Building on theories of sensemaking, this study demonstrates the importance of disentangling the creative process. Specifically, we show that the specific elements of the creative process (problem construction, information search and encoding, and idea generation) are differentially related to both antecedents and specific types of creative outcomes. Using survey data from employees and their supervisors from a wide variety of organizations, we found that leader creative expectations were more strongly related to idea generation than to problem construction and to information search and encoding. Job autonomy, in contrast, was significantly related to problem construction, but not to information search and encoding or idea generation. Furthermore, we found that although idea generation is positively related to both radical and incremental creativity, problem construction is only positively related to radical creativity. We discuss implications for the study of creative processes and creativity more generally.

本研究以意义建构理论为基础，证明了解开创造过程的重要性。具体来说，我们展示了创造性过程的特定元素（问题构建、信息搜索和编码以及想法生成）与前因和特定类型的创造性结果有不同的相关性。使用来自各种组织的员工及其主管的调查数据，我们发现领导者的创造性期望与创意产生的关系比与问题构建以及信息搜索和编码的关系更密切。相比之下，工作自主权与问题构建显着相关，但与信息搜索和编码或想法生成无关。此外，我们发现，虽然想法的产生与激进和渐进的创造力正相关，但问题构建只与激进的创造力正相关。我们更广泛地讨论了对创造性过程和创造力研究的影响。