The economic, social and psychological outcomes of implementing a deliberate process of organizational creativity

Abstract

<p>In an era of rapidly accelerating change , thriving organizations are not merely efficient but adaptable, that is, innovative. They act as open systems, that is, they are sensitive to their environment and transform continuously changing inputs into continuously changing outputs. Organizational innovation is modeled as a continuous, creative process of deliberately generating and formulating new problems and opportunities and creating and implementing new solutions. Success in this four stage process depends on four creative thinking skills: active diverging, active converging, and horizontal and vertical deferral of judgment. By deliberately encouraging people to develop skills in applying such a creative process to their work daily, an organization can simultaneously achieve both the economic outputs they crave and also the people outputs they must provide to assure motivation and continued economic success in the long run. The continuous creative process is integrated into an open systems model that features both economic and people inputs and outputs and also features two environments - internal and external through which the people and economic inputs/outputs must filter.</p>