Creativity: A key link to entrepreneurial behavior

Abstract While entrepreneurial creativity is a desired behavior in most firms, it is difficult to understand both how this complex phenomenon occurs and how to increase its rate of occurrence. Understanding and increasing managerial creativity is important not only in developed economies, but also in developing economies, where the research discussed herein was conducted. This article argues that a solid knowledge base, a well-developed social network, and a strong focus on identifying opportunities are all necessary inputs toward entrepreneurial behavior. High-technology entrepreneurs that we interviewed in Hong Kong, however, indicated that creativity also plays a critical and important role in the entrepreneurial process. Attesting to this, they credited the competence with their being able to make the associations and bisociations needed to develop new products, which led to their entrepreneurial success.