{"id":7412,"date":"2025-09-24T17:32:56","date_gmt":"2025-09-24T17:32:56","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/aomtodayprod.wpenginepowered.com\/?p=7412"},"modified":"2025-09-24T17:33:11","modified_gmt":"2025-09-24T17:33:11","slug":"why-womens-creativity-is-underrecognized","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.aom.org\/today\/why-womens-creativity-is-underrecognized\/","title":{"rendered":"Why Women\u2019s Creativity Is Underrecognized"},"content":{"rendered":"

By Nick Keppler<\/a><\/p>\n

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\u2019 problems or fulfill others\u2019 needs, according to research from Academy of Management Scholars Jenny Kim, Manuel Valount, Zhen Zhang, and Kris Byron<\/a>.<\/p>\n

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\u2019s J. Mack Robinson College of Business.<\/p>\n

\u201cIn the workplace, this creativity as emphasizing novelty really privileges the way in which men are creative,\u201d Byron said. \u201cWe are underrecognizing the way in which women are more creative, which is that they tend to be better at taking other people\u2019s perspective, which increases usefulness.\u201d<\/p>\n

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.<\/p>\n

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\u2019 leaders should see the value in both aspects of creativity, said Byron.<\/p>\n

\u201cIf we\u2019re always looking for and rewarding and recognizing these out-there ideas, we\u2019re not really rewarding creativity,\u201d she said. \u201cWe 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.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

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\u2019 problems or fulfill others\u2019 needs, according to research from Academy of Management Scholars Jenny Kim, Manuel Valount, Zhen Zhang, […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":12,"featured_media":7414,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[60,73,21,76],"tags":[377,1027,1025,1023,1029,875,1028,1030,1026,1024],"sp_smart_badges":[],"ppma_author":[840],"class_list":["post-7412","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-diversity","category-gender","category-innovation","category-performance","tag-creativity","tag-creativity-matters","tag-diversity-and-inclusion","tag-genderdifferences","tag-inclusive-workplace","tag-innovation","tag-perspective-taking","tag-risk-taking","tag-women-in-business","tag-womeninleadership"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"\nWhy Women\u2019s Creativity Is Underrecognized - 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