Factors influencing creativity and innovation--- creativity

B.V.L.NARAYANA SPTM

Definitions (Amabile et al 1996)

Creativity is defined as
Production of novel and useful ideas in any domain SEE ORDER IN DISORDER

Innovation is defined as
Successful implementation of creative ideas in any organisation Creativity of individuals and teams is the starting point for innovation

Creativity and innovation are important

Life is becoming increasingly complex, fast and changing at a faster pace Allows adaptation, maintain flexibility and is part of decision making Creativity requires originality and flexibility Contributes to physical and psychological health and optimal functioning

Factors influencing creativity

Factors
Individual level Group and organisational level

Category of factors Motivation

Resources Management practices Group characteristics

Factors (Based on Amabile et al 1996)

Organisational motivation to innovate is the basic orientation towards innovation and supports for creativity and innovation Everything that an organisation has to aid work in domain targeted for innovation including training Refers to allowance of freedom in conduct of work, provision of challenging and interesting work, specification of clear strategic goals, formation of work teams with diverse skills and perspectives, focus on technology and reward and incentive structures Norms, group cohesiveness, size , diversity, roles, task characteristics, and problem solving approaches used

Factors affecting creativity

Category
Organisational encouragement

Factors (Amabile et al 1996)

Encouraging of risk taking and idea generation at all levels Fair supportive evaluation of new ideas, Reward and recognition of creativity, collaborative idea flow and participatory decision making Goal clarity and clarity of problem definition, open interactions, support for team work and ideas, Diversity of team members background, mutual openness to ideas, constructive challenging of ideas, shared commitment Autonomy in day to day conduct of work, sense of ownership and control over work and ideas Adequacy of allocation indicating importance, time Excessive work load pressure, challenge due to intrinsic nature Internal strife, conservatism, rigid and formal management structures

Supervisory encouragement Work group encouragement Autonomy Resources Pressures Organisational impediments

Factors at individual level

Age
creativity decreases with age unless individual is intentionally creative

Intelligence certain level required for certain measures of creativity only.

Personality high valuation of aesthetic qualities in experiences, interests, attraction to complexity, independence of judgment, autonomy, intuition , self confidence, ability to resolve conflicting traits in self and belief that self is creative

Dispositions high level of intrinsic motivation, follow intrinsic interests, free from evaluations and constraints

Capabilities
Insight is a result of integration of previously learned behaviors

potential

Processes influencing creativity

Associative process is involved in divergent thinking and problem solving Cognitive flexibility-process by which obvious patterns of thinking are discarded and new higher order rules are adopted Intrinsic motivation process where people feel motivated by interest, challenge and satisfaction of work itself Creative thinking is capacity to put existing ideas in new combinations and is facilitated by diversity of experience and learning Divergent thinking process by which one extrapolates many possible answers to an initial stimulus or target data Intuition of flash intelligence- flash of a recognition that problem is solved Flow- when person is fully immersed in what is being done and has a feeling of energized focus, shows full involvement and success and excludes other stimuli

Pressures or impediments
Two types-alpha and beta
Alpha is objective Beta is based on individuals interpretations

Positive pressures
freedom, autonomy, good role models and resources (including time), encouragement specifically for originality, freedom from criticism, and norms in which innovation is prized and failure not fatal

Inhibiting pressures
lack of respect (specifically for originality), red tape, constraint, lack of autonomy and resources, inappropriate norms, project management, feedback, time pressure, competition, and unrealistic expectations

Resources influencing creativity

Time
Original ideas are remote with respect to original problem Creative ideas require time for incubation

Demographic factors
Birth order
Middle born children are more creative

family size Number of siblings Interval among siblings Family and school atmosphere
Large families have authoritarian structures Freedom and autonomy facilitates creativity

Neurological factors
Creativity reflects originality and appropriateness, intuition and logic. It requires both hemispheres Requires consistent communication among many areas in brain and increased emotional expression Defocused attention Knowledge declarative, factual, tactics or procedural knowledge Intuition, ability to consider two different perspectives simultaneously, incubation, imagination

Cognitive neuroscience of creativity

Creative thinking is the result of ordinary mental processes Human information processing is hierarchically structured and creative mentation lies at the highestprefrontal cortex Two different types of neural systems
Emotional brain-attaches a value tag to incoming information and enables evaluation of its biological significancedoes Me-relevant computation Perceptual brain- performs detailed feature analysis of incoming information enabling construction of sophisticated representations that form basis for cognitive processing Both the systems can be dissociated anatomically and processually.

Cognitive neuroscience of creativity

Executive functionconsisting of integrating of processed information, formulation of plans and strategies for appropriate behavior and instruction of adjacent motor cortices for execution-requires both systems
Emotional Process of evaluating the significance of complex social situationsMe-relevant emotions Cognitive process of Selective attention and Feature analysis leading to mental models Each have separate memories which track their activities Full reintegration of these systems occurs in the prefrontal cortex At all levels of functional hierarchy neural structures have direct access to activation of the motor system

Cognitive neuroscience of creativity

Pre-frontal cortex performs executive functions and thus is central to creative thinking Enables higher cognitive functions such as self construct, self reflective consciousness, abstract thinking, complex social functions, cognitive flexibility, planning, and willed action Other cognitive functions are working memory, temporal integration and sustained and directed attention Two main parts
Ventero-medial connected to higher order emotional processing systemdoes social function through merelevant assessment Dorso-medial- connected to higher order information and cognitive processing systemsdoes working memory, cognitive flexibility, temporal integration, ordering and sequencing and directed attention

Process of creativity
Every neural circuit can compute specific information and also produce novel combinations More integrative the neural structure more combinational novelty can occur Appropriateness is a function of higher order structures that assess a complex and changing set of rules or values implicit in persons culture. This generates a selection process which selects the appropriate idea out of many Four types of creativity based on types of structures and processing modes

Types of creativity
Deliberate

Attention is related to retrieval of affective memory. Insights depend upon specific emotion and conform to persons values and norms. It is independent of domain knowledge

Attention is related to search for task related information. Quality of insights depends upon expertise and how flexible cognitively the prefrontal cortex isdomain independent trait. Creativity is domain specific.

Occur when neural activity of emotional structures is spontaneously represented in working memory after an Spontaneous intense emotional activity/ experience. Are not domain specific. Require specific skills. Called revelation
Emotional

Insight has origin in associative unconscious thinking when thresholds are lowered (Incubation) . Do not conform to convention. Become conscious when represented in working memory. Depend upon expertise
Cognitive

Impediments to business creativity (Amabile 1998)

Business creativity-requires both originality and appropriateness Six set of factors impede business creativity Challengematch work to persons capabilities Freedom- autonomy to choose process not ends Resources-appropriate time and money Work group featuresmutually supportive with diversity of perspectives and backgrounds Supervisory supportin form of extrinsic rewards, praise, foster collaboration, communication Organisational support- leaders who put in place systems and processes which support creativity-support failures

Intrinsic motivation

CREATIVITY

Expertise

Creative thinking skills

THANKS-ANY QUESTIONS