The present thesis presents a new application of dynamic constructivism (Hong, Morris, Chui, & Benet-Martinez, 2000; Morris & Fu, 2001) to teamwork process in creativity in multicultural teams. With its roots in cognitive psychology, dynamic constructivist theory posits that varying values, social structures, and norms within cultures create different knowledge structures which cause culture to interact with social settings such that the same situation cues different behaviors from people in different cultures. In two empirical studies and two theoretical chapters, I present and test a model predicting how a match between regions' cultural values and teamwork process lead to optimal creativity in multicultural teams dominated by members from different regions. Specifically, I discuss and demonstrate how Western and Asian regional cultures, on opposite ends of Hofstede's (1980) cultural values of Power Distance and Individualism, reach creative outcomes by different teamwork processes, with each process matching the underlying values, knowledge structures, and culturally normative behaviors for each cultural region. Finally, I outline how this thesis contributes to work on creativity, culture, teamwork process, and multicultural teams, and how my empirical findings and theoretical extensions suggest a re-conceptualization of Janssens & Brett (2006)'s fusion teamwork process may represent a way to manage the different teamwork processes leading to creativity in different cultures when people from these cultures must interact effectively in multicultural teams.

Last modified

• 09/13/2018

Creator

• Susan Crotty

DOI

• https://doi.org/10.21985/N2SQ8X

Subject

• Management and Organizations

Keyword

• Business Administration

Date created

• 2008-07-16

Resource type

• Dissertation

Rights statement

• In Copyright