Diversity, Conflict and Workgroup Creativity in Ghana: The Moderating Role of Group Member Goal Orientations

Abstract

Creativity is key to organizational competitiveness and effectiveness, and much research has gone into enhancing it within organizations. A key antecedent to organizational creativity is diversity and therefore scholars have investigated how diversity translates into creativity. Diversity often acts as a double-edged sword, sometimes enhancing creativity and not at other times. As such, taking into consideration potential moderators and mediators in predicting the impact of diversity on outcomes has become important. However, many studies investigating the role of mediators have focused on one-dimensional mediators, which may not provide a comprehensive understanding of how diversity translates into creativity. The purpose of this study was therefore to investigate how diversity within workgroups leads to group creativity through the two dimensions of task and affective conflict. It also investigated how group member goal orientations moderate the impact of diversity on task and affective conflict. Building on the Categorization Elaboration Model, the Social Identity Theory and the Motivated Information Processing Theory, a conceptual model was proposed. To test this model, data was collected using questionnaires from 459 members of workgroups involved in marketing, manufacturing, and service across 40 organizations in Ghana. Following this, the data was analyzed using hierarchical linear regression. The mediating roles of task and affective conflict in the diversity-creativity relationship were also analyzed using Process Hayes. Findings indicate that cognitive diversity within groups influences group creativity through task and affective conflict. Moreover, both task and affective had a negative impact on group creativity. Findings also provide support for the moderating impact of the learning-approach and performance-approach goal orientations in the diversity-conflict relationship. Theoretical and practical implications of these findings are discussed.