Making sense of sensitivity in the workplace: Coping with contextual information in innovation and social networks Defended on Thursday, 7 December 2023

Sensory processing sensitivity influences how people innately perceive and process contextual cues (e.g., task, visual, social cues). In this dissertation, I take an information processing approach of this neurobiological trait and explore its role in how a person makes decisions about creative ideas and handles social networks. I have examined in two empirical papers how individuals forecast the potential of creative ideas and how individuals develop and utilize their social networks under the constrain of their innate sensitivity. The findings demonstrate that people at a higher level of sensitivity are better suited to use intuitive methods in forecasting how a target audience may accept a creative idea whereas analytical methods might be more effective for low sensitive ones. Highly sensitive individuals are also more easily lured to brokerage positions in a social network when they hold a communal schema, befriending people who are not friends with each other, despite the detrimental effect to their individual performance. Altogether, this dissertation offers some initial yet meaningful insights on the impact of sensory processing sensitivity on critical work outputs via its influence on task- or social- focused processes. These findings bear importance for both researchers and practitioners, informing organizations how to improve organizational decision making in innovation management and create a more inclusive social environment where everyone can flourish.

Keywords

Sensory Processing Sensitivity, Social Networks, Creative Forecasting, Trait, Brokerage, Individual Performance, Decision Making Methods, Intuition, Social Cognition, Relational Schema, Person-Method Fit, Communal