicate that whereas perceived team leaders’ authentic leadership directly influences team members’ individual creativity and team innovation, the impact of self-ascribed team leaders’ authentic leadership was not significant. In addition to that, the relationship between team leaders’ authenticity and creativity is mediated by perception of support for innovation. Using a multilevel approach, this is the first study to our knowledge to quantitatively examine the relationship between authentic leadership and creativity and innovation. In addition, unlike previous research on related topics that relied solely on one source of information, we examine authentic leadership with empirical data gathered from both team leaders and their employees.
Your ideas, comments more than welcome!
Publication in the AMJ
Thanks to a wonderful group of co-authors and friends from Slovenia and Norway, amazingly developmental feedback from the three anonymous reviewers and AMJ associate editor Adam Grant, we got accepted our first Academy of Management Journal publication:
Here is the abstract for those interested:
Knowledge hiding prevents colleagues from generating creative ideas, but it may also have negative consequences for the creativity of the knowledge hider. Drawing on social exchange theory, we propose that when employees hide knowledge, they trigger a reciprocal distrust loop in which coworkers are unwilling to share knowledge with them. We further suggest that these effects are contingent on the motivational climate such that the negative effects of hiding knowledge on one’s own creativity are enhanced in a performance climate and attenuated in a mastery climate. A field study of 240 employees, nested into 34 groups, revealed a negative relationship between knowledge hiding and the knowledge hider’s creativity as well as the moderating role of a mastery climate. Study 2 replicated these findings in an experimental study of 132 undergraduate students, testing a reciprocal distrust loop and comparing it with an alternative intra-psychic explanatory process based on situational regulatory focus. Implications for practice and future research are discussed.
You never forget your first time! 🙂
Research seminar on knowlege hiding, motivational climates and creativity @ BI
Today, we (that is Matej Černe, Christina Nerstad, and Anders Dysvik) held a research seminar on an article that we will present at the Academy of Management Conference 2012, Boston, MA. It has also been chosen for the publication in Best paper conference proceedings. Its’ central idea is that knowledge hiding of an individual creates a so-called distrust loop which in turn damages one’s self creativity (not just creativity of coworkers). And performance climate just makes things worse (to put it in simple terms). However, that there is a cure for that called a mastery climate – a climate that promotes development, growth and collaboration among colleagues. Great discussions and most helpful comments from the colleagues from Department of Leadership and Organisational Behavior, BI Norwegian Business School.
AoM Best Conference Proceedings
I am really proud to announce that we received a prestigious Best Conference Proceedings Award for the Academy of Management Meeting, 2012, Boston (MA, USA). Reviewers have ranked the paper Černe, M., Nerstad, C., Škerlavaj, M. “Don’t come around here no more: Knowledge hiding, perceived motivational climate, and creativity” to be amongst the best in the OB Division. We provocatively suggest and prove that knowledge hiding not only damages organizations, but also individuals who hide knowledge themselves. In addition, we offer a remedy for that. The negative effect of knowledge hiding on creativity can be mitigated with fostering appropriate organizational climate.
Workshop @ Business Hive
Business Hive is an international crowdsourcing initiative of the Faculty of Economics @ University of Ljubljana students organized within the Management Group. They strive to draw together young and fresh minds from all over the globe in order to solve real-life business problems. Within this worthy event, I contributed my humble part with a workshop called A few thoughts on creativity and innovativeness. We shared ideas and experiences related to facilitating creative ideas and converting them into business innovations. Students from the MG really managed to bring together creative folks and I cannot say anything but keep up the good work.
Networks for generating and for validating ideas: The social side of creativity
We have just published a journal article than connects social network analysis and creativity: Ohly, S., Kaše, R., & Škerlavaj, M.: Networks for generating and for validating ideas: The social side of creativity. Innovation: Management, Policy, and Practice, 12(1): 41-52.
In recent years, research has recognized that creativity is a social process. By
communicating with others, individuals get access to novel perspectives and unique
knowledge, and they can get political support for their ideas by ensuring that they meet
others’ standards. Based on the different function of idea-related communication, we expected
the structure of idea-generation networks to differ from that of idea-validation networks.
Specifically, we expected different effects of leadership status and tenure. Our results
indicated some differences in the structure of the two networks. This leads to the
recommendation that future research on idea-related communication and creativity needs to
distinguish the different phases of the creative process.
Keywords: Idea generation, implementation, social network, social support, communication,
reciprocity
prof. dr. Miha Škerlavaj 
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