The Nature of Creativity and Innovation Within the Workplace Essay Example

Introduction

Creativity and innovation within the workplace are among the main determinants of aspects such as organizational performance and productivity, organizational success, and the long-term survival of a company (Hammershej, 2017). Creativity and innovation are growing global phenomena that pan out after a specific period and require skillful leadership to maximize the advantages of the new and improved processes of working. Creativity and innovation within the workplace underscore the outcomes, methods, and products that attempt to develop and institute new, better, and efficient ways of operations (Han & Lui, 2016). Creativity refers to the tendency to create or identify ideas, possibilities, or alternatives that may be effective in enhancing the overall productivity and performance of a business in the global marketplace. To be creative, one needs to perceive concepts from a different perspective and have the capacity to create new alternatives or possibilities. The tests of creativity evaluate the number of alternatives generated by individuals, the unique nature of these alternatives, and the capacity to create these alternatives (Lin, 2012). Creativity goes hand-in-hand with other fundamental qualities of thinking, for example, flexibility, and the tolerance for unpredictability or ambiguity.

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Innovation, on the other hand, refers to the changing of procedures or creation of more effective processes, ideas, and products; it is the process of translating or changing an invention or idea into a service or product that creates value (Opazo, 2016). Innovation emphasizes the need to change a company's business model and adapt to the changes in the business environment to deliver improved services or goods. In a business setting, innovation underscores various activities such as the implementation of new ideas, the creation of dynamic commodities, or improving existing services (Opazo, 2016). Innovation acts as an important trigger for a business' development and success, and it enhances the capacity of a business to adapt and grow in the market. For a creative idea to be identified as an innovation, it ought to be replicable at economical costs and satisfy a specific need. Innovation incorporates the deliberate application of data, initiative, and imagination to derive a significant level of value from resources and it entails all processes through which new ideas are created and translated into useful products (Shalley, Hitt & Zhou, 2015). In business, innovation arises in instances where a company applies creative ideas with the aims of satisfying the expectations and needs of consumers. In a social setting, innovation helps in the creation of new methods for joint venturing, the creation of alliances, flexible hours of work, and the creation of consumers' purchasing power (Shalley, Hitt, & Zhou, 2015).

The nature of Innovation

The extensive body of existing literature emphasizes the significant role of innovation to the dynamics of socioeconomic development and economic growth. Innovation delineates a sense of purpose to the development of humanity explained in relation to the creative capacity of the invention as a factor that enhances technological, cultural, and social change (Skogen and Sjovoll, 2010).

Types of Innovation

Technological Innovation

According to Ran (2017), innovation is centered mainly on technological innovation. Ran (2017) argues that the opening of foreign and domestic markets and the organizational development from the factory and craft shop, for instance, steelmaking, represents a process of industrial mutation which incessantly transforms the organization's economic structure from within, thereby, destroying or demolishing the old structure and establishing a new one. Hon & Lui, (2016) on the other hand, argue that innovation refers to the instigation of a new or substantially improved commodity (service or good), a new marketing procedure, or an up-to-date organizational process in business operations, external relations, or workplace organization. Hon & Lui (2016) further argue that the types of innovation, for example, technological innovation represent the different ways through which companies implement changes to better their performance, productivity, and economic outcomes, and contribute to the accrual or accumulation of knowledge. Ample literature contributes to the understanding or comprehension of the nature of technological innovation, especially through the analysis of technological innovation systems and technological change. Ran (2017) reveals that technological innovation has two primary forces through which discontinuities may arise; these forces include technical direction and marketing direction. Ran (2017) suggests that product innovation requires new marketplaces and new marketing skills from the organization to facilitate its progress. Moreover, Ran (2017) asserts that a paradigm shift in the state of technology or science embedded in a specific product, new advancements in research and development resources, and new production procedures in a company is requisite to facilitate product innovation. However, some products may require discontinuities in technological factors and marketing factors. The analysis of technological innovation involves the linking of inputs, for example, R&D investments to outputs such as manufacturing processes, and new products. Currently, there are various trends associated with technological innovation. Some of these trends include

The new technological wave of the fourth industrial revolution, which includes features such as cloud computing, mobility, IoT, augmented reality, artificial intelligence, and big data (Ran, 2017). These features create a future that seeks to empower businesses, society, and consumers. Some of these technologies enhance activities such as distributed manufacturing, mixed operations amid technological services, manufacturing technologies, and self-service technologies, and tech-social innovations or ICT.

Pre-existing gaps in the implementation of new technologies amid nations which is likely to increase in the future (Ran, 2017). Currently, digital transformations do not impact sectors and regions equally. For instance, the headquarters of the top-ranking two-thousand research and development corporations globally are concentrated in only a few economies such as China, Japan, and the United States. These inequalities and significantly low attention to innovation procedures amid developing and developed countries impact the global development of technological innovation. Innovation below the radar and inclusive innovation determine inequalities in technological innovation.

There is an increasing demand for sustainable innovation and the need to evaluate technological innovations beyond Western paradigms (Ran, 2017). The latter involves the study of technological experiences and paradigms in emerging economies, for example, India and China.

Ran (2017) underscores the role played by organizational innovation in enhancing technological innovations. Organizational innovations emphasize aspects that seek to better learning procedures, organizational structures, and their subsequent adaptations to the environment; this includes markets and institutional frameworks. Various technology-enhanced organizational innovations impact the organization's capacity to increase its efficiency and quality, enhance data exchange, and better the company's capacity to utilize and learn new technologies and knowledge (Ran, 2017).

Product Innovation

Product innovation is the most popular type of innovation which refers to the form of innovation that enhances the availability of a new or a significantly improved product with regards to its intended use or characteristics to its prospective users. Lin (2012) highlights the fundamental interaction that exists amid process and product innovation. In his literature Lin (2012) argues that delivery or production innovation results from the implementation of a significantly improved or new delivery process or production; this may include initiating significant changes in inputs, techniques, and infrastructure in the institutional unit. In a broad perspective, the innovation procedure delineates the single stages of a whole product life cycle from the phase of invention and development to the stage of market introduction and finally, the product's broader diffusion phase. Currently, the common trend in product innovation is the introduction of new conceptions to products that enhance their social and economic value. Lin (2012) further underscores the significant advantages of user-led and user-centered innovation procedures over manufacturer-centric innovations. Manufacturer-centered approaches highlight the mechanisms aimed at protecting innovations and inventions as intellectual patents (property). Consumer or user-centered approaches, on the other hand, perceive users as actual developers on many new products. User-led innovations or user-driven innovations relate with the realm of social and market demand whose steady increase enhances the improvement of communication and computing technologies and social welfare.

Process Innovation

Various studies delineate the interrelationship that exists amid process and production innovations. Lin (2012) indicates that product innovation generates or determines the need for process innovation and vice versa (procedure innovation creates the need for a particular product). According to Lin (2012), process innovation refers to the introduction of new features into a company's service or manufacturing operations such as the specification of tas, input materials, work, and data flow processes, and equipment utilized in the production of a service or product to achieve high product quality or lower costs. The implementation of significantly improved or new production processes and techniques may involve executing significant changes in production equipment or the arrangement of production procedures. Marketing methods that aim at increasing organizational productivity act as a component of process innovation. A growing global phenomenon lined to the improvement of process innovations in start-ups and corporations is the emergence of lean thinking and design thinking; this includes the use of an extensive range of new material-manufacturing technologies and work practices in human resource coordination (Lin, 2012). Lean methodologies and lean thinking constitute or comprise a structured strategy that aids in transforming the early phase of concept and idea creation into commercial services, processes, and products. Lin (2012) highlights the significance of lean manufacturing or processing to the organization's current adaptation to short life cycles of products, growing product complexities, and rapid advancements in technologies through the continuous involvement in manufacturing process innovation. Manufacturing process innovation and lean manufacturing are new strategies adopted by companies to enhance innovation using limited resources, particularly in a business environment where there is an accelerating pace in technological advancements.

Business Model Innovation

According to Shalley, Hitt, & Zhou (2015), business model innovation presents an innovation dimension which is distinct although complementary to the conventional models of innovations such as, organizational, process, and product. An organization's ability to innovate relates to different business model functions which comprise of various components. These components include value proposition, value chain structure, cost structure estimates and profit potential for a particular value chain structure and value proposition, a firm's place in the value network that links or...