When economic growth slows, the tourism and hospitality industry typically suffers a major decline (Hu, Horng, & Sun, 2009; Kim, Chen, & Jang, 2006). Thus, in order to survive, restaurants and hotels need to implement transformation strategies to allow them to react more swiftly to changes in the economic environment (Eyster, 1993). The catch phrase “innovate or perish” further underlines the fact that innovation is crucial to organizations being able to maintain their vitality and competitiveness. Porter (1990) observed that, theoretically, prosperity derives from competitiveness, and that the key to improving competitiveness lies in innovativeness. In a general sense, entrepreneurship involves actions intended to create newness or to renew existing organizations. Effective creative practices allow for adaptation to change and this requires an array of innovations such as strategic entrepreneurship or leadership (Ireland & Webb, 2007). From an organizational development perspective, changes in organizational beliefs, personality, attitude, or behavior facilitate organizational innovation (Krause, 2004). The more positive motivation, charisma, and professional knowledge a leader possesses, the greater will be his/her willingness to share these qualities and abilities with staff and promote, innovation and creativity in his/her team (Hu, Horng, & Sun, 2009). Furthermore, although all leaders expect their companies to be innovative, few possess the knowledge of how to increase organizational motivation and lead their company to achieve optimal innovation results. To date, few researchers have examined such issues. Based on findings in previous studies, this study was aimed at exploring leaders’ personalities and changes in organizational motivation, structure, transformation strategies, and innovation in the hospitality industry. Thus, the main purpose of this study was to investigate creativity and innovation strategies for promoting organizational change from a social behavior perspective in a tea restaurant.

Organization Change and Innovative Transformation from the Social Behavior Perspective

Organizational reform and management, include organizational structure, personnel, and technology. Organizational change and development can help resolve tensions resulting from conflicts between organization culture and motivations; innovation is seen not only as a reason for, or a driver of, change, but also as an important outcome of successful development (Darling & Heller, 2009).

Visscher and Rip (2003) developed a typology of change agents, presenting different ways of coping with the chaos caused by change processes. To meet corporate objectives and achieve success in the ever-changing business environment, firms require a robust culture to motivate staff to bring about organizational change. Mangelsdorf (2009) found that companies looking to facilitate innovation should look for employees who are motivated not by job security, but rather, by intellectual challenge. The contextual basis of workplace culture and managerial style may affect employee creativity by either facilitating or inhibiting various social-psychological factors including intrinsic motivation, which according to Amabile (1996) is essential for creative and innovative performance. According to Zhou (2003), high levels of intrinsic motivation may be present, when an individual pursues a task for its own sake without regard for obtaining monetary or social rewards. Based on the intrinsic motivation theory of creativity, Amabile, Conti, Coon, Lazenby, and Herron (1996) noted that highly creative employees enjoy, are challenged by, and find satisfaction in assignments that capture their interest.

Theory of Creativity and Innovation

Based on the work of MacKinnon (1962), creativity is considered an attribute of personality or a particular kind of response style. Amabile (1996) said that creativity in the context of management related to new ideas about development of products, practices, procedures, and ideas that are useful to the organization. Over the past two decades, many researchers have defined creativity in the management context in terms of the development of new ideas about products, practices, services, or procedures, ideas that are potentially useful to the organization in the short or long term (Amabile, 1996). Innovation has been defined as the introduction and application, within a group, organization, or wider society, of processes, products, or procedures new to the relevant unit of adoption and intended to benefit those implementing them. By definition, individual creativity is different from organization innovation in that the former involves individual personal idea generation whereas that latter includes idea generation and implementation throughout the organization (Amabile, 1988). Thus, personal creativity often provides a starting point for organizational innovation.

Rhodes (1961) studied the literature on creativity and used it as a basis for the 4P model of creativity: Person, Process, Product, and Place. Based on Rhodes’ conceptual framework, for this study we identified valuable reference points and implications of research for organizational innovators. The 4P framework can be used to identify the context that influences creativity and innovation. Personality has been found to influence level of innovation (Martindale, 1989). A creative process is a process that leads to innovative behavior, breakthrough, and change. Creativity is often defined and represented by products (Amabile, 1983). A creative environment facilitates the development of motives, personality, and creative thinking ability, thus increasing creativity (Amabile, 1988). Furthermore, innovation brings about the development of new businesses within existing organizations. Business innovation can be considered a process by which inventions are transformed into marketable or value-adding products, processes, services, or organizational changes (Chuang, 2007).

Creativity and Innovation in the Restaurant Industry

Numerous researchers have indicated the importance of creativity and innovation directly or indirectly in sustainable restaurant development (Kooser, 2003). Balazs (2002) found that restaurant operators usually develop unique and creative operation strategies. Specifically, restaurant operators constantly work on new strategies: new menus, decor, and ways to improve services. Additionally, chefs need to play multiple roles as restaurant operators, leaders, entrepreneurs, businesspeople, hosts, and cultural ambassadors.

Ottenbacher and Gnoth (2005) found that numerous organization-related dimensions relating to top management, and including motivation, empowerment, marketing synergy, and strategic human resource management, can be used to predict successful hospitality service innovation. James, Clark, and Cropanzano (1999), Rice (2006) and other researchers have developed a framework of the individual creativity mechanism of business innovation. Within this framework, individual creativity is a product of individual creative characteristics and the role of individuals in the organization. Furthermore, individual knowledge and values influence individual thinking. Consequently, it is worth investigating how an organization can be changed by competent top managers, as well as the types of processes, products, and businesses that can be influenced by organizational innovation.

Method

Research Subject

The Ten Ren Tea Corporation is the largest of its kind in Taiwan. In 1993, as a result of a venture into the securities brokerage business, Ten Red suffered a collapse and General Manager, Chen Liang Yuan, was assigned the task of revitalizing the business by establishing the Cha for TEA multiconcept chain 1999. In 2004, Cha for TEA’s new restaurant was named as a creative life industry by the Taiwanese Ministry of Economic Affairs. Subsequently, the Cha for Tea restaurant chain was recognized as a 2006-2009 Creative Life Industry by the Industrial Development Bureau of the Ministry of Economic Affairs for creating a unique tea culture and embedding this concept in their food and décor. Cha for TEA now has international franchises in America, Australia, and Japan. Cha for TEA’s new multi-concept restaurant was the subject of this study.

Method

Research Procedure

We interviewed General Manager Chen Liang Yuan, who has been working at the mother company of Cha for Tea, the Ten Ren Tea Corporation, for 30 years.

We conducted discussions and analyses using a combination of the above tools with the 4Ps developed by Rhodes (1961). We began by designing an interview framework, followed by using recording and analysis to produce a content draft.

A case-based qualitative research approach was employed to extract design concepts and deployment. Based on the interview content, the researchers attempted to understand the innovative design conceptualization process of the General Manager, specifically how they incorporate creativity into their dining environments and how ideas drawn from society and natural environments influence managers’ creative expression of individualism and the characteristics of the surrounding environment whilst defining and giving depth to restaurants. The research procedure included making video recordings and field notes to observe and collect information through discussions with the interviewee.

Results

Primary Innovation Motivation and Owner’s Personality

As previously stated, businesses unwilling to innovate perish. Commitment to change, creativity, and innovation hold organizations together and ensure business longevity. Cha for Tea multiconcept restaurants were introduced as one tea-related concept after the collapse of the Ten Ren Tea Corporation. By giving form to each organization culture, they hoped to express the essence and value of tea.

Personality traits have frequently been related to creative achievement. We found that the leaders of Ten Ren Tea Corporation have some personality traits and motivation in common including willing acceptance of challenge, openness to experience, sense of humor, positive attitude, willingness to take risks, strong desire for knowledge, being passionate about ideals, and perseverance. These results support those of studies by Amabile (1983), and Rudowicz and Yue (2002) of creative leaders who possessed particular characteristics.

“The role of being a key man is very painful because you cannot turn down a major mission… You have to show courage to deal with it (RA1034).”
“In an enterprise that strives for improvement, your creativity needs to be constantly affirmed and encouraged (RA1026).”

Many theorists have distinguished between intrinsic and extrinsic motivation and have proposed that this distinction has an important influence on creativity (e.g., Amabile, Hill, Hennessey, & Tighe, 1994). The findings of this study support that proposal and the findings of a study by Rice (2006) in that organization culture, leaders’ personality traits, and intrinsic and extrinsic motivations influence an organization’s creativity and innovation (Rice, 2006).

The Challenge of Establishing a New Business

Problem solving should include idea generation. When General Manager Chen was interviewed for this study he commented that the creative process in planning a restaurant should be based on creative themes and ideas, followed by the planning and management of the restaurant that would incorporate these concepts and ideas, and finally, the restaurant design express the essence of these ideas.

Although it is essentially a restaurant chain, each Cha for TEA restaurant is individualized, contrasting starkly with the established notions of minimalism, conforming to a formula, and standardization prevalent in chain restaurants. The aim was to break away from the stereotypes of mainstream chain store management, allowing guests to experience the different tea cultures represented and interpreted in each creative tea restaurant. The restaurants’ original themes of peace, gratitude, fragrance, nature, as well as the original managerial design concepts combining tea, Chinese culture, and modernity are expressed in such a natural way it seems uncontrived and unplanned.

Implementing Creative Ideas to Change an Organization

Besides thinking of a creative concept, implementation is critical. The top management of Cha for TEA instilled these creative ideas into the restaurant design and in terms of the restaurant as a whole, a style and main theme were designed in accordance with the original ideas.

To summarize, the course of the creative process for Cha for TEA can be explained using the creative process stages for: 1) problem verification, 2) preparation – collation and selection of appropriate information and sources, 3) production of feedback – searching for and producing answers, and 4) effective feedback and communication.

When Mr Chen began drawing up the Ten Ren restaurant remodeling plans, it was decided that tea culture would comprise the core of the design. Upon examination of the vast literature on tea, including ancient and modern works and those from China and elsewhere, the top management of Ten Ren developed a solid understanding of the very essence of tea culture. This information was instrumental in helping each store develop a unique and original perspective on tea culture and plan a creative high quality tea culture-themed restaurant in which tea was the core focus.

Establishing an Environment Conducive to Continuing Innovation

In terms of individual environment, a fully supportive environment may not be optimal for stimulating personal creativity. In contrast, an environment that is generally supportive but presents some obstacles is frequently more effective in stimulating organizational change.

Exterior Environment In the past the business philosophy of Ten Ren was not only traditional and conservative, but the corporation also suffered from serious organizational development problems and gradually began to lose its business edge. Its employees were relatively old and were unable to keep up with the fierce competition that surrounded them, putting the survival of the business at risk.

Businesses that fail to understand ideas such as benign competition are likely to have problems. Businesses must now come to grips with the larger picture of changes in consumer markets and engage in benign competition with their peers as well as learn from one another to achieve mutual growth. Through continual innovation, restaurants can explore methods of realizing a better future.

Internal Environment McCoy and Evans (2002) demonstrated that environment is important to innovation, and found that some internal environmental factors that benefit innovation are: freedom, challenge, resources, supervisors, cooperation among team members, recognition, cooperation, and motivating and supporting creativity.

Successful problem solving must be focused on and encouraged in an organization at all times. Promoting problem solving requires the adoption of a particular kind of thinking, involving continuous appraisal of individual (personal) resources.

In managing a creative restaurant, the managers willingly put everything they have into the business, earn the trust of their superiors that they can be relied on, and are willing to support ideals and dreams of Ten Ren’s top management. In the organizational culture of the past in the Ten Ren Corporation internal unity and cooperation were emphasized and the environment did not encourage open and benign competition. Employees were unable to compete in a manner that encouraged learning. A new organizational culture has now evolved, propelling the organization forward into a new world of innovation where competition goes hand in hand with cooperation, providing an environment where innovation is rewarded. The organization can thus maintain its impetus to innovate, research, and develop new products and services, and as a result of the interaction between new and old.

Benign competition within an organization provides employees with a platform for internal competition and innovation. Consumer satisfaction determines product value. The commercialization of innovative products is the final stage in the process. Mr Chen emphasized the need for cooperative learning within and across industries. The Cha for TEA management created an organizational environment characterized by both cooperation and competition in, to innovate in which workers are encouraged and are rewarded with real benefits, and where conditions are conducive to business innovation and businesses and employees maintain the flow of creativity together with support and encouragement from management.

Discussion

Cha for TEA restaurants emphasize organizational change and development during business innovation and growth phases, and top managers employ the creation of high quality tea culture and tea-related creative ideas in restaurant concept and management, including promoting respect for tea culture and creating an environment with a solid tea culture foundation.

In this study the researchers explored the innovative transformation strategy of restaurants from a social behavior perspective. Analysis of the interviews with Mr Chen, the General Manager reveal that manager personality traits and motivations are crucial in business innovation, including passion for challenge, high tolerance for risk, proactive thinking, obtaining approval, and so on. Our findings in this study support the studies of personality, process, product, and place of creativity and innovation conducted by Martindale (1989) and Amabile (1996). The results of this study also support the findings of West (2002) that creativity occurs primarily at the innovation processes stage and is followed by innovation implementation.

Cha for TEA achieved successful organizational change in the service arena by ensuring service quality and customer satisfaction.

Amabile, T. M. (1983). The social psychology of creativity: A componential conceptualization. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 45(2), 357-376.

Amabile, T. M. (1988). A model of creativity and innovation in organizations. In B. M. Staw & L. L. Cummings (Eds.), Research in organizational behavior (pp. 123-167). Chicago, IL: Aldine Publishing Company.

Amabile, T. M. (1996). The atmosphere of pure work: Creativity in research and development. In W. R. Shadish & S. Fuller (Eds.), The social psychology of science. New York: Guilford Press.

Amabile, T. M., Conti, R., Coon, H., Lazenby, J., & Herron, M. (1996). Assessing the work environment for creativity. Academy of Management Journal, 39(5), 1154-1184.

Amabile, T. M., Hill, K. G., Hennessey, B. A., & Tighe, E. M. (1994). The Work Preference Inventory: Assessing intrinsic and extrinsic motivational orientations. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 66, 950-967.

Balazs, K. (2002). Take one entrepreneur: The recipe for success of France’s great chefs. European Management Journal, 20, 247-259.

Chuang, L. M. (2007). The social psychology of creativity and innovation: Process theory (PT) perspective. Social Behavior and Personality: An international journal, 35(7), 875-888.

Darling, J. R., & Heller, V. L. (2009). Organization development in an era of socioeconomic change: A focus on the key to successful management leadership. Organization Development Journal, 27(2), 9-26.

Eyster, J. J. (1993). The revolution in domestic hotel management contracts. Cornell Hotel and Restaurant Administration Quarterly, 34(1), 16-26.

Hu, M. L., Horng, J. S., & Sun, Y. H. C. (2009). Hospitality teams: Knowledge sharing and service innovation performance. Tourism Management, 30, 41-50.

Ireland, R. D., & Webb, J. W. (2007). Strategic entrepreneurship: Creating competitive advantage through streams of innovation. Business Horizons, 50(1), 49-59.

James, K., Clark, K., & Cropanzano, R. (1999). Positive and negative creativity in groups, institutions, and organizations: A model and theoretical extension. Creativity Research Journal, 12(3), 211-226.

Kim, H. L., Chen, M. H., & Jang, S. C. (2006). Tourism expansion and economic development: The case of Taiwan. Tourism Management, 27, 925-933.

Kooser, R. (2003). Design for customers, not the designer. Food Management, 38(9), 22.

Krause, D. E. (2004). Influence-based leadership as a determinant of the inclination to innovate and of innovation-related behavior: An empirical investigation. The Leadership Quarterly, 15, 79-102.

MacKinnon, D. W. (1962). The nature and nurture of creative talent. American Psychologist, 17, 484-495.

Mangelsdorf, M. E. (2009). Motivated to innovate. MIT Sloan Management Review, 50(3), 24-24.

Martindale, C. (1989). Personality, situation, and creativity. In J. A. Glover, R. R. Ronning, & C. R. Reynolds (Eds.), Handbook of creativity. New York: Plenum Press.

McCoy, J. M., & Evans, G. W. (2002). The potential role of the physical environment in fostering creativity. Creativity Research Journal, 14, 409-426.

Ottenbacher, M., & Gnoth, J. (2005). How to develop successful hospitality innovation. Cornell Hotel and Restaurant Administration Quarterly, 46, 205-222.

Porter, M. E. (1990). The competitive advantage of nations. New York: The Free Press.

Rhodes, M. (1961). An analysis of creativity. In S. G. Isaksen (Ed.), Frontiers of creativity research. New York: Bearly Limited.

Rice, G. (2006). Individual values, organizational context, and self-perceptions of employee creativity: Evidence from Egyptian organizations. Journal of Business Research, 59, 233-241.

Rudowicz, E., & Yue, X. D. (2002). Compatibility of Chinese and creative personalities. Creativity Research Journal, 14(3/4), 387-394.

Visscher, K., & Rip, A. (2003). Coping with chaos in change processes. Creativity and Innovation Management, 12, 121-128.

West, M. A. (2002). Sparkling fountains or stagnant ponds: An integrative model of creativity and innovation implementation in work groups. Applied Psychology: An International Review, 51, 355-387.

Zhou, J. (2003). When the presence of creative coworkers is related to creativity: Role of supervisor close monitoring, development feedback and creative personality. Journal of Applied Psychology, 88(3), 413-422.

Appreciation is due to anonymous reviewers.

Meng-Lei (Monica) Hu, 1F, No. 2, Lane 2, Ru- I Street, Hsintein City, Taipei, Taiwan 23156, ROC. Phone: 886-2-22145525; Fax: 886-2-82122669; Email: [email protected]