Interaction flow episodes during project group meetings: Zooming in on the micro processes of collective creativity

In organizations, there is a growing need for collective creativity in dealing with complex problem solving challenges. However, collective creative success is hard to achieve and collective creative processes are still poorly understood. In this paper, collective creative processes are viewed as complex, emergent processes. The concept of interaction flow allows investigating collective creative processes emerging during organizational meetings. In this paper, interaction flow dynamics are studied in three project group cases, covering ten meetings in total. Results of the analysis show that in only one of the three project groups, interaction flow emerged. Interaction flow episodes were found during two of the three studied meetings of this group. Patterns found during the interaction flow episodes are described. In addition, presumable collective creativity-enabling and -disabling mechanisms are discussed. By providing insights based on real-life organizational meetings, this study extends the research on collective creative processes and interaction flow.