...Does creativity always lead to innovation both at individual and organizational level? If Yes, how and If Not, Why Not? I would have to say not all of the time. The effects of today’s work environment means that organizations need to improve their competitive advantage and quickly respond to the changing technology and the markets. An organization’s ability to continuously innovate its services and products is essential to its success. However, the ability to promote innovation is highly dependent upon those potential ideas and solutions you’ve found to address the problem. Continuous innovation means that organizations have to be able to manage their creative processes effectively to ensure the innovation process has a good supply of ideas and solutions. “We would need actual evidence on the creativity levels in the population to know if, in fact, these aspects that seem to be incrementing people’s creative capacity are actually doing so. This is, of course, a very complicated challenge and there might be several reasons not to pursue such a project. But, specifically in education, such a project might be worthwhile. Assessment of creativity in education might be beneficial in providing an adequate incentive to the system to actually promote creativity, and to be able to monitor progress. Creativity needs to be measured taking into account its complexity and multidimensionality. Certain indicators at the aggregate level presented above can be seen as proxies of domain and...
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...In the modern day, workplace creativity has been considered to be one of the main resources of the 21st century (Hornak, 2009). Without creativity how will companies evolve? Or how will an engineer come out with the next world altering invention? According to a study by the Institute for Prospective Technology Studies, 70-80% of growth in the world of business will be based on new knowledge (Hornak, 2009). That is a staggering number. This means that without creativity, growth will be at a snail’s pace and our true potential will not be reached as quickly as possible. A creative workplace can be linked to higher productivity and a more positive workplace (Ario, 2004). That’s probably why it’s said a happy worker is the only kind of worker. Creativity is very important to promote in the work environment, sometimes companies become too simple and routine leading to blind and automatic solutions (Hornak, 2009). This is never wanted because there are no original thoughts, ideas, or suggestions that could benefit the company and in the long term the value of the company. To succeed in business it is important to promote creativity. Creativity is what separates one business from another. That is why we have so many types of detergents, creative companies found ways to market basically the same product to the consumer and still make money. Workplace creativity thus creates higher productivity. The question is why? Workplace creativity can occur in multiple ways, but the reason...
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...submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Master of Arts: Leading Innovation and Change at York St. John University, United Kingdom. An Investigation into Attitudes to Workplace Creativity and the Role of Innovation StylesTM as a Model to Enhance and Encourage Creative Thinking in Groups at NCP. Abstract In recent years, organisational creativity has attracted much attention from academics and leadership experts. This is due in part to the relationship between creativity and innovation and also because employees throughout organisations are facing unfamiliar, complex problems. These new problems require novel solutions and as such, a high level of creative thinking is required. Increasingly, the workforce is being asked to identify the real problem, uncover problem-related information and then produce and evaluate a diversity of possible solutions. While organisations are constantly seeking innovative solutions, there is a great deal of evidence to suggest that leadership attitudes to creativity and organisational culture exert a powerful influence on creativity. This influence can be both positive and negative and in order for innovation to become embedded in an organisation’s culture, leaders need to find ways to ‘manage for creativity’. There is almost universal agreement that every human being has the capacity to think creatively, and there is strong evidence to suggest that creative thinking ability diminishes over...
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...FUN IN THE WORKPLACE: TOWARD AN ENVIRONMENT-BEHAVIOR FRAMEWORK RELATING OFFICE DESIGN, EMPLOYEE CREATIVITY, AND JOB SATISFACTION By ALEXANDRA M. MILLER A THESIS PRESENTED TO THE GRADUATE SCHOOL OF THE UNIVERSITY OF FLORIDA IN PARTIAL FULFILLMENT OF THE REQUIREMENTS FOR THE DEGREE OF MASTER OF INTERIOR DESIGN UNIVERSITY OF FLORIDA 2005 Copyright 2005 by Alexandra M. Miller ACKNOWLEDGMENTS First, I would like to thank my committee chair, Dr. Margaret Portillo, for her direction and guidance throughout the entire research process. I would also like to thank Dr. M. Joyce Hasell for her support and valuable expertise. Additional thanks go to Dr. Larry Winner for his indispensable assistance as a statistical consultant. I would also like to thank PUSH for providing an excellent example of a fun workplace. In particular, I would like to thank partners John Ludwig, Chris Robb, and Rich Wahl for allowing me to conduct a case study of their business. Additional thanks go to Ron Boucher, Jourdan Crumpler, and Gordon Weller for taking the time to participate in interviews. I would also like to express my gratitude to Kathryn Voorhees for her help, humor, and friendship as she accompanied me throughout the research process. Finally, I would like to thank all of my friends and family for their support. In particular, I would like to thank to my parents for their constant support and for helping me to achieve my dreams. iii TABLE OF CONTENTS page ACKNOWLEDGMENTS ..........
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...Spirituality in the Workplace ABSTRACT In this paper I will attempt to study and understand the need for spirituality in the workplace. Workplace Spirituality is awareness, interconnectedness with one another and a higher existence, a sense of fulfilment, and value and meaning to one’s calling. Spirituality in organizations is an area gaining increasing popularity. The growing interest, however, is on how spirituality improves organizational performance, and the impact of spiritual influences in a workplace. Introduction: In today society’s organizations want their employees to be able to come to work and manage their emotions while working with coworkers and customers. However, employees are constantly under stress which may reduce the effectiveness of his or her work ethics. Workplace spirituality is the method of incorporating one’s personal idea of “spirituality” in their daily work schedule. Spirituality can give employees a sense of balance and security and therefore improve their organizational efficiency and effectiveness. With spiritualty now incorporating itself in to the workplace it is helping the organization enhance its performance and increase the development of business ethics. The importance of a business to incorporate spirituality within the workplace will continue to influence the culture of business in the anticipated future. What is Spirituality? Webster’s College Dictionary defines spirituality as the quality or “state of being...
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...sentence “ Creativity and innovation are essentially perceived as the building blocks toward the achievement and success of entrepreneurs”. The sentence is mention with regard to creativity and innovation in term of business. There are many confusion theories concerning creativity and innovation in term of firms and partnerships. Therefore, the writer is going to find out and explain the sentence. Then, this essay will give the definition of creativity and innovation, and determine the key word of the sentence. Why the creativity and innovation are important for successful for entrepreneurs as the building blocks of company and organizational firm. In addition, the writer will provide an example case study that support of how significant of those two words is. Many theories of Creativity and innovation in term of business can be cause of confusing in the sense of creativity and innovation. However, Creativity and innovation are two different terms and they technically have different sense. Fist of all, creativity in term of business is described, as “Mental characteristic that allows a person to think outside of the box, which results in innovative or different approaches to particular task” (BusinessDictionary.com, n.d.). Therefore, creativity is a result processing of knowledge including curious, experience, imagination, and evaluation. Base on the theory of Burrus (2013), “the creativity is divided into three steps: Discovery: the lower level of creativity is discovery...
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...true sign of intelligence is not knowledge but imagination.” - Albert Einstein True. Knowledge is limited and discovered. When a person is telling historical stories or giving opinions with references of facts and information, we say this person is knowledgeable and educated. Einstein was a great scientist and very intelligent. He created many theories, such as the energy formula: E=Mc^2. He had the capacity for logic, abstract thoughts and critical thinking. It is the curiosity and imagination that motivate one to explore the possibility. This “breaking box” capacity is needed for discovering creative solutions and new knowledge. I absolutely agree with Einstein, imagination is more important than knowledge. Can Creativity Be Learned? I see creativity as a way of thinking, and it can be acquired from a supportive environment. I strongly see the differences since I have studied in both Western and Eastern schools. Chinese students are forced to learn knowledge by memorizing the concepts, as long as students can pass the exam. Chinese students are lack of practicing in critical thinking. In Western education, Teacher...
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...HOW TO FOSTER CREATIVITY IN DECISION MAKING Abstract Creativity is the most critical and important factor for all organizations to take advantage of in order to survive during these challenging times (Kanter, 1983; Tushman and O'Reilly, 1997; Utterback, 1994). Ongoing uncertainties of both the economic and global financial markets, indirectly forces almost all successful companies to adopt a new corporate business model largely based on using individual creativity to facilitate and enhance organizational innovation. In order to build and sustain an effective organizational culture conquered by creativity and innovation, organizations must effectively identify to maximize all creative wealth of their members, develop creative leaders and management teams and provide a kind of work environment that is highly supportive of creative expression. The focus on this paper is to examine the ways to foster creativity in decision-making since it can easily be seen and understood that fostering creativity is not an easy task as there are no easy formulas to make creativity happen. Introduction Creativity is significant in management research (Shalley et al., 2004) and it is well defined as the production of novel ideas, which are not only unique but also useful. They are deemed to be useful when “they have potential for direct or indirect value to the organization, either in the short or long-term” (Shalley et al., 2004). Ideas can always be generated by anyone, and are either...
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...indispensable elements that involve in whether companies can attain success. There is no doubt that thinking differently has brought many advantages to the success of businesses. Creativity can be defined as an ability people use to produce fresh ideas (Mattiske 2010). Bills and Genasi (2003) go further and suggest that people should force themselves to throw the traditional way of thinking away to form new ideas or even unique method to alter their future. The quality of products can be improved if inventiveness is boosted in office. Steve Jobs states that applying attractive ideas and new technologies to the process of doing business can help companies develop and flourish. This essay will support the opinion that businesses should have some funds in motivating innovation and creativity by analyzing these benefits which have been mentioned above based on the success of two big corporations, Sony and Apple. One key point is that the value of products can be enhanced if creative thinking is promoted in the workplace. If business owners encouraged their staff to think differently, this could result in the competition between employees so they try to produce new ideas that can create value or bring profit for their companies. Company chairman can use some methods like focusing on designing the workplace (Norman 2005). According to Sam Wagner (2011), ‘The key to the job methods process is to identify a problem and solve it through creative thinking’. The author thinks that employees...
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...interact with one another regularly to attain common goals whereas a team is defined as a small group of people with complementary skills who work actively together to achieve a common purpose for which they hold themselves collectively accountable. For this reason a group can only be a team if it meets the definition as mentioned (Schermerhorn, Hunt, & Osborn, 2008, p. 192). Consequently there are three differences between a group and a team: 1. Complimentary skills 2. Accountability 3. Number of people. In order to create and maintain high-performance teams it is important to understand how workplace diversity in a organization relates to team dynamics in an workplace (Schermerhorn, Hunt, & Osborn, 2008). Therefore the following will detail the three differences between a group and team in addition to explaining how workplace diversity in a organization relates to team dynamics in an workplace. Differences between group and team As previously mentioned, there are three key differences between a group and a team. To begin teams have people with complimentary skills whereas this is not a requirement for groups. Secondly people in a team hold themselves collectively accountable whereas this is not a required distinction for a group. Finally teams are classified as a small number of people whereas a group is not specific on the number of individuals (Schermerhorn, Hunt, & Osborn, 2008). For example, T-Mobile has a call center employing a group of over 400 individuals and within this...
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...Workplace Diversity and Team Dynamics Mary Martin University of Phoenix MGT307-Organizational Behavior and Group Dynamics Joey Martin, MBA April 25, 2011 Workplace Diversity and Team Dynamics Teamwork is the mantra of the business world for the new millennium. Organizations are realizing that collective problem-solving, in a team setting, enhances creative and critical thinking skills, thus elevating productivity. This paper will explore the characteristics of and differences between groups and teams. Additionally, workplace diversity relevance to team dynamics will be explored in an effort to better understand this phenomenon called teamwork. Groups Groups consist of two or more individuals who come together to achieve particular objectives. Work groups share information and make decisions that help members perform within each individual's area of responsibility. The group focuses on improving individual results. Work groups do not work together to achieve a communal goal, the result being that no positive synergy exists among members. Each member’s performance is the entirety of his or her contribution (Robbins & Judge, 2009). Teams Teams consist of a small grouping of people with complementary skills, working together to achieve a common purpose for which they hold themselves collectively accountable (Schermerhorn, Hunt, & Osborn, 2009). Work team goals are focused on the collective performance of the members’, the result of which is mutual...
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...common sense tell us that having people with different viewpoints onboard increases the creativity that teams will employ in solving problems. Of course, that's assuming all members of the team are pulling in the same direction. But what if they aren't? Can being exposed to intercultural conflicts and tensions have an impact even on observers who are not directly involved in these disharmonies? Harvard Business School Assistant Professor Roy Y. J. Chua started asking those questions a few years ago, when writing a case about a Chinese luxury apparel company. The firm had members from China, Hong Kong, Germany, and France, who were all working together to meld Chinese elements with Western fashion. As he observed them, however, Chua saw tension and miscommunication based on cultural differences. "Even though, when you asked them, they didn't think it was a problem, I wondered if it could have an indirect impact on people observing these tensions," he says. Chua compares it to the kind of "hostile work environment" that occurs in cases of sexual harassment or racial discrimination—in which coworkers' morale or performance suffers even when they are not the direct targets of abuse. He coined a term for the phenomenon, "ambient cultural disharmony," which he discusses in depth in The Costs of Ambient Cultural Disharmony: Indirect Intercultural Conflicts in Social Environment Undermine Creativity, a paper published this month in the Academy of Management Journal. Multicultural...
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...Introduction Workplace diversity in simple terms is the inclusion of a variety of employees with different backgrounds. These differences can be expanded upon to not only include race and gender but to also include religion, culture, age, marital status, educational qualification, and many more. As companies become more globalized we will continue to see an increase in the number of diverse employees as well as the types of diversities within an organization. With this diversity comes some difficulties but the benefits exceed the negative by increasing an organizations competitiveness. This competitive increase is due to the ability of diverse groups to enhance creativity and innovation while making better decisions but only if diversity is properly managed. If organization want to become leaders in their market then effective practices and diversity initiatives must be a cornerstone beginning with Human Resource Departments and expanding though every aspect of the organization. Why encourage Diversity? One important if not overlooked reason is to meet legal requirements. The government has mandatory non-discrimination laws which can result in large monetary penalties or the loss of government contracts. Therefore, it makes sense to employ a diverse workforce if for no other reason than to prevent loss of revenue through legal ramifications. Second is organizational marketing strategy. Having a diverse workforce will assist in selling products to people...
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...ORGANIZATIONAL DIAGNOSIS CORPORATE CREATIVITY- THE ‘MYSTERIOUS’ MISSING LINK IN THE WORK ENVIRONMENT ALBERT ESHUN UNIVERSITY OF APPLIED MANAGEMENT UAMM0073 Organizational Diagnosis Research Project UAMM0073 Contents 1.0 Introduction ...................................................................................................................................... 2 1.1 Hypothesis: Does creativity exist in our workplace? ........................................................................ 2 1.2 Creativity: misunderstood and mystified. ......................................................................................... 3 1.3 Creativity crushers............................................................................................................................. 4 2.0 ORGANIZATIONAL ANALYSIS ............................................................................................................. 7 2.1 DIAGNOSTIC TOOLS........................................................................................................................... 9 2.2 Weisbord Six-Box model ................................................................................................................ 10 2.3 Organizational Intelligence Model ................................................................................................. 14 2.4 Tichy’s Technical Political Cultural (TPC) Framework.....................................................................
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...Employers and employment relations - What affects employers to adopt management strategies? Abstract This paper aims to examine how management strategies will influence employees in improving their performance. There are many factors that influence the managers’ decisions on which management strategy they should approach. A suitable management strategy can help the organization to achieve their goal efficiently. This paper summarizes and concludes articles from three academic journals research. All findings indicate that managers are acting a very important role to decide what strategies to use in different business environment and employee’s features. It also provides some factors and suggestions for managers to consider when they design their management strategies. Introduction In recent years, employers and employment relations had become a global issue. It refers to any relationship between managers and workers. Many researches are paying attention on how managers design their management strategies to influence employees. The manager acts as a strategic actor that shaping employment relation and the characteristics of productive enterprises (Allan, Brosnan & Walsh 1999). Therefore, managers are acting a very important role in designing which management strategy is suitable in the specific business environment. Generally, the goals of management strategies are to try to minimise the labour cost, maximize the profit and improve the performance of employees. It is...
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