Examining the factors influencing organizational creativity in professional sport organizations

Abstract

Increasingly, globalization and the adoption of a market economy have made innovation fundamental for the success of organizations (Eklinder-Frick, Eriksson, & Hallén, 2014). Beyond market share, an innovative organization improves employee job satisfaction, employee self-efficacy and decreases turnover (Elskildsen & Dahlgaard, 2000; Valentine, Godkin, Fleischman, & Kidwell, 2011). However, professional sport organizations enhance or hinder creativity for many reasons. For example, teams operate essentially in an oligarchy (Wolfe, Wright & Smart, 2006). Additionally, professional sport industry tend to be isomorphic (O’Brien & Slack, 2004), hyper-traditional (Wolfe et al., 2006), or a hierarchical-type organization (Hartnell et al., 2011). Therefore, the purpose of this research is to determine the antecedents of organizational creativity in professional sport organizations. Perception of organizational creativity is theorized to be influenced by individual employee creativity, work environment, and the social interactions of employees. Amabile’s (1983) theory of individual creativity, West’s (1990) four factor theory of team climate, and social network analysis theory was used to build a model for organizational creativity. The results based on a survey for three professional sport organization’s front offices, indicated higher engagement in information searching and encoding processes was associated with higher levels of employee creativity. Perceptions of a work environment with a clear vision, supportive of innovation, task orientation, and participative safety, were associated with greater perceptions of organizational creativity. The lack of relationships between many of the factors theorized influencing employee creativity, as well as employee creativity and an individual’s social network, could indicate the sport industry is unique in creativity research. This study is the beginning in understanding the first step of innovation, and the processes that influence employees’ perceptions regarding the ways in which their work environment relate to organizational creativity.