A Comparison of Creative Behaviours in Online Communities across Cultures

In this study we shed light on the impact of cultural differences on creative processes and innovation creation in online communities. Analysing English‐ and Chinese‐speaking online basketball communities, we investigate how innovations develop in virtual consumer groups and what motives drive members to engage in joint innovation creation. Similarly to findings from creativity research in offline contexts, we find that culture does have an influence on creative processes and expressions. While English‐ and Chinese‐speaking online communities are similar in their high quality and quantity of creative outputs, they differ with regard to innovation patterns and the kinds of emerging innovations. From a practical perspective the findings suggest that companies that aim to collaborate with communities across cultures have to align the interaction with the members' different expectations and routines. Further, what communities consider as creative and innovative may depend on culture.     

Subject Positions and Power Relations in Creative Organizations: Taking a Discursive View on Organizational Creativity

In this paper we take a discursive view on organizational creativity and examine subject positions and power relations produced within a discourse on creativity in two different kinds of creative organizations, an opera house and a games company. In particular, we focus on the ways in which the discourse is practised in creative production processes. The two cases illustrate how the macro‐level discourse on creativity can be enacted in a more micro‐level construction of subjectivities. In the study we identified several subject positions that were shared by both organizations, and examined how they were embedded in the organizations' formal and informal hierarchies. By taking a discursive approach to creativity, we have also been able to explore some unwanted consequences of emphasizing creativity in organizations.     

Factors Associated with Creative Strategic Decisions

The study and practice of business strategy is fundamentally based on employing creative solutions to differentiate a firm from its competitors. Theories used to describe the causes and consequences of strategic differentiation tend to focus on organization‐level characteristics such as resources, capabilities and structures. However, less is known about day‐to‐day processes and practices whereby strategic managers develop create solutions necessary to establish strategic differentiation. This paper presents a preliminary field study of factors suggested by previous strategy process and micro‐strategy research that may lead to, and result from, creative strategic decisions. Findings produced by a longitudinal field study of 52 strategic decisions reveal that creative strategic choices arise in response to managers' perceptions of uncertainty and competition. The findings also suggest that creativity may improve the ultimate effectiveness of strategic choices by 5–10 per cent.     

Authenticity and Respect: Leading Creative Teams in the Performing Arts

Although leadership continues to play an important role in team effectiveness, how to lead teams of creative experts effectively remains a largely unanswered question. Within a performing arts context, this paper integrates the expert team and leadership literatures with the specific exigencies of the creative environment, particularly institutionalized theatre, and sheds new light on leadership and leadership behaviour in creative expert teams. The content analysis of semi‐structured narrative interviews from two theatre organizations in Austria and Germany reveals five leadership discourses not only on success and leadership, authenticity, respect, autonomy and freedom, but also on the dark side of leadership. The paper concludes by discussing findings and implications on leadership research with respect to the sensitivity of the creative context.     

让实践教学成为学生创新思想的展示平台

实践教学是高等教育中不可缺少的重要环节,在培养学生创新精神的过程中起着重要的作用。文章介绍在实践教学中采用层次化教学方式对激发学生学习热情、调动学生创新积极性的作用,论述如何为学生搭建创新思想的展示平台。     

Inter-organizational innovation and cloud computing

Firms are increasingly shifting from the ‘closed’ innovation paradigm, in which their innovation design and implementation activities were based on their own internal knowledge resources, skills and production facilities, towards the inter-organizational ‘open’ innovation paradigm, which is based to a significant degree on collaboration with other organizations, aiming at the exploitation of external knowledge resources, skills and production facilities as well. This paper investigates empirically the effects of firm’s inter-organizational collaboration for the design and implementation of innovations, and also use of ICT for supporting this collaboration, on firm’s propensity to adopt cloud computing (CC), and in this way it examines in an ‘objective’ manner to what extent firms regard CC as a cost-effective means of supporting inter-organizational collaboration for the design and implementation of innovation. Our study is based on a dataset collected in the e-Business Survey of the European Commission from 676 European firms from the glass, ceramics and cement manufacturing sectors. It has been concluded that firms of these sectors regard CC as a cost-effective means of supporting collaboration with other firms for the design of innovations in their products, services and processes, and also of reducing the costs and increasing the capabilities and flexibility of already existing electronic support of inter-organizational innovation design collaboration. Furthermore, our results indicate that firms find CC useful for the reduction of the costs and the increase of the capabilities and flexibility of their existing electronic support of the complex operations required for the inter-organizational implementation of innovations.     

Achieving dynamic capabilities with cloud computing: an empirical investigation

Cloud computing enables convenient and on-demand access to a shared pool of configurable computing resources. While cloud computing‘s ability to improve operational efficiency has gained much attention in the literature, there has been limited research on how it can help organizations achieve dynamic capabilities. Drawing from dynamic capabilities theory, we conducted a field study using a multiple case study design to examine the following research question: How do organizations achieve dynamic capabilities by using Cloud Computing? We develop a framework that explains how organizations respond to market dynamism by developing sense-and-response strategies that enable them to achieve dynamic capabilities using business process redesign, business network redesign, and business scope redefinition. We discuss how these transformations, in turn, improve organizational outcomes such as service effectiveness and efficiency. Our study also identifies factors that support and hinder the development of dynamic capabilities. Our study contributes to the literature on dynamic capabilities by examining how IT capabilities like cloud computing may accelerate the ability of an organization to achieve dynamic capabilities. We also identify transformational changes of business processes and inter-organizational networks that are enabled by cloud computing. Further, we identify how the essential characteristics of cloud computing support sense and respond strategies.     

Media Production: Towards Creative Collaboration Using Communication Networks

To examine the diffusion of remote collaboration technologies within the media production industries, a series of case studies was recently conducted with early adopters of advanced electronic networks in Sydney, Los Angeles and London. The studies assessed: 1) user reactions to these collaboration technologies and types of activities being supported and 2) factors influencing their adoption decisions. Interviews conducted also provided early indications of the conditions likely to facilitate remote collaboration and the likely impacts on work practices in media production organizations. It was established that electronic delivery, remote access to resources and materials, and remote creative collaboration were all being carried out, even internationally. Although most network applications were routine substitutions for non-electronic equivalents (e.g. couriers or catalogue browsing), some did involve shared creative activities, thus confirming that remote creative collaboration is a viable option. Key factors influencing network adoption were cost considerations and regulatory issues, time savings and productivity, and security concerns. Certain industry segments -- animation, post-production, and advertising -- were more likely to be early adopters, as were companies who found innovative ways to achieve greater benefits. Conditions likely to facilitate remote collaboration include more sophisticated change-agent strategies, increasing the perceived control of creative outputs, developing and maintaining trust, providing more auxiliary support for coordination needs, and making more effective use of timing and time-zone differences. Likely impacts of remote collaboration in media production are: more overlap between pre-production, production, and post-production activities; faster work pace; enhanced creativity; and improved quality of work life.     

Lifestyle Meets Market: Bohemian Entrepreneurs in Creative Industries

By linking lifestyle studies with creative industries research, this article opens a new perspective on creativity and innovation management. We argue that artists in the creative industries have to bridge the gap between artistic work and the economic need for self‐management, and that a bohemian lifestyle essentially supports them in doing so. The bohemian lifestyle, which is characterized by a devotion to art for art’s sake, is an essential source for work motivation of artists and an increasing number of other creative workers. The article draws upon an empirical study into artistic work and employment in German theatres. Enacting a bohemian lifestyle enables actors as ‘bohemian entrepreneurs’ to integrate intensive self‐management and self‐marketing as well as subordination of private life to work into their artistic work life. Analysing the link between lifestyle and creative work is crucial for understanding the way in which creative workers become artists and, at the same time, entrepreneurs of their creative talent.     

Psychological Safety,Knowledge Sharing,and Creative Performance in Healthcare Teams

We examined how psychological safety fosters knowledge‐sharing processes and enables team creative performance. Using a multi‐respondent design, we tested our hypotheses using survey data collected from 73 patient‐centred healthcare teams working in the field on rare diseases. The data were analysed using latent class regression analysis. We confirmed that a high level of psychological safety within the team is a significant predictor of creative team performance and is mediated by the sharing of two types of knowledge: information and know‐how.     

Using wikis in team collaboration: A media capability perspective

Wikis are widely acknowledged to be capable of promoting team collaboration. However, previous studies have not examined how the characteristics of the wiki media influence team members’ perceived collaboration effectiveness in the educational context. Drawing on media synchronicity theory, we examine five wiki capabilities and whether these capabilities are perceived to be effective in facilitating collaboration. Results based on data from 83 undergraduate students in 15 teams show that reprocessability, no other wiki capabilities, plays a dominant role in securing a more favorable evaluation of collaboration effectiveness by students. The findings and their implications on theory and practice are discussed.     

Entrepreneurial capabilities

The aim of this article is to analyse entrepreneurship from an action research perspective. What is entrepreneurship about? Which are the fundamental capabilities and processes of entrepreneurship? To answer these questions the article includes a case study of a Danish entrepreneur and his networks. Finally, the article discusses how more long term action research methods could be integrated into the entrepreneurial processes and the possible impacts of such an implementation.     

Entrepreneurs’ Intentions and Partnership Towards Innovation: Evidence from the Japanese Film Industry

Many scholars have researched in the field of entrepreneurship and innovation; nevertheless, little attention has been given to a causal relationship between these two concepts; entrepreneurial intention and innovation. In the conventional view, a single outstanding entrepreneur has an intention to induce innovation, and connects market opportunities and resources. However, this view cannot fully explain the situation of entrepreneurial activities led by a team. This article presents a new research framework in entrepreneurship research. First, an entrepreneur can have a relational intention that leads to constructing a partnership. Second, such a partnership, not an individual entrepreneur, has an emerged innovative intention that leads to carrying out innovation in order to establish the competitive advantage. Adopting this framework, we examine cases in the Japanese film industry and clarifying the relational development between entrepreneur’s intention and innovation. From this study a new theoretical foundation on the dynamics of entrepreneurial intentions and outcomes in creative industries arises, and it unpacks the initial stage of innovation where organizations are newly created by employing micro viewpoints such as individuals and partnerships.     

Effective digital collaboration in the construction industry – A case study of BIM deployment in a hospital construction project

Building information modeling (BIM) and related digital innovations can serve as a catalyst for more transparency, tighter integration, and increased productivity in the architecture, engineering, and construction industry. Yet, many project teams struggle with how to work based on the new technology. Collaborative design based on shared information systems like BIM requires changing traditional and institutionalized work practices and routines. A case study of integrated BIM design in a large healthcare construction project serves as an example for how commonly experienced challenges can be overcome. The project has been awarded BuildingSMART's 2015 award for ‘outstanding open BIM practice’ making it Norway's role model for BIM practice. Based on diffusion of innovations theory, we identified the following set of key factors enabling digital collaboration in this project: change agents, new roles and responsibilities, a cloud computing infrastructure, BIM contracts, and a BIM learning environment. The findings presented in this article may serve as an example for BIM implementation and collaborative work in construction projects.     

Toolkit‐Based Modelling and Serious Play as Means to Foster Creativity in Innovation Processes

In this article we describe and discuss means that foster the emergence of innovation through representational methods which interrelate manual modeling with playfulness. Based on the observation that demands to innovation processes have changed significantly in recent years due to changed collaboration forms, like co‐configuration or open innovation, we look for a methodological approach able to deal with such collaboration forms. We describe and discuss a methodological approach on how innovation processes in heterogeneous – interdisciplinary, cross‐functional and interorganizational – groups can be kicked off to bring about collectively shared understanding, as well as the ability to develop creative ideas. The approach relies on a playful modeling methodology, which is based on the hands‐on creation of visualizations and physical models in connection with their verbal explanation and narration. With reference to two case studies we report and discuss experiences of applying the methodology.     

Reality bites: Managing identity ambiguity in an advertising agency

Creative industries provide a challenging environment for management, especially given the ambiguities inherent in these environments and the need to balance creative work with mundane, yet supportive practices of organizations. Within these environments there are a large number of individuals with high identity needs such as the Creatives, and management must thus balance the needs of these Creatives with those of other organizational actors, including those responsible for allegedly ‘non‐creative’ processes. This paper examines an Australian advertising agency and demonstrates how individuals and groups within the organization handle ambiguities and tensions inherent to their work. The case study shows how management provides structures and support in order to allow for heedful interactions between two oppositional dimensions of the environment. Therefore managerial action and instituted processes serve to strike a balance between the creative and non‐creative work and to guide individuals and groups towards meaningful outcomes.     

Decentring the Creative Self: How Others Make Creativity Possible in Creative Professional Fields

Since its inception, the psychology of creativity has been concerned primarily with the study of individual creators. In contrast, this research is dedicated to an exploration of (a) who has a significant impact on a creative professional's activity and (b) what the contribution is that others make to creative outcomes. The research included interviews with 60 professionals working in science and creative industries in France. The following categories of others emerged: family and friends, peers and students, clients and funders, critics and gatekeepers, and the general public – and they were related to themes depicting the interaction between these different others and the creator. Findings reveal both similarities and differences across the five domains in terms of the specific contribution of others to the creative process. Social interactions play a key formative, regulatory, motivational and informational role in relation to creative work. From ‘internalized’ to ‘distant’, other people are an integral part of the equation of creativity calling for a de‐centring of the creative self and its re‐centring in a social space of actions and interactions.     

Buyer/seller collaboration through measurement of beliefs on innovativeness of products

Today's industry is faced with strong and fierce competition. As a consequence, companies have been in search of creating values to cope with these challenges. In this context, innovation has been an essential instrument for creating values to overcome existing tackles. Therefore, companies have attempted to develop capabilities for innovating and thereby their efforts have been extensively intensified on collaboration structures. Recent attempts have been usually structured to form collaboration architectures among the sellers or governmental organizations. However, it is remarkable that, the real value of an innovation comes out when it has been perceived by the customers. Therefore, there is an actual need of collaboration among the sellers and buyers based on the customer perceptions. This paper proposes a framework for the collaboration of sellers and buyers to enhance the innovation capabilities of firms through a novel scheme for measurement of innovation perceptions which is indeed the real/actual output of the innovation process. The proposed framework provides a space and a map for the employment of the proposed measurement scheme. Along with the proposed framework, customers are expected to collaborate with sellers by answering the questions given in the specifically prepared innovation survey. The survey includes the questions prepared based on the factors barrowed from “Rogersian characteristics of innovation perception” (RCIP). Perceptions are attempted to be measured using the belief functions which fuzziness of perception is already included in. Furthermore, by the use of opinion triangles and consensus operator, perceptions of customers on each of the RCIP are fused into a single and meaningful output on the innovativeness of a certain product. The proposed framework is illustrated through an application for a reputed cellular phone example. The contribution of this paper is twofold: (1) developing a collaboration framework among customers and business owners to enhance innovation capabilities by constructing a communication channel based on innovativeness of the products; (2) developing an innovation measurement scheme which returns an objective measure by adding subjective opinions of individuals on innovativeness of certain product.     

The Creative Product and the Creative Processes in Virtual Environments

The effects of information technology on the creative performance in groups and individuals were examined. An experimental 3 × 2 design was used in order to assess the effects of computer‐mediated and face‐to‐face interaction on creative performance. Forty‐eight groups, divided into individuals or small three‐person groups, worked on a heuristic task during three sessions. Creativity was operationalized in terms of the creative product and the creative process. The results regarding the creative product indicated that small groups had a higher flexibility than individuals. The small groups also proved to have significantly more incubations. Regarding the creative process, the face‐to‐face group showed a better flow, and this was especially valid in respect of the preparation phase. This study suggests that, providing there is a fully understood and well‐prepared problem, attained or strengthened through face‐to‐face interaction; GCSS may serve as an important arena for exchanging and developing ideas.