DEVELOPING ORGANIZATIONAL CREATIVITY THROUGH MANAGEMENT SUPPORT: AN EMPIRICAL STUDY WITH REFERENCE TO INDIAN INFORMATION TECHNOLOGY FIRMS

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1 Journal of Management (JOM) Volume 5, Issue 5, September-October 2018, pp , Article ID: JOM_05_05_019 Available online at ISSN Print: and ISSN Online: DEVELOPING ORGANIZATIONAL CREATIVITY THROUGH MANAGEMENT SUPPORT: AN EMPIRICAL STUDY WITH REFERENCE TO INDIAN INFORMATION TECHNOLOGY FIRMS Prof. Tripti Sharma Faculty, International School of Business and Media, College of Commerce, Pune (M.S.), India Dr. P.N. Mishra Professor, Management and Head, School of Economics, D.A.V.V., Indore (M.P.), India ABSTRACT The present study examines the association between management support and organizational creativity. Organizational creativity climate s eight categories are Management Support, Co-Worker Support, Work Characteristics, Diversity, Safety, Risk Taking, Resources and Organizational System and Processes. Management support (MS) is one of the prominent categories, which influences organizational creativity (OCR). It is essential to yield desired output. In this paper, responses have been collected from the employees of Indian IT firms using structured questionnaire. The data collected have been analyzed using descriptive statistics, canonical correlation analysis and regression weights. The results have highlighted association between MS and OCR. Key words: Creativity, Organizational Creativity, Innovation, Management Support, Category-Element-Model, Canonical Correlation Analysis and Information Technology Firms. Cite this Article: Tripti Sharma and Dr. P.N. Mishra, Developing Organizational Creativity Through Management Support: An Empirical Study with Reference to Indian Information Technology Firms, Journal of Management, 5(5), 2018, pp INTRODUCTION Creativity is regarded as an essential ingredient of innovation and success. Innovation is the result of the creative process. Creativity and innovation are the life supporting system for any businesses around the world. Creativity kindles innovation. Innovation is characterized as successful implementation of creativity breakthroughs. According to the Deloitte Touche Tohmatsu Limited (DTTL) Millennial Survey (2013), 78 % of the world s future business editor@iaeme.com

2 Tripti Sharma and Dr. P.N. Mishra leaders believe that innovation is essential for business growth. Each innovation begins with creative ideas according to Amabile et al (1996). According to Adode (2016), seventy percent of global respondents believe that being creative is valuable to society and sixty four percent to the economy. For organization to yield desired output, management support is essential. Management support is one of the categories of Category-Element-Attribute model formulated by Patrik Axelsson and Narges Sardari (2011). They have suggested four categories of management support. This includes employee support, involvement and idea support, goals and management practices. This category exclusively involves all the attributes, which are the direct responsibilities of the mangers as well as managerial behavior. According to them, managers can inspire employees creativity by supporting the employees and their new ideas, by setting appropriate goals and through a varied management practices. Creativity and innovation are only the key solutions to embed an innovation culture, to develop technology driven new businesses, products and processes and digitizing the profession in information technology firms. 2. REVIEW OF LITERATURE To date, literature on management support and organizational creativity in information technology firms is very scarce Management Support Management support, suggested by Patrik and Narges (2011), is one of the prominent and broad categories, which influences organizational creativity. According to them, this category includes all the attributes, which are the responsibilities of the mangers as well as managerial behavior. Anderson et al. (1992) stated that management support is often articulated in the organizations, however rarely implemented. Amabile (1998) has also recognized the significance of management support and named as supervisory encouragement. According to her, supervisory encouragement means that managers should behave as employees role models. Further, she added that most of the managers have lack of ability to offer supportive attitude for employees over a long period. Cummings and Oldham (1997) added that if employees will feel that they are being controlled, their creative ability would be hampered. Roffe (1999) opined that managers should offer clear objectives and specific feedback to the employees and the managers should consider the employees perspective. Williams (2001) opined that the managers can influence creativity of their employees by offering sufficient support and encouragement for creative behavior. According to Cummings & Oldham (1997) and Egan (2005) recognized supportive and non-controlling supervision as a means to instill creativity. He also opined that transformational leadership affects subordinates intrinsic motivation, which in turn result in creativity Creativity There is no consensus on single definition despite of extensive research on creativity. Few noticeable definitions are detailed below: Amabile and Gryskiewicz (1987) defined creativity as a novel and appropriate solution to an open-ended task. Shalley and et al. (2004) defined creativity as the development of ideas about procedures, products or services and practices that are (a) novel and (b) potentially useful to an organization. According to Prabhu, Sutton and Sauser (2008) defined creativity as the generation of novel, original and unique ideas concerning procedures and processes that can used at work and are appropriate and significant to the problem or opportunity presented editor@iaeme.com

3 Developing Organizational Creativity Through Management Support: An Empirical Study with Reference to Indian Information Technology Firms Csikszentmihalyi (2009) defined creativity as an idea or product that is original, valued and implemented. The Oxford dictionary (2014) defined creativity as the use of imagination or original ideas in order to create something. After extensive review of literature the researchers has enlisted five main components of creativity named as Fluency, Flexibility, Originality, Inquisitiveness and Persistence. Figure 1 Components of Creativity 2.3. Organizational Creativity The research on organizational creativity has a relatively short history. It has got its breakthrough in the research field in the late 1990 s (Zhou and Shalley, 2008). According to Anderson (1992), creativity has the potential to provide a competitive advantage to the organizations. Magadley and Birdi (2009) pointed out the importance of organizational creativity for an organizational survival. According to Woodman et. al (1993), organizational creativity is not a simple aggregate of all members' independent creativity. According to them, it is a function of creativity of individuals among group members within an organizational setting, which is regarded as part of their collective strategy and goal. They further added that organizational creativity is the creation of a valuable, useful, novel idea, service, product or process by employees working together in a complex social system. According to Teresa M. Amabile (1996, 1998), creativity is truly enhanced when the whole organization supports it. She added that creativity is the ability to generate a unique and an appropriate response to an open-ended task (2012). She further emphasized that the appropriate response must be novel, the response cannot be simply different. Moreover, the response must be valuable, feasible, correct or somehow fitting to a specific goal. Anna-Maija Nisula (2013) opined that the organizational creativity is a multi-level phenomenon. It consists of individual, group and organizational-level creativity editor@iaeme.com

4 Tripti Sharma and Dr. P.N. Mishra Source: Developed by author Figure 2 Proposed Research Framework 3. STATEMENT OF THE PROBLEM The present research examines the association of management support on organizational creativity particularly in Indian information technology firms. From the review of literature, it is crystal clear that it is rarely explored area in the context of Indian information technology firms. The gap that exists in the limited literature review prompted the researchers to examine the association between management support and organizational creativity. 4. OBJECTIVES FORMULATION The objective of the study is detailed below: 1. To study the association between management support and organizational creativity. 5. HYPOTHESIS FORMULATION The hypotheses of the study are: H 1.1: Management support and organizational creativity are significantly related. H 1.0: Management support and organizational creativity are not significantly related. 6. RESEARCH METHODOLOGY This research article is descriptive and empirical in nature. Model hypothesis has been tested with reference to Indian information technology firms. The study has used web-based platform i.e. Goggle form to gather the responses. The questionnaire is divided into two sections. The first section seeks the information on respondents demographic variables such as gender, age, education attainment, current position and years of service with the organization, while the second section is to test the hypotheses. In the second section, the questions consisted of two parts, namely distributive justice, organizational creativity. Respondents were required to rate their importance towards each item on seven-point Likert Scale ranging from 1 = Strongly Disagree, 2 = Disagree, 3 = Some-what Disagree, 4 = Neutral, 5 = Some-what Agree, 6 = Agree and 7 = Strongly Agree. Data were collected during December 2017 to February The data was analyzed statistically to test editor@iaeme.com

5 Developing Organizational Creativity Through Management Support: An Empirical Study with Reference to Indian Information Technology Firms the hypothesis. In this study, descriptive statistics, reliability analysis and canonical analysis have been applied. 6.1 Construct Reliability and Validity According to Blanche & Durrheim (1999), Reliability test has been used to find the reliability of what extent; the instrument yields the same results on repeated trials. Cronbach s alpha is a very commonly used technique of internal consistency. It is the measure of internal consistency among items of a construct. Alpha score above 0.7 indicates good reliability index according to Nunnally (1978). In the current case all constructs have reliability score of above 0.7. Average variance extracted is an important indicator of construct validity. As a rule of thumb, AVE of 0.5 or higher suggests adequate convergence. Table 1 Construct Reliability and Validity Construct No. of Attributes Cronbach s alpha Average Variance Extracted Management Support Organizational Creativity Source: Primary Data Where N=398 Average variance extracted (AVE) of management support is 0.5 and organizational creativity is AVE is equal to and above the threshold mark of 0.5. Hence, construct validity is supported. 7. DATA ANALYSIS The data analysis of the study is detailed as below: 7.1. Demographic Analysis Male Gender Female Table 2 Demographic Profiles of the Respondents Gen X Age Gen Y Gen Z Educational Qualification Marital Status UG PG Married Un-married % Source: Primary Data The sample consists of 398 respondents. The above table presents the gender distribution of the respondents i.e. 88.4% is male and 11.1% is female. The results also reveal that the 94.2% respondents are mostly belong to millennial generation, 2.3% belong to Gen X and 1.3% belong to Gen Z. 21.4% percentage of the respondents are married and 78.3% are unmarried. It is also found that 61.6% are undergraduates and 35.5% are Post-Graduates Descriptive Statistics of Management Support Management Support is the support given by managers to the employees that enhance organizational creativity. Management Support is measured using the whether employees get support from managers, the managers are open for new ideas, the managers support the new ideas, the managers involve subordinates in decision making, the managers set clear goals, the managers share vision and goals with clarity among the employees and existence of management practices that enhance creativity. These items are measured using seven point editor@iaeme.com

6 Tripti Sharma and Dr. P.N. Mishra likert scale where 1 = Strongly Disagree, 2 = Disagree, 3 = Some-what Disagree, 4 = Neutral, 5 = Some-what Agree, 6 = Agree and 7 = strongly Agree. The following analysis and discussion highlights the measurement of the latent construct i.e. Management Support. Descriptive Statistics are used to understand seven attributes of Management Support. Management Support Source: Primary Data Table 3 Variables MS1 MS2 MS3 MS4 MS5 MS6 MS7 1 F % F % F % F % F % F % F % X SD CoV Interpretation It is evident from above table that the employees get support from managers (MS1) has coefficient of variance of %, which is less than 33%. It means that there is less disparity in data values and the mean value serves as a good representative of the sample data. It is evident from the analysis of mean value, standard deviation and coefficient of variation that the employees get support from managers. The mangers are open for new ideas (MS2) has coefficient of variance of %, which is less than 33%. It is clear from the analysis of mean value, standard deviation and coefficient of variation that the managers are open for new ideas. The managers support new ideas (MS3) has Coefficient of variance of %, which is less than 33%. It is proved from the analysis of mean value, standard deviation and coefficient of variation that the managers support new ideas. The managers involve subordinates in decision- making (MS4) has coefficient of variance of %, which is less than 33%. It is proved from the analysis of mean value, standard deviation and coefficient of variation that the managers involve subordinates in decisionmaking. The managers set clear goals (MS5) has coefficient of variance of %, which is less than 33%. It means that there is less disparity in data values and the mean value serves as a good representative of the sample data. Hence, it is proved from the analysis of mean value, standard deviation and coefficient of variation that the organization is risk oriented editor@iaeme.com

7 Developing Organizational Creativity Through Management Support: An Empirical Study with Reference to Indian Information Technology Firms The managers share vision and goals with clarity with the employees (MS6) has Coefficient of variance of %, which is less than 33%. Hence, it is evident from the analysis of mean value, standard deviation and coefficient of variation that the managers share vision and goals with clarity with the employees. Existence of management practices in organization that enhance creativity (MS7) has coefficient of variance of %, which is more than 33%. Since the coefficient of variance is more than 33 %, mean is not a meaningful value. Hence interpretation is based upon frequency distribution. It is understood from frequency distribution table it can be seen that 12.0 percent respondents are strongly disagree, 24.4 % disagree, 23.7 % some-what disagree, 12.4 % respondents are neutral, 8.5 % respondents are some what agree, 14.6 % respondents are agree and 3.9 % of respondents are strongly agree that the existence of management practices in organization that enhance creativity. Based upon the above descriptive analysis and mean value of all the attributes, it is concluded that there is high level of management support in the organization Descriptive Statistics of Organizational Creativity There is no scale available to measure organizational creativity in Indian information technology firms till date. So, to measure organizational creativity, focus group study was applied to refine the researchers' understanding on organizational creativity and attributes were finalized. Focused group discussion was carried out with HR professionals from information technology firms in Pune. The structured interviews were conducted among focused group with seven participants in Pune from October 2017 to November Questions were asked to determine respondents perceptions about the construct i.e. organizational creativity. The attributes were finalized in order to measure the organizational creativity through the response sought from focused group investigation. The attributes of organizational creativity include promotion of creative environment and out of box thinking, openness for ideas, facilitating opportunity to learn from mistakes, toleration towards mistakes and excellence in creating creative culture. Organizational creativity results in useful new product or service, idea and process in an organizational set-up. It is measured using the following attributes: organization promotes creative environment for deliverables, the organization is open for new ideas, the organization provides the opportunity to learn from mistakes, the organization is tolerant towards mistakes, the organization is known for out of the box thinking and the organization is excellent in creative culture. These items are measured using seven point likert scale where 1 = Strongly Disagree, 2 = Disagree, 3 = Some-what Disagree, 4 = Neutral, 5 = Some-what Agree, 6 = Agree and 7 = strongly Agree. The following analysis and discussion highlights the scale development and measurement for the latent construct i.e. Organizational Creativity. Descriptive Statistics are used to understand central tendency and dispersion for all these six attributes editor@iaeme.com

8 Tripti Sharma and Dr. P.N. Mishra Organizational Creativity Source: Primary Data Table 4 Variables CR1 CR2 CR3 CR4 CR5 CR6 1 F % F % F % F % F % F % F % X S.D CoV Interpretation It can be inferred from the table 04 that the organization has creative environment for deliverables (CR1) has coefficient of variance of %, which is less than 33%. Hence, it is understood from the analysis of the mean, standard deviation and coefficient of variation that the organization has creative environment for deliverables. The organization is open for new ideas (CR2) has coefficient of variance of %, which is less than 33%. It is evident from the analysis of the mean, standard deviation and coefficient of variation that the organization is open for new ideas. The organization provides opportunity to learn from mistakes (CR3) has coefficient of variance of %, which is less than 33%. Hence, it is clear from the analysis of the mean, standard deviation and coefficient of variation that the organization provides the opportunity to learn from mistakes. The organization is tolerant towards mistakes (CR4) has coefficient of variance of %, which is less than 33%. Hence, it is found from the analysis of the mean, standard deviation and coefficient of variation that the organization is tolerant towards mistakes. The organization is known for out of box thinking (CR5) has coefficient of variance of %, which is less than 33%. It is proved from the analysis of the mean, standard deviation and coefficient of variation that the organization is known for out of box thinking. The organization is excellent in creative culture (CR6) has coefficient of variance of %, which is less than 33%. It is found from the analysis of the mean, standard deviation and coefficient of variation that the organization is excellent in creative culture. Based upon the above descriptive analysis and mean value of all the attributes, it can be concluded that the organization has high level of organizational creativity editor@iaeme.com

9 Developing Organizational Creativity Through Management Support: An Empirical Study with Reference to Indian Information Technology Firms Table 5 Statistical Significance Tests for Full CCA (Canonical Correlation Analysis) Model Correlation Eigen value Wilks Statistics F Num D.F. Denom D.F Sig. Source: Primary Data Level of Significance: alpha=0.05 The above table shows the general fit of the model reporting Wilks Statistics. Wilks lamda is a measure of unexplained variance where the model is fit to the data Wilks lamda is Hence, the unexplained variance is 38.4%, canonical correlation square is Hence, the explained variance is 56%, which means 38.4% of variance of the dependent variable is explained by independent variable. Eigen value is more than one, which indicates that there is a more explained variance than unexplained variance. The commonly used test is Wilks lamda. The f test is significant i.e. w= [f(42, )= 9.568, p<0.05]. Source: Primary Data Table 6 Regression Weights of Management Support ***: Significant at 0.1% level of significance. It is inferred from the above table that management support has a positive impact on organizational creativity since standardized regression weights is a positive value. It means if the value of management support is increased by one unit then organizational creativity will increase by Thus the null hypothesis is rejected and it is concluded that management support and organizational creativity are related. 8. FINDINGS The findings of the study is as detailed below: 8.1. Findings Based on Descriptive Statistics 42.5% of the respondents agree that the employees get support from the managers and 0.3% respondents are strongly disagree that the employees get support from the managers Findings Based on Mean and Standard Deviation Measured Construct Regression S.E. C.R. P Result Indicators Weights MS CR 0.765*** *** Sig. 1. The attribute of management support i.e. the managers share vision and goals with clarity with the employees has the maximum mean value, it means that the mangers share vision and goals with clarity with the employees in Indian IT firms. The attribute of organizational creativity i.e. the organization is excellent in creative culture has the maximum mean value, which represents that the Indian IT firms has excellent creative culture. The attribute of management support i.e. the mangers are open for new ideas has minimum coefficient of variance. The attribute of organization creativity i.e. the organization is known for out of box thinking has minimum coefficient of variance editor@iaeme.com

10 Tripti Sharma and Dr. P.N. Mishra 8.3. Findings Based On Canonical Correlation Analysis (CCA) And Standard Regression Weights Management Support is positively associated with organizational creativity to Indian information technology firms. 9. CONCLUSIONS In this research, the researchers have investigated the impact of management support on organizational creativity. This study concludes that there is a significant impact of management support in terms of employee support, employee involvement and idea support, by appropriate goals setting and through a varied management practices. It means management support enhances organizational creativity. Hence, the alterative hypothesis is accepted. Moreover, the managers can influence creative output by supporting the employees new ideas, by settings goals clearly and good management practices. Thus, this research article has contributed to the literature of management support and organizational creativity. 10. MANAGERIAL IMPLICATIONS The findings of this study can help managers of Indian information technology firms in formulating management support strategies. If the information technology firms offers management support to their employees in terms of employee support, employee involvement and idea support, by appropriate goals setting and through a varied management practices, it is certain that it will enhance organizational creativity and innovative capability which will lead to organizational sustainability. 11. LIMITATIONS This research article has few limitations. First, the research design is of cross-sectional in nature, where data collection period was limited to a short span of time, changes over time could not be assessed. This study was limited to Pune. So, the results are specific to a certain context. 12. SUGGESTIONS FOR FUTURE RESEARCH It is of vital importance to increase the scope of the study in terms of geographical area for greater generalization of the findings. Lastly, other categories of organizational creativity climate can be explored in the future. REFERENCES [1] [2] Amabile, T.M. (1988,1996). Creativity in Context. Boulder, CO: Overview [3] Adobe Systems. (2016). State of Create. Retrieved from t_final.pdf [4] Sardari, N. (2011). A Framework to Assess Organizational Creative Climate A Framework to Assess Organizational Creative Climate. [5] Anderson, J. V. (1992). Weirder than Fiction: The Reality and Myths of Creativity. The Executive, 6, 40. [6] Amabile, T. M How to kill creativity. Harvard Business Review, 76, 76. [7] Cummings, A. & Oldham, G. R Enhancing creativity: Managing work contexts for the high potential employee. California Management Review, editor@iaeme.com

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