Motivating Creativity and Enhancing Innovation through Employee Suggestion System Technology

Research has found that employee suggestion systems are a useful way to obtain and utilize employees’ creative ideas. To be effective, employees must be motivated to think creatively and to participate in the suggestion system. Unfortunately, motivating employees to participate is a common weakness of suggestion systems. Motivating employees involves more than simply offering rewards to submitters if their suggestions are put to use. According to expectancy theory, rewards will only motivate behaviour if the rewards are valued, if they are closely linked to successful performance, and if employees believe that they can perform successfully. This paper applies expectancy theory to the problem of motivating employees to participate in a suggestion system. We describe suggestion system technology that will increase employees’ motivation to think creatively and participate in the system.     

Creativity in Multidisciplinary New Product Development Teams

New product development is usually teamwork. Product development teams are created that are cross–functional, representing different functional units, or multidisciplinary, involving several disciplines, or both. In any case, conceiving and developing new products is a joint effort, which means that the traditional view of creativity may not apply. This view, characterized by a focus on individuals as agents of creativity and by the assumption that creativity is a unilateral quality, not a reciprocal or interactive phenomenon, continues to be influential. As a result, much of the dynamics of ‘newness–generation’ and ‘newness–reception’ in organizations remains to be studied. This paper describes the organization of new product development in a number of medium–sized companies. It will discuss the theoretical issues of newness generation in multidisciplinary new product development teams and newness reception in the larger organization, and present the results of a series of exploratory interviews.     

Organizing Creativity: Creativity and Innovation under Constraints

The best way of organizing creativity within organizations remains somewhat enigmatic to scholars, particularly when it comes to the role of constraints. On the one hand, creative organizations are often associated with freedom, autonomy, weak rules and few boundaries. On the other hand, several studies suggest that constraints, particularly design constraints, often stimulate creativity rather than suppress it. All in all, findings are mixed and inconclusive, and further research that explores this area of tension is required. The goal of this paper is twofold. Firstly, we introduce the topic of constraints and creativity, and raise some of the open questions in this field. By way of illustration, we report on a preliminary study about the role of constraints. Secondly, we set the stage for the contributions in this special issue on creativity and innovation under constraints, by identifying four central themes for further research. We subsequently outline the articles in this issue, and show how each of them contributes to one or more of these themes.     

Innovation,Creativity and Information Behaviour

The inventors of creativity techniques, such as brainstorming, brainwriting, synectics, bionics, and morphological analysis, leave no doubt about the effectiveness of these instruments for generation of new ideas. But definite empirical proof is still lacking. We argue that differences in assessing the creativity techniques exist as a result of ignoring difficulties of users in coping with information behaviour. Most of the structures neglect the problem of information overload. They favour uncontrollable information generation and processing. This leads mainly to slogans, catch-phrases, and aphorisms. Complex follow-up work is required. We argue that an optimal fit is needed between the problem to be solved and the respective creativity technique.     

Synergies Between Organizational Learning and Creativity & Innovation

In today’s fast changing business environment, where knowing more and knowing it faster than the competition is often the difference between surviving and not surviving, organizational learning is more and more being recognized as a crucial organizational function. Never mind that the term is over-used, over-hyped and made to mean whatever the writer really wants to talk about. See through the snow and recognize that organizational learning is an organizational function that is here to stay and that will grow in importance. Unending changes in technology and in markets and the removal of logistical and regulatory buffers from competition will make it so. As a consequence of these facts, organizational learning has become a subject of study by management researchers and a subject of considerable interest to corporate leaders – so much so that many large US business organizations are creating positions with the titles like Chief Learning Officer and Chief Knowledge Officer. Certainly organizational learning is a phrase in high fashion. But in what specific ways, if any, does it lead to creativity and innovation? Or, consider the reverse directionality – in what ways do creativity and innovation lead to organizational learning? In this article, I offer some partial answers to these questions, with the intention of giving readers an additional way to frame the processes of creativity and innovation in their organizations.     

Creativity and Innovativeness through Reflective Project Leadership

The potential contribution of reflection to leadership at the project level is explored by building upon theories of reflection, and by presenting a case describing reflective leadership in practice. Reflective leadership refers to the process by which leaders reflect on their own leader behaviour in order to understand how it affects the behaviour of others. A means of facilitating leaders in their development of reflective skills is described. The evidence supports the proposition that reflective leadership can be enhanced to the benefit of innovative climate in projects.     

Transitioning Towards Creativity and Innovation Measurement in SMEs

The aim of this paper is to explore the transition from traditional measures to creativity and innovation measures within a number of small to medium‐sized enterprises (SMEs) case studies. The need for increased competitiveness has created an impetus for increased creativity and innovation in SMEs. However, the measures associated with the process of creativity and innovation in organisations sometimes do not follow cause‐and‐effect rationale, reflecting non‐linear behaviour. A multiple SME‐based case research methodology is used to explore the transitioning effects from traditional to more creativity and innovation based measures. The cases were part of a longitudinal creativity and innovation intervention programme, which combined taught modules and Critical Action Learning networks over a two‐year period. These networks involved sub‐groups applying critical theory‐based study to the learning they had received in the modules. The findings reveal that the transition dynamics include a complex mix of cause and effect rationale, phenomenology, incremental change, radical change, quantitative, qualitative and linear and complex contrasts and comparisons. Thus, managers must facilitate an eclectic approach to creativity and innovation measures.     

Stimulating Creativity through Opportunistic Software Development

Using opportunistic software development principles in computer engineering education encourages students to be creative and to develop solutions that cross the boundaries of diverse technologies. A framework for opportunistic software development education helps to create a space in which students can combine systems that were never meant to work together or even to be reused, and thus produce innovative ideas and solutions. A case study involving students in a course on intelligent human-computer interaction design demonstrates the approach, and the authors discuss some lessons learned.     

The Paradox of Diversity Management,Creativity and Innovation

This conceptual and discursive paper argues that diversity is a recognizable source of creativity and innovation that can provide a basis for competitive advantage. On the other hand, diversity is also a cause of misunderstanding, suspicion and conflict in the workplace that can result in absenteeism, poor quality, low morale and loss of competitiveness. Firms seeking competitive advantage therefore face a paradoxical situation. If they embrace diversity, they risk workplace conflict, and if they avoid diversity, they risk loss of competitiveness. The advantages and disadvantages associated with workforce diversity put organizations in a position of managing a paradoxical situation. To give support to this assertion, the paper considers what is meant by diversity, how it is best managed, what its relationship with creativity and innovation might be and how the problems created by the management of diversity, creativity and innovation might be resolved.     

Multicultural Teams: Increasing Creativity and Innovation by Diversity

The internationalization of industrial research and development has tended to be regarded as a necessary evil. However, in conjunction with project management attuned to different cultures, multicultural teams can increase the rate of creativity and innovation. Many examples of this are demonstrated, together with specific reference to a competence‐based network developed within Schindler Elevator Ltd.     

Group Climate and Creativity in Temporary Innovation Camp Settings

This study examines how perceived group climate shapes the creativity of groups in temporary, collaborative and non‐virtual innovation setting. As no previous studies have examined antecedents of group creativity in temporary non‐virtual innovation settings, this study takes as a starting point the findings of the current studies in conventional ongoing groups to examine the conditions of temporary group innovation camp settings. Through a survey study and partial least squares‐structural equation modelling (PLS‐SEM), the paper sheds light on the antecedents of group creativity in temporary conditions. According to the results, task orientation was the only significant antecedent of group creativity, supporting the assertion that temporary work settings tend to be more task oriented than relationship oriented. The results indicate that many aspects of the social working environment that have been found to affect group creativity in ongoing and stable settings do not exert a similar influence in temporary settings.     

Spaces for Creativity and Innovation in Two Established Organizations

Organizational work environments are increasingly strategically designed to support creativity and innovation processes, although a consistent theoretical frame for such an endeavour has not been developed yet. Creativity‐ and innovation‐oriented design of work environments requires an understanding of the principles of the underlying processes and their spatial implications. Both creativity and innovation processes are complex and display in different phases convergent and divergent characteristics. The processes are dependent on both individual and group effort. In this article these dimensions are discussed from a theoretical perspective and are used for evaluating the two cases presented here. The first case, the Interactive Creativity Landscape as integral part of the Fraunhofer Office Innovation Center in Germany has been designed interpreting the convergent and divergent phases of creative processes. The second case, the Learning Garden of a Scandinavian financial institution has been designed having de Bono's procedure in mind. The article concludes with the suggestion that increasingly organizations will offer diversity for spatially supporting creativity and innovation processes; solutions will be manifold but will follow certain principles – some of which are discussed here.     

The Development of Technological Creativity through Project Work

Working in research and development groups and development groups and using actual materials, the learners acquire the abilities of systematic thinking and problem solving in completing the multifunction robot project. Moreover, the learners keep a record of data and messages collected in various stages of robot design and production. They also have to use thinking skills to locate problems and keep looking for better ways to modify and improve on their ideas until the robot function as it is originally intended to. A creativity-developing, and learning experiment is described involving the design of a multi-function robot. We conclude that the development of creative capabilities is enhanced when the design processes are accompanied by reflection and reporting procedures.     

Supporting Creativity through the Interactive Exploratory Search Paradigm

In creative tasks, there is a need to explore the space of available information in order to come up with diverse views before converging to a solution. In such tasks, typical search engines that follow the direct search paradigm fail to inspire users. It is hypothesized that contrary to typical engines, interactive exploratory search, which aims at revealing latent, alternative directions in the information space enabling user orientation and engagement, is better suited to assist users in their quest for serendipitous discoveries and inspiration. In this study, an interactive exploratory search tool that combines diversification of content and sources with a user interface design that visualizes clues from the social chatter – generated with micro-blogging services such as Twitter – and lets users interactively explore the available information space is presented. A profiling service and recommendation module in charge of delivering personalized social content complements the setting. A pilot and two task-based user studies comparing our system to a query-based baseline indicate that our system significantly improves inspirational discoveries by providing access to more interesting and serendipitous information.     

Solving Failing Queries through Cooperation and Collaboration

Sometime Query Answering Systems (QAS) for a Distributed Autonomous Information System (DAIS) may fail by returning the empty set of objects as an answer for a query q. Systems in DAIS can be incomplete, have hierarchical attributes, and the semantics of attributes and their values may differ between sites. Also, if there are no objects in S matching q, the query may fail when submitted to S. Alternatively, QAS for S may try to relax the query q as it was proposed in T. Gaasterland (IEEE Expert, 12(5), 1997, 48–59), P. Godfrey (International Journal of Cooperative Information Systems, 6(2), 1997, 95–149) and W. Chu et al. (Journal of Intelligent Information Systems, 6(2/3), 1996, 223–259). It means that q can be replaced by a new more general query. Clearly, the goal is to find possibly the smallest generalization of q which will not fail in S. Smaller generalizations guarantee higher confidence in objects returned by QAS. Such QAS is called cooperative (only one site is involved). Queries may also fail in S when some of the attributes listed in q are outside the domain of S. To resolve this type of queries, assuming that S is a part of DAIS, we may extract definitions of such attributes from information systems residing at some of the remote sites for S and next use them to approximate q in S. In order to do that successfully, we assume that all involved systems have to agree on the ontology of some of their common attributes Z.W. Raś and A. Dardzińska (Information Systems International Journal, 29(1), 2004, 47–58; Proceedings of FQAS 2004 Conference, LNCS/LNAI No. 3055, 2004, pp. 125–136); Z.W. Raś and S. Joshi, Fundamenta Informaticae Journal, 30(3/4), 1997, 313–324. QAS based on the above strategy is called collaborative (minimum two sites are involved). Similarly, a query may fail in S when the granularity of an attribute used in q is finer than the granularity of the same attribute in S. This paper shows how to use collaboration and cooperation approach to solve failing queries in DAIS assuming that attributes are hierarchical. Some aspects of a collaboration strategy dealing with failing query problem for non-hierarchical attributes have been presented in Z.W. Raś and A. Dardzińska (Information Systems International Journal, 29(1), 2004, 47–58; Proceedings of FQAS 2004 Conference, LNCS/LNAI No. 3055, 2004, pp. 125–136).     

Discovery, Innovation, and Creativity: The Core of Computing

Computing programs should infuse the principles of entrepreneurship in computing curricula to equip students with the tools and skills necessary for them to succeed—and for the economy to thrive.