A Teams Approach to Idea Generation: An Analysis of Personality and Team Learning on Creativity

Creativity has been identified as a prerequisite for innovation which is considered highly important for organisations' survival and competitiveness. Research on factors affecting creativity has generally focused on a single level at a time i.e. individual, team or organisational. This research takes a multi-level approach to creativity by investigating the impact of two personality traits - extraversion and openness and team learning on individual creativity. It was hypothesized that openness, extraversion and team learning are positively related to individual creativity and the interaction between personality and team learning would have a positive effect on creativity. A survey using questionnaires was sent to 116 team members working in 24 teams from a mining company in South Africa. The results from multiple regression analysis showed openness to be positively related to creativity in developing new methods as well as creativity in problem solving. Extraversion was however found to negatively relate to creativity in developing new methods while having no significant relation to creativity in problem solving. Team learning did not significantly relate with creativity in developing new methods but related positively with creativity in problem solving. Finally, the interaction between team learning and either personality trait did not have any significant effect on creativity Based on this study it is recommended that managers must invest in employee development programs aimed at building openness in their subordinates as it was found to be the most consistent trait to predict employee creativity.