Abstract

A model of the effects of work environments, work motivations, and modes of problem solving on organizational creativity was developed and tested with survey responses from 70 employees in a bank and 125 employees in 20 large advertising firms in Korea. A series of analysis of the hypothetical model indicated; l)work environments affect individual's work motivations, and not vice versa, 2)work environ­ments of creativity stimulants had positive direct effects on organizational creativity and also had indirect effects through the medium of internal motivation and bisociative mode of problem solving, 3)those of creativity obstacles had negative direct effects on organizational creativity but positive effects on external motivation, and a factor of synergistic extrinsic motivation had positive effects on both associative and bisociative modes of problem solving, and finally both modes of problem solving had positive effects on organizational creativity. Methodological issues related to the examination of the model are discussed, along with the consideration of the psychological mechanisms of synergistic extrinsic motivators on organizational creativity.