Innovation has become an essential survival feature in today’s world, where new technologies and evolving markets mean companies have to be creative and open to new ideas to stay competitive. Much research has been written on the factors that underpin individual innovation and team innovation. But how do they interact? And what can managers do to maximise ... Read More

Employee “voice” is important to organizations. When employee express voice by offering constructive ideas on how to make improvements, or pointing out harmful or wasteful practices, voice can enhance a firm’s ability to innovate and adapt to dynamic changes in the working environment. It is therefore important to understand what motivates and enables ... Read More

Motivating employees is a perpetual goal for leaders. While leaders can work to inspire their teams in the hope of improving their effectiveness, there may be other factors getting in the way, such as poor relations among team members. Researchers have tended to look at one or the other outcome, rather than considering how motivating and demotivating factors ... Read More

Team creativity is increasingly seen by companies as a competitive advantage in response to a rapidly-changing marketplace. It is also something that companies can enhance with the right understanding and conditions. Research by Jiing-Lih Farh, Cynthia Lee and Crystal I.C. Farh finds that team creativity can be improved through task conflict so long as the ... Read More

When researchers investigate factors that enhance employee job performance and commitment, they face an important constraint: much of the theory and findings are based in the US, where the culture is less traditional and less accepting of unequal distributions of power in the workplace. What happens, then, when you apply the same theories to a society with ... Read More

Managers today are often required to deal with employees from different cultures, either because they are posted to manage overseas branches or face an increasingly diverse workforce at home. New research suggests they may be putting a foot wrong if they get too caught up in focusing on the cultural differences. Jiing-Lih Farh of HKUST and his co-authors ... Read More

Creativity can be a valuable quality in employees. It can lead them to generate new ideas and approaches, refine existing procedures, and find alternatives, thus boosting their - and their company's - performance. A new study provides evidence of this phenomenon and identifies factors that enhance employee creativity. Yaping Gong and Jiing-Lih Farh of HKUST ... Read More