A Theoretical Framework Linking Creativity,Empowerment, and Organizational Memory

Empowerment, creativity, and organizational memory are constructs that have been researched in MIS. While each construct has received individual attention, we have found relatively little research linking them. One of the major edicts of empowerment is delegation of decision making authority to lower-level employees. Increased authority allows employees more freedom to be creative. However, if creative thought is generated but not captured, innovative ideas may be lost. Organizational memory can capture creative ideas as they are generated so that empowered teams can draw upon positive creative experiences. We developed a theoretical model to illuminate the relationships between organizational memory, worker empowerment, and creativity. The model portrays the linkages between empowerment and creativity, creativity and organizational memory, and organizational memory and empowerment. The model was developed based on the literature in each respective area and an interview-based study concerning “empowered” systems development project teams and organizational memory. Analysis of the interview data revealed that empowered workers generate creative solutions to problems. However, creative solutions can only be used for future projects if they are somehow recorded into organizational memory. Organizations that empowered their workforce and embraced creativity reported increased customer satisfaction, waste reduction, and some quality gains. In contrast, those that did not empower reported little or no change. Organizations that recorded creative solutions to problems believe that retrieval of this information could be potentially useful for future projects. Potential challenges faced by organizations classified into each cell are also presented. This classification scheme should prove useful as a guide to organizations examining the potential benefits and pitfalls of worker empowerment and organizational memory.     

Adapting Creative Problem Solving to an Organizational Context: A Study of its Effectiveness with a Student Population

Owing to company time restrictions and concentration on project development, we began to reduce the duration of creative problem solving (CPS) sessions, and to give more emphasis to the action planning stage. Several changes in our CPS protocol, as well as in its duration, begged the question as to whether these changes were jeopardizing efficacy. To examine this question, six groups of ten university students, working under two different CPS protocols (a five‐step method and a four‐step method), and three control groups (using no CPS method), were given the same objective and similar conditions. This exploratory experiment compared group performance by change in team commitment, divergent thinking preferences, productivity and the participants' evaluation of the different methods. Results show that the CPS methods were both effective in changing participants' perspectives regarding divergent thinking and team commitment. In the control groups, however, there were no changes as a consequence of the sessions. Results also suggest that the same problem‐solving effectiveness can be attained in a shorter time than that traditionally used, and without prior training in CPS. These findings open the door to developing new problem‐solving techniques and team work processes, and to more efficient organizational creativity and innovation methodologies.     

Assessing Job Candidates' Creativity: Propositions and Future Research Directions

Identifying and selecting creative employees is of key importance in today's high‐pace business environment. Yet, little is known about how assessors in organizational settings evaluate the creative potential of job candidates. In this paper we review the extant literature on individual and team creativity in order to identify criteria (cues) against which job candidates' creativity could be assessed. We argue that the creative potential of job candidates could be evaluated against four key dimensions (the creative individual, the creative product, the creative process and the creative environment) and call for empirical research to further explore and test our propositions in practice.     

Creative Problem Solving in Second Life: An Action Research Study

A digital Creative Problem‐Solving (CPS) process was facilitated in a 3D virtual world in order to assess whether such an environment was conducive to remote synchronous creative collaboration. IBM associates comprised the majority of the group that was involved in the process. Insights regarding the experience working within this virtual environment are discussed at length as seen through the eyes of the authors (CPS facilitators) of this paper and through the eyes of the participants. Data was gathered through a short feedback form administered to all participants, and informal interviews were also held to explore ways to improve the CPS experience. Results were encouraging. In common, participants reported that their experiences were deeply engaging and conducive to creative collaboration. An argument is made for the early adoption and use of this type of virtual worlds for remote‐synchronous creativity interactions. Finally, from a systems view of creativity, the authors identify opportunities for future research studies that examine the efficacy of creative collaboration within virtual worlds.     

Creative conceptual design: Extending the scope by infused design

Many methods that support human creativity by manual or computational means have been proposed in the past. They rely on the assumption that following a certain process of reasoning might lead to generating ideas considered creative. We start by defining creativity as a capability that enables the creation of systems that are patentable. We review the state-of-the-art of creative conceptual design and organize it with a framework. Subsequently, we present a method called infused design that guarantees the generation of design solutions by transforming systems and methods from remote disciplines. In many cases, these solutions would be deemed creative. Finding these systems and their transformations is done through a process based on the underlying discrete mathematical representation. This process is partially supported by a computer tool.We describe the method of infused design and illustrate its operation through part of the results achieved until now, including designing a new active torque amplifier system. We further demonstrate its benefits through other examples. We discuss the relation of infused design with other creativity or design methods and conclude with future developments of the method.“A well-directed imagination is the source of great deeds.”Chinese proverb     

Cloud services selection: A systematic review and future research directions

Cloud computing has developed in popularity as a large-scale computing paradigm that offers a range of computing resources as a service through the internet on a pay-as-you-go basis. The expansion in demand and commercial availability of cloud services brings new challenges to cloud services selection. Several research studies have been conducted to develop enhanced methodologies to assist service consumers in selecting appropriate services. In this paper, 105 primary studies published during January, 2011 to May, 2022 has been selected using a multi-stage scrutinizing approach. The selected preliminary studies were further classified based on various variables to answer the research questions stated for this work. A systematic review of existing cloud service selection approaches is performed, which are analyzed along eight dimensions: decision-making methods, context, purposes, cloud service performance parameters, simulation/language tools, domain, datasets, and experiment/validation methods. After a thorough review and comparison of these approaches across the above-mentioned dimensions, several open research issues in the current literature have been identified. The contribution of this research is fourfold: focusing on state-of-the-art cloud services selection approaches, highlighting the benefits and drawbacks of various cloud services selection methodologies and their future directions, offering a taxonomy based on a thorough literature study, and identifying nine critical challenges in cloud services selection that require further investigation. This systematic review study is anticipated to benefit both academics and business experts.     

Studying creativity training programs: A methodological analysis

Throughout decades of creativity research, a range of creativity training programs have been developed, tested, and analyzed. In 2004 Scott and colleagues published a meta‐analysis of all creativity training programs to date, and the review presented here sat out to identify and analyze studies published since the seminal 2004 review. Focusing on quantitative studies of creativity training programs for adults, our systematic review resulted in 22 publications. All studies were analyzed, but comparing the reported effectiveness of training across studies proved difficult due to methodological inconsistencies, variations in reporting of results as well as types of measures used. Thus a consensus for future studies is called for to answer the question: Which elements make one creativity training program more effective than another? This is a question of equal relevance to academia and industry, as creativity training is a tool that can contribute to enhancement of organizational creativity and subsequently innovation. However, to answer the question, future studies of creativity training programs need to be carefully designed to contribute to a more transparent landscape. Thus this paper proposes a methodological research standard consisting of three criteria, to which researchers can look when designing future studies of the effectiveness of creativity training.     

Toward a theory of managing creativity-intensive processes: a creative industries study

This paper reports the results of an exploratory, theory-building study on the impact of creativity on business processes, their management, and the use of information technology (IT) in particular. The empirical evidence was derived from organizations within the creative industries, specifically film and visual effects (VFX) production. An adapted grounded theory approach was employed in order to analyze the data. The study identifies the dynamics of business processes that can be described as highly dependent on creativity, intensively involving the client, complex, and interdependent. It explains the processes’ organizational context as well as strategies and IT systems that organizations use in order to manage these processes. The study suggests that creativity-intensive processes are characterized by high levels of uncertainty with regard to outcome, process structure, and required resources. Creative organizations pursue both creative and operational process performance while simultaneously mitigating creative and operational risk.     

System security assurance: A systematic literature review

System security assurance provides the confidence that security features, practices, procedures, and architecture of software systems mediate and enforce the security policy and are resilient against security failure and attacks. Alongside the significant benefits of security assurance, the evolution of new information and communication technology (ICT) introduces new challenges regarding information protection. Security assurance methods based on the traditional tools, techniques, and procedures may fail to account new challenges due to poor requirement specifications, static nature, and poor development processes. The common criteria (CC) commonly used for security evaluation and certification process also comes with many limitations and challenges. In this paper, extensive efforts have been made to study the state-of-the-art, limitations and future research directions for security assurance of the ICT and cyber–physical systems (CPS) in a wide range of domains. We conducted a systematic review of requirements, processes, and activities involved in system security assurance including security requirements, security metrics, system and environments and assurance methods. We highlighted the challenges and gaps that have been identified by the existing literature related to system security assurance and corresponding solutions. Finally, we discussed the limitations of the present methods and future research directions.     

Deep Learning Based Attack Detection for Cyber-Physical System Cybersecurity: A Survey

With the booming of cyber attacks and cyber criminals against cyber-physical systems(CPSs),detecting these attacks remains challenging.It might be the worst of times,but it might be the best of times because of opportunities brought by machine learning(ML),in particular deep learning(DL).In general,DL delivers superior performance to ML because of its layered setting and its effective algorithm for extract useful information from training data.DL models are adopted quickly to cyber attacks against CPS systems.In this survey,a holistic view of recently proposed DL solutions is provided to cyber attack detection in the CPS context.A six-step DL driven methodology is provided to summarize and analyze the surveyed literature for applying DL methods to detect cyber attacks against CPS systems.The methodology includes CPS scenario analysis,cyber attack identification,ML problem formulation,DL model customization,data acquisition for training,and performance evaluation.The reviewed works indicate great potential to detect cyber attacks against CPS through DL modules.Moreover,excellent performance is achieved partly because of several highquality datasets that are readily available for public use.Furthermore,challenges,opportunities,and research trends are pointed out for future research.     

A framework for understanding creativity in requirements engineering

Creativity is important in the discovery and analysis of user and business requirements to achieve innovative uses of information and communication technologies. This paper builds a theoretical framework for understanding creativity in requirements engineering. The framework provides a systematic means of understanding creativity in requirements engineering and comprises five elements (product, process, domain, people and socio-organisational context). The framework provides researchers with a sound basis for exploring how the five elements of creativity can be incorporated within RE methods and techniques to support creative requirements engineering. It provides practitioners with a systematic means of creating environments that nurture and develop creative people, cognitive and collaborative processes and products.     

Critical success factors of inter-organizational information systems—A case study of Cisco and Xiao Tong in China

This paper reports a case study of an inter-organizational information system (IOS) of Cisco and Xiao Tong in China. We interviewed their senior managers, heads of departments and employees who have been directly affected in their work. Other sources of information are company documents and publicly available background information. The study examines the benefits of the IOS for both corporations. The research also reveals seven critical success factors for the IOS, namely intensive stimulation, shared vision, cross-organizational implementation team, high integration with internal information systems, inter-organizational business process re-engineering, advanced legacy information system and infrastructure and shared industry standard.     

Organizational Antecedents of Creative Self‐Efficacy

A number of studies have documented a relationship between creative self‐efficacy and creative performance. The main aim of the present study was to investigate organizational factors that may influence such creative self‐efficacy. The examined variables included employees' task type and task autonomy, the quality of relationship between supervisors and subordinates (leader–member exchange [LMX]), as well as perceived levels of collegial support for creativity. The sample included 240 employees in a manufacturing company. The hypotheses were tested using partial least squares analysis. Results showed significant and positive relationships between the study variables and creative self‐efficacy, supporting the hypotheses. Furthermore, the combinations of task autonomy and high‐quality LMX, as well as task autonomy and collegial support for creativity, were positively associated with creative self‐efficacy. The results of this study may give guidance to leaders and consultants who want to enhance the creativity levels of employees through organizational development efforts.     

Developing radical innovation capabilities: Exploring the effects of training employees for creativity and innovation

The resilience of organizations is increasingly dependent on their ability to develop radical innovation capabilities. While the literature documents numerous cases of organizations that already have radical innovation capabilities, the question of organizational devices that can be used to stimulate the emergence of such capabilities remains poorly addressed. Specifically, training for innovation and creativity has been proposed as a means to foster innovation capabilities; however, there has been little empirical evidence concerning the long‐term impacts of such training. To fill this gap, this article aims to document and evaluate the efforts of the research institute of a major Canadian energy company to provide training for innovation and creativity to initiate a radical innovation capability. We rely on a longitudinal study over the span of 18 months, where we observed 128 h of training and conducted 70 semi‐structured interviews with a sample of 40 researchers. We found that training for creativity and innovation has the potential to develop individual creative skills for exploration, to catalyze and federate collective action through common methods and a shared sense of what innovation entails, and to help create a common language and vocabulary between the different groups or divisions of an organization to talk about exploration.     

Hierarchical reinforcement learning as creative problem solving

Although creativity is studied from philosophy to cognitive robotics, a definition has proven elusive. We argue for emphasizing the creative process (the cognition of the creative agent), rather than the creative product (the artifact or behavior). Owing to developments in experimental psychology, the process approach has become an increasingly attractive way of characterizing creative problem solving. In particular, the phenomenon of insight, in which an individual arrives at a solution through a sudden change in perspective, is a crucial component of the process of creativity.These developments resonate with advances in machine learning, in particular hierarchical and modular approaches, as the field of artificial intelligence aims for general solutions to problems that typically rely on creativity in humans or other animals. We draw a parallel between the properties of insight according to psychology and the properties of Hierarchical Reinforcement Learning (HRL) systems for embodied agents. Using the Creative Systems Framework developed by Wiggins and Ritchie, we analyze both insight and HRL, establishing that they are creative in similar ways. We highlight the key challenges to be met in order to call an artificial system “insightful”.     

The perceived importance and the presence of creative potential in the health professional's work environment

The value of creative employees to an organisation's growth and innovative development, productivity, quality and sustainability is well established. This study examined the perceived relationship between creativity and work environment factors of 361 practicing health professionals, and whether these factors were present (realised) in their work environment. Job design (challenges, team work, task rotation, autonomy) and leadership (coaching supervisor, time for thinking, creative goals, recognition and incentives for creative ideas and results) were perceived as the most important factors for stimulating creativity. There was room for improvement of these in the work environment. Many aspects of the physical work environment were less important. Public health sector employers and organisations should adopt sustainable strategies which target the important work environment factors to support employee creativity and so enhance service quality, productivity, performance and growth. Implications of the results for ergonomists and workplace managers are discussed with a participatory ergonomics approach recommended.

Practitioner summary: Creative employees are important to an organisation's innovation, productivity and sustainability. The survey identified health professionals perceive a need to improve job design and leadership factors at work to enhance and support employee creativity. There are implications for organisations and ergonomists to investigate the creative potential of work environments.     

Ganzheitliche Unterstützung für kreativitätsintensive Prozesse

Creativity is an important precondition of innovation. However, the management of creativity-intensive processes (CIPs) is beyond the scope of standard methodologies for business process standardization and automation because of the contradictory properties of CIPs, which require both process structure and creative freedom. We develop an explanatory design theory based on theoretical constructs from BPM theory, creativity research, and collaboration engineering, with the core component of an integrated IS architecture that facilitates the design of systems providing comprehensive support for CIPs. Automated control of structured processes and support of idea development in groups increase process efficiency and creative performance. Evaluation of a sub-portion of an expository instantiation (CreativeFlow) of the architecture in a laboratory experiment suggests that working with CreativeFlow leads to ideas that are more specific, while working without the tool generates ideas that are more feasible. Further, idea evaluation support of CreativeFlow must be improved in order to increase ideas’ feasibility and relevance. The validity of our theory is derived from a deductive development approach. We indicate limitations and further research.     

How entrepreneurial practices balance art and business: Insights into creative entrepreneurship in the European film industry

Relying on the literature on tensions and contradictions and the theory of practice, coupled with the literature on creative industries, this study uncovers how creative entrepreneurs balance the tension between art and business and respond to other challenges of creative entrepreneurship. The multiple case studies method is adopted by examining founders, cofounders and main employees of European film production companies. We reveal the perception of creative entrepreneurs towards the relationship between art and business. We explore different organizational and industry-level challenges experienced by creative entrepreneurs and uncover the organizational practices they adopt to deal with the identified challenges. The research contributes to the phenomenon of creative entrepreneurship by introducing the practice perspective, to the literature on paradox and contradiction by exploring the micro-foundations of tensions and paradox responses in high-intensity situations and to practice-based studies by investigating a domain-specific practice theory and highlighting the agency of creative entrepreneurs in adapting practices necessary to deal with conflicting demands of creative entrepreneurship.     

Does Organizing for Creativity Really Lead to Innovation?

Stimulation of creativity has long been assumed to enhance innovation. Accordingly, organizing the work environment to unleash the creative potential of employees has been studied extensively. However, the present creativity literature has yet to produce sufficient empirical evidence to confirm this assumption, and therefore the generalizability of the relationship between organizational creativity and innovation remains indeterminate. This paper adopts the leading creativity and innovation models to identify the work environment characteristics stimulating creativity, and subsequently analyses whether this environment leads to product and process innovation in small and medium sized firms. The findings demonstrate that this environment does not yield the same results for product and process innovation, and particular factors of the work environment do not behave according to the expectations to enhance the likelihood of doing innovation. The study discusses these findings and advances the literature by showing that the relationship between organizational creativity and innovation is not generalizable, but is contingent upon the innovation type and, as the discussion will show, particular characteristics related to the firm. Accordingly, the paper suggests new research opportunities to further explore organizational creativity and innovation.