Creative Action In Organizations

A strong point in this book is its opening extensive review of creativity in organizations and professions. . . including helpful tabulations of articles that identify the motives, expectations, emotions, means, and opportunities that lead to creative acts. . . . it can provide valuable insights and encouragement to scholars and practitioners who are concerned with developing and tapping creativity in organizations. . . . Management professors and graduate students will find the book helpful. . . . --G. David Hughes in Journal of Product Innovation Management "This book definitely will be appropriate for class use in any setting focused on creativity in organizations. Presumably, these would be specialized upper-division, MBA, or Ph.D. electives. If you are interested in the topic of creativity in organizations, this is the book you must read. It is on the frontiers, and it provides a beacon for future scholarly progress on this topic because of its emphasis on how the organizational setting affects the creative process in the world of work." --Lyman Porter, University of California, Irvine "The book is itself a creative approach to creativity. The editors have attracted a talented and well-respected group of academic contributors. The message that we should abandon the romantic but flawed notion that creativity is principally the product of extraordinary individual acts is delivered forcefully, as is the companion notion that organizational contexts are the real seedbeds of creative behavior." --John R. Kimberly, Henry Bower Professor, The Wharton School, University of Pennsylvania "This is one of the better collections of information about creativity because it is data based, and it provides a useful comparison and contrast of conceptual and practical aspects. By clearly describing the benefits and problems associated with the topics, Creative Action in Organizations obviously practices what it preaches. I would recommend that it be used as a textbook for a graduate-level business course, particularly for an MBA program. In addition, I also recommend that it be used as a text reference for industrial ′training & development′ programs targeted at teaching employees how to develop new businesses, improve existing processes, or become better leaders (viz., corporate leadership development programs)." --Tom Wojcik, Manager, Office of Innovation, Hoechst Celanese Corporation Between the trade deficit, mergers, and the recession, the topic of creativity in organizations has become one of increasing importance. How does a company retool or refine its product with foreign and, often, less costly competition? How does human resources find creative solutions to budgeting, product development, marketing, and training? With pithy and engaging chapters from leading researchers and figures in business, government, and academia, Creative Action in Organizations explores the factors that are critical to the development and promotion of creativity to develop a revised view that is grounded in experience. This volume begins with a literature review (written as a mystery to be solved), followed by essays from researchers (Part II) and practitioners (Part III). Using the chapters as "data," the editors conclude with a content-analysis that presents a look at the most significant themes and offers a framework for conceptualizing creativity in organizations. This profound and fascinating volume is essential for students, professionals, and researchers in management and organization studies, public administration, public policy, evaluation, and psychology, as well as libraries in the above areas.

Between ivory tower academics and reality.

With engaging contributions from leading academics and professionals, this book explores the key factors that are critical to the development and promotion of creativity in any organization.

Creativity can be viewed as the first stage of the overall innovation process, an important dimension of the entrepreneurship and new venture creation processes, and as such, it is considered to be a cornerstone of organizational competitiveness in this global, knowledge-based economy. Research on creativity has increasingly become multilevel, with most work conducted at the individual or team level of analysis. At the same time, there is a large body of research being conducted at the organizational level of analysis on innovation, and there has been a significant amount of entrepreneurship research at the individual level, with an increasing focus on organizational entrepreneurship. However, these three research streams have developed independently, and there has been very little knowledge transfer between the three areas. Because entrepreneurship is often said to be a process that is required to convert innovation into business ventures that will deliver benefits to stakeholders, it is typically driven by an individual or small group of individuals. Creativity research, innovation research, and entrepreneurship research have the potential to inform each other, enriching our knowledge of each area, particularly with regard to the cognitive processes and behaviors that are most effective. This Handbook includes contributions from the leading scholars in these three research areas, who integrate contemporary research findings on organizational creativity, innovation, and entrepreneurship and provide fruitful new research directions."

Managing Creativity in Organizations addresses the notion of organizational creativity and innovation in general, and explores in some detail how it is achieved. The first part of the book critically reviews the literature on creativity. The second half explores the management of organizational creativity in the pharmaceutical industry. Here issues such as technology, cognition and leadership are introduced as central resources and practices in the management of organizational creativity and innovation. The research is based on management practices in four companies, all of whom have demonstrated a significant ability to exploit their organizational creativity.

Praise for First Edition: `The book is an accessible source of key writings and it will be of interest to practising managers and students of organizational behaviour' - The Occupational Psychologist `Fascinating reading and very relevant to managing change and the needs of the decades ahead' - Long Range Planning `Excellent collection of articles examining the nature of creativity and how it relates to various management issues from a wide variety of perspectives. Especially noteworthy are the contributions from Gareth Morgan (author of Images of Organization), Michael McCaskey and Peter Drucker. Recommended for anyone with an interest in problem solving, organization

Combining insights from the new science of complexity with insights from psychoanalysis, Stacey posits that repressing the anxiety caused by the unstable, ever-changing nature of today's business world also represses the creative impulses - the "spaces for novelty" - that allow members of a workforce to produce their best work. Using the science of complexity as a starting point, he pulls together many insights into behavior and organizational functioning that currently lie at the edges of research and practice. This book invites people to explore what the new science might mean for understanding life in organizations, and shows how it can be used as a framework for understanding the processes that produce emergence rather than intentional strategies. Stacey presents an entirely new perspective on what it means for an organization to learn.

This volume presents a distinctly multilevel perspective on creativity and innovation that considers individual-level, team-level, and firm-level factors. In illustrating these factors, this volume presents both theoretical and practical implications to guide researchers and practitioners alike in the continued study and advancement of creativity and innovation in organizations. Chapter authors not only discuss the abilities, personality, and motivational attributes that contribute to employee creativity, but they also address the impact of leadership and climate on creative performance in teams. Subsequently, firm-level influences such as planning, learning, strategy, and professions that influence the success of creative and innovative efforts are examined. With contributions from leading scholars around the globe, this book offers a comprehensive review of creativity and innovation to assist researchers and practitioners in their quests to understand and improve organizational creativity and innovation. This is an essential resource for scholars, researchers, or graduate students interested in creativity, innovation, and organizational behavior.