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27 - Organizational Affective Climate and Creativity at Work

from Part V - Emotions and Creativity at School and Work

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  16 February 2023

By
Kyle Emich  and
Li Lu
Edited by
Zorana Ivcevic ,
Jessica D. Hoffmann  and
James C. Kaufman
Zorana Ivcevic
Affiliation:
Yale University, Connecticut
Jessica D. Hoffmann
Affiliation:
Yale University, Connecticut
James C. Kaufman
Affiliation:
University of Connecticut
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Summary

While researchers have established that affective states play a large role in individual creativity, the relationship between affect and collective creativity is not well understood. This oversight is meaningful as, particularly in organizations, creativity is often the result of collective action. We review and integrate work on how positive and negative affective climate and discrete emotional climates impact creativity at work. Then, we propose a new definition of affective climate and four future directions for the field. First, higher-level affective states should be treated as more than manifestations of their individual-level analogs. Second, a focus on shared homogenous affect has precluded work on more complex, heterogeneous affective climates, which future work should study. Third, there is a lack of work on top-down drivers of collective affect, partially produced by a lack of work on collective affect at levels higher than the team. Fourth, more work on discrete collective affect, including social emotional climates (e.g., love, pride, envy), is needed since such work allows for the development of higher-level theory based on social perceptions, relationships, and interactions. We hope our review helps researchers address these gaps and produce a more nuanced understanding of how affective climate influences collective creativity.

Keywords

affective climatecreativityaffective diversitysocial emotionsshared affectgroup affective toneregulatory focusdual pathway model
Type
Chapter
Information
The Cambridge Handbook of Creativity and Emotions , pp. 521 - 539
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Print publication year: 2023

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