Role Of Creativity In The Management Of Innovation, The: State Of The Art And Future Research Outlook

State of the Art and Future Research Outlook

Alexander Brem, Rogelio Puente-Diaz;Marine Agogu????;;

• Publisher: WSPC (EUROPE)
• Year: 2017
• eBook ISBN: 9781786342027
• Topic: Biological Sciences
• Subtopic: Science General
• Index: Biological Sciences

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The effective management of innovation is integral to the development of any business. This book provides a collection of articles dealing with creativity in the context of innovation management from an interdisciplinary perspective of business, psychology and engineering. It takes papers from a Special Issue in the International Journal of Innovation and Management, published by World Scientific in 2016, and combines them with original articles written by some of the top academic minds in business and management. It covers topics such as creativity in innovation from a leadership perspective, creativity reduction in avoidance- and approach-oriented persons, creativity techniques and innovation, and the interplay between cognitive and organisational processes.

The Role of Creativity in the Management of Innovation gives MBA graduate and undergraduate students, professors and business managers a comprehensive overview of current thinking in the field of business.

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Chapter 1

Creativity and Innovation: State of the Art and Future Perspectives for Research^∗

Alexander Brem^†,¶, Rogelio Puente-Díaz^‡,ǁ and Marine Agogué ^§,∗∗

^†Mads Clausen Institute, SDU Innovation and Design Engineering
University of Southern Denmark, Alsion 2, 6400 Sønderborg, Denmark

^‡Department of Business and Economics, Universidad Anahuac Mexico Norte.
Av. Universidad Anahuac No. 46, Col. Lomas de Anahuac
Huixquilucan, Estado de Mexico, CP 52786, Mexico

^§Management Department, HEC Montréal
3000 Chemin Côte Ste Catherine, H3T2A7 Montréal, QC, Canada
^¶[email protected]
^ǁ[email protected]
^∗∗[email protected]

Creativity is a vibrant field of scientific research with important applied implications for the management of innovation. In this chapter, we argue that the proliferation of creativity research has led to positive and less positive outcomes and discuss five relevant research themes. We first introduce our readers to the different proposed dimensions of a creative object. Next, we explain recent developments on the level of the creativity magnitude issue. Based on this, we review how researchers currently operationalize creativity. After discussing how creativity is conceptualized and operationalized, we outline how it might be enhanced. Finally, we present an overview of the wide variety of methodological approaches currently used in creativity research. We close by calling for more interdisciplinary research and offering other suggestions for future directions.

Keywords: Creativity; innovation; ideation; creative thinking; creative performance; magnitude.

Introduction

Governments, companies, research centers, universities and schools spend a great deal of time trying to understand how to be more creative and innovate, as well as to be more creative in order to innovate. Creativity and innovation are at the core of important outcomes such as economic and sales growth, scientific production and students’ learning (Reiter-Palmon, Beghetto, & Kaufman, 2014). Hence, it is not surprising to find scientific articles, intervention programs, conferences, seminars, consulting offers and casual conversations on creativity and innovation across a wide variety of disciplines, including business and management, marketing, engineering, design, psychology, and education, and among different segments of the population ranging from managers and consultants to research scientists and educators. However, like most things in life, the proliferation of interest in creativity has led to positive and less positive outcomes.

On the positive side, we now have literally thousands of dedicated researchers and practitioners trying to better understand what drives creativity, how creativity can be enhanced and the implications of creativity for the management of innovation, among other aspects. It is safe to assume that this dedicated, genuine interest is producing useful information. The amount of knowledge generated is indeed vast and addresses very specific cross-disciplinary topics in regard to creativity, ranging from knowledge acquisition and knowledge transfer aspects of creativity to the motivational components of creativity, to mention a few examples. On the less positive side, the observed proliferation has resulted in a highly fragmented field (Hennessey & Amabile, 2010). Similarly, it also led to having many research areas showing a wide variety of perspectives with different levels of consensus. On the one hand, this observed fragmentation might not be efficient if that new knowledge production does not entirely come from “all” we know about creativity but rather from what different researchers consider important to know, given their domain of expertise. Hence, two researchers, one from engineering and another from psychology, might have a research topic in common but read and consult different journals, attend different conferences and have disagreements about what constitutes a significant contribution in creativity research. On the other hand, the abundance of different perspectives on the same issue can lead to a lack of consensus on what the main directions for future research are in order to increase our understanding of creativity as a part of the innovation process. In the worst case, it even leads to a complete parallel development of research streams without even knowing that the others exist. Even though nowadays knowledge is available worldwide through modern information technologies, the knowledge is still dispersed over disciplines, countries, languages, subject fields, and even publication formats like journals or books.

The purpose of this chapter is twofold. First, we offer an illustrative and not comprehensive discussion on five issues relevant for creativity and their implications for innovation. We propose that these five issues represent important research themes for future knowledge production. Second, we propose some key directions for future research.

As stated earlier, we organize our paper around five main sections that encompass the issues that are at the core of this chapter. In the first section, we discuss the conceptualization of creativity in terms of its dimensionality. We then cover, in the second section, the level of creativity magnitude, followed by a discussion on how researchers operationalize creativity in the third theme. In the fourth section, we explain how creativity can be enhanced. Last, in the fifth section, we discuss the diversity of approaches used to conduct research on creativity and examine in more depth the implications of the fragmentation of the field. Before beginning our discussion of our first theme, two caveats are in order. First, our goal is to illustrate rather than comprehensively review all the information available on these research areas. Second, our main goal is to provide an illustration of these five issues, pointing out the level of agreement and disagreement for each, and not to provide or propose a new theoretical model capable of integrating all the information available.

The Dimensionality of Creativity

Clear conceptual definitions of scientific constructs can act as a catalyst for the growth and integration of applied and theoretical knowledge. It creates common understandings that are prerequisites of an effective exchange of ideas and to develop a joint knowledge base (Suddaby, 2010). Apparently, such clear inter-disciplinary definitions are not set yet.

The conceptual definition of creativity might focus on the person, process or product. Yet, more efforts have been devoted to provide a conceptual definition for a creative product since it is assumed that the result of a creative process or a creative personality is an object (it may be a product, a service or an organization) that must be considered as creative. Hence, we focus on reviewing the conceptualization of creativity as it relates to objects, describing the number of dimensions proposed in order to consider something as creative and examining some possible relations between the suggested dimensions. It is important to mention the following caveat. The main goal of this section is to conduct not an exhaustive but rather a more illustrative review of some of the proposed dimensions of creativity. Hence, we do not claim to have reviewed every single paper proposing different dimensions of creativity. Instead, we focus on reviewing a few selected articles with important implications for creativity in the process of innovation.

From reviewing different papers on the conceptualization of creativity, we see two main issues related to the dimensionality of creativity. The first deals with the number and nature of the dimensions proposed. The second deals with the suggested structure or relationships between these dimensions. Both issues have important implications for understanding and conducting research on creativity and also for managing creativity. We begin with the discussion of the dimensionality of creativity.

We can trace back some of the first definitions of creativity to 1953 (Stein, 1953). This definition suggests that a creative work must be novel and useful for a group of people at some point in time. Hence, the definition emphasizes two dimensions: novelty and usefulness and also proposes that an object becomes creative when people judge it to be creative in a given socio-cultural context. Researchers across different disciplines such as organizational psychology, management and engineering seem to agree that a creative production must be novel and useful (Amabile, 1983; Anderson, Potocnik, & Zhou, 2014; Cropley & Cropley, 2005). Hence, there seems to be some degree of consensus on the novelty and usefulness dimensions of creativity. Yet, other dimensions have also been proposed.

For example, a recent conceptual contribution proposed that surprise should be added to the novelty and usefulness dimensions (Simonton, 2012). The suggestion to add surprise comes from the criteria set by the U.S. patent office when deciding to give a certain product a patent. Similarly, two additional conceptualizations agreed that a creative product must have novelty and usefulness. Yet, one conceptualization added the dimension of elegance (Cropley & Cropley, 2005), the other suggested a dimension of style, both referring to the design of a particular product (O’Quin & Besemer, 2006). Elegance and style might be related to the aesthetic appeal of a product. A similar proposition has been made to assess the creativity of advertising. Specifically, a three-dimensional conceptualization has proposed that advertising products need to have novelty, usefulness and surprise in order to be considered as creative (West, Caruana, & Leelapanyalert, 2013).

Another conceptualization also incorporates novelty but divides usefulness in two subcomponents as part of its conceptual definition: feasibility and value. The authors claim that dividing usefulness in two components can have important research and managerial implications (Litchfield, Gilson, & Gilson, 2015). For example, an idea for a new product with high novelty and value might not be perceived as feasible because it is “too different” from what the company has done in the past. Conversely, an idea with high novelty and high feasibility but low value might be easily accepted by managers but might lack enough value to really make a difference in the market place.

In sum, most creativity researchers agree that a creative object, may it be a product, service, advertising commercial or marketing campaign must be novel and useful. Different conceptualizations disagree on the third dimension. More importantly, however, is the discussion on whether an object can be considered as creative if it has novelty but not usefulness or if it is useful but not novel. The core of this debate is the structure or relationship between the suggested dimensions of creativity.

For example, one proposition suggests that the relationship between the different dimensions of creativity is multiplicative. Hence, this model proposes that creativity = novelty × usefulness × surprise. A multiplicative model implies that if a given object has a value of 0 on either of the three components, the overall creativity would be zero. Indeed, the measurement representation of the dimensions of creativity can have important implications. Whereas one conceptualization might assume a one-factor model with indicators of novelty and usefulness (Zhou & George, 2001), another one might assume a two-factor solution with reflective or formative indicators (Sullivan & Ford, 2010). The implications of adopting any of these options are not trivial since it could lead to different methodological approaches and results.

The Level of Creativity Magnitude

A closely related issue to the dimensions of creativity is the level of creativity magnitude. This issue becomes relevant because researchers can focus on understanding the creative objects generated by geniuses, professionals, “regular” individuals or even children. It is obvious that the predictors or consequences of creative geniuses or children are not the same, emphasizing the need to differentiate between different levels of creativity.

Different models have been proposed to guide our understanding of levels of creativity. One, for example, makes a distinction between personal and historical creativity (Boden, 2004). Whereas in personal creativity individuals make a personal judgment as to how novel or useful their own ideas are, in historical creativity, a wider audience makes such judgment.

A more robust model proposes four levels of creativity called Mini-c, Little-c, Pro-c, and Big-C (Kaufman & Beghetto, 2009). These four levels form a developmental continuum that starts with Mini-c. Mini-c level of creativity is characterized by being primarily a personal judgment and is grounded in individual learning processes. For example, individuals might experience a feeling of being creative when learning about the different media outlets available to advertise their new product. This insight might not have great external value, but it is important for individuals since it provides positive feelings about the learning process. Little-c creativity, continuing with the same example, might be represented by a novice brand manager’s suggestion to use more social media in their marketing communication efforts because the brand’s target is mainly teenagers. While the suggestion is useful and well-thought, it might not represent a groundbreaking idea. In other terms, Little-c creativity can be seen as everyday creativity. Pro-c includes the creative productions generated by experts in a given field.

Hence, an excellent advertising campaign that is able to increase sales by a significant percentage might represent an example of Pro-c creativity. The creative product, an advertising campaign, generates positive outcomes for a brand/company, yet it does not have worldwide recognition. Last, Big-C creativity represents the highest level of creative magnitude that only selected people are able to achieve in their lifetime. Whereas it is easier to mention examples of Big-C from science or music such as the theory of evolution developed by Darwin or the fifth symphony composed by Beethoven, it is not as easy to think of examples from the private sector. Yet, some might place the invention of the internet or the smartphone as products that are highly novel and useful and widely accepted by a large percentage of the world population.

From this brief discussion of the levels of creativity magnitude, the connection between the dimensions of creativity and the levels of creativity becomes obvious. Objects with different levels of creativity magnitude would have, hypothetically, different scores on the novelty, usefulness and eventually surprise or aesthetics dimensions. For instance, if one were to evaluate the internet as a product, it would probably have very high scores on novelty, usefulness and surprise. Conversely, the evaluation of a popular product such as the headphones Beats^® would also have high but lower scores on novelty, usefulness and surprise than the invention of the internet.

The elaboration on the level of creativity magnitude has met great recognition in the psychology literature, but remains confined in this field,...

Table of contents

• Cover Page
• Title
• Copyright
• Introduction
• About the Editors
• Acknowledgments
• Contents
• Chapter 1. Creativity and Innovation: State of the Art and Future Perspectives for Research
• Chapter 2. A Managerial Leadership Perspective on Enabling Creativity and Innovation: A Discourse of New Categorizations
• Chapter 3. Redefining Creativity and Innovation in Organisations: Suggestions for Redirecting Research
• Chapter 4. How Innovation Impacts Artistic Creativity — Managing Innovation in the Advertising Sector
• Chapter 5. Training for Innovative Design to Increase Organizational Creativity: A Longitudinal Study of Hydro-Québec’s Research Center
• Chapter 6. Entrepreneurial Creativity: Effects of Absorptive Capacity and Incubator Tenancy
• Chapter 7. What Affects Creative Performance in Idea Co-Creation: Competitive, Cooperative or Coopetitive Climate?
• Chapter 8. Creative Self-Beliefs and Their Implications for Creativity and Innovation
• Chapter 9. When a Smile Does No Good: Creativity Reduction Among AvoidanceVersus Approach-Oriented Individuals in Dyadic Interactions
• Chapter 10. What Do We Really Know about Creativity Techniques? A Review of the Empirical Literature
• Chapter 11. Organising for Radical Innovation: The Benefits of the Interplay Between Cognitive and Organisational Processes in KCP Workshops
• Chapter 12. Clown Scouting and Casting at the Cirque du Soleil: Designing Boundary Practices for Talent Development and Knowledge Creation
• Chapter 13. “Imagine that. . . ” — How to Activate and Capture Users’ Ability to Think Creatively about Future Use