Special Issue: Navigating New Frontiers of Organizational Creativity in a Digital Economy

Combining the democratization of AI and creativity with the changing nature of work, this special issue of the Journal of Business Economics is aimed at contributing to a better understanding of these emerging frontiers of organizational creativity in a digital economy. Based on the scope of the journal, this should primarily be approached from the perspectives of business administration and economics with a special focus on aspects of human resources management and organization. Yet, acknowledging the interdisciplinary nature of organizational creativity (Moirano et al., 2020), we explicitly encourage contributions exploring the intersections of business administration, economics, and management with related disciplines such as psychology, sociology, and information systems research. We are open to both quantitative and qualitative research approaches as well as their combinations, and explicitly encourage authors to use innovative methods to investigate emerging phenomena of organizational creativity. Conceptual articles that advance our theoretical understanding of these phenomena are also welcome. Literature reviews may also be considered if they do not only rely on summarizing existing research and make a theoretical contribution that informs our understanding of the new frontiers outlined above.

Background

Understanding the management of organizational creativity has long been an important issue for business administration and economics researchers as the generation of new ideas is traditionally seen as the raw material for innovation (Brück et al., 2020; Woodman et al., 1993). Yet, the increasing pace of technological advancements have transformed not only innovation processes, but rather the entire economy that also demands different competencies that organizations need to stay competitive (Brasse et al., 2023). As a result, creativity is now regarded as one of the most requested skills for the digitalized 21st century economy that is relevant for almost any job on an everyday basis (World Economic Forum, 2023).

Albeit this relevance, new technologies such as artificial intelligence and the changing nature of work require us to advance our understanding of managing organizational creativity that mainly evolved in traditional workplaces. Technological developments have always influenced how people approach (creative) work, such as electronic brainstorming tools (Aiken et al., 1994; Maaravi et al., 2020) enabling dispersed development of ideas with unique implications how people interact with the technology to work creatively. Yet, we currently observe a different dynamic concerning the transformative influence of artificial intelligence.

First, this is the first time in history that technology reached the capabilities of autonomously producing content that can be considered as ‘creative’ (Haase & Hanel, 2023) and reaching human performance in standard creativity tests (Guzik et al., 2023). Although some scholars argue that this represents only an artificial type of creativity (Runco, 2023) that builds on recombination of existing knowledge bases and only leads to incremental improvements (Cropley & Cropley, 2023), it challenges traditional assumptions about the human nature of creativity. In this regard, the scholarly debate is currently evolving from if AI can produce creative outcomes to how it can augment human creativity (e.g. Bouschery et al., 2023; Ivcevic & Grandinetti, 2024; O'Toole & Horvát, 2024). While research just started to spark the dynamic creation of new knowledge, it is already common ground that this new form of human-machine interaction will radically transform how people approach creative processes both individually and collaboratively. This raises new questions about what skills are needed for engaging in creative processes and how organizations can support their deliberate development.

Second, previous technological developments have been primarily coordinated by companies providing the technological infrastructure and training for dedicated groups of employees who interact with the technology. In contrast, AI technology is increasingly democratized (Seger et al., 2023) so that almost anyone can experiment with, at least basic features of AI tools such as ChatGPT, independent from any organizational involvement. As a result, we currently observe that companies are looking for advice how they should impose specific guidelines to actualize the technological potential of AI tools while controlling potential risks such as ensuring the security of critical information. This raises new questions about the management of technological resources such as allowing or restricting access to the increasing number of publicly available AI tools or developing company-specific adaptations. From an employee perspective, it also raises questions about people navigate within this multitude of technological opportunities and (un)consciously decide which tools they use with whom under what circumstances. Further, collaborating with AI as an independent actor such as a virtual colleague (Anthony et al., 2023) may change people’s perceptions about their social roles and identities in creative processes.

Third, the digital transformation of the economy also changed the nature of workplaces. At least since the covid-19 pandemic, the relevance of traditional office-based work is decreasing (Kagerl & Starzetz, 2022), as employees are gaining increasing autonomy about how, when, and where they work (Alfes et al., 2023). In this regard, we witnessed the emergence of collaborative spaces such as coworking spaces, maker spaces, or living labs in recent years (Capdevila, 2019), that offer alternative workspaces beyond office-based or home-based work (Bouncken & Reuschl, 2018). As a result, people engage in creative processes and behaviors increasingly outside organizational boundaries that raises questions such as how we should reconceptualize what is traditionally conceived as a creative work environment, climate, or culture (Isaksen, 2023).

In summary, not only do we need to gain a better understanding how people use and collaborate with AI tools to create and act on new ideas, but we also need to understand how they choose in which contexts they do so and how different types of contexts are influencing these processes.

Timeline & Submission Process

If you would like to contribute to this special issue, please submit an extended abstract of about 1,000 words to Christian Hossbach by July 31, 2024. This abstract should not merely outline a research proposal but rather clearly foreshadow the theoretical contribution of the paper which should, at this stage, be based on at least preliminary findings. Instead of an extended abstract, authors whose papers were already accepted for presentation within the track ST06-08 Managing Creativity for Innovation: Design, Collaborative Spaces, and People at the EURAM conference 2024 may also only indicate their interest to contribute to the special issue along with a short summary about how they intend to further develop their conference papers. The authors of selected papers will then be invited by August 31, 2024, to submit a full paper by December 31, 2024. All submitted papers will undergo the full double-blind review process according to the standard procedures of the Journal of Business Economics. Articles are published online after the corresponding author has finished the proof-reading task and are fully citable by their DOI then. The estimated compilation of the special issue is in late 2025. Author guidelines are available here.

Guest Editors:

Anne-Katrin Neyer (Martin Luther University Halle-Wittenberg, Germany)

Christian Hoßbach (Martin Luther University Halle-Wittenberg, Germany)

Alwine Mohnen (Technical University Munich, Germany)

Ignasi Capdevila (Paris School of Business, France)

References:

Aiken, M., Krosp, J., Shirani, A., & Martin, J. (1994). Electronic brainstorming in small and large groups. Information & Management, 27(3), 141-149. https://doi.org/https://doi.org/10.1016/0378-7206(94)90042-6

Alfes, K., Avgoustaki, A., Beauregard, T. A., Cañibano, A., & Muratbekova-Touron, M. (2023). New ways of working and the implications for employees: a systematic framework and suggestions for future research. The International Journal of Human Resource Management, 33(22), 4361-4385. https://doi.org/10.1080/09585192.2022.2149151

Anthony, C., Bechky, B. A., & Fayard, A.-L. (2023). “Collaborating” with AI: Taking a System View to Explore the Future of Work [Articles in Advance]. Organization Science, 1-23. https://doi.org/10.1287/orsc.2022.1651

Bouncken, R. B., & Reuschl, A. J. (2018). Coworking-spaces: How a phenomenon of the sharing economy builds an novel trend for the workplace and entrepreneurship. Review of Managerial Science, 12, 317-334. https://doi.org/https://doi.org/10.1007/s11846-016-0215-y

Bouschery, S. G., Blazevic, V., & Piller, F. T. (2023). Augmenting human innovation teams with artificial intelligence: Exploring transformer‐based language models. Journal of Product Innovation Management, 40(2), 139-153. https://doi.org/10.1111/jpim.12656

Brasse, J., Förster, M., Hühn, P., Klier, J., Klier, M., & Moestue, L. (2023). Preparing for the future of work: a novel data-driven approach for the identification of future skills. Journal of Business Economics. https://doi.org/10.1007/s11573-023-01169-1

Brück, C., Knauer, T., Meier, H., & Schwering, A. (2020). Self-set salaries and creativity. Journal of Business Economics, 91(1), 91-121. https://doi.org/10.1007/s11573-020-00985-z

Capdevila, I. (2019). Joining a collaborative space: is it really a better place to work? Journal of Business Strategy, 40(2), 14-21. https://doi.org/10.1108/jbs-09-2017-0140

Cropley, D., & Cropley, A. (2023). Creativity and the Cyber Shock: The Ultimate Paradox. Journal of Creative Behavior, 57(4), 485-487. https://doi.org/10.1002/jocb.625

Guzik, E. E., Byrge, C., & Gilde, C. (2023). The originality of machines: AI takes the Torrance Test. Journal of Creativity, 33(3). https://doi.org/10.1016/j.yjoc.2023.100065

Haase, J., & Hanel, P. H. P. (2023). Artificial muses: Generative Artificial Intelligence Chatbots Have Risen to Human-Level Creativity.

Isaksen, S. G. (2023). Assessing the work environment for creativity and innovation: Building on Mathisen and Einarsen’s review (2004). Creativity Research Journal, 35(2), 227-253. https://doi.org/https://doi.org/10.1080/10400419.2022.2112837

Ivcevic, Z., & Grandinetti, M. (2024). Artificial intelligence as a tool for creativity. Journal of Creativity, 34(2). https://doi.org/10.1016/j.yjoc.2024.100079

Kagerl, C., & Starzetz, J. (2022). Working from home for good? Lessons learned from the COVID-19 pandemic and what this means for the future of work. Journal of Business Economics, 93(1-2), 229-265. https://doi.org/10.1007/s11573-022-01124-6

Maaravi, Y., Heller, B., Shoham, Y., Mohar, S., & Deutsch, B. (2020). Ideation in the digital age: literature review and integrative model for electronic brainstorming. Review of Managerial Science, 15(6), 1431-1464. https://doi.org/10.1007/s11846-020-00400-5

Moirano, R., Sánchez, M. A., & Štěpánek, L. (2020). Creative interdisciplinary collaboration: A systematic literature review. Thinking Skills and Creativity, 35. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.tsc.2019.100626

O'Toole, K., & Horvát, E.-Á. (2024). Extending human creativity with AI. Journal of Creativity, 34(2). https://doi.org/10.1016/j.yjoc.2024.100080

Runco, M. A. (2023). AI can only produce artificial creativity. Journal of Creativity, 33(3). https://doi.org/10.1016/j.yjoc.2023.100063

Seger, E., Ovadya, A., Siddarth, D., Garfinkel, B., & Dafoe, A. (2023). Democratising AI: Multiple Meanings, Goals, and Methods Proceedings of the 2023 AAAI/ACM Conference on AI, Ethics, and Society, Montreal, Canada.

Woodman, R. W., Sawyer, J. E., & Griffin, R. W. (1993). Toward a theory of organizational creativity. Academy of Management Review, 18(2), 293-321. https://doi.org/https://doi.org/10.5465/amr.1993.3997517

World Economic Forum. (2023). Future of Jobs Report 2023. https://www.weforum.org/reports/the-future-of-jobs-report-2023/