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Creativity is regarded as one of the most complex of human behaviors.
It can be influenced by a wide array of social, developmental and educational
experience that leads to creativity in different ways in a variety of fields
(Runco & Sakamoto, 1999). Opinions about the origin of creativity vary, and
none of them explains the creative process completely. Creativity can be seen
as the following: a divine quality, serendipitous activity, ‘planned luck’,
endurance and ‘method’ (Cook, 1998a: p.6). Petrowski (2000: p.305) stated that
“creativity research belongs to the baby-boom generation, beginning in earnest
when Guilford directed the American Psychological Association in his 1950
presidential address to focus on this important but neglected area”. The existence
of creativity as a modern term emerged from the results of the pioneering
efforts of Guilford (1950) and Torrance (1962, 1974). Guilford and Torrance
were psychometric theorists and they attempted to measure creativity from a
psychometric viewpoint (Sternberg, 2006).
CREATIVITY DEFINITION
Creativity is a complex and mysterious concept, and
therefore it is difficult to define creativity because of the ambiguity about
the concept and no accepted definition for it in general (Andriopoulos, 2000).
The earliest definitions of creativity were based on the concept of creative
individual, when Guilford (1950: p.444) defined creativity as “the abilities
that are most characteristic of creative people”. That definition became
dominant during the 1950s and it is popular among creativity researchers
(Amabile, 1996: p.21). Although each individual has a different creativity, the
real payoff appears when the creativity process is leveraged in an organization
at the organizational level (Cook, 1998a). Creativity has been defined in
various ways. Creativity is defined in as “the production of novel, appropriate
ideas in any realm of human activity, from science, to the arts, to education,
to business, to everyday life”, thus the ideas have to be new and appropriate
to the opportunity or problem presented (Amabile, 1997: p.40). It can be
defined as “a domain-specific, subjective judgment of the novelty and value of
an outcome of a particular action” (Ford, 1996: p.1125) or as “the production
of novel and useful ideas in any domain” (Amabile et al., 1996: p.1155) and as
“the generation of novel ideas, without too much regard for their usefulness”
(Cook, 1998a: p.4). Whereas, Drazin et al. (1999) defined creativity as an
engagement process in creative acts
regardless of whether the outcomes are creative, novel and useful or not. A
similar definition suggested by Dewett (2007: p.198) termed creativity as “the
production of novel and useful ideas, processes, or products by a person or
group”. Consequently, there is an agreement among researchers that creativity
means “something is both novel and valuable”. Creativity is commonly regarded
as the production of novel and useful ideas or problem solutions (Sternberg
& Lubart, 1999; Dewett, 2004; Amabile et al., 2005; Woerkum et al., 2007)
Some definitions focus on intellectual activity and
thought processes that create novel ideas to solve existing problems. A group
of meanings concentrates on individuals’ intellectual abilities and personality
traits and other definitions center attention on the products themselves
regarding creative outcomes and qualities (Martins & Terblanche, 2003).
However, creativity has been perceived in different ways as a mental ability, a
process and a human behavior (Andriopoulos, 2000).
CREATIVITY CONCEPT
Creativity includes two dimensions. The first
dimension is the novelty notion; it is a phenomenon in everyday life and
therefore anyone can be creative as an essential aspect of his/her contribute
to the business environment and everybody has to be involved in creative
processes. The second dimension is the usefulness notion which refers to
material or practical methods of assessing the usefulness of novel ideas
(Shalley et al., 2004).
Although there is no an agreement about where
creativity is situated in a process, a product, or a person, there is agreement
about creative work involving both the concepts new and useful (Petrowski,
2000). Creativity means a belief in new ideas and making them into reality in
the forms of new products or services providing by organizations in the
marketplace (Kilroy, 1999). It is based on novel and useful ideas, regardless
of the type of these ideas, the reasons behind their production or the commencing
point of the process (Unsworth, 2001). Creativity can be seen as a mental
process which produces novel and useful concepts or ideas, or it could be
innovative relationships between existing ideas or concepts (Houran &
Ference, 2006).
The importance of creativity because of its ability
to yield novel and proper ideas to solve complex problems, to increase
efficiencies and to enhance overall effectiveness (Diliello & Houghton,
2008). Creativity includes two principles ‘problem finding’, and ‘problem
solving’, and creativity needs several skills and talents. Thus, creative
thinking is not conventional and requires modifying or rejecting existing ideas
(Herbig & Jacobs, 1996). Similarly, Dewett (2004) identified that
individual creativity has two general facets which are creative efforts and
creative outcomes. Individual creativity can be defined as “a person’s ability
to think beyond the obvious and produce something novel and appropriate”
(Nayak, 2008: p.421).
Creativity can be divided into three types and they
are: creating something new, combining things together, and improving or
changing things (Mikdashi, 1999). It is regarded as a principal term in various
fields ranging from the fine arts and architecture, to psychology, sociology,
economics, science, engineering and lastly management. The application of
creativity in marketing can provide added value to services or products,
further than the tangible aspects or clear characteristics of these products or
service (Sadi & Al-Dubaisi, 2008).
CREATIVITY THEORY
Amabile (1997) suggested
that the componential theory of creativity indicates every individual has the
capacity to engender at least slight creative work and some factors such as
working environment and time may impact creative behavior level and its
frequency. Based on this theory, individual creativity consists of three major
components, each being necessary for creativity in any situation. They are:
expertise or domain skills, creativity thinking skills and intrinsic task
motivation. Creativity occurs when individuals’ skills coincide with strong
intrinsic motivation and this will lead to higher creativity when based on the
higher level for each one of the three elements. Furthermore, individuals show
differences in the level of the components of individual creativity (Amabile,
1996). Although personality plays an important role in intrinsic motivation,
the social environment can also impact on the level of intrinsic motivation of
individuals at any time (Amabile, 1997). Hence, creative individuals are those
people who generate new methods to carry out their work by coming up with
innovative ideas or novel procedures, and by reconfiguring existing ways into
new alternative ways (Perry-Smith & Shalley, 2003).
Individuals may have high
creativity if they have the personality traits of creative people. For example,
intrinsic motivation of individuals includes satisfaction of curiosity,
pleasure, personal challenges, self-expression and interest (Amabile, 1993
& 1997). Intrinsic motivation refers to the main trait of creative people,
and therefore creative people tend to follow intrinsic motivation, while
extrinsic motivation tends to hinder creativity (Runco, 2004). Expertise is
knowledge: intellectual, procedural, and technical. In addition, expertise is
considered as the basis of creative work, and therefore creative people do not
create novel ideas from nothingness, but those new ideas start from
domain-relevant knowledge and a set of developed skills (Simonton, 2000).
Expertise in any activity is an essential element for producing new ideas,
opposed to existing ideas and that requires preceding knowledge of that
activity. Cognitive style means how individuals determine problems and provide
the solutions for those problems and their ability to merge existing ideas to
produce novel amalgamations (Kirton, 1989). Thus, cognitive style indicates the
level of individuals’ imagination and their flexibility in facing problems
(Munoz-Doyague et al., 2008).
CONCLUSION
The
relevant literature indicates that there is no agreement about where creativity
is located in a process, a product or a person. Creativity can vary from a
slight change to total change. It is commonly regarded as the production of
novel and useful ideas or problem solutions. Individuals may have high
creativity if they have the personality traits of creative people and therefore
creativity has been perceived in different ways as a mental ability, a process
and a human behavior.
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