Post-communist Burden Influence on the Perception of Crea-tive Identities: Consequences for Managers and Leaders

Abstract

Purpose: Communism, being one of the most repressive systems, influences the whole spectrum of behaviors of individuals, groups, and society. Countries that changed their political system start a journey of external (economic, social) and internal (personal, interpersonal, group) changes. The post-communist burden determines human behavior, and managers and leaders should pay attention to these consequences. The research deals with the perception of creative identities (a creator, artist, manager, entrepreneur, and leader) by the society of postcommunist countries compared to countries without communist history. Design/methodology/approach: Quantitive research (n = 160) among people from a dozen nations; chi-square test of independence used; qualitative analysis of feature differences. Findings: There are no statistical differences in the perception of the creative identities of a creator, artist, manager, entrepreneur, and leader between citizens of post-communist and non-communist countries. Practical implications:The study in perception of the particular creative identities might have practical implications for managers and leaders of groups, and business organizations dominated or not by creative individuals. These differences are shown in detail, and links between this research results and the literature are built. Originality value: The originality of the research lies in the conclusion that societies that finished their intercourse with communism more than one generation ago (ca. 30 years) should be perceived similarly to non-communist societies. Perception of the creative individuals' social capital by these societies does not show essential discrepancies.

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“…Being a framework for cross-cultural communication, Hofstede's cultural dimensions theory indicates the impact of a society's culture on its members' values and how these values relate to members' behaviour (Hofstede, 2011). Following this theory, communist and post-communist societies equipped with different values structures should assess participation in arts differently compared to societies without communist history; this statement is based on the research about cultural differences in perception of creative identities like artists, creators, managers, leaders and entrepreneurs (Szostak, 2021b(Szostak, , 2021c. We cannot forget that the communism burden had (or still has) been having diverse shapes and powers; also, the length of the influence plays a vital role: the Chinese society will be differently influenced by its version of communism compared to Polish or Czech ones after 30+ years of freedom (Bartlová, 2019;Kozieł, 2019;Tan, 2012).…”

Perception of Creative Identities by Leaders and Non-leaders: Consequences for Theory and Practice of Manage-ment

“…However, developed statistics were not performed due to the relatively small sample size (n = 160). Therefore, this article displays only a fragment of the results from the research (Szostak, 2020b;2021b;2021d;2021c;2021a;Szostak and Sułkowski, 2021a).…”

“…In the same context, an artist's ability to connect contradictions is perceived by leaders (3,44) and non-leaders (3.65) as rather important (a difference of 4.03%). Artist's identity appears in many areas of human activity: among school teachers and university lecturers (Bremmer et al, 2020;Dahlsen, 2015) or managers (Szostak and Sułkowski, 2020a;2021c;2021d).…”

“…Perception of the creative identities by society is not evident, especially that these identities occur mostly merged in twosomes, like artist-entrepreneur (Bass, 2017;Szostak and Sułkowski, 2021b), artist-leader, artist-manager, manager-entrepreneur (Szostak and Sułkowski, 2020a;2021d), or threesomes, like creator-artist-manager or artist-manager-entrepreneur (Szostak and Sułkowski, 2021b). Individuals with complex identities feel dilemmas, internal difficulties, and identity tensions (Hay, 2014;Mochalova, 2020).…”

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“…The second answer may be Hofstede's cultural dimensions theory indicating the impact of a society's culture on its members' values and behaviours (Hofstede, 2011). Following this theory, communist and post-communist societies equipped with diverse values structures evaluate participation in arts inversely compared to societies without communist background (Szostak, 2022a); this record is confirmed by the research about cultural differences of perception of creative identities of artists, managers, leaders and entrepreneurs (Szostak, 2021b(Szostak, , 2021d(Szostak, , 2022dSzostak & Sułkowski, 2021c, 2021a. It cannot be forgotten that the communism burden had (or still has) been having diverse forms and influences: the Chinese society is differently influenced by its form of communism contrasted to Polish or Czech ones after dozens of years of freedom (Bartlová, 2019;Kozieł, 2019;Pavlica & Thorpe, 1998;Szostak, 2021d;Tan, 2012).…”