1492: Distant, yet Connected: Exploring Centrifugal & Centripetal Forces in Team Creative Problem-Solving (20104)

During collective creative problem solving in organizations, centrifugal forces (CFFs) cause team members to diverge and gather different information, whereas centripetal forces (CPFs) ensure that the resulting diverse perspectives are orchestrated into common action. Herein, leadership behavior and possible changes in leader-follower interactions play a decisive role in balancing these diverging forces. Accordingly, and drawing on Sheremata's model of CFFs and CPFs during teamwork, we first theorize that an interplay of team decentralization (CFF) and team connectedness (CPF) promotes creative problem-solving. Moreover, we integrate this view with Adaptive Leadership Theory and postulate that frequently changing leader-follower interactions are beneficial to creative problem-solving in teams with pronounced decentralization. In an escape room study with 50 five-person teams, data on team decentralization and team connectedness of the individual members was collected through sociometric badges. Moreover, team adaptive leadership was examined through video observations. The associated findings confirm that an interplay of team decentralization and team connectedness potentially boosts creative problem-solving. Further, team adaptive leadership tends to be particularly beneficial when collaboration is characterized through high decentralization.

view paper (if available)