Creativity is a term that is used to describe the mental process that involves coming up with new ideas and concepts, where from the scientific viewpoint, the outcomes from creativity are always original and appropriate. Creativity has been much associated as being dependent on the thinking process, social environment in which one resides, personal traits of an individual, and also happening by chance. Therefore creativity is coming up with something new, adding new properties to an existing item, coming up with new ideas which were not realized before, and also doing something in a different way that is different from the way it’s done normally. innovation implies the use of already acquired ideas in producing economically valuable products. Creativity and innovation are two important concepts in organizations that are likely to promote the competitiveness of the organization and also in making the organization relevant to the community in which it is operating. Creativity and innovations are expected to be guided by the change in demand of various products as pertains to the ultimate users of product desires, in making the process quite useful. Creativity and innovations also promote the efficiency of the organization in it trying to maximize its profitability, because some other creativeness and innovations might be used in cutting down the operational expenses thus improving the profit margin of the organization. Therefore creativity and innovation is seeing all that everybody has seen, thinking of what no other person has thought, and doing what no other person has ever dared to to do.
Success in creativity and innovation in obtaining breakthroughs is not an aspect that one can easily get on a silver plater. The persons who are potential creative thinkers and innovators are expected first to have a special interest towards their career in the sense that they able to control their interests that are likely to divert their attention and effort in creative thinking and innovations. The diverted attention and lack of personal control will harbor potential innovators an opportunity of discovering their abilities and also utilizing them. Another important factor that affects creativity and innovations is the attitude of the innovators. Attitude is developed from past experiences, and in this case, if there has not been an achievement in the past, the innovators are likely to be demoralized as they perceive the process as a waste of time. Innovation is a trial and error activity thus when a breakthrough is to be attained is never definite, therefore the demoralized innovators resulting from the experience, are likely not to participant optimally which is certain to make the situation even worse, therefore patience is required if good results were to be expected from an innovation process. Another personal attribute that is necessary for pushing towards a breakthrough is teamwork spirit (Poole, 2002 ). A good teamwork spirit is will promote information flows among the researchers, in that opinions are subject to criticism in the process of refining them into finer applications.
The organization’s management has a crucial role in either accelerating creativity and innovation or retarding it. In the first place, the management should know that the process of innovation involves a lot of trial and error, and as such, they should never be so rigid of them providing deadlines on the expected completion time, otherwise, they should use more friendly ways of making the process faster. The best way to make the process faster is by providing incentives to the innovators which will motivate them to exploit their abilities, and not giving threats like avoiding to fund if the results are delayed. These incentives should include promises of promotion on delivery of a breakthrough and also increase in their wages on them hitting some set targets by the management. Although the management also should use their rationale on determining the extent of funding, by considering the benefits and the costs of the innovation for any profit optimizing organization, unless its a non profit organization. The attitude of management toward some research process also affects the performance of the innovators in the sense that if the management perceives the research as a waste of time and resources, this attitude is likely to haunt the performance of the innovators and in this case negatively as their mind will be influenced that what they are doing is just useless hence demoralised factor which is likely to limit their ability exploitation. Therefore management should take a careful stand on research before them first accusing the researchers of not performing.
The researchers term and condition of work is also another factor that influences the achievements. The terms of work are supposed to be favorable enough to make the researchers lead a balanced normal human being life, to enable them concentrate in their core activities other than having divided attentions. Divided attentions are likely to be cause and more especially if their renumeration are not satisfying because they need to engage in other income generating activities to meet their daily obligations, thus divided attention that will prohibit exhaustion of abilities. The conditions of work also need to be good to provide the researchers with an enabling environment which will let them carry out their operations efficiently. In addition to good terms and conditions of work, the researchers also need to be given freedom for them to interact with their fellow researchers in either similar industry or a different industry to gather information from their experiences , which is relevant for perfecting their creativity and innovations. The information will guide them on what has been tried and its possible outcome, thus it will even safe them from duplicating what has been done, thus a faster way to a break through. The freedom should also include allowing them to venture in field they feel in the good of them, and not predetermined operations. Predetermined operations will limit their creativity to a certain scope, thus not exploiting their abilities.
For organizations to maintain their lead, they are expected to invest in research and development to trigger innovations that will protect their market leadership, and more especially in competitive market situations. The amount of money invested depends entirely on the profitability level of the organization, where more profitable organizations are likely to invest more in research and development in an attempt to sustain market leadership. Investing in research and development is more important in loss experiencing firms and new entrants into the industry than even a profit-making firm if they are to stay in operation given that they are venturing into a competitive market and with a profit motive (Roussel, Swansburg and Richard 2006). The loss-making firms need research and development to encourage innovations that are likely to restore their competitiveness if they were to stay in the market, whereas the new entrants need to be unique as compared to the existing firms in the industry for them to get an entry point into the industry. If new entrants into an industry are doing things in the same way as the incumbents, there is a high likelihood that the incumbents will outshine them as it is a game in which they have been in for some time, and as such, they have created brand loyalties among their customers. New entrants are also likely to face a tough price war if they do not adopt low-cost production techniques because the incumbents might be experiences economies of scale, and for them to keep pace, innovations are required to check on the production process in cutting down the costs of production, thus need for research and development which will be reflected in innovations.
For a successful innovation breakthrough to be attained, the process should be designed in some way, in that it starts from a broader perspective and then narrowed down into more specific research. The purpose for narrowing down is to avoid the researchers from engaging in useless innovations which are likely not to add value to the performance of the firm. The researcher is expected to first identify a large number of possibilities and among the possibilities under consideration, they are to choose possible research fields which are likely to establish a breakthrough. This can be seen as a strategy for avoiding unnecessary economic sacrifices that will go without major benefits to the firm. The innovation process also needs to be systematic to avoid the possibility of innovators going astray from past achievements, and this can be obtained by altering one component at a time to avoid mixed reactions which are certain to confuse the whole innovation process.
The pattern of innovation and creativity normally changes with the changes in demand in the society in which these innovating firms operate. The main purpose of innovation is to solve the arising problems in society in making the human beings lead a comfortable life, thus it should respond to changes in societal needs, therefore it’s a continuous process. For better results from innovation, the innovating firm should be proceeding systematically, in such a way that it should first specialize in one specific industry and then move to another industry on the mastery of the current industry. If it operates with a wide range of industries, there is a likelihood that it will lack specialization in perfecting its innovations as its interests will be divided thus not identifying what it can do better than the other firms to take advantage of the changing market situation in it trying to survive in the market (Grant 2002). For example, a glass manufacturing industry to succeed with its innovations, it should specialize in some industries like lighting before it expands to reaching other industries like automobile among other industries because the perfected innovation skills in one industry will provide a guide to make an impact in another industry easily than moving randomly, although this can also be driven by situational demands for economic gains. On the assumption that innovation is a continuous process, changes made within the management team should conform with the initially set goals of the organization. The appointment of top managers should be done among the persons who understand the history of the organization. This will avoid conflicting interests within the management team which may result in to change of direction on attaining a breakthrough, and for the new managers, the organization’s traditions and goals should be spelled well to them to avoid loss of direction.
Innovation and creativity are in other times inherent in individuals, and in this case, a form should adopt some technique of identifying this talents to absorb them into their workforce. The best tactic is for the firm to open contacts with learning institutions like universities where they are likely to get potential creative thinkers and innovators. On the firm identifying potential innovators, they are also likely to be updated about the most recent technological adverses, thus avoiding the possibilities of lagging technologically. The engaging of academicians in application research, other than academic research will enable them to understand concepts in their real situations, and any other challenges that are to arise against their expectations will pose new fields of research in learning institution as learning is a continuous process, thus its a form of utilizing and exhausting the academicians abilities, which will in turn also improve the firm’s competitiveness through innovations.
Innovations and creativity standards have been changing from one generation to another, where it is perceived that the current generation innovations and creative thinking are more complex compared to the early times. This generational gap over innovations and creative thinking normally possess a disagreement between the two generations at the working places, as the current generation normally perceive the old generation creative thinkers as primitive, whereas the old creative thinkers blame the current generation creative thinkers as being too fast, engaging in risky activities and at times they claim that some other innovations are an undermine to humanity. This two forces are certain to slow the process of creative thinking and innovation and more especially if the old creative thinkers dominate the overall innovation process. Various innovations should be justified on reasonable grounds to avoid retarding creativity which is certain to bring good thing into lives of people. The best way to justify a given innovation is by considering the needs of society, that is if innovation is solving some societal problem then it should be permitted, and the innovations which are likely to harm society are supposed to be disregarded, thus the benefits and harm of a certain innovation should be considered before the adoption of the innovation (Shavinina 2003).
The speed at which innovations occur depends sometimes on human nature, that is the natural human selfishness. Innovators normally compete among themselves in a fight for honor and also avoiding the fact of lagging while colleagues are moving forward. This acts as a motivational factor because they normally want to keep pace or outshine their colleagues. This is the reason why innovation copyrighting is required. Most innovators also rest on pride over the previous breakthroughs, and it is when someone innovates an outshining product that they get to wake up and work. This human nature both accelerates and retards innovations. It retard innovation in the sense that abilities are locked up in pride and only to put an effort when someone has to break the initial record. They normally compete in bringing an innovation that is cost-effective, efficient, and also the ones that are to solve them at hand problems. Competence among the innovators is enhanced through specialization in certain given fields, where they are expected to avoid the technologies that they know little about and rather engage themselves in the ones that they know better in creating perfection in them.
The potential in an individual to become a successful innovator does not depend so much on the education standards but rather on the interest and also experience of an individual. Someone’s interests normally direct a person to some career which he or she feels can do better. Creative thinking always arises if someone is engaged in an activity that he or she does with free will and with passion. Other than the passion for doing something, creative thinking is also enhanced by the experience, as one is equipped with information from the experience about the possible ways that something can be done and the possible results to be expected (Urabe, Child and Kagono 1998 ). Academic qualifications are needed for someone to be a successful innovator but not necessary as interest and experience are likely to override the need for the academic qualification because one can learn when on a job or working on something. Academicians are only equipped with the skills of answering the questions why in their lab experiments while this is not necessarily the big question in firms as their concern is to develop products out of creativity and innovation in meeting the demands of society. A situation can arise that someone has the relevant academic qualifications but he or she does not have the passion for innovating thus interest and experience are the innovation drives.
Technological innovation can be perceived as a process as mentioned early, as it involves acts of trial and error. It normally starts from a wide scope and then gets narrowed to a bit smaller scope, where possible tactics are adapted which are likely to get innovators into a breakthrough. At times these tactics are subject to failure, but for continuity, these tactics should not be regarded as being useless as they may be applicable at some stage or they can be used to explain the reason why they failed and most likely provide a way forward. Therefore tactics that fail in innovations should not be discarded but rather used to explain the reason why to get the way forward or they can be as well be refined to get the way forward if they seem to solve the intended problem to a satisfactory percentage.
Technological innovation and creativity become a common idea among a group of innovators in an organization because there is a free flow of information among them. The organization stands at a chance of losing its competitiveness if either one or some of its workers transfer to work for another organization, as there is a possibility of the innovation being duplicated at the competitors’ operation thus is losing its competitive edge. The skills acquired by their researchers are normally inherent in them and that an organization can not get them back even though they had incurred an economic sacrifice in imparting the skills. The situation also goes out of their control more especially when it comes to the retirement of staff. The retired staff normally go with the skills in them, and for that reason there is a possibility that they can initiate organizations similar to the one that they were working for, thus they become a threat to the organization’s competitiveness. Given human nature, the retired staff can also decide to give out information over some innovations for material gain to competitors, thus need to prolong retirements for workers(Alan, Inouye and Mitchelle 2001).
In some situations, research sites are initiated but only to engage in theoretical studies. Such research sites are never beneficial to firms that establish them because they are not likely to innovate anything that will benefit the organization, thus such research sites are best suited for learning institutions which the main objective of disseminating knowledge from teachers to students. Innovation is what is important to the firm as it involves the application of the acquired information to come up with products, which carry economic benefits to the firm. innovators in most cases get information from their suppliers and their consumer about the possible ways of improving the quality of their products than in theoretical work as they normally focus on societal needs. Academicians are not supposed to regard as not providing information to innovation because they also contribute to answering the questions of why it happened and provides a ground for further creativity (Booth 2003).
The argument that innovation does not depend on the level of education but rather on experience and interest has brought misunderstandings among the two groups. Innovators with high education levels regard the ones with low education levels as being primitive as they can not document their work for it to be accessible to everyone regardless of their respectable innovations, whereas the less educated innovators disregard the degrees awarded to the high educated innovators as they still beat them in innovations despite their level of education. The less educated innovators pose an argument that their creativity will be duplicated in competitors’ firms if they document their innovations. There are also divisions among the educated innovators. They are divided according to the way they use the information that they access. The first group consists of researchers who acquire information and just keeps it within the academic cycle and also the second group is those researchers who get information and use it in innovation. The latter group is the one that seems to be beneficial to the firm as they are likely to promote the performance of the firm.
Conclusion. Innovation and creativity are two factors that are necessary for improving an organization’s performance. They increase efficiency as they come up with cost-effective ways of doing things. The level of creativity and innovation in an organization can be attributed to the attitude of the researchers, th attitude of the management, terms, and conditions of work, the organization’s profitability level, the teamwork spirit. innovation is a continuous process that in most cases involves trial and error. creativity and innovation ability of an individual depends much on interest and experience than educational qualification, although education can be perceived as reinforcing creativity and innovation.
Reference
Sylvan P., 2005, Creativity, Innovation and problem Solving; Web.
Poole M., 2002, Human Resource Management: Critical Perspective on Business and Management, Routledge, 83.
Roussel L., Swansburg C., and Richard J., 2006, Management and Leadership for nurse administrators, Jones and Bartlett publishers, pp46.
Grant M., 2002, Contemporary Strategy Analysis, Blackwell Publishing, pp 367.
Shavinina V., 2003, The international Handbook on Innovation: A unique Compendium, Elvester Publishers, pp 567.
Alan I., Inouye S. and Mitchelle J., 2001, Beyond Productivity: Information Technology, Innovation and Creativity, Michigan University Press, pp 99.
Urabe K., Child J. and Kagono T., 1998, Innovation and Management: International Comparisons, Walter de Gruyter, pp 394.
Booth A., 2003, Crisis Management Strategy: Competition and Change in modern Enterprises, Routledge, pp 106.