We expected company F to have high creative capital based on the company document analysis previous to the interview. However when company F was asked to describe their creative capital based on our creative capital indicator, the interviewee could at first not decide between the two descriptions. Finally, company Y was chosen, indicating low creative capital as the current focus of the organization is on incremental innovation on existing products rather than developing completely new products, which therefore does not require high creativity. Nonetheless, radical innovation regarding new products has happened in the past for company F as the following quote outlines:
“We recently developed new products and we continuously improve our own old products. But if I have to make a choice and when talking about the current situation, then I would choose Y.” In order to stimulate the creativity of employees, the company tries to create an innovation focused culture rather than having formal procedures such as an idea box. However, the company does not actively motivate the employees to be creative but rather expects the employees to motivate themselves by reading up on articles in the industry, talking to other people and attending conferences. Once an employee has an idea, the company then develops the idea further into praxis. Employees are especially encouraged to visit conferences as it enables the employees to get stimulated by diverse KSAOs.
4Research findings
77 “People are mostly motivated by themselves to go to conferences. When people start working here we
ask them, dependent on their function, if they would like to go and network.”
In order to be able for employees to share their ideas with the organization, company D has a strong bonding culture that allows for trust between employees as the following quote outlines:
“We have a yearly trip for female employees, or employees will also meet up in private for a movie or dinner, those things happen spontaneously. Every year there is a barbecue organized by one of the
employees in his backyard, and all colleagues including families are invited.”
Company F has a very strong internal culture with high levels of trust and emotional closeness. The interviewee explained that the employees therefore feel ownership and responsibility for the company and consider themselves as a certain group of people with similar characteristics as the following quote outlines:
“Employees of company F are a certain type of person; you can say this person is a real company F-ler.”
However, also a certain level of bridging social capital exists within the organization as interdisciplinary teams are developed to test the feasibility of ideas. As the employees of these teams belong to different departments in the company, bridging social capital is used.
Additionally, not only internal relationships are strong and based on bonding capital but also external ones. As an illustration, company F has a fixed relationship with a temporary work agency as it allows for trust and this in turn allows the agency to propose temporary employees which fit into the culture of company F. Besides these external bonding relationships, company D also makes strong use of external bridging relationships for incremental innovation. For example, managers use the contact with customers to learn how improvements could be done. Additionally, experts are contacted to discuss ideas for improvements and the company also cooperates with other organizations in the network that have diverse KSAOs to generate creative ideas such as universities and research institutes.
This analysis shows that company F makes use of the creative ability of their employees by nurturing a culture focused on creativity rather than setting formal procedures. This leads to high employee creativity and high organizational creative ability. Additionally, while a strong internal bonding culture exists, the company makes use of both external and internal bridging social capital to enhance incremental innovation. Concluding, we argue that company F has high creative capital as they match our understanding of creative capital with their bridging and bonding social capital but can make even more use of their employees’ creativity by having more loose relationships in their network to allow for diverse knowledge and ideas to enter the organization.
4Research findings
78 The role and use of external labor of company F
Company F makes regular but limited use of external labor. If the company makes use of external labor it is mostly for capacity reasons rather than to acquire special competences or KSAOs. Hence, company F uses temporary employees for non-core activities. The interviewee explained that the main reason for this is because the costs as using highly qualified external employees, e.g. consultants, is too great and would require extensive training due to the fact that the core activities of company F are rather complex.
“Indeed at peak times we just need some extra hands. Someone, who can do simple work and who does not need a lot of guidance. But we only do that for simple tasks, so that the other production
employees can focus on their job. So, no (i.e. external workers are not used for core activities).”
This quote outlines, that company F uses mostly temporary employees for non-core activities in order to maintain flexible and save costs. However, company F might use external labor for core activities in form of contract-based employment with the intention of standard employment. This allows to test the person-organization fit before offering standard employment as the following quote outlines:
“People from the temporary work agency always get a contract for one year just to see how it works. Those persons are temps, they do the core activities but are hired when everything goes fine and get a
fixed contract.”
The interviewee of company F explained that the company is operating in a very competitive but rather stable market as products are used for several years, which therefore does not require for constant innovation and leap innovations as we assumed it to be. Therefore, the company rather focuses on developing KSAOs internally rather than using external labor.
Company F makes use of labor market intermediaries in form of Matchmakers or Administrators as the company uses recruitment agencies that are specialized on the requirements of company F. The interviewee pointed out that this has allowed for a better match with the external employees.