Organizing Creativity: Context, Process, and Practice

Creativity is a defining feature of contemporary work life. Who has not taken part in brainstorming sessions, read glossy pamphlets about innovation and creativity as important cornerstones of a new business strategy, or been made aware of the importance of creative skills for one´s career? But what does it mean to be creative in and as an organization?

Organizing Creativity provides an answer to this question. The book builds on the premise that creativity is essentially about ideas. Every organization is dependent on valuable ideas for solving everyday problems as well as inventing new processes, products or services. The main argument of the book is that an analysis of organizational creativity should always account for the interdependency of context, process and practice. Based on cultural and processual perspectives, it highlights the implications of context, process and practice for different aspects of the creative process: generating, evaluating and facilitating ideas. Furthermore, it reflects on how dominant notions of creativity in the economy and society prevent transformative changes and suggests a radical transformative approach to organizing creativity as an alternative.

To support and illustrate its argument, Organizing Creativity draws on abundant empirical examples, case illustrations and seminal research from Sociology, Social Psychology and Organization Studies. It provides us with a multi-dimensional perspective and will both further our understanding of and spark critical reflection on the complex interplay of the organizational, social and cultural contexts, processes and practices of organizing creativity.

Stephan M. Schaefer, Associate Professor, Department of Business Administration at the School of Economics and Management, Lund University, Sweden

Stephan M. Schaefer is an Associate Professor in the Department of Business Administration at the School of Economics and Management, Lund University, Sweden. His main research interests focus on characteristics and consequences of organizational creativity processes, the function and significance of craft and craft organizations for sustainable transformation, the dynamics of ignorance in an organized context, possibilities and pitfalls of digitalization for organizations as well as qualitative organizational research methods.