This information can contribute to explain succes factors in bussines
Ethnic Diversity and Creativity in Small Groups
Poppy Lauretta McLeodUniversity of Iowa
Sharon Alisa Lobel
Seattle University
Taylor H. Cox, Jr.
University of Michigan
There is a growing belief among managers that ethnic diversity, when well managed, can provide organizations with certain competitive advantages. But the belief in this value-inl diversity hypothesis rests largely on anecdotal rather than empirical evidence. Results are reported ofa controlled experimental study that compares the performance on a brainstorm ing task between groups composed of all Anglo-Americans with groups composed ofAnglo-, Asian, African, and Hispanic Americans. The particular brainstorming task used-The Tourist Problem-was chosenfor its relevancefordiversity along the dimension of ethnicity. The ideas produced by the ethnically diverse groups were judged to be of higher quality-more effective andfeasible-than the ideas produced by the homogeneous groups. Members of homogeneous groups reported marginally more attraction to their groups than did members of diverse oroups. Directions for future research with respect to the degree of diversity, the nature of the task, and group process are discussed.
Source: Sage Journals Online: http://sgr.sagepub.com/cgi/content/abstract/27/2/248
Influences of Organizational Culture and Climate on Individual Creativity.
Tesluk, Paul E. And Others
Provides a framework for conceptualizing and reviewing the literature on the influences of organizational culture and climate on individual creativity. Discusses how certain environmental conditions, strategic approaches, and top management values and actions impact individual creativity. Examples of organizational practices that foster creativity are provided.
Keywords: Administrative Organization; Creativity; Cultural Influences; Employee Attitudes; Employer Employee Relationship; Environmental Influences; Organizational Climate; Organizational Theories; Work Environment
Source: Journal of Creative Behavior, v31 n1 p27-41 1st Qtr 1997
http://eric.ed.gov/
Stories as Cultural Creativity: On the Relation Between Symbolism and Politics in Organizational Change
Steven P. Feldman
The Weatherhead School of Management, Case Western Reserve University, Enterprise Hall, Cleveland, Ohio 44106.
The organization theory literature on stories concentrates on the role stories play in political processes, especially the representative and integrative aspects. In this essay, I will build on this literature by introducing Victor Turner's work on cultural change. Stories will be seen as not only representing and integrating political process, but also creating them. By focusing on the creative aspect of stories, their role in organizational change is highlighted. This framework is applied to stories about a change of leadership in an electronics company. Two conclusions emerge. First, stories are a form of cultural creativity that can be used to mediate conflicts and contradictions that arise from changing circumstances. Second, stories, despite the fact that they are a form of cultural change, can have a negative influence on the process of organizational change.
Source: Sage Journals Online: http://hum.sagepub.com/cgi/content/abstract/43/9/809
Deconstructing the Lone Genius Myth: Toward a Contextual View of Creativity
Alfonso Montuori, Ph.D.
Ronald E. Purser, Ph.D.
865 Vallejo St., #302, San Francisco, CA 94133.
This essay explores the social dimensions of creativity through a discussion of the "myth of the lone genius" and an outline of existing research. The authors argue thatAmerican individualism and methodological reductionism have prevented laypersons and researchers from fully exploring the implications of the larger sociohistorical context, both in terms of the research on the creative person/process and the actual discourse of creativity itself. Examples are used to demonstrate the social nature of the creative process using a systems/ ecological perspective. The authors believe inquiry into the social dimensions of creativity provides an important entry point into a host of pressing methodological, philosophical, gender, and cultural issues which they hope will prompt much further interdisciplinary research.
It doesn't matter how many times we tell the familiar story of Bach writing each week for the honest burghers of Leipzig, or Mozart's relations with the courtly musical patrons of his day; audiences still prefer to think of the musical creator as a man closeted with his idea, unsullied by the rough and tumble of the world around him.
Source: Sage Journals Online: http://jhp.sagepub.com/cgi/content/abstract/35/3/69
Creativity Business Discipline = Higher Profits Faster from New Product Development
Greg Stevens, James Burley and, Richard Divine
A study was conducted of 69 analysts evaluating 267 early-stage new product development (NPD) projects in a major global chemical company over a 10-year time span. Positive correlations were found between profits resulting from NPD project analyses and the degree of creativity of the analysts evaluating those projects. Creativity can be reliably measured with standard psychological instruments, such as the MBTI® Creativity Index. Analysts with MBTI Creativity Indices above the median for the group studied identified opportunities providing 12 to 13 times more profit than those with MBTI Creativity Indices below the median, when both groups were rigorously trained and coached in "stage-gate" business analysis methods.
NPD requires breakthrough creativity because the first ideas for commercialization are almost never commercial until they have been substantially revised through a thought process involving branching. It is therefore most productive to preselect innovative, creative people for the early stages of NPD, and then teach this group the business discipline required in stage-gate NPD processes.
The results show that by utilizing these principles, both the overall speed and productivity of typical NPD processes can be increased approximately nine-fold, or nearly an order of magnitude when compared to today's typical linear stage-gate processes.
Source: http://www.blackwell-synergy.com/links/doi/10.1111/1540-5885.1650455/enhancedabs/?cookieSet=1
Penrose's Resource-Based Approach: The Process and Product of Research Creativity
Yasemin, YY. KOR
University of Delaware - Business Administration
Joseph T. Mahoney
University of Illinois
As this paper documents, Edith Tilton Penrose's (1959) classic The Theory of the Growth of the Firm is one of the most influential books of the second half of the twentieth century bridging economics and management. Yet, there is little understanding of the process by which this classic came about and the lessons to be learned concerning research creativity. This paper explores Penrose's (1959) "resources approach" to the growth of the firm as an iterative process of scientific discovery via induction and scientific justification by deductive reasoning. We focus on: (i) the research process that led to Penrose's (1959) classic; (ii) the book's contributions to management; (iii) the generative nature of Penrose's research for current resource-base theory; and (iv) future research building on Penrose's "resource approach."
Source: Social Science Research Network
http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=150588
Success Factors in Product Innovation: A Selective Review of the Literature
F. Axel Johne and Patricia A. Snelson
In today's increasingly competitive climate, more and more managers are having to update themselves on the range of factors that determine product innovation success. Such successes can be measured at the project (product) level or at the program level. Axel Johne and Patricia Snelson have prepared a review of factors associated with achieving success in a high proportion of recently developed new products.
The authors address practical questions, such as the following: To what extent can product innovation be planned? Should development tasks be scheduled sequentially or in parallel? What is the proper degree of formality in effective new product decision making? What are the optimal organizational arrangements?
The article concentrates on recent writings, drawing chiefly from journal articles published after 1980, including a large number from the Journal of Product Innovation Management. Factors contributing to success are ordered according to the now well-known McKinsey 7 Ss framework popularized by Peters and Waterman in their book In Search of Excellence. Detailed development tasks are considered according to the schema advanced by Crawford in his book New Products Management.
Source: Journal of Product Innovation Management 5 (2), 114–128.
http://www.blackwell-synergy.com/links/doi/10.1111/1540-5885.520114/enhancedabs/
Innovation: The Key to Success in Small Firms
John R. Baldwin
Statistics Canada - Microeconomic Analysis Division
This study examines the differences in strategies and activities pursued by a sample of more-successful and less-successful group of growing small-and medium-sized enterprises. Amongst other matters, it examines different functional strategies--the importance of management, human resource practices, marketing, financing, and the innovativeness of the firm. Innovative activites are the most important determinants of success; that is, for a wide range of industries, they serve to discriminate between the more- and the less-successful firms better than any other variable. Almost all of the strategy questions that relate to innovative activity receive higher scores from the more-successful group of firms than from the less-successful group of firms. This is also the case for innovative activities--whether a firm possesses an R&D unit, its expenditure on R&D relative to total investment, and its R&D-to-sales ratio.
Source Social Science Research Network
http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=4300
Innovation, Creativity and Success
Felix J. Heunks1
Faculty of Social and Behavioural Sciences, Tilburg Universit
This article explores the role of innovation in small and medium sized firms, in relation to the firm''s success. After a discussion of the relationship between success, innovation and creativity, some possible backgrounds of creativity and innovation are presented. For one part these are of a personal nature, like the entrepreneur''s values, attitudes and level of education. For another part they concern institutional aspects of the firm.
After the development of a number of hypotheses these are empirically checked with data from a survey among 200 entrepreneurs in six countries. In the appendices some details of the data and variables may be found.
Source: Small Business Economics. Volume 10, Number 3 / May, 1998. pp 263-272
http://www.springerlink.com/content/ugv52w6225u3m0u6/
Management Theory for Small Business: Attempts and Requirements
Gerald D'Amboise, Marie Muldowney
This paper examines the attempts that have been made to develop theories of small business management. The discussion of various contributions is structured according to task environment, organizational configuration, managerial characteristics, success-failure issues, and growth issues. Conclusions are drawn about how well these attempts meet the requirements of good theory.
Source: The Academy of Management Review, Vol. 13, No. 2 (Apr., 1988), pp. 226-240
http://jstor.org
Effective Paradigms For Small Business In The Changing Global Economy: A Case Study Of A Flexible Manufacturing Network
Harriet B. Stephenson, Seattle University
Emily Duncan, Snohomish County Private Industry Council
Business is shouldering the responsibility to thrust the U.S. into the productivity leadership role globally as the 21st century approaches. Corporate America is responding in part by spending close to an estimated $14 billion dollars on outside advice in response to global competition, rapidly developing technology and changing work force (12). How is the small business sector responding? Realizing that the survival rate of small business is somewhere between 20% to 50% in the first 5 years, there is a need for new models to enhance small business success. A case study of one such model, a flexible "manufacturing" network, is described. Effective utilization of emerging models will enable small businesses to compete in the changing global economy.
Source: http://www.sbaer.uca.edu/research/sbida/1993/PDF/48.pdf
Innovation, what innovation? A comparison between product, process and organisational innovation
Harry Boer and Willem E. During
Aalborg University Centre for Industrial Production
This article compares and contrasts three types of innovations, namely, product innovation, process innovation and organisational innovation. From similarities and differences between these three types, implications for the theory and practice of innovation management are inferred. Most of these implications seem to be generic, i.e. generally applicable whatever the type of innovation and organisation involved. Surprisingly few implications are contingent in that they are linked to the characteristics of the innovation involved.
Keywords: innovation, process model, innovation roles, organisational arrangements, contingencies
Source: International Journal of Technology Management. Issue: Volume 22, Numbers 1-3 / 2001. pp 83 - 107
http://inderscience.metapress.com/
Differentiating creativity, innovation, entrepreneurship,intrapreneurship, copyright and patenting of IS products/processes
Couger, J.D. Higgins, L.F. McIntyre, S.C.
Coll. of Bus., Colorado University
The terms creativity, innovation, entrepreneurship, and intrapreneurship, copyright, and patent are defined and compared. Then, the aspects of systems that warrant their being patented or copyrighted are discussed. In some cases the hardware components of a system can be patented and the software components copyrighted. In some cases the system can be both patented and copyrighted. It is suggested that the six concepts need to be integrated to elicit a new inventiveness among system designers
Source: System Sciences, 1990., Proceedings of the Twenty-Third Annual Hawaii International Conference. 2-5 Jan 1990 Volume: iv, pp: 370-379 vol.4
http://ieeexplore.ieee.org
Critical success factors for implementing knowledge management in small and medium enterprises
Kuan Yew Wong
Department of Manufacturing and Industrial Engineering, Universiti Teknologi. Malaysia (UTM), Johor, Malaysia
Purpose – To date, critical success factors (CSFs) for implementing knowledge management (KM) in small and medium enterprises (SMEs) have not been systematically investigated. Existing studies have derived their CSFs from large companies’ perspectives and have not considered the needs of smaller businesses. This paper is aimed to bridge this gap.
Design/methodology/approach – Existing studies on CSFs were reviewed and their limitations were identified. By integrating insights drawn from these studies as well as adding some new factors, the author proposed a set of 11 CSFs which is believed to be more suitable for SMEs. The importance of the proposed CSFs was theoretically discussed and justified. In addition, an empirical assessment was conducted to evaluate the extent of success of this proposition.
Findings – The overall results from the empirical assessment were positive, thus reflecting the appropriateness of the proposed CSFs.
Practical implications – The set of CSFs can act as a list of items for SMEs to address when adopting KM. This helps to ensure that the essential issues and factors are covered during implementation. For academics, it provides a common language for them to discuss and study the factors crucial for the success of KM in SMEs.
Originality/value – This study is probably the first to provide an integrative perspective of CSFs for implementing KM in the SME sector. It gives valuable information, which hopefully will help this business sector to accomplish KM.
Keywords Critical success factors, Knowledge management, Small to medium-sized enterprises.
Source: ustrial Management & Data Systems Vol. 105 No. 3, 2005 pp. 261-279.
http://www.emeraldinsight.com
Being Creative at the Marketing / Entrepreneurship Interface: Lessons from the Art Industry
Ian Fillis
Department of Marketing. Faculty of Management. University of Stirling, Stirling
Creativity is not a new phenomenon. Neither is entrepreneurial marketing. This paper offers a discussion, based on both classical and contemporary evidence from the world of art, on how creative ability can give both the individual and the smaller firm a competitive advantage. Instead of adopting a replicative, quantitative methodology, as found in many smaller firm studies concerning marketing and entrepreneurship, this work embraces an alternative methodology by examining actual creative practice, as well as investigating the creative metaphor. It is believed that a range of useful outcomes will emerge from this, ranging from the promotion of awareness of the need for creativity in the smaller firm, given the inherent lack of many other resources, to the belief that those researching at the Interface will also benefit from adoption of alternative methodologies in order to generate new theory
Source: Journal of Research in Marketing & Entrepreneurship: Volume 2, Issue 2, 2000 pp. 125 - 137
http://websrv.ewu.edu