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Dynamic Relationships Management Journal, Vol. 4, No. 2, November 2015 39

INDIVIDUAL AND ORGANISATIONAL CREATIVITY AND INNOVATION:

THEIR MANAGEMENT

Rudi Rozman

University of Ljubljana, Faculty of Economics

Kardeljeva ploščad 17, Ljubljana, Slovenia

[email protected]

Jure Kovač

University of Maribor, Faculty of Organization Sciences

Kidričeva 55a, Kranj, Slovenia

[email protected]

Abstract

Due to the development of technology, production and other business functions, customers have entered in the focus

of enterprises’ endeavours, displacing mass-produced standardized products. Efficiency is no longer sufficient: flexibility,

creativity and innovation have become vital. Creativity and innovation processes started to be studied, first at the

level of individuals and then within organizations. It became obvious that creativity and innovation depend on indi-

viduals themselves and, within social units, also on their organisation. From the organisational point of view, practi-

tioners and researchers attempt to determine the organisational variables that positively influence creativity. In this

paper, the authors describe both the process and characteristics of creativity and innovation conducted by an au-

tonomous individual as well as the same process conducted by members of a social unit. The appropriate organisation

supporting the development of a creative and innovative social unit is established by management whose responsibility

is to assure a rational achievement of new useful ideas and their development into products, services and processes.

Therefore, the authors focus on three processes, emphasizing their relationships: individual creativity and innovation

processes, organizational creativity and innovation processes, and the management of creativity and innovation.

Keywords: creativity, innovation, organisational creativity and innovation process, management of creativity and in-

novation

1. INTRODUCTION

1.1 The development of importance of creativity

and innovation

Since the appearance of Daniel Bell’s book ‘TheComing of Post-Industrial Society’ in 1976, it has be-come clear that contemporary developed societiesare not only post-industrial but also information so-cieties (Webster, 2006). However, the results of thedevelopment of information technology and infor-

mation systems started after the appearance of the

world wide web and introduction of new production

concepts such as 3-D printing, which represents a

true innovating in the production process: additive

manufacturing. Also noteworthy is the concept of

open innovation (Chesbrough, 2003), which was

only made possible with the support of the Internet.

Considering the aforementioned and other similar

changes, the globally renowned publicist Chris An-

dersen concluded that the main characteristic of the

coming new revolution is that the effects of infor-

Vol. 4, No. 2, 39-50doi:10.17708/DRMJ.2015.v04n02a03

Dynamic Relationships Management Journal, Vol. 4, No. 2, November 2015

Rudi Rozman, Jure Kovač: Individual and Organisational Creativity and Innovation: Their Management

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mation technology and systems development willreach all areas of human efforts and creations. Thecurrent business and organisational models of all or-ganisations will undergo revolutionary change (An-dersen, 2013).

Undoubtedly, contemporary information-com-munication technology has radically changed ourlives as well as the operations and organization ofenterprises and other social units. The challengescurrently encountered by organisations are morecomplex than in the past and require new responses(Kovač, Muehlbacher & Kodydek, 2012: 10). It is im-portant for organisations to determine and to un-derstand these challenges to efficiently andsuccessfully respond to them. The consultancy firmCapgemini conducted research titled ‘Future valuechange – 2022’ in 2013, in which 20 global trendsthat will decisively impact enterprises have beenidentified. Two of them are considered to be themost important: digitalization and the fight for re-sources.

Following the initiative of the Siemens Corpo-ration, research titled ‘Pictures of the future sce-nario: horizons 2020’ has been conducted by thecompany TNS Infratest Muenchen for the EuropeanUnion. The purpose of this research was to showand to improve the understanding of future devel-opment trends in the EU. The study emphasized tenmegatrends facing the EU and requiring proper re-sponse:

• increasing globalization,

• aging of people,

• decreasing birth rate,

• the increasing role of women in economy and so-ciety,

• free choice of lifestyle,

• increasing importance of virtual entities,

• connection of different communication media,

• increasing mobility of inhabitants,

• increasing immigration to Europe and

Figure 1: Strategies proposed by managers to deal with the future environment

Source: Organization of the Future – Designed to Win, 2012: 8


• increasing the speed of technical developmentand shortening of products’ and services’ life cy-cles (Hartwitch, 2011: 13).

These key trends decisively determine and rep-resent the present and future environment of en-terprises and other organisations in Europe as wellas in the rest of the developed world. Managers andother decision-makers have to consider the futureenvironment in order to manage their organisationssuccessful and to develop them.

The Boston Consulting Group conducted in2011 a rather large international research. Their in-tention was to find out the problems that managersare facing today, and that will be important chal-lenges of tomorrow. In the research “Organizationof the future – designed to win”, 1,600 managersfrom 35 different countries took part. As most im-portant challenges that managers will face tomor-row they enumerated the following (Organization ofthe future: designed to win, 2012: 6):

• increasing competition of business environment,

• environmental and business uncertainty,

• increasing the complexity of the business environ-ment, and

• accelerated innovation and changes.

As most important strategies that managersplan in order to cope with the mentioned challengesare innovation leadership, customer orientation,and quality leadership. The overview of the mostfrequent strategies is given in the Figure 1.

From the perspective of this paper, it is impor-tant to emphasize that many managers recognize in-novation as a key factor that enables companies andother organisations to develop and remain successfulin unpredictable, complex, and competitive environ-ments. Even more, we can argue that innovation alsoplays a major role within other strategies.

Thus far, through different empirical studiesmainly based on the opinions of managers them-selves, the importance of creativity and innovationand their management has been emphasized. How-ever, the same conclusion can appear from the log-ical approach. In the past, due to a shortage ofproducts and services, the emphasis was on the effi-ciency, mass production of standard products and

similar. Competition was based on lower prices. Dueto the development of technology, the problemceased to be production but became marketing ofproducts and services. Focus moved from the prod-ucts to customers. Companies have to follow thecustomers’ requirements, which require differenti-ation and, as a consequence, flexibility, creativity,and innovation. Not only efficiency but even morecreativity and innovation became of utmost impor-tance. Let us add that briefly described develop-ment has also tremendously changed management.

1.2 Purpose, goals and method of ourcontribution

We can argue that the enterprises that developcreativity (as the first part of the innovation processor preceding it) and innovation in order to developnew products, services, markets, customer ap-proaches, organisational changes and even culturalvalues and routines will possess strategic advan-tages that will lead to their successful survival anddevelopment. For that reason a very importantquestion arises: what should enterprises and otherorganisations do today and tomorrow to becomeand remain creative and innovative? Undoubtedly,we can claim that creativity and innovation dependon the enterprises and on the environment. Withinthe enterprises mostly all employees can create andinnovate. However, the most important role isplayed by managers. Not so much because of theircreativity and innovation but more so because theyinfluence, motivate, and enable others to create andinnovate. By their actions, managers are supposedto assure the achievement of creativity and innova-tion. Thus, we are narrowing and determining theproblem we will deal with to the question of ‘whatmanagement or managers have to do to assurethat their company will become creative and inno-vative’.

The answer to the above question can tremen-dously impact the important competitive advantageof enterprises: creativity and innovation and, thus,the effectiveness of them. According to our findingsand those of others, we could improve the manage-rial decisions in developing and increasing creativityand innovation. By using a contemporary approachto the managerial process, we could also contribute



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to the development of the organisational and man-agerial sciences.

As already mentioned, we will discuss creativ-ity and innovation processes and one of the factors(the most important one) influencing creativity andinnovation: the management of creativity and in-novation. The basic goal of our contribution is to de-termine and discuss management activities leadingto creativity and innovation, developing or hinder-ing them. The goal of the article is also to showmajor characteristics of the creative and innovativeorganisation and, above all, to discuss organisationalstructure, processes and culture that assure creativ-ity and innovation.

In order to attain set goals we will, following theopinions of various authors, discuss the creative andinnovative process at individuals’ levels as a techni-cal process, not a social or organisational one. Wewill show the connection between the twoprocesses. Then we will look at both processes asorganisational ones and discuss management of cre-ativity and innovation. We will follow the contem-porary process of management, consisting ofbusiness planning, planning, actuation and controlof organization and business control. The result ofthis discussion will be the determination of factorswithin the mentioned managerial processes influ-encing creativity and innovation. Let us add that wewill also touch on some connected areas, such asknowledge management, change management,quality management and similar.

2. CREATIVITY AND INNOVATION OFINDIVIDUAL EMPLOYEES

2.1 Creativity and creativity process

Creativity as the ability to develop new ideas ordevelop new views on the existent problems and so-lutions is the most common definition of creativity,as suggested by Runco (2004: 657-687). Similarly,Amabile (1996), who is quoted by many other au-thors, e. g. Robbins and Coulter (2009: 271) definedcreativity as the ability to combine ideas in a specificway or to search for specific connections amongthem. In a creative social unit, employees developnew ways of actions and look for new problem so-lutions. Other authors (e. g. S. C. Certo & S. T. Certo,

2009: 469) emphasize that new ideas have to befeasible and useful. Daft and Marcic (2013: 675) sumup the opinion of many authors that creativity rep-resents the development of new ideas to solve theexistent problems or to prevent from the appear-ance of future ones and to utilize the given oppor-tunities or threats. Authors also agree that thecreation of new ideas represents a permanent andcontinuous process yielding useful ideas.

This process is not commonly and clearly deter-mined and does not follow an algorithm. It is morea divergent, heuristic and intuitive process of trialand error, which differs from one example to theother. Solutions are often achieved by chance. De-spite this, authors often approximately suggest abroad creativity process. According to George andJones (1999: 513-521) this process consists of:

• recognition of a problem or opportunity,

• information gathering,

• production of creative ideas,

• selection of creative ideas, and

• implementation of creative idea(s).

The last mentioned step represents the innova-tion process, which we will discuss separately. Moreabout the steps in creativity and innovation processcan be found in many authors, including Rozman(2002: 121-132). Creativity, similar to the ability tolearn, is the trait of an individual. However, withinsocial units, the creativity of an individual is con-nected with the organisation that determines anddirects individual creativity. Thus, we can say thatthe ability to create depends on the employeesthemselves, on their organisational relationshipsand on the environment of social units. Managersinfluence creativity by directing employees, or,broadly, by establishing and maintaining a properorganisation: structure, processes and culture. Wewill discuss the management of creativity (and in-novation) more broadly in the next chapter.

Looking at the individual employee only,we cansay that their creativity is above all the result ofthree components: knowledge, creative thinkingand motivation (S. C. Certo & S. T. Certo; 2009: 469-470). The creator must possess a preliminary knowl-edge of the area in which new solutions have to befound. A creative employee is not satisfied with


present solutions and is looking for improvementsand changes. Finally, he must be either intrinsically(interest, passion, satisfaction) or/and extrinsically(salary, financial reward) motivated.

2.2 Innovation and innovation process

Some authors discuss the creativity and inno-vation process as one process consisting of two sub-processes. In such a case, they term the jointprocess as an innovation process. Similarly, in thealready mentioned empirical research in the intro-ductory part, authors understand the creativity andinnovation to be a joint innovation process. Bothprocesses are connected, and there is not a clearline between them. The innovation process startswhere the creativity process ends: with new usefulideas. That is the reason that some authors(Mueller, 1995: 16-19) claim that creativity repre-sents the first broad step in the innovation process.

There exist many but similar definitions of in-novation. Mainly, innovation is the transformationof useful new ideas in new useful value: product,service or processes (Robbins & Coulter, 2009: 271).Thus, the innovation process is the process of idea

implementation. An innovative social group is ca-pable of transforming ideas into results. Creativityand innovation are not always developed at thesame level. There are creative employees (or groupsand social units) that are unable to implement theirideas, and on the other side, there are not creativebut innovative employees (groups and social units)who can implement others’ ideas.

Innovation is present in different areas like tech-nology, products and services, other processes, andmanagement (Higgins, 1994: 9-10). The process, al-though to some degree divergent and heuristic, issimilarly defined by different authors and consists offollowing steps:

• starting the design of solution based on the se-lected useful idea,

• the analysis of feasibility and effectiveness of thesolution,

• preparation for the start-up of production in thesocial unit,

• implementation and

• use of the solution (product, process, etc.) by theuser.

Many authors also add the controlling phase.Often the proposed solutions do not lead to ex-pected results, or the solutions have to be adapted.Improved ideas and their solutions have to follow.Innovation in the same area becomes continuous,which authors describe as re-innovation (Rothwell& Gardiner, 1989: 147-159).

Woodman and co-authors (1993: 293-321)claim that organisation, employees and organisa-tional culture influence the innovation. We foundthe same for creativity.

3 ORGANISATIONAL CREATIVITY ANDINNOVATION

Thus far we have briefly discussed the creativityand innovation process conducted by individual em-ployees. At the same time, we have to emphasizethat, being members of social units, employees arenot independent in the choice of the subject or themanner of developing creativity and innovation. Wedo not speak merely of individual but of a mutual ororganisational creativity and innovation of employ-ees. This mutual creativity and innovation process isdirected by an organisation that is established anddeveloped by managers. There are also the relation-ships among employees regarding their creativityand innovation efforts. The individual’s creativity andinnovation thus depend also on relationships withthe other employees who are supporting each otherin their creative and innovative endeavours. Similarly,as in our discussed case, we also talk about individualand organisational learning (Rozman & Sitar, 2007).We can conclude that organizational creativity andinnovation depend on individual employees as con-nected one to the others as well as on organizationstructure, processes and culture.

3.1 Employees and creativity and innovation

within social units

We already discussed the individual processesof creativity and innovation and have indirectlyshown some of the required and desired character-



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istics of employees. The human traits can be inher-ited or learned. Among the inherited traits, oftenthe importance of five major ones is mentioned,one of which is especially important for creativityand innovation: openness to experience. McCraeand Costa (1992: 229-237) connect it with the fol-lowing three characteristics of people: fantasy, ideasand performance. Robbins and Coulter (2009: 273)mentioned following characteristics: high self-con-fidence, persistence, energy and tendency towardrisk taking. George and Jones (2000: 46) claim thatopen-minded people are original, open to a widevariety of stimuli, have broad interests and are will-ing to take risks. People with these characteristicscould have some strengths in conducting ambiguoustasks that require new solutions, risk taking, etc.Daft and Marcic (2013: 283) emphasize the concep-tual fluency; originality; less authority and more in-dependence and self-confidence; playfulness,undisciplined exploration and curiosity; and persist-ence, commitment and focused approach. They alsoenumerate similar characteristics for departmentsand organizations as a whole.

Creativity and innovation can also be learned.Furthermore, people possess more creativity and in-novation than is required from them. It is the task ofmanagers to require the use of existent creativity andinnovation as well as to develop them. We alreadymentioned that creative and innovative people oughtto have broad knowledge in the area, suitable per-sonal traits and being motivated. Thus, managershave to support the broad knowledge and enable itsdevelopment. They have to support the developmentof appropriate characteristics. They have to free em-ployees of the fear of being fired in the case of notbeing successful and motivate them: support newideas, break the barriers, support the execution ofthe ideas, etc. More autonomy and decision-makingpower ought to be given to employees.

3.2 Organisational structures influencingcreativity and innovation

The uniform organisational structures are tech-nical (duty), motivational (responsibility), authorityand communicational. The position of each em-ployee within the organization is determined by thecharacteristics of these four structures. Uniform

structures very rarely exist alone but together withthe others and are adapting to each other. The jointor coordinated structure is known as the managerialone. All mentioned structures develop intoprocesses: technical or business processes, motiva-tion, communication and leadership ones, whereasthe coordinated or managerial structure developsto the management process.

Basically, according to their characteristics, wedistinguish mechanistic and organic organisationalstructures. The question discussed is: does organi-sational structure influence creativity and innova-tion and if so, what kind of organisation structuressupports them?

From the contemporary definition of the organ-isation as a system of dynamic relationships orstructures that assures the rational achievement oforganizational goals, it is obvious that according tothis definition organisational structures also influ-ence creativity and innovation. Robbins and Coulter(2009: 271-272) gathered the research results ofmany authors, which show five basic influences oncreativity and innovation. First an organic type oforganisation positively influences innovation. Thisstructure is low in formalization, centralization andwork specialization, which facilitates the flexibilityand sharing of ideas that are critical to innovation.Second, necessary resources are important for in-novation. Third, frequent communication withinand between organisational units breaks down thebarriers to innovation. Team organizational formsthus support creativity and innovation. Fourth, cre-ative and innovative organizations attempt to mini-mize the extreme time pressures on creativeactivities. Studies show that time pressure nega-tively influences the creativity and innovation (Am-abile, Hadley & Cramer, 2002: 52-61). Finally,research shows that creative and innovative per-formance is enhanced when the organization struc-ture directly supports creativity and innovation.Examples of beneficial support are encouragement,open communication, readiness to listen, and usefulfeedback (Madjar, Oldham & Pratt, 2002: 757-767).We can argue that, with the exception of the secondfactor, all the others are organizational factors.

The authors of the contingency theory of or-ganisation, Burns and Stalker, came to the conclu-


sion that the mechanistic model of organisation hin-ders creativity and innovation. They claim that highlevels of organisational control clearly determinetasks and roles as well as the centralization of deci-sions, which all represent barriers to flexibility andcreativity (Hatch, 2013: 99). They came to the con-clusion that the mechanistic organizational modelrepresents an insurmountable barrier to creativityand innovation process.

In contrast, the development of organic organ-isation model supports efficient and effective cre-ativity and innovation processes. However, withinthe organisations not only one model can exist; forexample, in most cases of production organisation,the mechanistic model is more suitable than the or-ganic one. Depending on their environment andtechnology, different departments develop differentorganisational models. The problem is that differentdepartments with different organization structureshave to cooperate. In order to achieve the integra-tion and cooperation between departments, theyalso have to adapt to each other (Vila, 1994: 257-259). This co-existence can be achieved in the or-ganisational or personnel sense. The organisationalapproach means that the connections between de-partments have to adapt: the organic model has tocope with the characteristics of mechanistic one andvice versa. This is possible because the organic-mechanistic organisation has to be seen as a contin-uum. In contrast, there also exists the area ofacceptability within which the relationships can dif-fer to a certain level.

Let us emphasize again that the creativityprocess requires the features of the organic organi-sational structure. This does not mean that teamsand not individuals are the source of creative ideas.What we are arguing is that organic structures pos-itively influence both creativity and innovation.However, we assume that innovation process al-ready has to include some organisational featuresof the mechanistic model.

The other possibility of how to connect creativ-ity and innovation as well as production is the am-bidextrous organisational structure. The concept oforganizational ambidexterity was introduced byDuncan in the 1970s and was put forward in the rel-evant literature by March in early 1990s. The idea

of ambidexterity is that companies have to developstrengths on the exploration as well as on exploita-tion levels. The exploration level requires flexible or-ganisational structures supporting creativity andinnovation whereas the exploitation level requiresmechanistic structure aiming at efficiency. Usually,companies develop different departments with dif-ferent organizational structures, e. g. a research de-partment with organic organizational features andproduction department with organic ones. Am-bidexterity can also be understood in such a waythat employees working in mechanistic depart-ments work in teams, quality circles and similarunits from time to time. The less formal part of theorganisation, e. g. team structure, is suitable for cre-ation and development of ideas whereas the formalhierarchic part is more suitable for the execution ofideas. The concept of ambidexterity is not only con-nected to creativity and innovation processes butalso to processes of organisational learning, strate-gic management and similar (Popadić, Černe &Milohnić, 2015).

Undoubtedly, organisational structures devel-oped to correspondent processes as well as manage-rial, organizational processes (planning, actuation,control), and organizational culture play the most im-portant role in organizational creativity and innova-tion. A well-known empirical study conducted in2010 by Institute for the Management of Changesand Innovation (IMSI) in Esslingen has confirmed aclear correlation between creativity and innovation-supporting structures, processes and culture and cre-ative, innovative and overall business success (Vahs& Schmitt, 2010). Furthermore, the connected devel-opment of all three organizational phenomena hasbeen confirmed.

3.3 Organisational culture and creativity andinnovation

Similar cultural values have been found in cre-ative and innovative organisations. The values arequite similar to personal traits of creative and inno-vative employees. However, these organisationalvalues are strong, especially so in creativity and in-novation departments. The culture is in line with or-ganizational structures and processes. Robbins andCoulter (2009: 273) found the following values to be



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important in supporting creativity and innovation:

• accept ambiguity,

• tolerate the impractical,

• keep external controls minimal,

• tolerate risk,

• tolerate conflict,

• focus on ends rather than means,

• use an open system focus,

• provide positive feedback.

It is easier to change and develop organiza-tional structures and processes than organizationalculture. Nevertheless, managers are trying tochange organizational culture. Change is not easy,and it is mainly achieved within the HRM and lead-ership process. Let us add that authors of differentcultural models usually consisting of four differentcultural types that clarify the distinction betweentypes consider also the values supporting and hin-dering creativity and innovation.

4. MANAGEMENT OF CREATIVITY ANDINNOVATION

First, we can ask the question whether we cantalk about creativity and innovation management atall. Management refers to enterprises, businessunits, business functions, projects and similar enti-ties. Phenomena like quality, knowledge, creativityand innovation are quite different. By definition,management is coordination, business planning andcontrolling as well as determination and develop-ment of relationships among employees to assure arational achievement of a social unit’s goals. We cansay directly, that we are not managing creativity andinnovation; we are managing the aforementionedentities and employees. However, we are managingand thus coordinating one of the characteristics ofemployees: relationships among employees con-cerning creativity and innovation. By managing, weattempt to achieve a rationale achievement of cre-ativity and innovation within asocial unit. Similarly,managers are also managing quality, knowledge,etc.We can conclude that overall management consistsof the management of ‘partial’ areas and also hasto coordinate them.

Amabile (1997: 39-58), Leavy (2002: 70-85) andother authors claim that the basic task of managersis to create an environment that will enable and mo-tivate employees to develop and use their creativityand innovation.

Management of creativity and/or innovation isthe managerial process of assuring the achievementof a creative and innovative social unit. The processof management by most authors consists of plan-ning, organizing, (HRM), leadership and control. Wecan say that this is an obsolete approach not distin-guishing clearly between business and organisation.For that reason we will consider a contemporaryapproach to managerial functions: business plan-ning, planning of organisation, the actuation of or-ganisation, the control of organisation and businesscontrol as shown in Rozman (2012; 1-24).

In the business planning process, managers de-cide upon vision and major goals, business policyand strategies. Vision itself (which is also built onimagination, which is the basis of creativity) showswhether the company will emphasize creativity andinnovation, introducing innovation and differentia-tion or merely follow improvements and evolution-ary growth. Vision is followed by goals andstrategies. Goals and strategies based on new prod-ucts, new markets, and differentiation are based oncreativity and innovation. In strategic and tacticalplans, companies can already include changes andtheir consequences that will happen in the near fu-ture. It is more difficult and questionable to includechanges that are still in the phases of creativity andinnovation. Still, companies can evaluate potentialideas and their expected results as well as themeans needed for their implementation.

In the planning organisation phase, managersdesign organisational structure, processes and cul-ture that will assure the achievement of the plannedcreativity and innovation. As suitable, we alreadymentioned organic structure, which is connected toteam structure or project type structure. The am-bidextrous structure can also be designed. Compa-nies can design buffer departments, dealing withdifferent environments (e.g. research and develop-ment), developing differentiation and integration ofemployees, etc. Organisational culture is also de-signed in this step.


Connected to creativity and innovation, authorsmost frequently emphasize the actuation phase,which consists of HRM and leadership. The actualorganization is established by HRM. According to theplanned duties, accountability, authority and com-munication, appropriate human resources are re-cruited, selected, placed, motivated, and developed.In this phase, many innovations can be introduced:recruiting through the Internet, by suggestions ofemployees,etc. In the selection of employees, espe-cially of managers, a combination of different tech-niques is used. Emphasis is given to the developmentof employees: education and training. In motivationand promotion (vertical or horizontal), creativity andinnovation are also considered.

By leadership in the narrow sense, we under-stand the characteristics and style of managers.While in hierarchy importance is given to formalrules, and only limited information is given to em-ployees in the process of creativity and innovationthe leadership becomes participative. The charac-teristics of this leadership are authenticity, open-ness and trust (Goffe & Jones, 2005: 86-94). It isimportant for leaders that their words match theirdeeds; the consideration of ideas that are mattersof dispute is also important. Leadership is relation-ship-oriented, and employees are supposed to beautonomous and act accordingly. The usual leader-ship styles used are participative, democratic, lib-eral, authentic, transformation, and similar.

Leadership also includes communication andmotivation. Communication in a creative and inno-vative environment becomes of high importance. Itruns within and between teams. It is horizontal andthrough all channels. Besides the verbal and otherclassic ways of communication, the electronic onesare used.

Motivation for creativity and innovation is em-phasized by all authors. They suggest a broad rangeof different ways of motivating creativity and inno-vation of employees. Intrinsic motivation is oftenemphasized. However, the extrinsic and within it thefinancial motivation should not be neglected.

Control of organisation controls whether theplanned organization is implemented. It controlswhether employees execute their duties and be-have in an accountable way in the context of their

authority according to the planned organization.The same holds for the control of the organizationalculture and organizational processes. It is usuallysteady or concurrent control. In our case, we are in-terested also in control of achieved creativity andinnovation.

Business control represents the control of theoverall business and its success. Concerning creativ-ity and innovation, this control looks at introducednovelties, their costs and benefits in our case mainlyfrom the creativity and innovation standpoint.

5. CONCLUSION

Business environment is becoming more unpre-dictable, complex and thus uncertain. Managers ofenterprises and other social units are seeking an-swers to new challenges that are also due to the in-creasing focus on customers instead on products.They found the answers to many environmentalchallenges in the development of creativity and in-novation. Even more, they look at creativity and in-novation as a key factor in long-term businesssuccess.

Creativity and innovation depend on inheritedand learned traits of individual employees. Theyought to possess a previously developed knowledgein the area of research, creative way of thinking andthe motivation to create and innovate. The creativ-ity and innovation process are of utmost importanceand are specific in the sense of their ambiguity anddivergency. Within social units, creativity and inno-vation has to consider organisation: structures, cul-ture and processes. The individuals’ processes aremutual, and dependent on designed organisationalrelationships and thus broadly take the organizationinto account. We called the processes of creativityand innovation management organisationalprocesses thus emphasizing the connectivity of in-dividual processes. The organic organisation, espe-cially team organisation, and ambidexterity are themain characteristics of the organisation supportingcreativity and innovation.

Such an organisation supporting and assuringcreativity and innovation is designed and achieved bymanagement. In this article, the characteristics of



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management of creativity and innovation are shownin different phases of the managerial process.

As important results of the study, we show aclear distinction between individual and organiza-tional creativity and innovation process as well asbetween them and management of creativity andinnovation. Our discussion derives from this distinc-

tion and considers the contemporary approach to

the organisation as a system of dynamic relation-

ships. The organisational approach built on struc-

ture, culture and (managerial) process. For the

development of creativity and innovation, the coor-

dinated development of all three organisational el-

ements is required.

EXTENDED SUMMARY / IZVLEČEK

V prvi polovici prejšnjega stoletja je bil poudarek v podjetjih dan predvsem učinkovitosti oziromaprizadevanjem za doseganje čim nižjih stroškov proizvajanja pretežno standardiziranih proizvodovin storitev. Razlog temu je bila relativno majhna proizvodnja in posledično ponudba proizvodov instoritev. Z razvojem proizvajalnih sil pa postaja ozko grlo prodaja, ne več proizvodnja. Proizvodnezmogljivosti presegajo možnosti prodaje. V središču pozornosti podjetja ni več proizvod, marvečpredvsem uporabnik. Ta pa zahteva proizvode in storitve glede na svoje specifične želje, kar zahtevaod podjetja poleg večje učinkovitosti tudi večjo prožnost in prilagodljivost, s tem pa ustvarjalnost ininovativnost. K večji ustvarjalnosti in inovativnosti v veliki meri prispeva tudi razvoj informacijsketehnologije. To logično utemeljitev razvoja ustvarjalnosti in inovativnosti v podjetjih nedvomno pod-pirajo razne empirične raziskave. Tako raziskava »Pictures of the future scenario horizons 2020«, kijo je na pobudo korporacije Siemens izvedlo podjetje TNS Infratest Muenchen za EU, kaže 10 ključnihsprememb v gospodarstvu in združbi, ki jih podjetja morajo upoštevati. Med njimi igra pomembnovlogo večja hitrost tehničnega razvoja in skrajševanje življenjskih ciklov proizvodov in storitev. »Bostonconsulting group« pa v študiji leta 2011, ki temelji na mnenjih ravnateljev (angl. managerjev), ugo-tavlja med glavnimi izzivi ravnateljevanju v prihodnje večjo stopnjo ustvarjanja in inoviranja ter spre-memb na sploh. Pa tudi v drugih izzivih vsaj posredno igrata ustvarjalnost in inoviranje pomembnovlogo. Podjetja bodo, za doseganje dolgoročne uspešnosti, poskušala biti vodilna v inoviranju.

Tako ni slučaj, da mnoga, če ne vsa, podjetja poskušajo postati ustvarjalna in inovativna. Pri temustvarjalnost razumejo kot ustvarjanje novih, uporabnih zamisli za svoje proizvode, storitve, procese,organizacijske rešitve ipd. Inovativnost pa je spreminjanje teh zamisli v nove proizvode, storitve, pro-cese, organizacijske rešitve itd. Avtorja proces ustvarjanja prikažeta v naslednjih korakih:

• ugotovitev problema ali priložnosti;

• zbiranje informacij o problemu ali priložnosti;

• ustvarjanje novih zamisli za njihovo rešitev;

• primerjanje ustreznih zamisli;

• določitev in prikaz najbolj ustrezne zamisli.

Temu procesu sledi proces inoviranja:

• oblikovanje konkretne rešitve na osnovi uporabnih zamisli;

• analiza možnosti izvedbe rešitve in njene pričakovane uspešnosti;

• priprava za zagon proizvodnje in

• izvedba zamišljenih sprememb ter uporaba proizvoda ali storitve s strani uporabnika.

Kar precej avtorjev oba procesa povezuje v enoten proces, ki ga poimenujejo po drugem delnemprocesu, inoviranju. Opisana procesa avtorja prikažeta najprej kot procesa posameznih, nepovezanihzaposlencev v podjetju. Poudarita pa, da zaposlenci v podjetju ne delujejo neodvisno, marveč vza-


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