The Creative Climate: Its Determinants and Effects at a Swedish University

Abstract

A study of the creative organizational and individual resources of a university in Sweden was carried out by Ryhammar (1996). A sample of I30 teachers answered several questionnaires on organizational parameters and went through creativity and personality tests. One of the questionnaires was a measure of the creativity aspects of the social climate. This study consisted of further analyses, according to a causal model, of the climate dimension and its relations to other organizational dimensions and to outcome in terms of assessed creative achievements of the different departments. Some of the results were logical, expected, and easy to interpret; others were more puzzling and could be tentatively explained only in view of the special character of the academic milieu and its inhabitants. The main and clear finding was that climate and resources seemed to exert the strongest influence on the creative outcome, and that climate operated in the organization as a lever for leadership and as a manifestation on the behavioral level of the organization's culture, defined as basic values. The more confusing results were that some organizational parameters with positive influences on climate nevertheless seemed to have suppressing effects on creativity, and other parameters with negative impact on climate seemed to support creativity.