Can companies manage creativity efficiently and effectively? These concepts are not mutually exclusive; management literature is replete with ideas for stimulating development of new products and services while maintaining operational control.

New research from economists at Friedrich-Alexander-Universität (FAU) Erlangen-Nürnberg proposes an unexpected answer: schedule-setting autonomy and employee impulsivity could be key factors in optimal time management.

Many employers adopt one of two approaches to employee schedule autonomy. Some employers allow the Standing by the scale model's left front fender is Richard A. Teague, a famous automobile designer at American Motors (AMC).employee the freedom to work on creative projects when they choose, an approach pioneered by 3M Corporation in the 1940s. Others schedule specific time slots. Employees can work on creative projects in time slots predetermined by the company; for example, the company could declare Wednesday afternoons a meeting-free time so staff can count on several uninterrupted hours. A variation is to allow employees to pick the time slots they want to devote to unstructured work.

Researchers Alexander Brem, chair of technology management, and Verena Utikal, assistant professor of behavioral economics, tested the effects of schedule autonomy on creativity, using 233 paid test subjects in three scenarios. Test participants solved simple mathematical problems – a routine task – and made words from a given set of letters – a creative task. In some iterations participants could switch between the routine and the creative tasks spontaneously; in other trials the researchers allocated set time slots for each kind of task and required participants to switch.

Prior to testing, the researchers measured participants’ innate creativity and impulsiveness and measured the effects of both qualities on test outcomes. Test results demonstrated that, for the routine task, variations in schedule autonomy made no difference in task outcomes. However, differences in impulsiveness affected outcomes under both sets of test conditions. Other test conclusions include the following:

• The spontaneous time model, where test subjects could switch tasks at will, resulted in lower average creativity across test groups.
• For all levels of impulsiveness, routine performance was the same regardless of schedule autonomy.
• For less-impulsive test subjects, high schedule autonomy resulted in decreased creativity.

Managers can take away several pointers from this research. First, they need to understand both an employee’s native creativity and impulsiveness to decide an optimal level of schedule autonomy. Some people who are both highly creative and highly impulsive might benefit from deciding when to attend to routine tasks and when to tackle more creative work. However, test subjects throughout the impulsivity spectrum did well with less freedom to choose their own schedules. Changing gears too frequently, as with multitasking, also lowers productivity.