UCL School of Management

Research project

Motivation and Creativity

Summary

This research project ties directly into the fundamental drivers of creativity in organizations from an individual perspective. Understanding how and why people are motivated to engage in creativity at work is critical to not only understanding the broader phenomena of workplace creativity but for developing effective ways to encourage this behavior in practice. This work examines not only motivations but the resultant cognitive and emotional factors that can lead to variations in creative efforts in organizations.

Relevance

There have been many conflicting research results and antidotal stories about how different motivations influence employee creativity. Do monetary incentives lead to greater creativity? Can increasing intrinsic interest in a job improve creativity? Should we encourage employees to take broader perspective in their work? This project looks to help clarify this confusion and provide evidence for answering questions around the drivers of creativity in organizations.

Selected publications

Berry, J. W., & Grant, A. M. (2011). The Necessity of Others is The Mother of Invention: Intrinsic and Prosocial Motivations, Perspective Taking, and Creativity. Academy of Management Journal (AMJ), 54 (1), 73-96. doi:10.5465/amj.2011.59215085 [link]

Link to the publication’s UCL Discovery page

Last updated Thursday, 30 April 2015

Author

Research groups

Organisations & Innovation

Research areas

Social psychology of organizations

Research topics

Creativity; Emotions; Intrapreneurship