The Network Structure of Cultural Elements and Organizational Creativity Evaluations

Producers in the creative industries thrive on the generation of novel and useful products, and as such they are constantly searching for ways to boost their ability to do so. We suggest that the conventional network approach to creativity that focuses on how producers are positioned amongst other producers can be advanced by examining how the cultural elements with which they work (i.e., the underlying ideas with which they create) relate to and are positioned amongst each other. The network structure of elements may contain some which are particularly effective in recombining with many other elements, providing an alternative mechanism for explaining high creativity. We show that robust cultural elements—i.e., that are connected with many other elements—increase producers’ creativity. They also mitigate the possible disruption and creative discount associated with the hiring of a new key employee, in fact boosting rather than diminishing creative performance. We test our hypotheses using a recent dataset of high-fashion stylistic elements.