Essay Sample on Creativity & Innovation: Is Success Dependent on Employees Alone?

Introduction

The notion of creativity and innovation is what makes every organisation different from others. In order, therefore, to have leading-edge organisations, all employees and employers have to be open-minded and creative enough to realise this goal. This paper, therefore, seeks to critically evaluate and determine whether successful creativity innovation and design thinking activities are merely dependants only on the work of the employee. With that said, the paper will partially agree with the statement, and by doing so, provide enough evidence from the componential theory of organisational creativity and innovation.

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The componential theory of creativity and innovation in an organisation defines creativity as the process of producing an appropriate and novel product, solution or response to a task considered open-ended (Amabile, T. 2013, 3). Although the solution should be new, it cannot be completely different from the existing case. The response created ought to be appropriate to the problem being solved and thus has to be correct, feasible, valuable and related to the goal. Furthermore, for creativity to be helpful, the task has to be open-ended, meaning there is a possibility of many solutions as opposed to one obvious solution.

Innovation, on the other hand, has been defined as the successful execution of creative ideas and solutions within an organisation, while the design is a plan produced to how the function or look or of an object before it is produced.

The componential theory of creativity was first expressed by Teresa Amabile in the early 1980s. It was a theory which was intended to be helpful for both organisational and psychological creativity research. As such, it outlines the creative process and other important factors which influences the process and the outcomes (Amabile, T. 2013, 7). There exist two significant assumptions which drive the theory. The first assumption is that there exists a flow from the lowest and most ordinary stages of creativity, to the uppermost stage of creativity that has ever been recorded in historically important performances, scientific discoveries and significant inventions. The second and equally important assumption is that there exist degrees of creativity in the work of an individual even if it is restricted to one domain. As such, the level of creativity displayed by an individual is dependant upon the operating components of creativity at that particular time and around the individual.

Components of Creativity

There are three main influences within the componential theory. The first is the expertise within the field of interest, also known as field relevant skills. This is basically what the individual knows within a particular field and the information they know that can be used to solve a particular problem. The second main influence is the personality and cognitive processes that are favourable for innovative thinking. In other terms, this is the reasoning capability of an individual that can help to come up with new ideas (Amabile, T. 2013, 3). The last main influence is task motivation. This may include intrinsic motivation which may arise from personal interest, a personal sense of challenge or personal enjoyment.

Motivation can also be outside the individual and in the surrounding environment either from the employer or management, colleagues of the environment itself, that is; the social environment. Therefore, the theory outlines that creativity requires the union of all components and that it is highest when the intrinsically motivated person possesses a high level of field expertise and strong creative thinking skills in an environment that promotes creativity.

Domain-Relevant Skills

In detail, the field-relevant skills include technical skills, expertise, intelligence, talent and knowledge. The talent should be specific to the field in which the individual is trying to find solutions. For example, mechanical engineering or product design (Amabile, T. 2013, 4). All these skills combined make up the raw materials upon which the individual can refer throughout the process - the components that can be combined to generate new responses and the proficiency upon which the individual will evaluate the viability of the all the possible outcomes.

Creativity-Relevant Processes

This was originally known as creativity-relevant skills. It includes personality characteristics and a cognitive style that is favourable for risk-taking, independence, ability to see things from a new perspective, ability to generate new ideas and a well-disciplined work style (Amabile, T. 2013, 4). These processes also include the ability to make use of flexible and wide arrays for processing information as well as the capacity to break free from performance and perceptual 'scripts'. As such, the personality process requires tolerance for ambiguity and self-discipline.

Task Motivation

Passion is an intrinsic motivation and involves the ability to undertake a particular task or solve a particular problem because it is involving, personally challenging and interesting as opposed to taking the challenge out of external or extrinsic motivation which may arise from compensation, evaluation, competition, requirements to perform a task in a particular manner or surveillance (Amabile, T. 2013, 5).

The intrinsic motivation principle forms a key part of the theory since most people feel and turn out to be creative when they receive motivation from the joy and satisfaction that comes from completing the task and finding a solution to a problem. Previous research conducted shows that striking extrinsic motivating factors may be a threat to the intrinsic motivational factors, and as such, their availability of absence is of critical importance.

The Social Environment

The work environment or the social environment includes all the extrinsic factors that can undermine the intrinsic factors or those that can act as obstacle or stimulants to intrinsic creativity and motivation. Organisational setting research has shown that there exist several environmental factors that can undermine new ideas (Amabile, T. 2013, 5). These include rigidity or too much emphasis on the current situation within an organisation, political problems that may arise within the management and too much time pressure, among others (Amabile, T. 2013, 5). However, there are factors which can promote creativity and include collaborative work teams, idea-focused and skilled partners, and positive challenge within the workforce, freedom to carry out work and supervisors or managers who promote the development of new ideas.

A well-known example is e-ink, which was a product of innovation and an interesting representation of the constituents of creativity within a company. The innovation was the product of Joe Jacobson, a lab physicist from MIT, and the field experience of two other individuals; Barrett Comiskey and J. D. Albert who brought in their expertise in the field of mechanical engineering and networks. The two ended up gaining experience in the field of chemistry and working side by side to produce the ink. This project was a success due to the conducive environment at MIT, which motivated the three individuals and the intrinsic motivation that came within them to create an ink of its kind.

Conclusion

In conclusion, therefore, the theory provided above shows that successful creativity innovation and design thinking activities a cannot be merely dependent only on the work of the employee, but involves many more aspects such as a conducive environment, domain-relevant skills, creativity relevant process and the right task motivation.

References

Amabile, T., 2013. Componential Theory of Creativity/Teresa M. Amabile. Harvard Business School: Encyclopedia of Management Theory [Eric H. Kessler, ed.].-New York: Sage Publications.