Assignment: Creativity, Innovation, and Foresight in Action
Assignment: Creativity, Innovation, and Foresight in Action
Creativity, innovation, and foresight are closely connected concepts. This weekâ€
s reading from the Cambridge Handbook of Creativity introduced the connections between individual creativity, an organizationâ€s capacity for innovation, and the ability to predict coming trends and other important developments successfully. The systematic approaches to creativity overviewed in this chapter offer a wide variety of means to foster creativity, but the most important knowledge you can gain from this reading is the fact that creativity is not an unexplainable phenomenon or a mysterious process. Rather, creativity can be approached systematically in order to seek out opportunities for innovation, based on foresight.
For this paper, you will analyze how foresight, creativity, and innovation are separate, yet interrelated, concepts. To prepare for this assignment, read “Welcome to a World of Change: Life in the 21st century” (Puccio, et al, 2012) and “Moonshots for Management” (Hamel, 2009). Also consider the tensions between innovation and creativity addressed in the article “Institutionalizing Ethical Innovation in Organizations: An Integrated Causal Model of Moral Innovation Decision Processes”. Use this article as a foundation for evaluating creativity, foresight, and innovation within an ethical model.
Select an organization – it could be your present company or a previous company for which you worked in the past, or an organization in your personal life (professional, fraternal, charitable, social, etc.) – and describe a situation that demonstrates this organizationâ€s foresight, creativity, and innovation within an ethical model. Some examples situations might include the development of a new product or service, a removal of a barrier to productivity, an action to improve employee productivity, a marketing/advertising campaign that induced more sales, a fund raising drive, a membership drive, etc. Your paper should:
- Provide an analysis of how the organization demonstrated each of these separate concepts (creativity, innovation, and foresight) in an interrelated and ethical way.
- Next, analyze the specific situation you have presented in light of foresight, creativity, and innovation in one of the following ways:
Refer to the Week 1 Individual Reflection rubric for this assignment for specific grading elements and criteria. Your Instructor will use this Rubric to assess your work.
Guidance on Assignment Length: Your Week 1 Individual Reflection assignment should be 2–4 pages (1–2 pages if single spaced), excluding a title page and references.
Required Readings
Document: Week 1 Weekly Briefing (PDF)
The Week 1 Weekly Briefing provides an essential introduction to the content and concepts that you will be studying during the week. After viewing the Weekly Introduction, the Week 1 Weekly Briefing should be your initial reading this week.
Grivas, C., & Puccio, G. J. (2012). The innovative team: Unleashing creative potential for breakthrough results.
- Introduction (pp. 1–10)
- Part 1, “The Story” (pp. 10–186 only)
Note: Read these two sections by Day 4 of Week 2.
Although it seems like a lot of reading up front, you will notice that the text for this course is written like a novel and moves through innovation concepts very quickly but in an appropriate business context. You will later be able to relate the concepts of the course to the framework of the story and, with it, build your knowledge of innovation and creativity.
Schumacher, E.G., Wasieleski, D. M. (2013). Institutionalizing ethical innovation in organizations: An integrated causal model of moral innovation decision processes. Journal of Business Ethics, 113, 15–37.
This article investigates the conflict that sometimes occurs between creativity and ethics in business. The authors propose a model to understand and reconcile this conflict through an analysis of the interdependence of ethics and innovation.
Puccio, G. J., & Cabra, J. F. (2010). Organizational creativity: A systems approach. In J. Kaufmann & R. J. Sternberg (Eds.), The Cambridge Handbook of Creativity (pp. 145–173). New York, NY: Cambridge University Press.
Whenever an individual person undertakes a creative act or thought process, the number of factors that influence their creative process can be considerably large. Organizations, too, can be creative; how many factors do you think might influence a large and diverse group of people working together to be creative and achieve innovation at the level of the firm? This excerpt from The Cambridge Handbook of Creativity provides an overview of academic study of creativity and innovation at the organizational level.
The Cambridge Handbook of Creativity, 1st Ed. by Puccio, G. J., & Cabra, J. F. Copyright 2010 by Cambridge University Press. Reprinted by permission of Cambridge University Press-US-Books via the Copyright Clearance Center
Puccio, G. J., Mance, M., Switalski, L. B., & Reali, P. D. (2012). Welcome to the world of change: Life in the 21st century. In Creativity rising: Creative thinking and creative problem solving in the 21st century (pp. 13–20). Buffalo, NY: ICSC Press.
Many of us have probably felt frustrated that the world around us continues to change at an increasingly fast pace. A cell phone or tablet computer that was state of the art when purchased can be sadly out of date just one year later. The authors of this reading discuss the wide variety of changes we are experiencing today and explore how creative responses to the challenges presented by the rapid pace of change are necessary.
Puccio, G. J., Mance, M., Switalski, L. B., & Reali, P. D. (2012). Welcome to the world of change: Life in the 21st century. In Puccio, G.J., Mance, M., Switalski, L.B. et al. (Eds.), Creativity Rising: Creative thinking and creative problem solving in the 21st century (1st Ed.), (pp. 51–70). Buffalo, NY: ICSC Press. Copyright 2012 by ICSC Press. Reprinted by permission of Omniskills, LLC/ICSC Press
Hamel, G. (2009) Moon Shots for management. Harvard Business Review, 87(2), 91–98. Many philosophies of how to be an effective manager date back to the 19th century. While this long history lends richness to the foundations of management theory, Gary Hamel argues that the 21st century presents unique challenges to managers and that new ‘visionary goalsâ€
Required Media
Laureate Education (Producer). (2013a). Course infographic. [Interactive media]. Retrieved from https://class.waldenu.edu
Laureate Education (Producer). (2012f). Myths of creativity. [Interactive media]. Retrieved from https://class.waldenu.edu
When you look at the world around you, where do you see instances of creative thought? Have you always felt that artists, musicians, writers, and similar types of people are more creative than others? When you read this story on creativity, reflect on your own experiences to identify creative people and ideas in your own life.
Optional Resources
VitalSource Bookshelf (Producer). (2013) VitalSource introduction [Video file]. Retrieved from http://downloads.vitalbook.com/tutorials/publish/index.html?did=generic_02
If you are using the eBook version of The Innovative Team, see the online resources for help using VitalSource to highlight and take notes in your eBook.
HSM Global. (Producer). (2008a). Daniel Pink: Innovative thinking. [Video file]. Retrieved from https://class.waldenu.edu
Note: The approximate length of this media piece is 3 minutes.
Daniel Pink is a respected author and journalist. He has written many books and articles on todayâ€
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