Creativity at the margins: Exploring social and technical marginality in novel idea generation

Abstract

If an individual on the edge of a problem's context can generate creative solutions to that problem, does this capacity emerge in spite of their marginality⋯or because of it? How can this marginality be leveraged in a collaborative context? The purpose of this paper is to explore the link between marginality and creativity through untangling of technical and social marginality. We advance the sociocognitive processes that lead marginal individuals, more so than those who are more embedded, to positively impact individual and group-level creative performance. We derive implications for a collaborative context. © 2014 IEEE.