Experiencing Creativity in the Organization: From Individual Creativity to Collective Creativity

摘要

Creativity is a component that enhances the ability of organizations to retain their competitive advantage as well as to stay ahead of their competitors. For creative organizations, the ideas and insights of their employees are of crucial importance. Most of the creativity research concentrates only on individual aspects of creativity. This paper also stresses the collective aspect of creativity in the organization. It studies how employees experience creativity and in what way they would support creative processes in their organization. The research material is from an action-based research project that tries to reveal innovation potential in all levels of the organization. According to the results, there is room for creativity in every job. However, creativity and especially the collective aspect of creativity in the organization are undervalued, though most of the work in the organization needs the expertise and creativity of many employees. This study also introduces the employee-driven way to support collective creativity in the organization.