Massachusetts General Hospital / Harvard Medical School
Bridging literatures on creativity and open innovation in the healthcare context, we asked: Does anonymity help or hinder employees’ willingness to engage in creativity via an open innovation mechanism? We partnered with the Nursing and Patient Care Services of a hospital in the United States that organized an innovation contest, inviting over 8,800 nurses, health professionals, and support staff (e.g., medical assistants, environmental services staff) to submit ideas to improve the organization of health services. We conducted a field experiment, in which treated employees were told that ideas would be shared anonymously, and untreated employees were told that names and roles will be attached to ideas. To account for unintended spillover effects, randomization took place at individual and work-area levels. We then interviewed 14 employees from the same hospital to understand the experimental results. Anonymity was not found to be a universally effective motivator that spurs creativity among all employees. Instead, anonymity had a differential impact based on one’s role and position. Support staff, who sit lower in the organizational and occupational hierarchies, were less likely to engage in creativity via the innovation contest compared to other roles, but their engagement increased with the promise of anonymity. For these employees, anonymity helped them to feel that their ideas would be taken seriously and assuaged any fear of retaliation associated with idea sharing. In contrast, middle managers were more likely to engage in creativity, but their engagement decreased with the anonymity treatment. The desire to be acknowledged for ideas meant they wanted their ideas to be identifiable. Considering the organizational context and how it shapes employees’ beliefs about engaging in creativity is critical when trying to motivate engagement in creativity. Our findings suggest that one needs to deeply consider the organizational context and embedded roles when deploying incentives to increase employees’ engagement in creativity.