Organizations often try to stimulate creative problem-solving by inducing competition among group members. This facilitative effect of intragroup competition lies in group members’ enhanced motivation to outperform the others. Previous research, however, has mainly focused on idea generation, thereby overlooking the subsequent idea selection stage. In fact, groups are poor at selecting both original and feasible ideas (i.e., creative), which may be further exacerbated when group members compete against each other. Furthermore, while originality and feasibility are two key factors of creativity, people seem to have difficulty taking both into account. The current research investigated how intragroup competition, through incorporating a rewarding scheme, influences group idea generation and selection, and whether explicit instructions of focusing on either originality or feasibility (performance criteria) could steer groups’ focus in the intended direction. An experimental study was conducted with 78 three-person groups. Results showed that overall, neither intragroup competition nor performance criteria influenced groups’ generation and selection performance. Nevertheless, some interesting findings emerged - Originality and feasibility were indeed inversely correlated; idea quality at the generation stage predicted the idea quality at the selection stage; furthermore, certain group processes during the group task might have indirectly linked the competition-selection performance relationship. Study limitations, theoretical and practical implications were discussed.
Group idea generation and selection: The originality versus feasibility battle & intragroup competition
