Creativity Under Fire: The Effects of Competition on Creative Production

dc.contributor.author

Gross, Daniel P

dc.date.accessioned

2020-08-06T16:31:50Z

dc.date.available

2020-08-06T16:31:50Z

dc.date.issued

2020-06

dc.date.updated

2020-08-06T16:31:48Z

dc.description.abstract

<jats:p> Though fundamental to innovation and essential to many industries and occupations, individual creativity has received limited attention as an economic behavior and has historically proven difficult to study. This paper studies the incentive effects of competition on individuals' creative production. Using a sample of commercial logo design competitions and a novel, content-based measure of originality, I find that intensifying competition induces agents to produce original, untested ideas over tweaking their earlier work, but heavy competition drives them to stop investing altogether. The results yield lessons for the management of creative workers and the implementation of competitive procurement mechanisms for innovation. </jats:p>

dc.identifier.issn

0034-6535

dc.identifier.issn

1530-9142

dc.identifier.uri

https://hdl.handle.net/10161/21286

dc.language

en

dc.publisher

MIT Press - Journals

dc.relation.ispartof

The Review of Economics and Statistics

dc.relation.isversionof

10.1162/rest_a_00831

dc.title

Creativity Under Fire: The Effects of Competition on Creative Production

dc.type

Journal article

duke.contributor.orcid

Gross, Daniel P|0000-0001-8865-9835

pubs.begin-page

583

pubs.end-page

599

pubs.issue

3

pubs.organisational-group

Fuqua School of Business

pubs.organisational-group

Duke

pubs.publication-status

Published

pubs.volume

102

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