No abstract

Creativity is a topic of interest across numerous disciplines and areas of study. Creativity constitutes a challenging aspect of engineering design, and scholars in the field of management claim that the increase in virtual teamwork calls for research as to how virtual configurations alter some of the management practices based on the collocated workplace. By reviewing the different literatures, we posit a knowledge gap regarding creativity in the virtual design context, where varying degrees of virtuality are likely to exert an influence on creativity. In our quest to start bridging this gap, we pursued an exploratory case study with a student-based virtual design team project, known as the European Global Product Realization (EGPR). Thirty-nine interview extracts, covering most participants, along with non-participant observation and document review, gave us insights into the nature of the project, the participants' perceptions of creativity, and their experience of designing in virtual teams. In all, our study unearths and discusses a number of factors -and the extent to which -they are found to influence creativity in virtual design teams. The study has cross-domain relevance from those interested in the management of virtual teams through to those looking at creativity and design.

This paper applies paradox as a meta-theoretical framework for a reflexive analysis of roles within a participatory video study. This analysis moves us beyond simply describing roles as paradoxical, and thus problematic, to offer insights into the dynamics of the interrelationship between participant, researcher and video technology. Drawing on the concept of 'working the hyphens ' (Fine, 1994), our analysis specifically focuses on the complex enactment of seemingly paradoxical Participation-Observation and Intimacy-Distance 'hyphen spaces'. We explore how video technology mediates the relationship between participant and researcher within these spaces, providing opportunities for participant empowerment but simultaneously introducing aspects of surveillance and detachment. Our account reveals how video study participants manage these tensions to achieve participation in the project and the roles for the researched, the technology and the researchers that are an outcome of this process. Our analysis provides methodological advance in both bringing together paradox theory with reflexive work on research relationships to demonstrate how we can more adequately explore tensions in research practice, and in detailing the role of technology in the construction and management of these tensions.

Motivated by an acknowledged need to study creativity in the context of virtual project teams (VPTs), in this article, we contribute to theory by analysing the role that leadership plays for creativity in the different phases of the creative process in VPTs. We draw on a qualitative case study with 49 members who worked in six VPTs as part of an Industry‐Academia collaboration. Using the longitudinal approach, we study each phase of the virtual product design process using interviews, observations and other materials (e.g. project documentation). We find that, in the virtual design context, creativity is best understood as a process and comes in different shapes as this process evolves. We also pinpoint that different, though complementary, leadership skills are necessary in order for VPTs’ creative potential to be unleashed. These findings highlight the heterogeneous character of leadership at the different phases of the creative process in VPTs.

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