Borghini approaches organisational creativity from the viewpoint that multiple sub-cultures enhance organisational creativity (Klijn & Tomic, 2010). This organisational model assumes that technological, social, and cultural factors are not limited to being input to individual learning but are integral parts of it (Borghini, 2005). Organisational settings are also marked by situated and distributed cognition.
Situated cognition refers to thinking that is embedded within an interaction between schemas of the mind and the environment (Elsbach, Barr, & Hargadon, 2005). Distributed cognition holds that cognition is not limited to the mind of an individual but distributed in wider system of multiple individuals and teams in the form of multimodal representations, such as jargon they use and information communicated via technology (Pimmer, Pachler, & Genewein, 2013; Stanton, 2013).
This model posits that creativity within organisations can only lead to innovation when organisational sub-systems interact in a constructive manner that leads to sense making. Sense making can be achieved if there is unlearning and learning by sub-systems and an integration of sub-cultures, albeit temporarily, moving towards a shared goal (Borghini, 2005). Such integration may occur spontaneously. However, if not, leadership practices or organizational mechanisms or other mediating structures should be enacted to promote such integration. Mediating structures are sets of tools that influence both collective and individual learning (Borghini, 2005). These mediating structures include language that is shared by all sub-cultures within the organisation that can be used for learning; sub-cultural social rules and values that influence the change of shared mental models and creation of knowledge; and formal division of labour that leads to the development of fixed procedures. The physical work environment and instruments also represent mediating structures that affect cognition and learning.
Figure 2.3. Circular model of creativity in multicultural organisations. Reprinted from “Organizational creativity: Breaking equilibrium and order to innovate,” by S. Borghini, 2005, Journal of Knowledge Management, 9, p. 27. Copyright 2005 by Emerald Group Publishing Limited.
Following from the assumption discussed above, variety is defined as the proffering of a potentially creative solution to an issue that affects the entire organisation, typically in the form of a new idea or strategy originating from individual or group creativity (Borghini, 2005). This variety should include a learning process that generates new knowledge and develops new competencies. This, in turn, promotes the integration of the various sub-cultures within the organisation (Klijn & Tomic, 2010). According to Borghini (2005), the integration of cultures increases the shared mental models (organisational knowledge), which is comprised of procedures, rules, methods, systems of knowledge, and models of behaviour. Cultural integration also increases the core competences, referring to the patterns by which sub-culture or domain-specific technical knowledge is preserved. This increases creativity by way of facilitating original and useful output as the cross-fertilization among integrated sub- cultures stimulates more variety and completes the first loop in the Figure 2.3.
Simultaneously, the integration of cultures also causes knowledge to be codified, meaning that it is represented in instruction, procedures, scientific laws, software, patents and models showing how new knowledge is to be applied (Borghini, 2005). Codification allows the transfer of skills and therefore a greater number of people who are able to participate creatively.
However, as time lapses, limits to the organisational creativity appear in the form of core rigidities. Core rigidities refer to the inability to break free from the successful rules and knowledge created out of the
knowledge codification (Klijn & Tomic, 2010). Organisations may be tempted to think along the lines of ‘If our last change effort or creative rule change worked, why should we change or create newer rules once more?’ The limitation on creativity that the core rigidities in the second loop provides balances the self-reinforcing first loop of the model. A real-world example of core rigidities was when knowledge management systems were developed for the global consultancy McKinsey. These systems initially took the form of databases of reports, PowerPoint presentations, and best practices (Hargadon, 2008). However, McKinsey did not find these databases as useful as developers had anticipated and developed its own rapid response team to rather link people to other people (previous problem-solvers) instead of to stored information (Hargadon, 2008). It had become clear to McKinsey that the databases were creating core rigidities. The rationale behind the formation of the rapid response team was that previous problem-solvers were not just experts on their ideas, as stored in a database, but were generally thinking of new applications for these old ideas.
It is evident that Borghini’s model takes a knowledge management perspective on organisational creativity. The model dovetails well with knowledge management’s ethos that thinking, creativity, learning, and retention are part of the same process (Kaufmann & Runco, 2009). However, there is a criticism against knowledge management that can also be levelled against Borghini’s model. Schulze and Stabell (2004) maintained that once implicit knowledge is transformed into explicit knowledge, such as happens at the knowledge codification stage in Borghini’s model, it can be easily copied by competing organisations. Implicit (also known as tacit knowledge) is non-verbalised, unarticulated and thus not easily transferable by those employees leaving the organisation or imitated by other firms (Kaufmann & Runco, 2009).