Creativity in Purchasing:

Research Report | Feb 2014

A survey on team creativity among purchasing professionals

Do we walk the talk?

+

Nadine Kiratli

Frank Rozemeijer

Tim Hilken

Copyright © 2014 Maastricht University. All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in or introduced into a retrieval system or transmitted, in any form, or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, without the prior permission of the author. The information contained herein is subject to change without notice. www.maastrichtuniversity.nl

Table of Contents

0. Executive summary 4 1. Introduction 5 2. Sample & data collection 8 3. Meaning of creativity in purchasing 11 4. Importance of creativity in purchasing 12 5. Barriers to creativity in purchasing 14 6. Identifying team climate characteristics 16 that promote creativity 7. Do we walk the talk? 19 8. About the authors 21

+

+ 4

In order to investigate this question and provide guidance to purchasing professionals, we reached out to members of the Dutch Association of Purchasing Management (NEVI) and asked them about their personal views concerning the meaning and importance of creativity. We were further interested in practitioners’ perception and experience of the barriers to creativity in a purchasing context. Subsequently, we derived a set of key factors that contribute to a creative team climate and thus enable a team to develop novel and meaningful business solutions. !

Owing to the growingly strategic positioning of the procurement function in many firms, purchasing professionals are more and more asked by the business to come up with creative solutions for critical purchasing and supply chain challenges. Given the cross-functional nature of these problems, purchasing professionals are increasingly involved in working with and leading teams, both internal cross-functional teams (such as sourcing teams, component teams, or technology teams) as well as cross-organizational buyer-supplier teams. To a large extent, current talk in the purchasing community focuses on promoting creativity in these team settings. Therefore, the question arises how successful are purchasing professionals in driving creative solutions in these teams, or in other words: do they walk the talk?

Our key findings are categorized and discussed along the following four dimensions: 1. Importance of Creativity 2. Meaning of Creativity

3. Barriers to Creativity 4. Aspects for Creative Team Climates

The Research Method

This study is based on an online survey among 139 European purchasing professionals who are members of the Dutch Association of Purchasing Management (NEVI). The survey was distributed via the NEVI website, NEVI newsletter, and personal mailings, as well as various social media channels (i.e. Twitter and LinkedIn) throughout November and December in 2013. Almost half of these respondents (63) are senior managers or board members. They represent a wide variety of industries, including manufacturing (22), the public sector (17), food & beverages (13), financial services (10), construction (9), and health care (8). !

+

Executive Summary +

+ 5

Evidence from recent industry reports suggests that this may not be the case. Although a State of Flux report (2012) highlights that nearly 60% of firms recognize the importance of collaborating with suppliers to jointly deliver value that is beyond contractual obligations, fewer firms actually reap real benefits from supplier innovation input: 42% in 2011 compared to only 35% in 2012. In this context, 70% to 90% of firms achieved at most “moderate” progress in collaborating with suppliers for innovation.3 According to a global study by IBM (2010), fewer than half of participating executives believe that they are successfully handling creative processes, both within and beyond the organization.1 The CapGemini global innovation survey conducted in 2010 indicates that the purchasing function contributes only 1% to the total innovative output of the participating firms. Moreover, nearly a third of all surveyed firms rated the effectiveness of involving suppliers in the innovation process as “poor”.4!

In today’s business environment firms are facing mounting economic pressures caused by, amongst others, industry consolidation, resource scarcity, price competition and the need for adopting more sustainable solutions and business practices. The increased necessity for solutions and ideas brings creativity to the scene. While creativity was formerly not regarded a standard or serious competence in the business arena, in 2010 “creativity” was the factor most crucial for success found in an IBM survey of 1,500 chief executives in 33 industries.1 These days “creative” is the most used buzzword in LinkedIn profiles for two years running.2 Creativity emerges as a remedy to address the challenges provided by the ongoing growth and innovation race. As a consequence, a growing number of firms have begun to search for ways to access and leverage the creative potential residing both within and outside their organizational boundaries. Constituting the linking pin between the business and the supply base, the corporate spotlight has increasingly shifted towards purchasing departments for coming up with creative business solutions. Purchasing professionals possess a distinctive expertise in managing both cross-departmental and cross-organizational teams, and thus should be ideally equipped for the task at hand. Current talk in the purchasing community shows that the importance of fostering the creative potential of individuals and especially teams finds recognition as a means to drive innovation. However, the burning issue remains whether purchasing professionals practice what they preach and actually lead their teams in such a way that they deliver novel and meaningful business solutions to their firms. Therefore, the key question with regard to creativity in purchasing is: do we walk the talk?

1. Introduction

1: IBM (2010). IBM 2010 Global CEO Study: Creativity Selected as Most Crucial Factor for Future Success. 2: Lauren Mobertz, 2013, Responsible, Strategic, Creative: The Most Overused Buzzwords on LinkedIn in 2013, Dashburst.com, http://dashburst.com/overused-buzzwords-keywords-linkedin 3: State of Flux (2012). Supplier Relationship Management Research Report 2012 Voice of the Supplier. A Step Closer to Mutual Benefit 4: Capgemini (2010), Collaborating for Innovation Capgemini’s 2010 Global Survey.

+ 6

In light of the growing strategic importance of the purchasing function, we see these warning signs as a chance for purchasing professionals to reexamine their approach to creative teamwork. We therefore initiated this research project and set out to investigate the talk about c rea t i v i ty i n pu rchas ing and subsequently to help practitioners finally walk. The ultimate goal was to identify the driving factors that would build and shape a team climate that supports and stimulates collective and collaborative creativity. With the help of the Dutch Associat ion of Purchasing Management (NEVI) we surveyed a total of 139 purchasing professionals in an attempt to answer the following four research questions:!

What is the meaning of creativity in a Purchasing context?

What is the importance of creativity in a Purchasing context?

What are currently the biggest barriers for purchasing professionals to leverage

their full creativity potential?

1.

2.

3.

Study Objectives

The following report summarizes our findings and provides valuable insights on how Purchasing professionals can promote a creative climate in their teams, in order to achieve innovation and enhance purchasing performance.

+

Which team climate characteristics can be identified as

promoters for the development of creative (i.e. novel and meaningful)

business solutions?

4.

+ 7

Our Thanks to the Industry We thank all our respondents for taking the time and effort to participate in this study. The many emails we received from you with additional information and curiosity about the results are evidence for the enthusiasm and interest residing in the practitioner field with respect to Creativity in Purchasing. Special thanks goes to Richard Holman (NEVI CPD), Elske Kleijn and Paul Allin (NEVI YPP) and Erik van Assen (NEVI) for distributing and promoting our survey amongst NEVI members.! !

+ In addition, we thank NEVI Research Stichting (NRS) for recognizing the need to do research in this important area. We thank NRS for sponsoring PhD research at Maastricht University of which this study is part of.

2. Sample & Data Collection

+ 8

The average age of the respondents was 44.95 years (SD=9.11) and the majority of respondents were men (80% male and 20% female). The respondents’ average work exper ience amounts to 21.43 years (SD=8.74), with an average work experience in purchasing of 13.03 years (SD=7.93). Moreover, on average respondents had been working for their current employer for 9.18 years (SD=8.16). The word cloud below (Figure 1) is a graphical representation of the respondents’ current job positions, where the size of the words is determined by the frequency with which they were mentioned in the survey. The distribution of job positions is to a certain extent skewed towards higher management positions, as indicated by the relatively high frequency of terms such as senior, head, director, strategic, and CPO. Moreover, a large proportion of the respondents appear to work internationally, as indicated by the prefix global. Our sample, however, also includes front-line buyers and purchasers, as well as consultants.

T he onl ine quest ionnaire that we developed specifically for this study was designed around the four main research questions mentioned above. Our main target group consisted of members of the Dutch Association of Purchasing Management (NEVI) including several sub-communities such as the NEVI-3 alumni network, the Young Purchasing Professionals (YPP) network and the NEVI CPD network. We reached out to the different NEVI communities through several channels, including the NEVI member newsletters and website. Moreover, we invited personal contacts and affiliates to participate in our study via personal email invitations and through Twitter and LinkedIn. The survey responses were collected over a period of four weeks throughout November and December in 2013. Overall more than three quarters of the respondents are members of the Dutch NEVI community (77%). Approximately 23% and 19% of the respondents are from the NEVI-3/PLP and NEVI CPD networks. Furthermore, 11% of respondents indicated to be members of the NEVI Kring Zuid network, while 5% of respondents are part of the Young Purchasing Professionals (YPP) network. In total we received 139 complete and useable responses. !

Figure 1: Word Cloud of respondents‘ job descriptions

0" 5" 10" 15" 20" 25"

Agriculture"Avia1on"

Research"&"Publishing"Trading"

Telecommunica1on"Chemicals"Services"

Informa1on"Technology"Consumer"Goods"&"Retail"

Transport"Health"Care"&"Pharmaceu1cals"

Energy,"Oil"&"Natural"Gas"Construc1on"

Financial"Services"Food"&"Beverages"

Public"Sector"Manufacturing"

Industry)

Number"of"Respondents"

+ 9

Our previous extrapolations from the respondents’ job positions are confirmed by our findings with regard to the respondents’ self-reported management level (Figure 2). Nearly half of the respondents indicated to be currently working on a senior management level (41%) or even higher up the organizational hierarchy at the board level (4%). In contrast, 28% and 11% of the respondents reported to be working on the middle and l ine management levels, respectively. A total of 13% of the respondents indicated to work outside of c lassic management structures, namely either in project management, academic, or non-management positions. Our sample includes respondents from a large variety of industries (Figure 3), where the top three mentioned industries are manufacturing (22 respondents), the public sector (17) and food & beverages (13).

+

Figure 2: Division of respondents‘ management level

Figure 3: Overview of included industries

75%$

25%$

Porpor%on'of'Respondents'Leading'a'Team'

53%$

47%$

Propor%on'of'Work'Time'spent'in'Teams'

+ 10

When asked about the proportion of work time spent in teams, the respondents indicated that t hey spend more t han ha l f ( 53%, SD=27.25%) of their time working in teams. Furthermore, a large majority (75%) of the respondents were currently leading a team. From this we assumed that respondents had enough team experience and thus would be able to give an adequate and qualified account of the subject we were interested in.

+

Proportion of work time spent in teams:

Proportion of respondents leading a team:

Figure 4: Proportion of work time spent in teams

Figure 5: Proportion of respondents leading a team

+ 11

In order to explore our first research question we asked our respondents to provide us with a description of what creativity means to them personally in their current job. The respondents’ responses are graphically illustrated in figure 6 below. Two distinct characteristics of creativity emerged from this question. On the one hand, respondents indicated that for them creativity requires novelty, with regard to the business solution. Most frequently used key words circled around “new”, “alternative”, “non-standard”, “not-status-quo” and “different”. On the other hand, respondents highlighted the importance of creativity to be solution-driven: respondents reques ted c rea t i ve so lu t i ons to be “meaningful”, “efficient”, “business-oriented”, “customer-oriented”, and “result-driven”.

Moreover, the respondents assigned equal importance to achieving (i) creativity for and with suppliers, and (ii) for and with internal customers. Overall, these results suggest a strong definitional consistency that creativity in purchasing refers to the development of novel and meaningful business solutions. Since this follows the common definitions s t ipu la ted by we l l - known c rea t i v i ty researchers (e.g. Amabile, 1983)5, it appears that there is a consensus amongst academics and practitioners about the meaning and definition of creativity in a business-context.

3. Meaning of Creativity in Purchasing

Figure 6: Word Cloud of respondents‘ descriptions concerning the meaning of creativity

5: Amabile (1983). "The Social Psychology of Creativity: A Componential Conceptualization." Journal of Personality and Social Psychology 45(2): 357-376.

+ 12

Subsequently, in order to assess the second research question pertaining to the overall importance of creativity, we asked our respondents to answer a number of closed question on a scale ranging from 1 (“not at all”) to 5 (“to a great extent”) (see table 1). A total of 124 (95%) of the surveyed purchasing professionals considered creativity to be “somewhat“ (score 4) or even “to a great extent“ (score 5) important in the purchasing and supply management context. The respondents also indicated that their current job requirements are strongly geared towards creativity (average score: 4.22) which is in line with the generally observed developments and increasing demands with respect to creative efforts. Moreover, our respondents regard themselves as creative persons that are fit to meet these requirements (average score: 4.23).

Importance of Creativity (n=139) Average SD

In general, how important do you

consider creativity to be in the Procurement and

Supply management context?

4.61 0.67

To what extent does your current job require

you to be creative? 4.22 0.81

To what extent do you regard yourself as a

creative person? 4.23 0.77

As purchasing professionals are frequently faced with creativity challenges both within and across their organizational boundaries, we asked the respondents to indicate in which specific area their creativity is needed most. The results are relatively balanced, with a slight majority of the respondents considering creativity as an issue that is more pertinent to cross-functional sourcing teams (43%) rather than to external collaboration with suppliers (35%). It is also worth mentioning that 10% of respondents expressed that creativity is equally important in both areas. We therefore conclude that creativity is a crucial element in purchasing professionals’ daily intra- and inter-organizational activities and should thus deserve more attention and investigation from both practitioners and academics.!

Cross%Func*onal-Sourcing-Teams-

43%-

External-Collabora*on-with-

Suppliers-35%-

Both-10%-

Other-12%-

In#what#specific#area#is#your#crea2vity#most#needed?#

4. Importance of Creativity in Purchasing

Table 1: Results of closed questions on importance of creativity Figure 8: Overview of areas in which creativity is needed

+ 13

After having found widespread support for the importance of creativity in purchasing and supply management, we were interested in finding out to what extent purchasing professionals are actually able to foster creativity when working in teams. We therefore asked the respondents to rate the following statements related to the ability of purchasing professionals to take the lead in setting a creative climate in their teams. In contrast to the overall importance of creativity, the respondents’ rating of their ability to set a creative climate (average score: 3.99) and to lead a creative team (average score: 3.49) yields significantly lower scores. More specifically, only 71 (54%) respondents believe that purchasing professionals in general are able to lead creative teams.

+ Purchasing

Professionals' Creative Abilities (n=139) Average SD

To what extent are you able to set a climate for creativity in the teams

that you lead or that you participate in?

3.99 0.76

To what extent do you believe that purchasing professionals in general are able to lead creative

teams?

3.49 0.96

The detailed analysis and comparison of our results lead us to the following two essential conclusions: •  First, these results reveal an implementation gap between practitioners’ general recognition of

how important creativity is for their profession, on the one hand, and actually acting upon the necessity for more creativity, on the other.

•  Second, our results are indicative for a perceptional gap that exists between the self and the others: while respondents regard themselves as creatively able and fit to lead creative teams, they perceive others as less capable and able to do so.

These apparent gaps – in implementation and perception – may be caused by several barriers that impede purchasing professionals from fully exploiting their creative team potential. !

Summary of Findings

Table 2: Results of closed questions on Purchasing professionals creative abilities

+ 14

In order to shed light upon these impediments to creativity in purchasing and supply management, we asked our respondents to describe the biggest barriers for them and their colleagues to leverage their full creativity potential. Concerning creativity in general, the by far most frequently mentioned barriers were related to Task Demands (mentioned 39 times). Here, respondents mainly referred to time and cost pressures and complained about too narrow technical specifications as well as bureaucratic procedures that hindered or completely block creative efforts. Furthermore, the respondents emphasized problems relating to personal or team Skills (18). Specifically, the lack of creative skills, sufficient task experience and intrinsic motivation are the main causes for this creativity barrier. In a similar vein, the respondents indicated that a restrictive Mindset and Team Atmosphere (18) can be a creativity blocker. According to our respondents team climates and dynamics that are characterized by conservatism, resistance to change and a strong manifestation of the not-invented-here syndrome represent a significant hurdle towards more creativity in Purchasing. Finally, Internal Integration (12) emerged as yet another barrier that manifests itself in slow decision-making speed, conflicting interests between departments and/or business units, dispute about reach and allocation of responsibilities as well as a lacking common strategy and vision.

General Barriers 1. Task Demands  2. Skills  3. Mindset & Team Atmosphere  4. Internal Integration

5. Barriers to Creativity in Purchasing

With regard to the internal creativity barriers, respondents reinforced the relevance of Internal Integration (40). More specifically, the respondents bemoan the difficulty of achieving cross-functional integration due to the presence of silo-mentalities, closed mindedness, and lack of compromise. Moreover, purchasing professionals appear to especially experience difficulties to engage in c r ea t i ve behav i o r t hemse l ve s . The respondents ascribe these difficulties to a traditional view of the procurement function, colleagues’ general reluctance or hesitance towards purchasing’s input, and the late involvement of purchasers in the purchasing process. Furthermore, both Task Demands (20) and Skills (14) also appear to constitute significant obstacles in internal collaboration. Finally, respondents mentioned barriers related to the Team Dynamics (13), or rather the lack thereof. According to the respondents, teams frequently lack a common culture and collaboration skills, or team members are afraid to leave a bad impression.

Internal Barriers

1. Internal Integration 2. Task Demands 3. Skills  4. Team Dynamics

Concerning the external creativity barriers, the most pressing issue appears to be Partner Alignment (31). Specifically, the respondents highlight that relational aspects, such as a balance of power and a win-win atmosphere, are not managed in an adequate manner. Moreover, contractual aspects such as intellectual property (IP) agreements remain a controversial issue that impedes creative cross-organizational efforts. Related to these partner alignment aspects, our respondents also emphasized the detrimental effect that a lack of Trust (22) between buyers and suppliers has on creativity. Next, our respondents considered the Internal Purchasing Maturity (29) as an almost equally important creativity barrier. In this context, troubles may arise if the purchasing function itself has not developed sufficient maturity, in terms of for example top management support and decision-making speed. This in turn hinders the buying firm to position itself as a customer of choice towards suppliers and leverage their creativity.

1. Trust 2. Internal Maturity 3. Supplier Maturity

+ 15

+ External Barriers

In order to arrive at a more fine-grained analysis, we also asked our respondents to also mention creativity barriers that are especially pertinent to internal and external collaboration respectively.

This last finding is particularly interesting, as only a relatively small amount of respondents considered Supplier Maturity (7) as a significant impediment to creativity. These findings indicate that purchasing professionals have evolved from only blaming suppliers for wrong-goings to also critically scrutinizing own behavior and internal structures. They have begun to view creativity and innovation management from a dyadic perspective, i.e. they recognize both, buyers and suppliers, as equally contributing and responsible partners. Thus, besides considering supplier management as a main priority, the positioning of the own organization as an attractive customer assumes a growingly important role.

6. Identifying Team Climate Characteristics that Promote Creativity

+ 16

On the basis of a systematic review of B2B creativity literature and a number of in-depth interviews with senior purchasing managers, we derived a total of 36 aspects that have been identified as promoters for team creativity climates. In order to filter out and validate the most important promoters, we asked respondents to rate the relevance of each aspect for developing creative, i.e. novel and meaningful business solutions on a 1 (“strongly disagree”) to 5 (“strongly agree) scale. Table 3 below summarizes our results.

Table 3: Respondents‘ rating of aspects that promote creativity in teams

I believe that a team is effective in coming up with creative, novel and meaningful solutions if… Average SD …team members are open to each other’s views and ideas. 4.53 0.79 …team members strive to think across departmental boundaries. 4.50 0.83 …team members support each other in thinking and working creatively. 4.38 0.88 …building on each other’s ideas is an integral part of how team members work as a team. 4.35 0.80 …team members actively seek out each other for constructive discussions. 4.27 0.85 …team members are encouraged to try new ways of doing things. 4.47 0.73 …team members constantly strive to consider issues from all possible angles. 4.14 0.94 …there is no room for “I know it all” experts who cannot think across boundaries. 4.14 1.07 …every team member’s voice has the same weight. 3.47 1.21 …every team member’s contribution is taken seriously. 4.50 0.79 …team members are comfortable with exploring unfamiliar or unknown ideas and perspectives. 4.26 0.93 …team members allow each other to depart from routine work processes and practices. 4.07 0.95 …team members welcome radical change. 3.62 1.17 …team members openly share their thoughts without fear of rejection. 4.45 0.94 …respecting each other’s contributions is a cornerstone of teamwork. 4.55 0.75 …it is okay for team members to disagree with each other. 4.54 0.70 …team members have fun while working together. 4.32 0.83 …team members have a shared vision and beliefs guiding their work. 3.63 1.16 …team members promote behaviors that are conducive towards a trustful environment. 4.24 0.87 …team members always try to put themselves in the position of fellow team members. 3.44 1.14 …team members are able to deal with unanticipated events on the spot. 3.85 0.99 …team members think on their feet. 3.37 0.99 …team members are capable of identifying opportunities for new work processes. 4.25 0.73 …team members consider short-term errors and failures a source of learning. 4.21 0.93 …team members express their own views directly to each other. 3.98 1.00 …team members listen carefully to each other’s opinion. 4.47 0.69 …team members try to understand each other’s concern. 4.24 0.90 …team members try to use each other’s ideas. 4.22 0.88 …team members communicate respect for each other, even when they disagree. 4.56 0.77 …team members work for decisions they all accept. 3.28 1.09 …team members listen to all views, even if they are in the minority. 4.36 0.81 …team members use their opposing views to understand the problem. 4.22 0.88 …team members are in agreement with the objectives. 4.16 0.90 …team members clearly understand the team's objectives. 4.52 0.72 …team members think the team's objectives can actually be achieved. 4.08 0.91 …team members think that the objectives are worthwhile to the organization. 4.33 0.83 …team members have a "we are in it together" attitude. 4.27 0.92 …team members keep each other informed about work-related issues. 3.92 1.05 …team members feel understood and accepted by each other. 4.32 0.77 …team members genuinely attempt to share information throughout the team. 4.43 0.79 …team members are prepared to question the basis of what the team is doing. 4.19 0.85 …team members critically appraise potential weaknesses in what they are doing in order to achieve best possible outcomes. 4.09 0.95 …team members build on each other's ideas in order to achieve best possible outcomes. 4.32 0.80 …team members are always searching for fresh, new ways of looking at problems. 4.22 0.95 …team members take the time needed to develop new ideas. 4.12 1.00 …team members cooperate in order to help develop and apply new ideas. 4.40 0.76

Creativity is inherently linked to a free exchange of thoughts and ideas. In a creative team climate team members should thus be empowered to openly speak their mind, without fear of rejection by their peers. The basis for this kind of exchange is mutual respect for each other ’s v iews and contributions as well as a constructive manner of communicating. There should be no room for rudeness and ranting about other people’s ideas. Likewise, overly confrontational, as opposed to constructively direct, behavior should be discouraged from the outset. Moreover, team members need to be able to reach an agreement to disagree, in order to keep moving forward as a team. Illustrating Statement: Team members openly share their thoughts without fear of rejection. !

2. Team Conduct

+ 17

Creative teams require a supportive team atmosphere that is characterized by high levels of trust amongst the team members. Teams should therefore promote behaviors that are conducive towards a trustful environment, whilst proactively addressing detrimental behaviors, such as hoarding of information or shirking. The goal should be to create an environment in which team members are able to rely on each other, and see each other as a whole person, not just as a job position. A positive team atmosphere provides team members with emotional safety that enables a freethinking environment without boundaries. In this context, trust should also be seen as a basis for humor and having fun while working, which in turn are associated with higher levels of creativity. Illustrating Statement: Team members promote behaviors that are conducive towards a trustful environment. !

1. Team Atmosphere

+ Key Dimensions

Our analysis reveals that respondents regard only a smaller subset of these aspects as valuable and relevant for the generation of novel and meaningful business solutions in teams. As the goal was to identify the driving factors that build and shape team climates that support and stimulate collective, we identified general patterns emerging from the responses.

This allowed to subsequently group the most important aspects into the following 6 overarching key success factors for creative team climates. On the next two pages we describe these factors individually and provide a representative statement from our questionnaire for illustrative purposes.

An essential prerequisite for team creativity is to abandon the silo-mentality that oneself or one’s respective business function is the only source of novel and meaningful ideas. In this context, the idea generation in teams frequently suffers from a “not-invented-here” bias and reluctance to accept ideas from other departments. Therefore, in order to spark creativity, team members need to remain open for other views and truly embrace the collaborative nature of creative work.! Illustrating Statement: Team members are open to each other’s views and ideas.!

4. Openness Towards Others

+ 18

In order to progress onwards from the idea generation phase of creative work, a key success factor is that team members build on each other’s ideas and actively test and discuss their proposed solutions. This requires supporting and constructively criticizing ideas and viewpoints, as well as remaining flexible and trying to see what the people need to be functioning creatively. In this context, team members may need to assume different roles, such as the champion or the devil’s advocate in order to challenge each other in the right way.! Illustrating Statement: Building on each other’s ideas is an integral part of how team members work. !

3. Team Creative Activities

+

Finally, creative teams need to be challenged. Old patterns, frameworks and behavior need to be left behind in favor of a common will to try out new ways of doing things. Team members should force each other to become uncomfortable and challenge the status quo. They should accept that constant change is a quintessential part of moving forward and achieving innovation. A creative team thus constantly strives to get out of its comfort zone and becomes familiar with ‘doing things scared’. Here, first anecdotal evidence as well as academic research suggests that team leaders assume a critical role since it is them making the difference in challenging team members. Illustrating Statement: Team members are comfortable with exploring unfamiliar ideas and unknown perspectives.

6. Challenge In addition to a general openness towards different ideas, team members should be encouraged to expand their horizons and to develop the ability to see new possibilities. Before discarding or advancing with an idea the team as a whole should be certain that it has looked at the idea from all possible angles. This calls for a cross-functional perspective that allows team members to look beyond their borders for creative input. When setting up a team, leaders should thus be careful not to step into the coryphaeus trap, by exclusively selecting experts with a high depth of knowledge in a single field. Instead, team member selection should be based on individuals’ depth and width of knowledge, thus emphasizing the need for “T-shaped” experts. ! Illustrating Statement: Team members constantly strive to consider issues from all possible angles. !

5. Perspective Taking

+ 19

7. Do we walk the talk? In sum, our findings allow us to draw a preliminary conclusion with respect to creativity in purchasing: the glass is half-full. First, we can safely assume that creativity is on the radar of purchasing professionals. There is awareness for what creativity actually means in a purchasing context, namely the development of novel and meaningful solutions together with purchasing colleagues and internal stakeholders as well as with employees from the suppliers. Second, the profession real izes the importance that creativity assumes in today’s vo la t i l e and fas t-chang ing bus iness environment. The demand for creatively capable personnel and their ability to lead creative teams has extended from the traditionally creativity-prone functions such as marketing and R&D to purchasing. However, there are apparent shortcomings in implementation and perception that remain to be eliminated. Third, for this to happen, a number of barriers to creativity need to be tackled and addressed. Besides the more general barriers that are currently hindering purchasing professionals to unfold their creativity, particular attention must be devoted to the special circumstances of creativity in cross-functional as well as cross-organizational teams. Purchasing professionals should first realize and then communicate to their internal and external stakeholders that each team demands a slightly different approach entailing subsequently different leader interventions and actions. !

Las t but not leas t, pu rchas ing professionals should be aware of how important it is to build and shape team climates that facilitate collaborative and collective creativity. For this they should strive for a team atmosphere and team conduct that stimulates team creative activities, promotes openness towards others, encourages perspec t i ve - tak ing and we lcomes a challenging attitude.!! Returning to our metaphor of walking the talk, we can conclude that the purchasing profession is far from marching on with clear directions and a well-trained condition. However, our study indicates that awareness among purchasing professionals is growing and that they are making first serious attempts to establish creativity as a profess iona l competence wi th in the purchasing and supply chain management field. The future development of Creativity in Purchasing should be observed attentively as it promises to be an exciting and game-changing one for those that understand and embrace it.

20

Within the NEVI Chair of Purchasing and Supply Chain Management at Maastricht University we are determined to further explore Creativity in Purchasing. The ultimate goal is to identify the different ways in which purchasing professionals can contribute to the development of creative advantage for the companies they work for. At this moment we are in the preparation stages for follow-up research by means of a large-scale empirical data collection involving companies from diverse industries. By collecting and analyzing data from real teams we are exploring and testing how team creativity climates are built and what impact they have for the business with respect to performance. In case you have further interest in the topic, stay tuned...

Future Research

+

Nadine Kiratli – PhD Candidate of Purchasing and Supply Chain Management at School of Business and Economics at Maastricht University; P.O. Box 616, 6200MD Maastricht, The Netherlands Tel: +31 43 38 84945, Fax: +31 43 38 84918, E-mail: n.kiratli@maastrichtuniversity.nl (corresponding author)

Frank Rozemeijer – Professor of Purchasing and Supply Chain Management at School of Business and Economics at Maastricht University, The Netherlands E-mail: f.rozemeijer@maastrichtuniversity.nl

Tim Hilken – Master Student in Business Research and Research Assistant at School of Business and Economics at Maastricht University, The Netherlands E-mail: t.hilken@maastrichtuniversity.nl

8. About The Authors

21