3.1.3.1. Rationalization and slack reduction in different dimensions

In contrast to the common representation of rationalizing or downsizing as being limited to staff or budget reduction (slack as human and financial, respectively), investments, space and time are also sometimes targeted [BOB 14]. From a longitudinal study of two cases, one in the music industry and another in the pharmaceutical industry, Bobadilla [BOB 14] shows that downsizing aims, directly or indirectly, at reducing slack in its different dimensions: human, financial, temporal and spatial. In R&D, this is expressed by a reduction in team size, budget, physical workspaces and time available for creation (see Table 3.1).

3.1.3.2. Slack reduction as a source of tension and questions

This R&D rationalization process causes tension and raises questions. Thus, while downsizing strategies aim at reducing the resources available for R&D, isnʼt it specifically the existence of a slack (and therefore of resources not totally absorbed by daily activities) that facilitates the creation of a team? Are these strategies, by breaking the inter-individual networks, not at risk of generating loss of key knowledge? Do they not jeopardize the knowledge assets that the company has accumulated over time? In the science and technology sectors that are the focus of this book, a companyʼs competitive advantage is principally based on the resources and knowledge it possesses as well as its creative potential. Thus, slack reduction operations question their strategic relevance.

There are also natural limits to acceleration; we cannot notably increase the speed of cognitive processes of perception and processing of information by the human brain to infinity.

Ultimately, can R&D organizations indefinitely focus on reducing team slack without curbing innovation? Practitioners themselves are asking questions (see the testimony below).

3.1.3.3. Relationship between slack and innovation

Cyert and March [CYE 63] were among the first to focus on the relationships between slack and innovation. They introduced the idea “success nourishes slack”, thus eliminating the problem of scarcity and generating resources available to fund innovation. However, they also noted that, in times of crisis, slack is reduced and deployed to absorb the shock and be able to cope with a decline in profits.

Table 3.1 summarizes the relationships between slack and innovation as highlighted by several theoretical trends.

These theories convey two opposing views on the relationship between slack and innovation. It is emphasized that slack plays a crucial role in innovation by positively influencing behavior (innovation, risk-taking) and financial performance. The other viewpoint argues that there is a negative relationship between slack and innovation based on the fact that the existence of slack embodies and leads to a form of inefficiency. The authors of the theory of the firm, proponents of this second viewpoint, indicate how managers use slack to seek their own interests, for example, by engaging in unprofitable diversification projects. Similarly, resource constraint researchers make necessity the mother of innovation, while remarkable innovations are achieved especially in situations where resource constraints are high.

Bobadilla [BOB 14] shows that the same contradictory results are found in the studies related to the effects of downsizing on innovation. Thus, some show that the latter has no effect on innovation, while others assert the opposite. For example, Amabile and Conti [AMA 99] have shown that downsizing reduces creativity, defined as the production of new and useful ideas. They attribute this reduction in creativity to the deterioration of the work environment. Bommer and Jalajas [BOM 99] demonstrated that downsizing has a negative impact on the intrinsic motivation of R&D teams, but on the contrary, fear can mobilize individuals. In another study, Mellanhi and Willkinson [MEL 09] investigated the relationship between the effects of human slack reductions and the results of innovation (evaluated by patent). Through an analysis based on a sample of R&D companies in the United Kingdom and data collected between 1997 and 2003, they explained that downsizing levels are the key to understanding the effects. They also observe short-term negative effects that fade over time.

These contradictory results can be explained by the methodological limitations of these studies. First, slack reductions are often measured by considering only human and financial resources, or they can target other types of resources, including time and space. In addition, longitudinal studies are very rare, whereas the potential effects of this restructuring on innovation and creativity do not manifest themselves and can only be assessed over the medium to long term. Finally, the R&D-specific context has only been considered by a few authors, which makes it difficult to extend to this particular professional universe results obtained from other perimeters.

The ability to be creative is of interest to scientists from different disciplines, practitioners and citizens in general. However, there is no simple definition of creativity that encompasses the different dimensions of this phenomenon (individual attribute, process through which new ideas are generated, social construction). In the following section, we shall try to clarify this notion in light of R&D teams.

3.2.1.1. Cognitive science perspective

Academic research on cognitive science suggests that our thinking is not spontaneously creative; it rather has a natural tendency to stay in the most usual ways. It also suggests that creative individuals are able to connect between ideas that less creative individuals are not able to connect [POI 13, WAL 26].

For many years, cognitive science studies have focused on understanding brain activity and behavior.

Initially, creativity is known to be associated with the right hemisphere of the brain [ROC 94]. However, other researchers have indicated the relationships between creativity and the left cerebral hemisphere [MIH 10]. Over time, studies have shown a similar duality in the process of creative thinking, depending on a combination of irrational and rational thinking or “divergent” and “convergent” thinking processes. De Bono [DEB 82] distinguished “lateral” and “vertical” thinking.

More recently, neuroscientists Fugelsang and Dunbar [FUG 05] have noticed that people pay more attention to evidence regarding plausible theories than implausible issues. This means that our first intuitions would be based on the most common solutions in order to enable us to respond quickly to situations encountered on a daily basis. According to Edward de Bono, training our minds to think outside the box and take new directions is lateral thinking, which therefore requires effort and learning. Thus, they discovered that when the data are coherent with the theory, the neural mechanisms in a region surrounding the hippocampus as well as the learning and memory center of the brain are activated. When data are incoherent with a personʼs theory, brain mechanisms in the prefrontal cortex involved in error detection, attention and monitoring of conflicting viewpoints are activated.

While neuroscientists have chosen to emphasize the activity of the brain during creativity, clinical perspectives emphasize dialectical elements expressed as “rational” or “irrational”. Poincaréʼs “conscious” or “subconscious” model of thinking explains that the tension between these types of thinking generates a new idea, not a dependence of one on the other. This implies that the “creative” individual can operate with both polarities, for example, through enjoyment and discipline or passion and objectivity. Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi [CSI 96] described the creative person as a sort of “man with all” who has great energy but who is often calm and at rest; someone who is intelligent but naive at the same time; someone with a combination of play and discipline and someone who is humble but also proud. For Freud [FRE 76], creativity was like an expression of unconscious. In the Freudian paradigm, creative behavior is considered as a more socially acceptable form of undesired subliminal unconscious conflicts or even neurosis. Other researchers like Wallace and Gruber [WAL 89] have considered creativity as more than a single, multi-causal and interactive individual disposition, evolving in relation to a range of opportunities and influences.

3.2.1.2. Personality of creative people

The five-factor personality model (known as the “Big Five” model) has been a reference model for more than a quarter century [DIG 90]. It can be represented by the acronym OCEAN (openness, conscientiousness, extroversion, agreeableness and neuroticism). These successively designate openness to experience in relation to family satisfaction, conscientiousness of indifference, extroversion in relation to introversion, agreeableness against hostility and neuroticism in relation to emotional stability. Of these five main personality traits, neuroticism should be specifically mentioned here, as Gotz and Gotz [GOT 79] noted that the correlation between neuroticism and creativity was negative in sciences, but positive in arts, and other researchers did not find a significant correlation.

On the basis of other studies, Amabile [AMA 83] described the following personality traits that characterize creative people: open-minded, independent judgment, self-reliant, confident, attracted by complexity, aesthetic-oriented and risk-taking. Creative individuals also tend to be discovery-oriented, which makes them apprehend situations from multiple perspectives, find problems and ask new questions.

In research on scientific and artistic creativity, Feist [FEI 06] gave a clear portrait of the creative personality of both groups (scientists and artists). He noted that creative people were more autonomous, introverted, open to new experiences, diligent, ambitious, dominant, hostile and impulsive. Among these characteristics, openness, awareness, self-acceptance, hostility and impulsivity seem to be the most important. The study showed that creative people in arts and sciences do not share the same personality traits. Artists are more distinguished by their emotional instability, coldness and rejection of group standards. Creative scientists presented low scores on socialization scales such as responsibility, socialization, good impression and conformism.

Thus, we see that creativity is related to a cognitive-perceptual style that includes the collection and application of diverse information as well as the heuristic processing of information, good memory and ability to remain focused for long periods of time [AMA 89]. In addition, traits such as research and problem formulation, combination and assessment of ideas also seem to be important.

Other elements are also important. Creative production depends on an extensive and advanced knowledge base in a given field. Experience in a field is an essential component of employee creativity because an individual needs a certain level of familiarity to do creative work. Furthermore, creativity also requires a certain level of passion or inner strength that drives individuals to persevere when faced with challenges that are inherent to creative work. Several studies on individual creativity have focused on the importance of intrinsic¹ motivation for creativity [AMA 89, SHA 91]. Furthermore, intrinsic motivation is critical for the creativity of R&D professionals [BOB 14].

Finally, the subjective experience of people at work is very important, like the emotional side of their organizations, not only because the positive affective experience is related to outcomes such as job satisfaction but also because the affect is directly related to how people think about their work site. There is a dynamic relationship between affect and creativity. Affect is not only an antecedent for creativity but also a direct consequence.

3.2.3.1. A social and interactive approach to understanding the creativity of R&D teams

According to the social and interactive theories of creativity [AMA 96, CSI 96], a creative process is the result of not an individual, but rather the interaction of the individual with his/her social and organizational environment. In R&D environments, this process develops and unfolds in a social context. The productions of this process are ideas that do not only have value but are new and useful. Context characteristics are the dimensions of the work environment that influence an employeeʼs creativity but are not part of the individual, for example, job content, relationships with leaders, other team members and available resources.

Scientists and R&D experts rarely work on their own. Organization by project is now customary in this context. By analyzing the dimensions of the teamsʼ creative work, we observed that research, filtering, experimentation and cross-fertilization take place collectively. At the program levels, each “creative” project must be validated by gatekeepers or reference communities that will define the value of this contribution. According to Csikszentmihalyi [CSI 99], creativity must be understood in relation to other aspects of the environment in which the teams work: area and field. The field is a necessary component of creativity because it determines what is innovative compared to the old. Creative production mostly depends on the team and an advanced knowledge base in a given field. Experience in a field is an essential component of the teamsʼ creativity, because they need a certain level of familiarity to do creative work. Thus, we observed the importance of understanding creativity as a social process and analyzing the different factors influencing it.

3.2.3.2. Factors that influence creativity

Contextual characteristics potentially influence the creativity of individuals and teams. Literature distinguishes three types of contexts, namely organizational, social and work-related. Amabileʼs work [AMA 88, AMA 96] work served as a general framework and described various relevant factors that influence creativity: (1) organizational encouragement and support to creativity (e.g. support new ideas, acknowledgment of creative work and encouragement to take risks); (2) encouragement of direct superiors (e.g. setting clear objectives and opening up to new ideas); (3) support work group (e.g. open communication and trust relationship within the group); (4) sufficient resources (such as facilities, money and information); (5) a job perceived as challenging and, finally, (6) the freedom to decide on how to do oneʼs job. Amabile [AMA 96] showed that low-creativity projects are often linked to organizational obstacles (e.g. political problems, over-criticism of new ideas, destructive competition and emphasis on maintaining the status quo as well as emergency pressure).

Finally, the psychological climate defined as the set of individual perceptions of policies, practices and organizational procedures that influence team behavior is another critical factor that may favor or hinder creativity.

Thus, we realized that understanding work environment factors contributes to a complementary understanding of the creativity of R&D teams. Within this framework, it was crucial to examine how slack reductions interact with team creativity over time. Of the factors discussed above, the level of available resources seemed to be an important variable that deserved further analysis. In order to generate innovative products, organizations are deploying and increasingly organizing themselves in the form of project teams. However, these teams did not always manage to meet the expectations of creativity and innovation because they could not benefit from the resource slacks that they needed in order to be creative. Recently, R&D has undergone an intense transformation that has led to the slack reduction and standardization of processes. How do these slack reductions interact with the lives of teams and organizations?

In the next section, we study the effects and interactions of different types of slack reductions on team creativity.

3.3.2.1. Poorly implemented slack reduction produces negative reactions

The way in which human slack reductions are implemented (legitimacy of the decision and justification of job cuts, sense of procedural justice, communication throughout the procedure) moderates the reactions and behavior of the teams over time.

The human slack reduction processes are considered fair when they provide consistency in terms of the targeted individuals and time, are free from bias, integrate and reflect the views of those concerned and comply with moral and ethical standards. When human slack reductions are considered as fair and legitimate, team behavioral responses can be accelerated toward the trust that the organization can endure and new relationships can be created.

In the course of time, positive reactions to change can lead to the re-establishment of relationships between team and work members. For example, after several months of PSE, the levels of stress and bereavement can reduce and teams can return to work more serenely. On the contrary, if human slack reductions are considered unfair, then the layoff decision is neither justified nor legitimate, and if there are no structural changes in the activity (change of positions, levels of responsibilities, new missions, organizational structure of the organization), then negative reactions (anger, fear, stress, sadness) are produced that can lead to low levels of trust, high levels of conflict and disruption of human networks. These negative behaviors affect the work environment and are very harmful to the generation and sharing of ideas and intrinsic motivation.

3.3.2.2. Overly frequent human slack reductions have adverse effects

Slack reductions affect relationships between individuals, team and leader. Most importantly, the dismissal of a central member (i.e. team leader) without any legitimate justification is a negative factor that affects the morale as well as the interaction and connectivity levels between the groups. Connectivity levels between members are changed because information exchange is less fluid due to the departure of some central members. Furthermore, Susskind [SUS 07] highlighted the difference between voluntary and involuntary changes in the network. As part of the involuntary changes, the network recovery process was longer. The underlying mechanism of this network deterioration is access to knowledge through relationships.

In our case, we observed that “human slack” reductions lead to the deterioration of the work environment. In fact, the way the dismissals were organized led to an increase in conflicts and mistrust among members, which reflected as retention of knowledge. All of these negative factors are detrimental to the generation and sharing of ideas and intrinsic motivation of individuals and teams.

In the context of frequent human slack reduction, R&D teams face difficulties adapting to changes, which can create behavioral rigidity (less flexible individuals).

Affect and positive emotions have a systematic impact on performance in many cognitive tasks and emotions; furthermore, a good work atmosphere encourages creativity. On the contrary, poor climate and negative emotions inhibit creativity [BOB 14].

3.3.2.3. More stress and conflicts within R&D teams

Some stressors, such as emergency or external competition, may increase creativity while other stressors, such as time pressure or intra-group competition, may reduce it. We noted that bad implementations of human slack reductions increase competition as well as intra- and inter-group conflicts and thus destroy the sharing of ideas. However, conflicts differ in their form, cause of discord and effects produced. We identified [BOB 14] the following three main categories of conflicts that occur during human slack reductions:

• – task-based conflicts, which concerns discussions and debates on work in progress;
• – relationship conflicts, which concern interpersonal interaction between group members;
• – process-based conflicts, which relate to the way work is done (and assignment of roles and responsibilities).

These conflicts are related to restructuring for several reasons, which are very well described by Cameron [CAM 94] (see box below). Organizations, after “human slack” reductions, witness an increase in resistance to change, and the climate becomes more political. Furthermore, loss of confidence plays a vital role in increasing conflict because there is more mistrust among members. Relationship conflicts threaten the survival of the team. Distress and animosity among members encourage withdrawal and affect the sharing of ideas. Process conflicts affect the ability of the team to plan, visualize results and perform creative tasks since team members do not often have a clear vision on how to go about work or who does what. All of this limits the relationships between the different team members. Above all, the anxiety generated by conflicts affects the different stages of creation through concentration problems and individuals are focused on conflicts, which does not make the mind creative.

3.3.2.4. Loss of skills and knowledge

In slack reduction situations, in the case of DrugLab that we studied, scientists hid information and knowledge. As soon as the results obtained endangered the continuity of their research project, they preferred concealing the results. It is important to note that the retention of knowledge is different from the lack of sharing because, in addition to the omission of sharing, it incorporates the intention to refuse to give information that someone else has requested. This intentional retention of knowledge inhibits the creativity of colleagues and generates the same effects of mistrust and non-solidarity.

Thus, we can conclude that downsizing leads to the loss of knowledge and has a negative impact on the ability of companies to benefit from shared knowledge through the interpersonal relationships that are essential for the creative process. Certainly, the generation of ideas begins with an individual; however, as part of a team, the sharing and evaluation of ideas is influenced by information exchange. It is both an explicit and implicit process. An individual in a team can draw attention to an aspect that others have not thought of. This explicit process is done through an open communication of ideas. From the viewpoint of social and interactive creativity, disruptions caused by human slack reductions, in a scientific context, are particularly disadvantageous for the sharing and evaluation of ideas.

3.3.3.1. Slack reductions increase control levels

Bobadilla [BOB 14], Nohria and Gulati [NOH 96], Love and Nohria [LOV 05] and Daniel et al. [DAN 04] highlighted that the relationship between the creativity of R&D teams and available financial resources (budgets, investments) is curvilinear. Creativity increases with the provision of financial resources, up to a point from which it begins to decline. In fact, when financial resources become (too) abundant, there are phenomena (lack of control in expenditure, laxity on the results produced, useless investments) that impede the generation of ideas and relevant evaluation of these ideas. Conversely, a significant and continuous reduction in R&D budgets and investments leads to increased requirements and control levels relating to the evaluation of R&D projects that inhibit risk-taking and generation of creative ideas.

3.3.3.2. Frequency of financial slack reductions affects risk-taking

Financial slack reductions can have negative effects on R&D creativity, even though we have already highlighted the univocal relationship between financial resources and creativity. Andrews and Farris [AND 72], for example, showed how financial resources and facilities are not essential factors in the performance of scientists. Very creative results can be achieved with limited financial resources [BAK 05], provided the emotions, climate and relationships between team members are good.

On the contrary, at a certain level of budget constraint, the effects are negative on creativity: teams have more difficulties coping with the continuous lack of financial resources and the stock of “cheap” ideas starts reducing. The lack of financial resources can also urge experts and talents to leave the organization in search of other companies capable of providing them with financial support to develop their projects under good conditions.

3.3.4.1. Research activities on standby and decrease in intrinsic motivation

Rationalization leads to slack reductions in its various dimensions that intermingle. Thus, human slack reduction operations are also reflected through work time effects and the way in which it is assigned to various activities. During human slack reduction periods, the research activity automatically stops. On the contrary, the time allocated to discuss with colleagues and reflect on the current situation highly increases, and questions are raised and debates ensue concerning the degradation of the work environment, conflicts, the degree of uncertainty as to who will be dismissed, etc. These preoccupations are time-consuming (thus inducing temporal slack reduction) and negatively affect cognitive processes and orientation (focus of attention) toward creation and creativity.

In these phases, individuals truly devote very little to science, resulting in a very strong decrease in intrinsic motivation that is normally fueled by the search for novelty and challenges, exploration, ongoing learning, etc.

3.3.4.2. Excessive time pressures generate conflicts of attention and a change of focus

When teams experience extreme time pressure, attention is focused on the most effective and efficient (rapid) way of carrying out an activity, to the detriment of creativity.

This observation is not new because, in 1972, Andrews and Farris demonstrated an inverted U-shaped relationship between scientistsʼ creativity and time pressure. This means that high levels or, conversely, low time pressure, have a negative impact on creativity. Similarly, they pointed out that the most creative scientists were those who had to cope with above-average time pressures, in active communication with their colleagues, motivated by their work and involved in certain administrative tasks as well as technical activities.

In contemporary work contexts, R&D professionals participate in a growing variety of activities, tasks and roles simultaneously. This leads to “vertical loading” or “polychronicity”, which is defined as the performance of two or more activities simultaneously [BLU 92, HAL 83]. Excessive short-term focus shifts to explicit knowledge rather than tacit knowledge, reducing the ability to be creative.

Also, the question is focused not only on the amount of time available but also on its quality. With slack reduction, R&D creative people and workers express the need to have creative windows, which allow a step back to open up their minds for creativity.

3.3.4.3. Conflicts between professional and personal life

Beyond the negative effects on creativity, increase in workload due to the acceleration and frequency of temporal slack reduction also generates tensions with respect to personal life. The time that is consumed by a role (work) is not available for other roles [DER 08].

The concern today is that extreme time pressure reflects change through the temporal boundaries of life at work. The continuation of work in extreme time constraint requires the continuation of professional activities outside the schedules initially defined, which constitutes a risk to the physical and psychological health of individuals.

3.3.5.1. Difficulties with open spaces

The most appropriate workspaces depend on the stages of the creative process and culture of the organization. Thus, it is important to have spaces that encourage isolation in the first phases of idea generation: quiet work is essential for literature reviews, reading and testing. R&D professionals indicate how they prefer closed workspaces because it encourages concentration.

On the contrary, for idea sharing and evaluation phases, semi-open spaces and reception lounges seem to be important.

Other studies have also shown that open spaces lead to a decrease in communication compared to private offices [HAT 90] as well as a decrease in performance and motivation. Allen [ALL 77] pointed out how communication and innovation in R&D organizations could be enhanced by desk approaches that stimulate informal interaction. For example, partitioning between two workstations in an open space creates a remoteness related to the suppression of visual connection. He also discovered that the frequency of worker interactions in an R&D center decreased exponentially with the distance between their offices – an effect known as the “Allen Curve”. Paradoxically, being physically closer in an open space does not have a direct impact on the frequency of communication. Instead, individuals and teams may tend to talk less easily for fear of disturbing the others [BOB 14]. Even when they were in the same building, researchers from different floors almost never interacted informally. Thus, we observe that space may or may not encourage interaction, depending on how it balances the three dimensions: proximity, confidentiality and permission.

• – Proximity: people often assume that proximity is purely based on physical spatial factors: to what extent are employees close to one another in physical distance. Distance is important but it is not only the physical attributes of a space that influence informal interactions. “Proximity”, as we use it, depends on traffic models that are shaped just as much by social and psychological aspects. Allen [ALL 77] and Bobadilla [BOB 14] indicate that in order to improve the dissemination and sharing of ideas, it is important to create spaces with many shared resources (coffee space, relaxation break, shared printer spaces). The social geography of a space is a crucial element of its physical layout.
• – Confidentiality: physical privacy requirements are most obvious. People must at least have a space where they can interact without being heard. To ensure this confidentiality, spaces must be conceived taking into account visibility and acoustics; confidentiality is enhanced when others cannot see the person we are talking to and when we can see others approaching or within earshot. There is a subtle implication here: genuine privacy allows us to control othersʼ access to us so that we can choose whether to interact or not. Although this may seem counterintuitive, research shows that informal interactions will not fully develop if people cannot avoid interacting when they want.
• – Permission: the social dimension of permission is more obvious than the physical dimension, but both are critical. Culture and convention influence our vision of what constitutes an appropriate behavior in a particular environment. Sometimes, artifacts in a space strongly affect its social designation. For example, it is possible to introduce a recreational area within the workspace, but in order not to perceive this negatively, it is necessary that everyone adheres and that in the organizational culture, play during work be accepted and dealt with according to social conventions.

3.3.5.2. Perceptions of space as symbolic mirrors of the environment and culture

Workspaces and office layouts are just the facade of what spaces reflect: social interactions, organizational climate and culture. The idea is that the instrumental function seems to reflect more accurately an in-depth manifestation of culture and builds tangible evidence of the work climate and environment within an organization.

Thus, we observed that the descriptions of physical space made by individuals reflected the effects of slack reductions and the climate of the organization. For example, feelings of “partition”, “division between floors”, “distance between teams” and “spaces that do not promote interaction” are related to physical space, as well as reflecting the culture and climate of the organization (see box below). Thus, space is very important not only for creative work, but also for its symbolic function.

3.3.5.3. Importance of creating moments and sharing spaces

After human slack reductions, the creation of spaces and moments to address the process (the way events were experienced, different reactions), heal wounds and leave the past behind is important. Emotional and cognitive responses must be taken into account during these processes. To do this, issues such as mindset and mental stress must be addressed, and work that needs to be done by everyone in the organization in order to recover from the event as a group has to be taken into account as well. When changing the physical space, organizations need to consider the importance of spaces that stimulate informal interaction, as well as spaces dedicated to private and collective thinking. The teams themselves can recreate spaces for social activities (sports, festive events, conferences) that facilitate the teamʼs cohesiveness and focus of attention on other topics. Outdoor activities, outside the organization, seminars and brainstorming sessions are important, as is the separation between work and personal life.