Halo or Curse:Why Domain-relevant Skills Impede Creativity?Modification and Expansion of Amabile's Clas-sical Theory
In the context of accelerating innovation and iteration,stimulating employee creativity has been elevated to the strategic agenda of the enterprise.Amabile's componential model of creativity suggests that domain-relevant skills serve as a"raw material library"that encompasses professional knowledge,technical skills,and specific domain talents,and are the foundation for generating creativity.However,existing research cannot explain the phenomenon in reality where domain experts with profound professional skills are stagnant and lacking in excellence.What exactly happened between the"domain experts"who created new knowledge and the"domain bricklayers"who cling to tradition?This article takes Amabile's componential model of creativity as the research background,constructs a nested model that includes regulated mediators and regulated mediators,systematically explores the internal mechanisms of domain-relevant skills weakening creativity,and how to mitigate this negative impact.Empirical research has found that the interaction between domain-relevant skills and territorial feeling stimulates cognitive entrenchment and thus creates a masking effect on creativity,while creativity-relevant skills weakens territorial feeling and reduces the masking effect of cognitive entrenchment.Specifically,the generation of creativ-ity inevitably requires the support of a large number of domain-relevant skills,and having more domain-relevant skills may lead to cognitive entrenchment due to the simultaneous generation of territorial feeling.The"masking effect"of cognitive entrenchment leads to a lack of good knowledge and creativity among experts with high domain-relevant skills.Creativity-relevant skills as a cross disciplinary skill to explore new cognitive pathways can activate an individual's creative thinking ability and openness to experience,which is an effective means of resolving the negative impact of domain-relevant skills on creativity.This paper contributes to the existing literaturein in three aspects:First,it explores that domain-relevant skills are a necessary condi-tion rather than a sufficient condition for creativity,which enriches Amabile's componential model of creativity to a certain extent and provides a new perspective for creativity related research.Second,the different perspectives on the differential impact of domain-rel-evant skills on creativity in this study have been reconciled with the classic theory of Amabile,providing new insights into the nega-tive impact of domain-relevant skills on creativity.Third,it provides an overall framework for explaining why domain-relevant skills have a negative impact on creativity and how to alleviate this negative impact,as well as a logical interface for further exploring how to enhance cross domain skills.Our research,to a certain extent,reveals the inherent logic of domain experts falling into rigid thinking and losing creativity,which helps organizations realize the"double-edged sword"effect of domain-relevant skills.domain-relevant skills cannot be used as the only indicator to evaluate employee creativity level.While improving employee domain-relevant skills,it is also necessary to strengthen the cultivation of employee creativity-relevant skills.
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