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1 – 10 of over 3000Milton Mayfield and Jacqueline Mayfield
The purpose of this paper is to provide a model for how leaders can nurture and develop worker garden variety creativity.
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this paper is to provide a model for how leaders can nurture and develop worker garden variety creativity.
Design/methodology/approach
This model was created by synthesizing existing research and literature on leadership and garden variety creativity.
Findings
Findings' synthesis yielded a testable and implementable model for improving worker garden creativity through leader interventions.
Originality/value
This paper provides a specific examination of leader potential for garden variety creativity enhancement. This focus is different from most research that examines organizational structure interventions, high‐level creativity, or both.
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This paper aims to outline a process for establishing and implementing strategic priorities to enhance worker garden variety creativity – a type of creativity that improves direct…
Abstract
Purpose
This paper aims to outline a process for establishing and implementing strategic priorities to enhance worker garden variety creativity – a type of creativity that improves direct worker outcomes such as enhancing operational efficiencies and flexibility.
Design/methodology/approach
The paper presents process suggestions that are based on existing research and practical understanding of best practices for improving worker creativity in typical workplace settings.
Findings
The paper finds that organizations need to maximize worker creativity at all organizational levels in order to maintain the flexibility necessary for today's turbulent economic climate. Also, there are concrete steps organizations can take to develop this creativity.
Research limitations/implications
This process is not designed to increase high‐level creativity (such as developing new microchips), and is not appropriate for moving organizations forward in such a direction.
Practical implications
Most organizations are better served by increasing more prosaic outcomes that are improved through garden variety creativity. As such, the vast majority of organizations will benefit by finding ways to improve garden variety creativity.
Originality/value
This paper makes a contribution to the literature in terms of understanding how organizations can strategically focus on worker creativity improvements, and how this focus can be translated into managerial actions.
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This article discusses how managers can increase creativity from all workers, and how this increase will improve organizational outcomes at all levels.
Abstract
Purpose
This article discusses how managers can increase creativity from all workers, and how this increase will improve organizational outcomes at all levels.
Design/methodology/approach
Paper recommendations are based on existing conceptual and data based garden variety creativity studies. From these studies, a practical, management oriented implementation model is developed.
Findings
Managers can substantially improve worker creativity by removing creativity blocks, providing creativity support, and structuring work to promote creativity.
Originality/value
The provided recommendations will improve worker creativity, and this increased creativity will aid companies to better cope with unexpected changes in the business environment.
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Milton Mayfield, Jacqueline Mayfield and Kathy Qing Ma
While there has been an abundance of research on the positive outcomes of creative environment, little work has been done on how creative environment influences the general work…
Abstract
Purpose
While there has been an abundance of research on the positive outcomes of creative environment, little work has been done on how creative environment influences the general work outcomes of noncreative specialist workers. The paper aims to fill this void by examining the influence of creative environment on absenteeism among garden variety workers and the mediating role of job satisfaction.
Design/methodology/approach
The paper uses cross-sectional data of 116 noncreative specialist workers to empirically test the hypotheses. The authors used covariance-based structural equation modeling (SEM) through the lavaan package for the statistical software R.
Findings
Results found that, for a cross section of noncreative specialist workers, a one standard deviation increase in a worker's creative environment would decrease that worker's absenteeism by 0.447 standard deviation. The creative environment also explained 11.3% of the variance in absenteeism. Subsequent analysis showed that job satisfaction fully mediated the relationship between the creative environment and absenteeism and that the results were resistant to omitted variable bias.
Originality/value
The study contributes to theory and practice by showing empirically that creative environment leads to positive work outcomes, despite the innovation level required by the job. This study advances research on creative environment by targeting the garden variety workers, underscores the importance of cultivating a creative environment and calls attention to the complexity of the creativity–job affect link.
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Jacqueline Mayfield and Milton Mayfield
This paper aims to examine the creative environment's effect on a worker's intent to turnover. It was designed to investigate the creative environment's role on garden variety…
Abstract
Purpose
This paper aims to examine the creative environment's effect on a worker's intent to turnover. It was designed to investigate the creative environment's role on garden variety creativity (non‐elite) workers' organizational outcomes.
Design/methodology/approach
A survey was used to collect data from a heterogeneous sample of garden variety creativity workers. This data was analyzed using a structural equation model.
Findings
Structural equation model analysis results indicated a good fit between the hypothesized model and the sample data. The goodness‐of‐fit index was 0.97, and the RMSEA was 0.06. Results indicated a significant path coefficient of −0.77 between creative environment and intent to turnover.
Research limitations/implications
From this study, future research needs to be conducted that will expand the findings' generalizability. Also, additional work should develop specific implementation practices for appropriate organizational redesign.
Practical implications
These findings show the strong role that the creative environment has on worker turnover intentions. As such, this study provides useful insights for leadership, job design, and enrichment practices. The study also provides a useful framework for examining the creative environment.
Originality/value
This paper increases the understanding of the creative environment's role in broad workplace outcomes. Information and constructs are also provided about the rarely examined garden variety creativity worker. The paper also provides a useful, easily administered creative environment scale.
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Abdallah Wumpini Issahaka and Rune Lines
With the transition into a knowledge economy, the concept of leading knowledge workers (KWs) has gained an increasing amount of attention in organisational studies and among…
Abstract
Purpose
With the transition into a knowledge economy, the concept of leading knowledge workers (KWs) has gained an increasing amount of attention in organisational studies and among practitioners. The emerging literature on the leadership of KW addresses an important phenomenon, but theoretical underpinnings and empirical inquiry into leadership effectiveness in a KW context do not agree on a common conceptualisation of KWs. Thus, a concerted research effort seems warranted.
Design/methodology/approach
The purpose of this study is to take stock of the existing literature on the leadership of KW. Based on a critical literature review, this paper provides a timely synthesis of the diffuse literature and identifies research gaps facing the leadership of KW field.
Findings
This paper suggests that the literature to date is deficient in terms of theory and evidence for how KWs are different from other classes of workers and argues that this deficiency stands in the way of developing ideas about how KWs could be effectively led.
Research limitations/implications
This paper extends a discussion on establishing “KW” as a clear, independent construct and how the nomological network in which KW is situated (i.e. leadership antecedents, and workplace outcomes) may be elucidated, extended and researched.
Originality/value
This paper extends beyond the identified research gaps and findings to present an agenda for future research. Specifically, we propose that insights from research in educational psychology should be used as a platform for theorising about how to lead in a KW context.
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Tijno Voors, Julia Nehring and Robert Hill
Blackthorn Garden is a work‐rehabilitation project attached to a general practice. In the first part of this paper, Tijno Voors, Director of Blackthorn Garden, describes its…
Abstract
Blackthorn Garden is a work‐rehabilitation project attached to a general practice. In the first part of this paper, Tijno Voors, Director of Blackthorn Garden, describes its development, its aims and approach to work, its connection with the general practice and the views of its workers. In the second part, Julia Nehring and Robert Hill discuss Blackthorn Garden as a community mental health service and relate this to findings from a two‐year evaluation of the project.
The purpose of this monograph is to present the first English translation of a unique French colonial report on women living under colonial rule in West Africa.
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this monograph is to present the first English translation of a unique French colonial report on women living under colonial rule in West Africa.
Design/methodology/approach
The issue begins with a discussion of the contribution this report makes to the history of social development policy in Africa, and how it serves the on‐going critique of colonisation. This is followed by the English translation of the original report held in the National Archives of Senegal. The translation is accompanied by explanatory notes, translator’s comments, a glossary of African and technical terms, and a bibliography.
Findings
The discussion highlights contemporary social development policies and practices which featured in identical or similar forms in French colonial social policy.
Practical implications
As the report demonstrates, access to basic education and improving maternal/infant health care have dominated the social development agenda for women in sub‐Saharan Africa for over a century, and will continue to do so in the foreseeable future in the Millennium Development Goals which define the international community’s agenda for social development to 2015. The parallels between colonial and post‐colonial social policies in Africa raise questions about the philosophical and cultural foundations of contemporary social development policy in Africa and the direction policy is following in the 21st century.
Originality/value
Though the discussion adopts a consciously postcolonial perspective, the report that follows presents a consciously colonial view of the “Other”. Given the parallels identified here between contemporary and colonial policy‐making, this can only add to the value of the document in exploring the values that underpin contemporary social development practice.
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Kai-Tang Fan, Yuan-Ho Chen, Ching-Wen Wang and Minder Chen
Virtual teams are becoming a norm in current knowledge-based society and offer a wide range of organizational benefits. This paper aims to investigate the effects of leaders’…
Abstract
Purpose
Virtual teams are becoming a norm in current knowledge-based society and offer a wide range of organizational benefits. This paper aims to investigate the effects of leaders’ motivating language (ML) and feedback approach on virtual team members’ creativity performance.
Design/methodology/approach
A 2×2 with pre-test and post-test experimental design was employed to explore how to stimulate virtual team members’ creativity performance using a group decision support system.
Findings
The results show that leaders’ ML and feedback approach via e-mail instructions have different interaction effects on members’ creativity and idea generation performance. Team members receiving direction-giving instructions generate more ideas under the demanding feedback approach and team member receiving instructions with more empathetic language exhibit higher creativity performance under the encouraging feedback approach.
Research limitations/implications
Shortcomings of virtual environment and leadership remain the major factors influencing such findings. Since the results are also restrained by the functionality of the utilized software tool, tools for virtual teams are recommended to include features that can support the effective use of team leaders’ motivational language.
Social implications
Virtual team leaders should provide proper guidance to members using understanding and empathetic wording approach. For task-oriented work, leaders should consider giving more specific instructions and provide constant feedback for completed work. For creative work, leaders should give positive encouragement as feedback or even challenge team members to stimulate their creativity. Additionally, facilitation rules can be set up in advance so that the intelligent agent can timely send out follow-up instructions/feedback.
Originality/value
The gained insights beneficially help tool developers for virtual teams build/enhance their tools based on the need of team leaders. This paper also usefully offers important implications regarding how to motivate virtual team members’ creative thinking.
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Amy Henderson, Stefan Epp-Koop and Joyce Slater
The purpose of this paper is to explore the challenges and opportunities associated with attempting to maintain a healthy traditional diet for newcomers living in the North End…
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this paper is to explore the challenges and opportunities associated with attempting to maintain a healthy traditional diet for newcomers living in the North End neighbourhood of Winnipeg, Canada.
Design/methodology/approach
In this mixed-methods photovoice study the researcher used food photographs taken by participants to facilitate in-depth, semi-structured interviews with newcomers living in the area of interest. Community workers involved in food and newcomer programming were also interviewed. Qualitative data from the interviews were analysed using thematic analysis. Food security status of newcomer participants was also determined using The Household Food Security Survey Module.
Findings
Newcomer participants reported many struggles, including low incomes, gardening challenges and little access to culturally acceptable foods. Community worker interviews, field notes and an environmental scan of community resources also revealed a lack of social inclusion/support and few food and nutrition resources for newcomers.
Originality/value
Newcomers to Canada experience high rates of food insecurity and diminishing health status associated with length of time in Canada. This study demonstrates an imminent need for additional resources and programmes in this inner city community in order to decrease food security rates and help newcomers in Winnipeg to eat healthy traditional diets and avoid a decline in health.
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