Call for Papers

Call for short papers (pdf)

In 1969, the Beatles were at the top of their success. The creativity of their work was hailed by critics, peers, and audiences alike, and the group seemed to be on an unstoppable upward trajectory. However, only a few months later, they split up due to increasing animosity between the four band members: what started as a group of friends playing together ended up in a traumatic divorce. The story of the Beatles tells a lot about the enormous potential of groups in creative work—a potential that is leading more and more organizations to organize their creative endeavors around groupwork (Bissola & Imperatori, 2011; Harvey, 2014; Mannucci & Shalley, 2022). At the same time, it is also illustrative of the challenges and difficulties groups entail: conflict and communication issues, coordination problems, increased cognitive rigidity, and issues around idea ownership (Gray et al., 2020; Harrison et al., 2022; Jonassen et al., 2025; Mannucci, 2017; Skilton & Dooley, 2010). These potentials and challenges are not limited to how the group functions but also can extend to the individuals embedded in the group, fostering or impairing their creativity. Group members can be a source of inspiration and self-efficacy (Zhou, 2003), but also of cognitive homogenization, stress, and reduced autonomy (Harrison et al., 2023; Harrison & Rouse, 2014). More broadly, the social connections one is embedded in can be both creativity-enabling and creativity-constraining (Perry-Smith & Shalley, 2003).

While much research has been devoted to these topics, there is still a lot to be unpacked about how groupwork unfolds and how it can influence individual creative work. For example, the “black box” of group dynamics—what groups actually do when engaging in creative work, including the “hidden” activities that we tend to overlook—still requires a great deal of exploration (Bruns & Long Lingo, 2024; Harrison et al., 2022). How do these groups manage their day-to-day activities? Do they usually work in a structured, persistent way, working Eight Days a Week, or do they work without a preplanned structure, letting it emerge as they go along, with the risk of going full Helter Skelter? And which groups benefit more from one mode or the other?

Another area worthy of further attention is how the change and evolution of collaborative relationships can shape individual and group creativity (Soda et al., 2021). Change can refer not only to the addition of new elements to the group and/or to individuals’ social networks, but also to a change in the nature of these relationships. For example, the Beatles’ dynamics changed significantly when George Harrison’s status as a singer-songwriter rose, requiring the group to disrupt the Lennon-McCartney-centric process that they had adopted so far. Similarly, McCartney’s decision to take up the role of manager generated conflict and resentment, as it created a power imbalance when before there was none.

Moreover, what “group” and “collaboration” mean has dramatically evolved in recent years, due to the emergence or wider spreading of other modes of organizing such as crowdsourcing, hackathons, and remote and hybrid work (Althuizen & Chen, 2022; Brucks & Levav, 2022; Lifshitz-Assaf et al., 2021). In addition, the rise of new technologies such as AI is bound to change interactions as well: what used to be an interaction between Paul McCartney, John Lennon, George Harrison, and Ringo Starr could soon become an interaction between Paul, John, and ChatGPT (Boussioux et al., 2024; Raisch & Fomina, 2025).

Finally, the individual characteristics that collectively make a “good” creative group are still underexplored. Scholars have so far in fact glossed over individual characteristics by adopting an “averaging” approach and, even when they have accounted for team composition (Mannucci & Shalley, 2022; Perry-Smith & Shalley, 2014), they have treated individual characteristics as competing with each other, without accounting for how different combinations could lead to similarly positive or negative results. As recent methodological advancements allow us to look at configurations and account for equifinality (Bissola et al., 2014; Miron-Spektor et al., 2011), a more comprehensive approach that allows the identification of not only the ingredients of group creativity, but also all their potential combinations, is warranted.

Papers submitted may include, but are not restricted to, the following questions:

• What are the activities that groups engage in that are conducive to creative work?

• What is the role of individuals in collective creative processes?

• How do collective processes affect individual creativity?

• How do the evolving dynamics of groups lead to repeated success or utter failure?

• Do playful ceremonials and team joking rituals support motivation and enhance the emotional tone useful to promote collective creativity?

• How do changes in the nature and composition of relationships shape individual and group creativity?

• How are collaborative creative processes changing due to new modes of organizing and new technology, and how are these changes shaping both individual and group creativity?
   

More broadly, this sub-theme aims to contribute to the ever-growing creativity domain, and it welcomes all scholars that are interested in presenting cutting-edge research that can lead to building a more complete understanding of creativity in a social context. Rigorous conceptual and empirical research with relevance to organizational settings is called for, and we encourage diverse and juxtaposed theoretical perspectives and methods more broadly on creativity.
 

• Althuizen, N., & Chen, B. (2022). Crowdsourcing ideas using product prototypes: The joint effect of prototype enhancement and the product design goal on idea novelty. Management Science, 68(4), 3008–3025.
• Bissola, R., & Imperatori, B. (2011). Organizing individual and collective creativity: Flying in the face of creativity clichés. Creativity and Innovation Management, 20(2), 77–89.
• Bissola, R., Imperatori, B., & Colonel, R. T. (2014). Enhancing the creative performance of new product teams: An organizational configurational approach. Journal of Product Innovation Management, 31(2), 375–391.
• Boussioux, L., Lane, J. N., Zhang, M., Jacimovic, V., & Lakhani, K. R. (2024). The crowdless future? Generative AI and creative problem-solving. Organization Science, 35(5), 1589–1607.
• Brucks, M. S., & Levav, J. (2022). Virtual communication curbs creative idea generation. Nature, 605(7908), 108–112.
• Bruns, H. C., & Long Lingo, E. (2024). Tedious work: Developing novel outcomes with digitization in the arts and sciences. Administrative Science Quarterly, 69(1), 39–79.
• Gray, S. M., Knight, A. P., & Baer, M. (2020). On the emergence of collective psychological ownership in new creative teams. Organization Science, 31(1), 141–164.
• Harrison, S. H., Askin, N., & Hagtvedt, L. P. (2023). Recognition killed the radio star? Recognition orientations and sustained creativity after the Best New Artist Grammy nomination. Administrative Science Quarterly, 68(1), 97–145.
• Harrison, S. H., & Rouse, E. D. (2014). Let’s dance! Elastic coordination in creative group work: A qualitative study of modern dancers. Academy of Management Journal, 57(5), 1256–1283.
• Harrison, S. H., Rouse, E. D., Fisher, C. M., & Amabile, T. M. (2022). The turn toward creative work. Academy of Management Collections, 1(1), 1–15.
• Harvey, S. (2014). Creative synthesis: Exploring the process of extraordinary group creativity. Academy of Management Review, 39(3), 324–343.
• Jonassen, Z., He, V. F., & von Krogh, G. (2026). Good lessons despite bad feelings: How boundary-spanning teams learn from collaboration failure. Organization Science, 37(1), 17–47. https://doi.org/10.1287/orsc.2022.17186
• Lifshitz-Assaf, H., Lebovitz, S., & Zalmanson, L. (2021). Minimal and adaptive coordination: How hackathons’ projects accelerate innovation without killing it. Academy of Management Journal, 64(3), 684–715.
• Mannucci, P. V. (2017). Drawing Snow White and animating Buzz Lightyear: Technological toolkit characteristics and creativity in cross-disciplinary teams. Organization Science, 28(4), 711–728.
• Mannucci, P. V., & Shalley, C. E. (2022). Embracing multicultural tensions: How team members’ multicultural paradox mindsets foster team information elaboration and creativity. Organizational Behavior and Human Decision Processes, 173, 104191.
• Miron-Spektor, E., Erez, M., & Naveh, E. (2011). The effect of conformist and attentive-to-detail members on team innovation: Reconciling the innovation paradox. Academy of Management Journal, 54(4), 740–760.
• Perry-Smith, J. E., & Shalley, C. E. (2003). The social side of creativity: A static and dynamic social network perspective. Academy of Management Review, 28(1), 89–106.
• Perry-Smith, J. E., & Shalley, C. E. (2014). A social composition view of team creativity: The role of member nationality-heterogeneous ties outside of the team. Organization Science, 25(5), 1434–1452.
• Raisch, S., & Fomina, K. (2025). Combining human and artificial intelligence: Hybrid problem-solving in organizations. Academy of Management Review, 50(2), 441–464.
• Skilton, P. F., & Dooley, K. J. (2010). The effects of repeat collaboration on creative abrasion. Academy of Management Review, 35(1), 118–134.
• Soda, G. B., Mannucci, P. V., & Burt, R. S. (2021). Networks, creativity, and time: Staying creative through brokerage and network rejuvenation. Academy of Management Journal, 64(4), 1164–1190. https://doi.org/10.5465/amj.2019.1209
• Zhou, J. (2003). When the presence of creative coworkers is related to creativity: Role of supervisor close monitoring, developmental feedback, and creative personality. Journal of Applied Psychology, 88(3), 413–422.