Peter Drucker taught us: “The business Enterprise has two basic functions: marketing and innovation”.

Creativity is a phenomenon whereby something new and somehow valuable is formed. The created ítem may be intangible (service) or a physical object (product) what customer demands.

Teresa Amabile, is the Profesor of Business Administration at Harvard Buisness, argued that to enhance creativity in business, three components were needed:

• Expertise (technical, procedural and intelectual knowledge).
• Creative thinking skills (how flexibly and imaginatively people approach problesm),
• Motivation (especially intrinsic motivtion)

There are two types of motivation:

• Extrinsic motivation: external factors,
• Intrinsic motivation: inside an individual, satisfaction, enjoyment of work

6 managerial practices to encourage motivation are:

• Challenge: matching people with the right assignments
• Freedom: giving people autonomy
• Resources
• Work group features
• Supervisory encouragement
• Organizational support

Two important assumptions underlie the Amabile´s theory:

1. There is continuum from low, ordinary levels of creativity found in everyday life to the highest levels of creativity found in historically significant inventions
2. Related underlying assumption is that there are degrees of creativity in the work of any single individual, even within one domain.

According to the expanded theory, has undergone considerable evolution since 1988, intrinsicmotivation and creativity might actually be enhanced, this process is termed “motivacional synergy”, (Amabile, 1993) .

In organization, there are possibilities por innovation facilitates, brainstorming can result in surpresing innovations. A posible attitude, and a low-stress environment, can support the greater mental flexibility and training.

 

Bibliography:

• Amabile, T. M, “The Social Psychology of Creativity: A Componential Conceptualization”, Journal of Personality and Social Psycology 45, no2, 1983
• Carol Kennedy, “Guide to the management gurus”, Random House Business Books, 1991
• Wikipeda

Links relationated:

• Teresa M. Amabile: theory of creativity

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k5j6uNEdai8

 

• Harvard Business School

https://www.exed.hbs.edu/programs/gmp/Pages/default.aspx?lb=fy17:gmp