Studying organizational creativity as process: Fluidity or duality?

Johann Fortwengel, Elke Schuessler, Joerg Sydow

Research output: Contribution to journalArticlepeer-review

62 Citations (Scopus)
658 Downloads (Pure)

Abstract

This paper contributes to process studies on organizational creativity by developing two competing research agendas. The first perspective, the ‘becoming’ view, depicts creativity as a constant flow of activity that crystallizes every once in a while in unpredictable moments of creativity. The second perspective, the ‘practice’ view, understands creativity as a practised social process, in which structures play the important role of both enabling and constraining individual agents in pursuing creativity as a collective phenomenon. We compare and contrast these two theoretical perspectives, which are based on different process ontologies, and discuss their methodological implications. We argue that the practice perspective offers particular promise, because it allows us to address the important yet paradoxical question of how creativity may be organized and managed.
Original languageEnglish
Pages (from-to)5-16
JournalCreativity and Innovation Management
Volume26
Issue number1
Early online date25 Sept 2016
DOIs
Publication statusPublished - Mar 2017

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