Creative jobs make up an increasingly large part of the economy. While contextual factors of work design have been shown to affect job performance in various settings, their impact on creative tasks is understudied. This study uses a controlled laboratory experiment to understand the impact of time constraints and goal setting on creativity. I find that reducing task constraints by making time constraints ambiguous increases the creativity of ideas without undermining their quantity, relative to the baseline. I also find that a nonbinding quantity-oriented goal increases the quantity of ideas without reducing creative quality. Likewise, a nonbinding creativity-oriented goal increases the creativity of ideas without decreasing the number of ideas. Results indicate that work design is an important factor when developing strategies for cultivating creativity, and managers have several tools at their disposal.

中文翻译：

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创意与工作设计实验

创意工作在经济中的比重越来越大。虽然工作设计的背景因素已被证明会影响各种环境中的工作绩效，但它们对创造性任务的影响尚未得到充分研究。本研究使用受控实验室实验来了解时间限制和目标设定对创造力的影响。我发现通过使时间限制模棱两可来减少任务限制可以增加想法的创造力，而不会破坏它们相对于基线的数量。我还发现，以数量为导向的非约束性目标会增加想法的数量，而不会降低创意质量。同样，一个非约束性的以创造力为导向的目标会增加想法的创造力，而不会减少想法的数量。