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ABSTRACT
The relationship between loyalty to rules and the creativity that attempts
to improve those same rules was examined among Norwegian army officers
deployed in international operations. Today’s army officers are faced with rapidly
changing work conditions and unpredictable enemies, both of which challenge
and outdate rules and routines. They thus may experience that they are either
guided by too few or inadequate rules, or by many rules that need to be con-
stantly updated. Assuming that following rules is advantageous to officers, then,
contrary to classical theory, it was hypothesized that officers scoring both low
and high on loyalty to rules would score high on creativity. Hierarchical regres-
sion analyses revealed a significant U-shaped relationship between loyalty to rules
and creativity.
Key words: Creativity, loyalty, rules, curvilinearity, army
INTRODUCTION
This article discusses a sensitive if not controversial topic within disciplinary
organizations, namely the relationship between the organization’s demand for
loyalty to rules and the employees’ creativity in attempting to alter those same
rules. A disciplinary organization is one that emphasizes compliance and disci-
pline and puts a premium on organizational characteristics such as hierarchy,
rank, tight coupling, formalization and conformity (cf. Etzioni, 1975; Klaas, Gainey
& Dell’Omo, 1999; Taylor & Rosenbach, 1996; Weick, 1976). Military and police
organizations fall well within such a description, as do so-called high reliability
organizations, i.e. organizations where errors can lead to catastrophic results (cf.
Klein, Bigley & Roberts, 1995; Perrow, 1999; Reason, 2005; Weick, 1987; 1990;
Wildavsky, 1988). The present article reports the results of a case-study of one
particular type of such organizations: a military unit.
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Loyalty and Creativity in a Disciplinary Organization
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Journal of Creative Behavior
However, while officers may be encouraged to find and initiate local solutions
(cf. Potter, Rosenbach & Pittman, 1996), laws and handbooks reveal that they are
subjected to a significantly rigid form of evaluation and sanction regarding
their ability to follow rules and orders. Military academies around the world still
emphasize loyalty as one of the basic instincts that is to be developed among
officers (cf. Soeters & Recht, 1998). Officers showing low degrees of rule follow-
ing or direct their creativity towards change of rules and standard operational
procedures, therefore run the risk of being punished (cf. Dewett, 2006).
Normally the loyalty of employees is directed at various elements or groups
like formal rules, organizational goals and values, leaders, colleagues or clients
(cf. Adler & Adler, 1988; Chen, Tsui & Farh, 2002; Kolarska & Aldrich, 1980;
Rusbult, Farrel, Rogers & Mainous, 1988; Withey & Cooper, 1989). In this study I
focus on loyalty to rules and routines. Although loyalty to rules and routines is
expected to offer safety and efficiency (cf. Kern, 1997; Perrow, 1999; Reason,
2005), there are cases where the rules are not adequate to the task, and as such
employees may be exposed to danger by following them. Consequently, for the
purpose of this study I define loyalty as employees’ compliance with rules and
procedures resulting in advantages or disadvantages for the employees and
the organization. Following Amabile et al. (1996) and Zhou and George (2001),
I define creativity as the voicing — by employees — of new and original ideas
for improving administrative processes and procedures, contributing to the
organization’s renewal and survival as well as to improved working conditions
of employees. Hence, this definition of creativity does not include rule breaking
or the promotion of ideas aiming at a radical replacement of existing concepts
and technology.
In order to shed light on the assumed complicated relationship between
loyalty and creativity, I will first present some of the leading current assumptions
in the literature that favor negative and positive correlations, respectively. As a
consequence of my analysis of these arguments as a whole, I propose arguments
supportive of a curvilinear relationship.
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the rules is satisfactory and thus offers help and guidance, there will be little
motivation among the employees to engage in voicing ideas of improvement and
change. On the other hand, under low degrees of adherence to rules, caused
for instance by a conscious strategy on the part of the organization, it has been
argued that the employees have fewer restrictions on their thinking, allowing ex-
change of information and experimenting. However, a more precise explanation
can be offered, relevant to the problem under discussion in this study. Low de-
grees of rule adherence may be caused by the perception that the rules are weak
and outdated, due to, for instance, organizational changes or changes of external
working conditions. The employees may therefore wish to improve the rules or
even reintroduce discarded practices providing them with better assistance, and
something substantial to which they can direct their loyalty.
In contrast to traditional thinking on the issue, some researchers have
proposed that fewer rules to follow might result in less creativity, since such con-
ditions create chaos and stress, thereby forcing employees to focus on basic main-
tenance and damage control (e.g. Adler & Borys, 1996; Damanpour, 1991; Weick
& Westley, 1996). However, when order is improved through the establishment of
adequate rules and routines, employees are offered time and opportunity to con-
sider renewal and improvements. Although influential researchers have argued
that creativity will start to drop when rule adherence has reached a certain level
(e.g. Weick & Westley, 1996; Clegg & Hardy, 1996; Woodman et al., 1993), there
may be circumstances under which creativity will continue to increase under in-
creasing rule adherence. For instance, when rule adherence is regarded useful
for avoiding punishment, achieving remuneration or maintaining personal safety,
but when the rules are simultaneously identified for re-evaluation and re-formula-
tion, and the employees are both receptors of change impulses and well qualified
to suggest improvements, there may be concurrence between high score on rule
adherence and high score on creativity. The literature offers empirical examples
of concurrence between high score on rule following and creativity. Schulman
(1993) observed that a nuclear power plant regularly renewed rules and routines
on the basis of inputs coming from the employees’ experience of careful adher-
ence to the rules. Another example was offered by Ron, Lipshitz and Popper (2006).
They reported that systemic improvements of rules and doctrines in an Israeli
fighter aircraft squadron resulted from pilots’ suggestions during post flights re-
views regarding their attempts to meet the rules during combat and training sor-
ties. Earlier research has identified a positive and fruitful interaction between rules
and creativity in the sense that rules may allow for better coordination of ideas
originating at different levels and divisions of the organization — and also support
improvisation, which is an important element of creative processes (e.g. Adler,
Goldoftas & Levine, 1999; Barret, 1998; Weick, 1987; Weick & Roberts, 1993).
These observations and analyses give rise to a paradoxical proposal: The greater
the loyalty to rules, the greater is the eagerness amongst employees to propose
ideas to change and improve them.
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Instead of weighing in favor of one side or the other of the arguments referred
to above, I suggest reconciliation by arguing that they both may be right, and
that the relationship between loyalty and creativity may take a curvilinear form.
According to Cohen, Cohen, West & Aiken (2003) the diagnosing of complex
relationships should include curvilinear analyses. In particular, this form of analy-
sis is useful when empirical studies report insignificant correlations despite theo-
retical proposals arguing the opposite, or when practical observations contradict
theoretical proposals. The relationship between loyalty and creativity seem to
meet these criteria. In short, the sanction and remuneration system motivating
employees to follow the rules, the rapid change of environments outdating the
same rules, and the potential employees have to propose improvements through
field experiences, suggest that officers scoring both low and high on loyalty to
rules will score high on creativity, while officers scoring somewhere in the middle
of loyalty to rules will be least motivated to propose ideas of improvement. I there-
fore hypothesize:
H1. The relationship between loyalty to rules and individual creativity
aiming at changing the same rules can best be depicted as U-formed.
METHOD
SAMPLE
The data come from a 2002/2003 survey of an Army group in Norway. This
Army group radically changed its organization approximately one year prior to
this study by introducing a matrix structure. Specialists on finance, personnel
and logistics were centralized from each battalion to the general staff command.
However, during international operations, the units were regrouped into a more
classic form of military organization, such that each commander had all service
branches under his command.
To obtain permission to carry out the study as well as select respondents, a
one-on-one meeting was held with the General of the Army group, and thereafter
a meeting with the whole general staff command. The questionnaire was
pre-tested by three high ranking officers in the army group. The sample consists
of 71 military officers ranking from lieutenant-colonel to lieutenant which repre-
sents about 10 percent of the total amount of the officers within this group. The
response rate was 63 percent.
The mean age was 33.72 years (ranging from 22 to 58 years). The average
tenure in the organization was 5.22 years. Average tenure in present position was
1.49 years. 94.41 percent were men and 5.62 per cent women. Average academic
education exceeding professional training like War College was equal to 1.5 years.
After calculating the statistical data, several interviews were conducted with
officers belonging to this army group, in addition to data presentations to a larger
audience so as to obtain feedback from a broader sample of military officers and
their union officials, all for purposes of validation. Important interpretations of
the results were achieved.
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MEASURES
To obtain optimal validity for the variables subjected to testing I employed fac-
tor analysis together with principal component extraction rotated to a varimax
criterion. The Cronbach’s alpha coefficient (α) was used as a reliability test. Items
were ranged on Likert-scales from (1) at a very low degree or strongly disagree,
to (5) at a very high degree or strongly agree. To arrive at meaningful and inter-
pretable factor structures, I applied the following two criteria to screen items: First,
the item must have a minimum loading of .40 on a factor. Second, the item must
have low cross-loading on the other factor.
Creative behavior was assessed through five items adapted from Janssen,
Vries & Cozijnsen (1998) tapping the degree to which the respondents promoted
ideas of changing and improving working methods. Sample items are: “I suggest
improvements of working methods”, “I suggest stricter rule following than what
we practice today”, “I suggest improvements of those standard operations proce-
dures/routines we practice today”. The items loaded on one factor accounting for
56.88 percent of the variance. The inter-item reliability coefficient (α) was .80.
Loyalty was assessed through three statements developed for this study:
“I follow the rules and procedures of the organization despite their weaknesses”,
“I deviate from the rules and routines in cases where they are not up to standard”
(R), and “the rules and procedures of the organization guide my daily work”.
These variables loaded on one factor counting for 54.04 per cent of the variance
(α = .57).
As control variables I entered age, experience from present position, freedom
of action, affective commitment and the linear form of loyalty. Some studies have
shown that the older employees grow, the less interested they are in proposing
ideas of change (e.g. Sevastos, Smith & Cordery, 1992). On the other hand, gen-
eral experience from working life often increases domain-related knowledge, which,
according to Ford (1996), may equip the employees with insights which may
allow them more opportunities to evaluate new aspects of their own work. I mea-
sured age and experience from present position by asking the respondents to
state number of years. As referred to above, a substantial amount of literature has
argued that more freedom of action granted to employees allows for an increased
use of intuition and competence. Five items adapted from (Kirkhaug & Halvari,
1998) made up a factor counting for 55.62 per cent of the variance (α = .79).
Example items are “Are you allowed to use your creative abilities in this job?” and
“Are you delegated responsibility and authority within your field of responsibil-
ity?” Affective commitment, often recognized in this type of organization as
esprit de corps, is a basic instrument through which disciplinary organizations
try to foster autonomy, motivation and extra efforts among the employees with-
out the use of rules and force and simultaneously maintain control (cf. Dunivin,
1996; Mowday, Steers & Porter, 1979). Six items adapted from Allan and Meyer
(1990) made up the factor counting for 48.15 per cent of the variance (α = .75).
Example items are “I would like to spend the rest of my career with this organiza-
tion” and “I don’t feel like part of the family in this organization” (R).
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RESULTS
Table 1 reports the means, standard deviations and correlations among all
variables.
Measure M SD 1 2 3 4 5 6
1. Age 33.72 7.37 –
2. Experience present position 1.49 1.66 .95** –
3. Loyalty to rules 3.27 .61 –.16 –.17 –
4. Affective commitment 3.65 .76 .14 .18 –.12 –
5. Freedom of action 4.09 .68 –.18 –.20 –.22 .17 –
6. Creativity 3.28 .78 –.15 –.08 –.07 .21* .14 –
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Loyalty and Creativity in a Disciplinary Organization
In step one, I entered the control variables. However, they did not produce a
significant model, and only affective commitment was significant at the .10-level.
If linearity is the best representation of the loyalty-creativity relationship, then the
linear form of loyalty alone should explain a significant amount of the variance.
If, however, the inclusion of the quadratic term of loyalty explains a significant
amount of variance beyond that due to the linear term, then a curvilinear form
would better represent the relationship. Adding the linear form of loyalty in model
two did not increase the explained variance significantly. However, adding the
quadratic term of organizational loyalty in model three increased the explained
variance of creativity significantly. In order to test the form of the quadratic rela-
tionship closer I performed a quadratic regression analysis of creativity upon loy-
alty (see Figure 1).
5,00 Observed
—— Quadratic
4,00
Creativity
3,00
2,00
1,00
1,00 2,00 3,00 4,00 5,00
Loyalty
FIGURE 1. Curvilinear relationship between organizational loyalty and creativity.
Horizontal stippled line indicates mean value.
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character of the rules and their importance combined with the recognition that
the surroundings, the technology and the organization all have the potential of
surprises, support the validity of the relationship between creativity and loyalty.
Another possible explanation could be that in a disciplinary organization a
high score on loyalty is judged as a signal of trustworthiness among the employ-
ees rendering them goodwill in the eyes of the leadership, which again may prove
necessary since voicing ideas of change of rules might be perceived by the orga-
nization as a kind of rebellion or insubordination involving personal risk for the
employees (cf. Basadur, 1997). Furthermore, several researchers have maintained
that creativity depends on organizational environments and work structures char-
acterized by high levels of activity, frequent interaction, cooperative and interde-
pendent behavior and equality (cf. Tesluk, Farr & Klein, 1997). An important
condition for meeting such demands is that conflicts and stress are kept at a low
level, for which rules and routines have proved efficient.
However, since it can be difficult to demonstrate cause and effect in studies
based upon data gathered simultaneously, we cannot rule out that creativity is
the cause of loyalty. For instance, if employees are given the opportunity to pro-
pose ideas of improving or developing rules, they will also be loyal to them, since
they may regard them as their own.
The officers scoring neither low nor high on adherence to rules appear to be
only moderately enthusiastic as to voicing ideas of improvements. A reasonable
explanation could be that these officers believe the rules guiding their work are
good and appropriate, and that they consequently think suggestions for improve-
ments are a waste of time. In that respect we may have revealed what Weick and
Westley (1996) have characterized as an optimal or a balanced relationship be-
tween exploitation and exploration.
What theoretical and practical conclusions can be drawn on the basis of the
arguments, data and interpretations presented? First, considering rules as struc-
ture and the voicing of ideas as action, the arguments, data and interpretations
support the action-structure paradox as proposed by Van de Ven and Poole (1988):
action requires structure, yet structure only exists through action. Second, the U-
shaped relationship between loyalty and creativity reflects the dynamics and com-
plexity characterizing organizations exposed to demanding and ambiguous
environments. Third, given that organizations will be dependent on both loyalty
and creativity in the future, they might profit from dividing loyalty into two com-
ponents, one operational, meaning compliance with rules and routines, and one
intellectual, reflecting obligation to promote improvements based on experience
gathered through rule adherence. As such, organizations may need to revise both
their management ideas and remuneration and sanction system, since promot-
ing ideas of change to existing routines may be perceived by the leadership of a
conformist organization as a type of insubordination deserving punishment.
Our findings are primarily valid for the type of disciplinary organizations stud-
ied (military and perhaps police organizations), and should not be generalized
beyond these. However, the relationship between loyalty and creativity could be
perceived as universal, reflecting a basic conflict between stability and efficiency
on the one hand, and renewal and survival on the other (cf. Gouldner, 1959). As
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