INNOVATION & CREATIVITY

Innovation and Creativity

Innovation and Creativity

Introduction

Creativity, as expressed and brought to life through organizations, plays a critical role in society. Whether the organization is a business that is bringing creativity to life through innovative products and services that customers desire, therefore fulfilling customers' needs, creating jobs, and contributing to the economy, or whether the organization is the local government using ideas in a creative way to meet the needs of the community, therefore increasing the quality of life, organizational creativity and innovation play an integral role in serving all of us. Yet, the majority of the literature on creativity views it as an individualized phenomenon (Sternberg & Lubart, 1999). “The major focus in creativity research has been on the individual creator and his or her personality, traits, abilities, experiences, and thought processes” (Williams & Yang, 1999, p. 378). However, it is important to study and understand the context in which the individual creator functions. “The social environment can influence both the level and frequency of creative behavior” (Amabile, Conti, Coon, Lazenby & Herron, 1996, p. 1155).

Difference between Creativity and Innovation

Throughout the creativity literature, and particularly the literature focused on organizational creativity, the term “innovation” is often used and the distinction between creativity and innovation is an important one. Sternberg and Lubart (1999) define creativity as “the ability to produce work that is both novel (i.e., original, unexpected) and appropriate (i.e., useful, adaptive concerning task constraints)” (p. 3). Although the measurement of creativity deserves a lot of attention, words associated with this definition of creativity include idea, invention, and breakthrough. However, innovation is about “a process of developing and implementing a new idea” (Van deVen &Angle, 1989, p. 12). They go on to write that “innovation refers to the process of bringing any new problem solving idea into use . . . it is the generation, acceptance, and implementation of new ideas, processes, products, or services” (p. 20). This process can take place in many different domains; it can be technical, to be sure, but also organizational (e.g., process improvements) or even social (e.g., quality circles) (Kanter, 1983). The focus here, particularly in the context of an organization, is on taking a creative idea and bringing it to fruition. For example, in the life of an organization, many brilliant ideas never see the light of day. To bring an idea from concept to market, it must be recognized for its potential; it must receive funding in an environment of scarce or at least competing resources; and it must overcome potential obstacles such as technology challenges, competitive pressures, and a variety of other obstacles. The process by which this happens is referred to as innovation and it is an important process when talking about creativity in the context of organizations. It would not be a stretch to say that when it comes to organizations, creativity without innovation is of significantly diminished value. The converse is also true: without creative ideas to feed the innovation pipeline so they may be promoted and developed, ...