Published on: September 24, 2025 at 5:32 pm
By Nick Keppler
Men are more likely to show creativity by coming up with risky ideas of unknown value, while women are more likely to show creativity by coming up with creative ideas that solve others’ problems or fulfill others’ needs, according to research from Academy of Management Scholars Jenny Kim, Manuel Valount, Zhen Zhang, and Kris Byron.
Both paths to creativity are valuable, but the kind of creative thinking derived from perspective-taking that is more typical in women is often undervalued in organizations, said Byron, a professor at Georgia State University’s J. Mack Robinson College of Business.
“In the workplace, this creativity as emphasizing novelty really privileges the way in which men are creative,” Byron said. “We are underrecognizing the way in which women are more creative, which is that they tend to be better at taking other people’s perspective, which increases usefulness.”
Byron drew her conclusions from her work on a meta-analysis, published last year, that drew from 753 studies with a combined 265,762 participants across multiple countries.
Although novelty and usefulness are considered equally important aspects of creativity, novelty is more usually prized at work. Men may gravitate towards this kind of ingenuity because they are more encouraged to take risks. However, companies’ leaders should see the value in both aspects of creativity, said Byron.
“If we’re always looking for and rewarding and recognizing these out-there ideas, we’re not really rewarding creativity,” she said. “We need to be looking at both sides of the coin, and both men and women have a tendency to offer unique contributions to creative endeavors.”
