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Research on creativity highlights feedback as an important driver of creative ideas. However, it advances a rather mechanistic understanding of communication, which obscures the specific practices in feedback interactions as well as their constitutive role in shaping creative ideas. In this paper, we advance conceptual arguments on how actors interact in communicative feedback processes on creative ideas. By drawing on the theory of communicative action by Jürgen Habermas and Hans Joas’ theory of creative action, we develop a more complex and nuanced understanding of creativity as a phenomenon that is constituted in communication. These authors’ work draws conceptual attention to the practices through which actors negotiate the novelty and usefulness of creative ideas in communicative interactions, the important role of feedback givers as creative actors, and “spaces for play” as a communicative sphere that allows creativity to emerge. We extend the literature on creativity by introducing a theory of communicative and creative action that offers to unpack communicative interactions through which creativity does or does not come into being.

One of the problems we face in the transition from an industrial society to a global knowledge economy is the need for a new breed of leaders and a new understanding of leadership. Creativity in organizations is traditionally considered to be the domain of the R&D department, and design and marketing functions. The consequences of this way of thinking are that creativity, innovation and the implementation of innovation have not been a part of everyday life throughout an organization, but rather things that are the responsibility of a few people often located in departments far away from the “front line.” It is the front line that is in daily contact with users/customers, and which, in the knowledge society, will become increasingly important. The purpose of this paper is to discuss how we can develop a new type of leadership in the knowledge economy. The authors suggest that the necessary conditions for this new type of leadership, which is refered to here as “innovation leadership”, are developed in a holistic model which includes the following elements: entrepreneurial action, innovative leadership, creative energy fields within the organization, high‐tech wealth creation and innovation as a business process.

The authors' perspective here is that of a holistic integrated model where leadership and administration coordinate and balance each other, promoting creativity, innovation, productivity and change. The methodology used is conceptual research, where an analytical model is discussed.

For the established policy in enterprises and other social systems it is important to open up to fields of contagion, cutting down parts of the forest and allowing the principle of the order of succession to reign freely. In established enterprises it is important to: uncover creative energy fields; identify innovation leaders; spread contagion by cutting down areas of the forest where you want the principle of the order of succession to apply; and ensure that you have active spreaders of contagious new creative energy fields in the enterprise.

If one freely interprets Hamel, then in order to promote the development of relational competence, 80 percent of the resources involved in high‐tech wealth creation should be allocated to innovation culture, and 20 percent to performance culture. Hamel says that innovation culture is constituted by “passion, creativity, initiative”. The most important aspect of innovation culture is not so much developing many new ideas and patents, but rather converting these ideas to profit for the company; the motto “from idea to invoice” springs to mind here. However, in most companies it is perhaps the performance culture rather than the innovation culture that is given priority.

The social implications can be stated by citing Hamel, who outlines five important lessons that need to be followed: go to the root of any problem; build what is new on new ground; commit to revolutionary goals, but reach the goals by taking small steps; evaluate continuously, but do not paralyse the system with analysis and quarterly results; and be persevering.

To the authors' knowledge, few authors (if any), have related systemic thinking (cybernetics) to the new leaders we need in the global economy.

This chapter highlights an overemphasis and persistent bias in entrepreneurship pedagogy toward predictive logic that results in unidimensional instruction. In contrast, we explore how to teach a creative logic for entrepreneurial action. We argue that a more realistic and complete approach to teaching and pedagogy should include a creative logic that will augment existing methods focused on students’ research and analysis and balance these with taking explicit entrepreneurial action. Building upon social capital, networking, learning and real options theories, the chapter uses case studies and provides in-class exercises to illustrate our perspective and help researchers and instructors alike.

Organizational creativity and innovation are inherently complex phenomena, and subject to a myriad of broad contextual and social influences. As the evidence grows for the link between innovation and organizational effectiveness and, ultimately, organizational survival, there is no doubting the need for theoretical and practical advances in our understanding. The complex nature of these constructs, however, requires that such efforts utilize a multi-level lens. This chapter discusses key aspects of creativity and innovation in organizations, including fundamental construct definition issues, which underscore the need for a multi-level perspective. It also reviews extant theoretical perspectives for their contributions to a multi-level understanding, and the research in two key areas of social influence – group factors and leadership – that have received substantial attention in the organizational literature. The review and discussion of these areas reveal not only numerous advances, but also substantial limitations that must be resolved through more complex and comprehensive (i.e., multi-level) approaches. The chapter concludes with several recommendations intended to guide and inform future work in the organizational creativity and innovation field.

The early childhood education classroom space is intrinsic to developing localized youth culture. Through a four-month-long qualitative research project in a space that focused on meeting the most rudimentary child needs due to staffing and fund restrictions, young children’s creativity through the arts was stunted. In a classroom setting focused on structure and strict routine at the forefront, children’s creative expression was observed through independent action and creative twists on order, instead of through activities deliberately designed to nurture creativity and expression. Since the children at the site did not seem to regularly participate in any kind of art making, or unstructured creative expression, my focus instead became the fundamentals of creativity and how young children in the classroom demonstrated choice making and agency. The objective of this study was how to understand the space from a child-centered approach to better project how to include art making, creative education, and creative expression within early childhood education sites that do not currently employ it in their curriculum. This chapter aims to situate how young children created a culture of creative expression within the boundaries of a structured early education classroom when top-down teacher interaction was at a minimum, and open-ended, non-directive materials were provided.

This paper aims to report on the construction of a scale to measure a firm's stance towards creative consumers; that is, customers who adapt, modify or transform a proprietary offering.

A measurement instrument, called the 3As, is developed to assess the extent to which an organization is aware of its creative customers, its attitude towards its creative customers, and finally the action it takes in response to its creative customers. A total of 178 Executive MBA students were used to fine‐tune a set of items using exploratory factor analysis (EFA).

An empirical test of reliability and validity resulted in three clearly defined factors or dimensions, which correspond to the three constructs of awareness, attitude and action. The relationship between the scales' prediction of stances and a manager's self typing of the organization is assessed, and the relationship between firm stance, environmental turbulence, and performance explored.

This paper provides the first scale for measuring a firm's stance toward creative consumers.

This paper focuses on individuals' improvisation in organizations. The extant literature in this area examines improvisation as either a predictor or an outcome variable. However, there is still considerable confusion about the essence of improvisation and its individual-level determinants. To address these deficiencies, we discuss the differences between improvisation, creativity, and intuition, integrating insights and theories from those fields. Then, we propose a comprehensive model describing a process that includes contextual and individual level variables, which leads to improvisation. Finally, we discuss the theoretical and practical implications of our model and suggest avenues for future research.

The examination of contextual factors that enhance or stifle employees’ creative performance is a new but rapidly growing research area. Theory and research in this area have focused on antecedents of employee creativity. In this paper, we review and discuss the major theoretical frameworks that have served as conceptual foundations for empirical studies. We then provide a review and critical appraisal of these empirical studies. Based on this review, we propose exciting possibilities for future research directions. Finally, we discuss implications of this body of work for human resource management.