The management of innovation: Recasting the role of creativity

Abstract

This article examines difficulties arising from the deep-rooted assumption that the innovation process exists as a phenomenon incorporating two distinct and identifiable stages of creative discovery and subsequent implementation. An alternative perspective is proposed in which innovation is represented as the process whereby individuals enact new social procedures; creativity is the associated process in which the meanings of the enactments are discovered and labelled. Innovation treated in this manner occurs as the streams of human activities and ideas mutually interact. The starting, ending, and bounding of an innovation project are all parts of a unitary process of meaning-creation within social contexts. “Creative” thoughts and actions interact throughout the process. (“Creativity through the finishing line”; “implementation first and last”). Not least, such an interpretive model avoids the difficulties that have been encountered in attempts to treat innovation as a series of objective stages. It furthermore provides a coherent theoretical status for creativity as the meaning-creating processes within all personal discovery and learning activities.