Purpose

Enabling employee creativity and channeling the creativity of employees toward process and product innovations is a starting point of value creation processes and strategy maps. The dominant view in early creativity research seemed to be that creativity and control are inconsistent. More recently, a number of studies have come to acknowledge that performance evaluations (and rewards linked to such evaluations) may well have positive effects on creativity. This paper aims to review existing results on the effects of performance evaluations on creativity from the perspectives of different research streams.

Design/methodology/approach

This paper analyzes a stream of research in social psychology which has promoted the notion of an overall negative effect of performance evaluations on creativity. The (reinterpreted) results from this research stream are contrasted with findings from the behaviorist perspective and with research in management accounting.

Findings

The review of the different research traditions in the analysis of the effects of performance evaluations on creativity indicates that the seemingly contradictory empirical results can be explained by the different settings used and by the different ways how performance evaluations and linked rewards are conceptualized.

Originality/value

The paper clarifies that, in contrast to common beliefs, performance evaluations and linked incentives do not kill creativity in general. Performance evaluations and incentives can support creativity and innovation if they are transparent about what kind of creativity is desired and how such creativity is measured and rewarded. Moreover, incentives can effectively support behaviors that are known to be important within creativity and innovation processes.

中文翻译：

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绩效评估会扼杀创造力吗？对现有文献的（重新）解释

目的

启用员工创造力并将员工的创造力引导至流程和产品创新是价值创造流程和战略地图的起点。早期创造力研究的主流观点似乎是创造力和控制是不一致的。最近，一些研究开始承认绩效评估（以及与此类评估相关的奖励）很可能对创造力产生积极影响。本文旨在从不同研究流的角度回顾有关绩效评估对创造力影响的现有结果。

设计/方法/方法

本文分析了社会心理学中的一系列研究，这些研究促进了绩效评估对创造力的整体负面影响的概念。该研究流的（重新解释的）结果与行为主义视角的发现和管理会计研究形成对比。

发现

对绩效评估对创造力影响的分析中不同研究传统的回顾表明，看似矛盾的实证结果可以通过使用的不同设置以及绩效评估和相关奖励概念化的不同方式来解释。

原创性/价值

该论文澄清说，与普遍看法相反，绩效评估和相关激励一般不会扼杀创造力。如果绩效评估和激励措施对于需要什么样的创造力以及如何衡量和奖励这种创造力是透明的，它们就可以支持创造力和创新。此外，激励措施可以有效地支持已知在创造力和创新过程中很重要的行为。