Page 22 - Design meets Business:An Ethnographic Study of the Changing Work and Occupations of Creatives
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                10 Design Meets Business
collaboration with business. Taken together, the creative industries can be seen as a subset of work which has been growing in importance over the past years. In the next paragraph, I further specify this and explore why business in particular are interested in creativity and collaborating with the creative industries.
1.2. Organizing Creativity for Business
Creativity is key to business. Creativity is required on various levels of the organization, from coordinating work between diverse organizational members to innovating strategies. Creativity can be performed by indi- viduals (Amabile 1996; 1997; Kaufman & Sternberg 2015), within teams (Hargadon & Bechky 2006) and networks (Cattani, Ferriani & Colucci 2015; Sgourev 2013). As creativity is about reshuffling that what already exists, whether it recites in the individual or is enacted through group work, it is necessarily a collaborative process (Hargadon and Bechky 2006). It demands a certain ‘collectivity’, a group of people interacting with each other. Further, while creativity demands certain routines and structures to be in place (Cohendet & Simon 2016), it is primarily about breaking with what is regarded as ‘normal’. As Jones and colleagues (2015: 3) write: “crea- tivity hinges upon individuals’ and organizations’ capabilities and willing- ness to engage in non-routine, experimental, and often uncertain activities” (Italic own emphasis). Such activities might include brainstorming (Sutton & Hargadon 1996), creating slack (Lingo & O’Mahony 2010) or creating unfinished prototypes (Boland & Collopy 2004).
While organizations generally recognize the importance of creativity, and some even define creativity as a key competence in the corporate realm (Boland, Collopy, Lyytinen & Yoo 2008; Kelley 2005; Martin 2009), firms often find it hard to kick start creative processes at their own initiative. Not all companies might have the resources - such as expertise or money - to ignite creative projects by themselves. For example, without emplo- yees dedicated to research and innovation, whether as part of their own role or in a separate function or department, there might be little chance for creativity to arise. And, even if companies have sufficient human and financial capital, it is not easy to become aware of beliefs and behaviors that have become innate to the organization, let alone to deviate from these and envision alternative realities (see Chapter 4). Further, people in organizations might not have enough space and time to train their creative thinking skills, and develop creative solutions. For creativity to arise, it is important that people are embedded in a welcoming environment, whether this is at a doorstep (Shortt 2015), an office meeting room (Hargadon &






























































































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