Six Paradoxes in Managing Creativity: An Embracing Act

Initiating and sustaining creativity in the workplace is a delicate and difficult process and often commercial pressures do not make it any easier. This article aims to identify the practical tensions, mixed messages and oppositions that characterise the management of organisational creativity. It explores how three successful creative organisations embrace the paradoxes resulting from these tensions. The case studies illustrate six key paradoxes in managing organisational creativity. Success lies in acknowledging the interdependency of the contradictory tensions involved in these six paradoxes rather than in treating these tensions as separate phenomena.

[1]  Teresa M. Amabile,et al.  Within you, without you: The social psychology of creativity, and beyond. , 1990 .

[2]  R. Calori,et al.  Managing Change at Novotel: Back to the Future , 2000 .

[3]  Michael E. Wolff.  Managers at Work: How to Find — And Keep — Creative People , 1979 .

[4]  Robert I. Sutton,et al.  Creativity Doesn't Require Isolation: Why Product Designers Bring Visitors “Backstage” , 1997 .

[5]  P. R. Whitfield.  Creativity in industry , 1975 .

[6]  John,et al.  Reclaiming Qualitative Methods for Organizational Research: A Preface. , 1979 .

[7]  Constantine Andriopoulos,et al.  Enhancing organisational creativity: the process of perpetual challenging , 2000 .

[8]  Teresa M. Amabile,et al.  Motivating Creativity in Organizations: On Doing What You Love and Loving What You Do , 1997 .

[9]  A. V. D. Ven,et al.  Using Paradox to Build Management and Organization Theories , 1989 .

[10]  Teresa M. Amabile,et al.  How to kill creativity. , 1998, Harvard business review.

[11]  Marianne W. Lewis.  Exploring Paradox: Toward a More Comprehensive Guide , 2000 .

[12]  D C Pelz,et al.  Creative Tensions in the Research and Development Climate , 1967, Science.

[13]  A. V. D. Ven,et al.  Explaining Development and Change in Organizations , 1995 .

[14]  R. Yin.  Case Study Research: Design and Methods , 1984 .

[15]  Jeffrey D. Ford,et al.  Logics of Identity, Contradiction, and Attraction in Change , 1994 .

[16]  A. Strauss,et al.  The Discovery of Grounded Theory , 1967 .

[17]  Kirk J. Schneider,et al.  The Paradoxical Self: Toward an Understanding of Our Contradictory Nature , 1998 .

[18]  Toby J. Tetenbaum.  Shifting paradigms: From Newton to Chaos , 1998 .

[19]  Teresa M. Amabile,et al.  Effects of external evaluation on artistic creativity. , 1979 .

[20]  R. Pascale.  Managing on the Edge , 1990 .

[21]  The Creative Organization: An Empirical Investigation Of The Importance of Participation In Decision-Making , 1990 .

[22]  Warren G. Bennis,et al.  Organizing Genius: The Secrets of Creative Collaboration , 1997 .

[23]  P. Cuatrecasas.  Corporate America: Creativity Held Hostage , 1995 .

[24]  Teresa M. Amabile,et al.  Assessing the Work Environment for Creativity , 1996 .

[25]  L. Stafford.  On promoting creativity. , 1981, The Journal of nursing education.