Cross-Cultural Innovation: New Thoughts, Empirical Research, Practical Reports 9783486843903, 9783486583212

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Cross-Cultural Innovation New Thoughts Empirical Research Practical Reports

Edited by

Prof. Dr. Bernd Jöstirigmeier and

Diplom-Kaufmarm Heinz-Jürgen Boeddrich

Second Edition

R. Oldenbourg Verlag München Wien

Die erste Auflage erschien unter gleichnamigem Titel im Verlag DUV 2005.

Bibliografische Information der Deutschen Nationalbibliothek Die Deutsche Nationalbibliothek verzeichnet diese Publikation in der Deutschen Nationalbibliografie; detaillierte bibliografische Daten sind im Internet über abrufbar.

© 2007 Oldenbourg Wissenschaftsverlag GmbH Rosenheimer Straße 145, D-81671 München Telefon: (089)45051-0 oldenbourg.de Das Werk einschließlich aller Abbildungen ist urheberrechtlich geschützt. Jede Verwertung außerhalb der Grenzen des Urheberrechtsgesetzes ist ohne Zustimmung des Verlages unzulässig und strafbar. Das gilt insbesondere für Vervielfältigungen, Übersetzungen, Mikroverfilmungen und die Einspeicherung und Bearbeitung in elektronischen Systemen. Lektorat: Wirtschafts- und Sozialwissenschaften, [email protected] Herstellung: Anna Grosser Satz: DTP-Vorlagen der Herausgeber Coverentwurf: Kochan & Partner, München Gedruckt auf säure- und chlorfreiem Papier Druck: Grafik + Druck, München Bindung: Thomas Buchbinderei GmbH, Augsburg ISBN 978-3-486-58321-2

Table of Contents

The European Association for Creativity and Innovation

IX

Gesellschaft für Kreativität e. V

XI

Preface of the Editors

XIII

Greeting by Sidney J. Parnes

XIX

Cross Cultural Creativity and Innovation by Jan Buijs, Chairman of the EACI

XXIII

New Thoughts, Theories and Models Heinz-Jürgen Boeddrich Ideas in the Workplace - A New Approach to Organise the Fuzzy Front End of the Innovation Process

3

Gijs van Beeck Calkoen How to Stimulate Innovation in a Cluster of Organizations?

21

Matthias Eickhoffand Christoph Jakob Beyond Business Planning - The Role of Creativity in Sustainable Entrepreneurial Development

33

Darreil Mann Beyond Systematic Innovation - Integration of Emergence and Recursion Concepts into TRIZ and Other Tools

45

Heiner Müller-Merbach Dialectic Creativity, Based Upon Hegel's Triad of Thesis, Antithesis, and Synthesis (TAS)

63

Roc Irwin Peng How to Make Creativity to Serve the Objectives of Corporate Strategy

81

Birgit Preuß-Scheuerle A Gender View on Creativity

95

Aharon Shapira and Yoni Stern The More the Better?

101

VI

Table of Contents

Frido E. Smulders Interactions between Product Development and Production I Clashes in Cross-Cultural Learning

113

Frido E. Smulders Interactions between Product Development and Production II Clashes in Cross-Cultural Abstraction Levels

131

Stephan Sonnenburg Creative Complexes: A Theoretical Framework for Collaborative Creativity

149

Zhenlin Xu Creative Problem Solving in Software Development Outsourcing through Internet

167

Bernd Jöstingmeier Global Strategic Guidelines for Innovation Management

173

Empirical Research Ricarda Β. Bouncken Impacts of Cultural Diversity on New Ventures Theoretical and Empirical Findings

187

Jon-Chao Hong and Chan-Li Lin The Contingency and Inevitability of Organizational Innovation Case Analysis of Ten Innovative Enterprises

217

Edward Nqcka and Joanna Kwasniewska Climate for Creativity in Polish Companies: Does a New Market Economy Need New Ideas?

237

Virginia Trigo Turning the Tide: The Quiet Resolve of Private Entrepreneurs in China

261

Fangqi Xu and Susumu Kunifuji A Comparative Research on Creativity Development between Japanese and Chinese Enterprises

275

Bernd Jöstingmeier Is the Hydrogen Economy Coming?

289

VII

Table of Contents

Practical Reports from Business Experience Hans-Jochen Gscheidmeyer About Barriers to Innovation, Learning and Company Culture

303

Mehmood Khan Unilever: A Global Approach

313

Michael Niklas and Karsten Königstein Vitalizing the Innovation Process within and across Company Boundaries

321

Götz Schaude Six Companies Join Forces Report on a Group Project „New Products"

329

Donna Rae Smith Fast, Innovative Breakthrough Using Cross-Cultural Collaboration

337

Monika de Waal Organizational Due Diligence (OD2)

347

Herbert Weinreich Can You "Drive" Cross-Cultural, Cross-Functional Innovation Workshops Successfully?

367

Herbert Weinreich Winning Team Results! - A Team-Based Approach to Project Management in Cross-Cultural Environments

397

Practical Reports using Methods and Technology Sabine General and Gudrun Lantelme Open Space Technology - It Works!

431

Jon-Chao Hong, Yung-Yu Chu, Shu-Feng Hou, Ju-Hsun Hsiao, Yueh-Chih Chiang Managerial Strategies of Power Tech Contest

443

Scott Isaksen Cross Cultural Implications for Creative Problem Solving

455

Vanda North and Gisela Hagemann Interview on the Global Success of Mind-Mapping

465

VIII

Table of Contents

Marcel van der Pol The Dance of the Hero: Transcultural Myths and Creativity

473

Martina Schwarz-Geschka Cross-Cultural Expert Teams in the Scenario Development Process

477

Practical Reports from Education Li Jiazeng Effective Functions of Bilingual Teaching to Promote Creative Thinking

489

Beate Marcinkowska and Dorota Nawrat Pedagogy of Subjectivity Basic Principles and their Practical Usage in Education

495

Morio Shibayama and Masaharu Yano R & D Activities in Japanese Companies and Universities

511

History of the German Association for Creativity

527

Day of Creativity

537

Authors

541

Editors Heinz-Jürgen Boeddrich

551

Bernd Jöstingmeier

555

The European Association for Creativity and Innovation The origin of the European Association for Creativity and Innovation (EACI) is the tenth anniversary of the Innovation Consulting Group at TNO (The Netherlands Organisation for Applied Scientific Research) in 1986. The Innovation Consulting Group (ICG) was the first full service consulting agency in the Netherlands in the field of innovation and creativity. The founding father of the ICG Jan Buijs was leaving the group because he was appointed as full professor in product innovation at the Delft University of Technology. ICG's starting was inspired by both the German Innovationsforschungsgruppe at Battelle with Horst Geschka and the Creativity Research Unit at the Manchester Business School with Tudor Rickards. During its early years some of the ICG-consultants, in particular Hans Smeekes and Partick Colemont, had also established relationships with the Center for Creative Studies at the New York State College in Buffalo, USA and its famous yearly CIPSI-week. They wanted to celebrate the tenth anniversary with an event like this CIPSI-week. Finally, in December 1987 the first European Conference on Creativity and Innovation took place in Noordwijk. It's prime organiser was Patrick Colement, with the help of o.a Hans Smeekes, Tudor Rickards, Per Groholt and Marjorie Parker. We consider this first conference as the origin of the EACI. After Noordwijk 1987, there were more conferences in Noordwijk 1989, 1991, in Darmstadt, Germany in 1993 and Vaals, the Netherlands in 1996. During that period the EACI was officially founded as a Foundation according to Dutch Law. European politics were interested, EACI grew too fast and finally it went broke. Out of this mess Han van der Meer, one of the early participants of the EACI conferences and managing director of the innovation consultancy Van der Meer & van Tilburg, made a restart and formed the EACI mk 2. There were new conferences in Lattrop in 1999 and Enschede in 2001. The last conference was held in Mainz, Germany in September 2003. The Board of the EACI consists of Jan Buijs as Chairman, Han van der Meer as Secretary and Catherine Motquin as Treasurer. The EACI is a not for profit

χ

The European Association for Creativity and Innovation

organisation bridging the gap between Academics, Business People, Consultants/Trainers and other interested people in the field of creativity and innovation. Its main goal is to organise a bi-annually international conference. Organising the conference itself is done by the national creativity organisation of the hosting country. The EACI is controlling the quality of the conferences, saveguarding its original ideas, stimulating as many people as possible to join in and maintaining the relationship with the academic journal Creativity and Innovation Management.

EUROPEAN ASSOCIATION •CREATIVITY* INNOVATION

Gesellschaft für Kreativität e. V. The members of the German Association for Creativity are experts highly interested in creativity enhancement. They meet regularly for exchange of experience, extension of knowledge and preparation of public activities. The first meeting of these experts occurred in Darmstadt on August 28th 1993 after the 4th European Conference on Creativity and Innovation. After several public events the group felt the necessity to create a formal organisation. In February 1998, nine founders officially registered a not-for-profit organisation. The first president of this club was Prof. Dr. Horst Geschka. The main projects of the association had been: 29./20.06.1998 Conference "Management of Creativity" in Darmstadt

03.09.2000 Conference "Creativity and School" at the E X P O in Hannover

22.09.2001 Conference "Methodologies for Solving Technical Problems" in Darmstadt

03.05.2002 Conference "Success Factor Creativity" in Mainz

September 3rd -6 t h I 2003 8th European Conference on Creativity and Innovation in Mainz

With those projects and a lot of smaller regional activities the 50 members pursue the following objectives:

Gesellschaft für Kreativität e. V.

XII

1. Creation of a higher consciousness for the infinite resource „Creativity" in all areas of society. The opportunities and benefits of creative thinking should be disseminated to a broad public. 2. Organization and encouragement of activities which deepen and widen the knowledge about creativity. 3. Learning from other members in the group by exchanging and sharing experiences and insights in this field. The "Gesellschaft für Kreativität e. V." (Association for Creativity) is a not for profit organization and does not pursue activities which directly aim at a member's individual benefit.

Gesellschaft für Kreativität e.V.

Preface The first idea for the topic of the 8th European Conference on Creativity and Innovation was CROSS-CULTURAL CREATIVITY. It came up from discussions with businessmen, politicians and leaders of non profit organisations who agreed that cross-cultural teams are more successful. Especially in a global world the probability for sustainable success will rise if managers are aware of cross-cultural aspects in future problem solutions. Cross-cultural means not only the differences between ethnic, racial or national groups. It is more. Cross-cultural confrontations arise by the differences of genders, educational levels, differences in thinking of diverse companies' departments (e.g. production versus research & development, marketing versus finance), the mix of musicians or styles of painting. However, there is a lot of danger in cross-cultural collaboration: Diversity means

different views,

opinions, values and objectives easily generating misunderstandings and quarrels possibly ending up with serious conflicts. The conflicts may trigger new approaches and breakthroughs or lead to a state of frozen relations and stagnation. Sensitivity to the values and views of other cultures, open communication and aware leadership are traits helping to capitalize on cross-cultural influences. In further discussions with our friends of the EACI board we changed our mind for the new conference topic to CROSS-CULTURAL INNOVATION. Cross-cultural Innovations are new and origin problem solutions, which are generated in confronting problems with cross-cultural aspects. In many cases such solutions are breakthroughs and the start of a paradigm shift. Another advantage of such solutions is that they even influence the subconscious of stakeholders' problems. Only cross-cultural solutions minimize the risk of hidden problems which develop under the surface in merger projects. Especially mergers of big companies are successful if change-managers are able to transfer cross-cultural conflicts in new challenging objectives. Bridging cultural

XIV

Preface of the Editors

gaps by visionary leadership is the way to bring people together and to create new common innovative enterprises or departments. September 2003 the German Association for Creativity was the host of the 8. European Conference on Creativity and Innovation (ECCI). 130 experts on creativity and innovation from 20 different nations exchanged ideas referring to Cross-Cultural Innovation in particular as well as creativity and innovation in general under ideal circumstances at the Fachhochschule Mainz, University of Applied Sciences. The conference which was held in English dealt with the question what happens when different cultures gather and how positive impulses can be accomplished in order to solve problems creatively. The program offered with 60 lectures a wide range of topics and was therefore very diverse. In order to maintain the quality level a worldwide 'Call for Academic Papers' was done before the actual 8. ECCI. The scientific input on the conference's topic "Cross-cultural innovation" was divided in the three categories business, society and non-profit. The objectives had been to learn from positive solutions in companies, in other organisations and institutions and to discover the conditions in which cross-cultural fertilisation becomes a strong stimulus for innovation and generates additional value. Beyond that a fourth category was established, calling for new findings on creativity and innovation. The objective of this open category was to gain knowledge, which new directions and developments have emerged in the academic work on creativity and innovation within the last two years since the 7th ECCI in Enschede. As a reaction of the call for academic papers we received 28 papers. Each paper was evaluated by two members of the review board in two double blind rounds. The best of the papers are the quality back bones of the Conference as well as of this book. As editors we thank the review board for the support in evaluating the papers:

Preface of the Editors

Prof. Dr. Jan Buijs, The Netherlands Prof. Dr. Horst Geschka, Germany Prof. Dr. Scott Isaksen, U.S.A.

XV

Prof. Dr. Jörg Mehlhorn, Germany MSc Susan Moger, U.K. Prof. Dr. Tudor Rickards, U.K.

During the Conference each of the 60 presentations was also scored by the audience. The best evaluated contributions and the most interesting presentations were asked to be written as articles for this book. Besides the high-quality lecture program, however, the teamwork didn't come too shortly either. By means of the conference method of Open Space', the participants had the opportunity to form open teams dealing with the main theme "Cross-Cultural Innovation" and to present their results afterwards. Alternatively the participants could join intercultural groups and experience teamwork in different projects. At the conference we created a special tool to experiment with cross-cultural teams, because we had participants from 20 different nations and from various different professions. We called the tool "Creativity hands-on": In an auction we built teams of 7 members from at least 3 nations and with a proposition of genders 3 to 4 (four women to three men or vice versa). The difference between the youngest and eldest team-members had to be at least 20 years. These cross-cultural teams had to find their tasks in three drawing rounds. The predefined problems they had to solve had been related to hats (metaphor of the conference). 1st round: Form of the creation (sketch, poem, musical, play) 2nd round: Content of the creation - function of hats (status symbol, hats as protection, flying hats etc.) 3rd round: Confrontation with material to create a hat hands-on Each cross-cultural team discussed and worked hands-on their creation at the conference in free scopes (no presentations or official program) organised by themselves. The creations had to be presented in the final Friday event.

Before starting the creativity hands-on experiment we had very controversial discussions whether the results could be creative because we structured the teambuilding process and the tasks to much. But the strongest critics were surprised by the originality and the novel elements of the presentations. Within each creation one could also find elements of international diversity which

XVI

Preface of the Editors

boost the creativity hands-on presentations to highlights of the 8th European Conference on Creativity and Innovation. The overall diversity of the teams fostered the communication within the conference very much. How Cross-Cultural innovation is possible in the area of music became audible and visible when the group AfroPeans Flower Band gave a concert on the occasion of the opening of the conference in the Mainz Christ Church. The three musicians (a German organist and two African percussionists) showed that European Classic, especially Johann Sebastian Bachs Toccata in D-Moll can be wonderfully merged with African drums. An impressive, innovative sound experience was offered to the participants from 20 nations. Since it was a public concert, also several citizens of Mainz took the opportunity to be present at this rhythmic start of the conference. The German Association on Creativity succeeded in getting the US-creativity pioneer Sidney Parnes (formerly at the Buffalo State University) as a patron. Despite his 81 years he didn't want to miss being present on all days. In acknowledgment for his life work he was awarded the honorary membership of the German Association for Creativity. For the first time, also high-ranking experts from Japan and China attended the conference: Mr. Zhang-du, President of China Creative Studies institutes and professor of the Shanghai University delivered the invitation to an international conference in 2004. He mentioned that in China one was shaped by our patron Sidney Parnes who had already stayed there in 1985 as well as for a longer period in 1987 during a presentation journey. Mr. Takahashi, President of Japan Creativity Society, reported that his society would hold the 25th conference in Oct. 2003 about the topic 'Creativity of Japanese - How can Japan contribute to the future of the world'. The last day of the conference was conceived as so-called Business-Day and took place in the adjacent Hyatt-Hotel. The morning was dedicated to the two Keynote-Speakers Ms. Vanda North, CEO and originator of the Buzan Center with her presentation 'Creative learning in different cultures' and Mr. Mehmood Khan, Leader of Innovation Process Development about 'Unilever's approach

Preface of the Editors

XVII

to globally innovation'. The two lectures were connected through a so-called Business-Theatre, presented by the renowned theatre group "Visual Communications" (Mannheim). We would very much like to thank all participants for their contributions to the success of the conference and this book.

Professor Dr. Bernd Jöstingmeier

Dipl.-Kfm. Heinz-Jürgen Boeddrich

Chairman of the Innovationsmanagementverband e.V.

Conference director of the 8 th European Conference on Creativity and Innovation

Greeting by Sidney J. Parnes Honorary Chairman of the 8th European Conference on Creativity and Innovation

After attending a session I presented at the Creativity and Cultural Diversity conference in England, Martin Shovel, a cartoonist, presented me with this cartoon.

Crecrtivi-tL}

unleashed . I

Fo«· StA avU i_>\Ht mocU I Oi»«. -fy»*· MiMiHw

Copyright © 2003 by Martin Shovel, Brighton, UK, http://www.creativityworks.net

It shouts the message, "Uncontrolled creativity can be extremely dangerous and feared." That is the meaning of "Creativity Unleashed". Unfortunately, this is exactly what our critics were concerned about in the 50's. They saw only the "creativity unleashed" in brainstorming sessions, and thought that was what Creative Problem Solving was all about. But those who understood Creative Problem Solving realized that the creativity we unleashed was fully controlled through the Creative Problem Solving processes of evaluation and acceptance-finding. In all stages of Creative Problem Solving,

XX

Greeting by Sidney J. Parnes

divergent thinking is always managed by convergent thinking in every step of the process. Brainstorming is not Creative Problem Solving, it is only an extremely useful part of the process. One extremely understanding and far-sighted psychologist, Dr. Jack Matthews, my mentor in the 50's, said the following, after being fully exposed to the totality of the creativity/innovation processes we were fostering starting in those early years. I'll make a guess that when the history of this era is written the importance Osborn, the importance

of creative thinking programs,

the importance

storming, will not be so great in terms of the specific principles and

of

of brainprocedures

which he has suggested and which you have learned the last few days. I don't think that is going to be nearly as important as the impact that this will have had on making us realize that people are important,

that people are basically

worth while, that there is a dignity of the human personality, which are very valuable within the individual, build a society that makes it possible

very

that there are ideas

and that it's worth while trying to

for the individual

to contribute

his basic

ideas.

And now in 2003, we see that Dr. Matthew's prediction has come true. Happily, over the 50 years of our efforts, more and more psychologists as well as leaders from all disciplines began to see and appreciate what we were doing, and applied it in relevant ways in every professional field. Sometimes they use new language to describe the fundamental processes they use. But history will show that these were derivations of what the eclectic Creative Problem Solving principles and procedures have been teaching people for the past 50 years. As the Creative Education Foundation moves into the Golden Anniversary year in 2004, we attain new visions of what our role in the next 50 years should be. We will be developing advocacy, outreach and thought leadership, in addition to extending our years of teaching. We are concerned with enabling people everywhere to make their world better in many ways - at work, at home and in their communities.

We teach new skills for generating better ideas,

Greeting by Sidney J. Parnes

XXI

seeing new possibilities, opportunities and options, and choosing the best ones for use. These skills will encourage increasingly open attitudes that will result in making the world a better place. Sidney J. Parnes Professor Emeritus of Creative studies and noted expert, researcher and author in the field of creativity worldwide. Together with Alex Osborn he developed the "Creative-Problem Solving"- model. Honorary Member of the German Association for Creativity.

Cross Cultural Creativity and Innovation Divergence is the key ingredient for creativity and innovation. Don't stop at the first idea, but strive for large numbers of different ideas. This allows you to mix ideas, to combine ideas, to change ideas and hopefully to pick one of them as the most promising, most inspiring or most intriguing. Of course you can do this at your own, but it is much more interesting and efficient to do this with a group of people. And, please, make it a very diverse group. Don't look for clones of yourself. Try your opposites. And here comes the challenge of handling cross-cultural diversity. Sometimes cross cultural diversity is limited to differences in national cultures only, but in my opinion it is about handling all kinds of differences between people. Engineers differ from marketers, sociologists from psychologists, but even engineers with the same educational background, who work for different departments in the same company, differ in their opinions, their ideas, and their priorities. The same is true for different ages, different hobbies, different sports, different languages, gender, value system, ethnic background or family situation. A couple of years ago I introduced a new Theory X (Creativity and Innovation Management, vol. 7, nr 7, March 1998), in which I pleaded for as much diversity as possible in the composition of teams with an innovative task. Use as much of the above mentioned elements to build your innovation team. Although this diversity makes life very difficult for the team -leader, on the same it is the only guarantee to get the discourse going. And this discourse causes all the team members to look at the problem at hand from different angles, from different viewpoints and to come up with different (partial) solutions. I think melting different cultures into an energizing innovation team is crucial for getting creativity and innovation. I hate the word "mono-". I love "multi-", "inter-", "intra-" and "cross-". Making cross overs is the core of innovation. Thinking out of the box is what is needed. And it is easier to think out of your own box, as there are more boxes

XXIV

Cross Cultural Creativity and Innovation

of others available. Those other boxes can work as inspiration, as examples that things can be seen different, can work as triggers for your own thinking. Sometimes it is difficult to handle all these differences, but in the end it is very rewarding. The moment the innovation team has succeeded in achieving a creative idea, as the starting point for a future innovation in the marketplace the joy and fun is unbelievable! In the tradition of the European Association for Creativity and Innovation we use a very special hat as symbol for this diversity. We use this colourful hat, with a lot of different elements, shapes and textures as a kind of "magic hat". As Chairman of the EACI I wear this hat during the opening ceremony, hand it over to the executive person of the organising country, so he or she can use the hat for all official speeches, and finally the magic hat is handed back to me at the end of the conferences, and I can thank all the participants for being there, thank the organising committee for their work and make a bridge to the next European Conference on Creativity and Innovation. Especially during the 8th ECCI in Mainz this cross cultural crossing over was the main focus of the conference. I remember an interesting "Hat-session" during an evening walk to our conference dinner. Each participant had a hat representing her or his country or roots. We played nice games with the different hats. I have already thanked all the participants, thanked the organising committee and made the bridge to the 9th conference. Now with the publication of the proceedings the Mainz conference has finally come to its end. I hope you all found new friends, new colleagues, new insights and new ideas. Innovation starts with curiosity and the drive for new things. I am sure these proceedings will help you in achieving that! Prof. Dr. Jan Buijs Chairman of the European Association for Creativity and Innovation

New Thoughts, Theories and Models

Ideas in the Workplace - A New Approach to Organise the Fuzzy Front End of the Innovation Process

Heinz-Jürgen Boeddrich

Summary The creation of innovations is a powerful management instrument in global markets with shrinking product life cycles, rapid decline of knowledge and a rising number of competitors and imitators. Innovations are more successful if the very early stages of the innovation process are structured and organised in a systematic way. Only a few companies accomplish the first phase of the innovation process systematically. Generally, companies are much more focused in organising the second part of the innovation-process, since starting innovation-projects means an investment in tangible assets. In most enterprises the steps before the start of innovation-projects remain vague and indistinct. Idea collection and idea flow are not regulated, decision criteria are not fixed and the authorities are unclear. One speaks of the "fuzzy front end" of the innovation process. Organizing this fuzzy front end successfully involves low financial investment but highly sensitive and transparent leadership. Starting from specific properties of ideas in the workplace the following will show how a successful idea management should be structured. Furthermore, four different extreme types of employees and their handling of ideas will be defined to gain insight for a sensitive and trustful idea adoption system. Such a system means enormous progress for successful leadership in idea-management. It supports employees in overcoming the first obstacles and barriers for creative problem solutions. It leads to an integration of creative thoughts into workplaces dominated by routine.

4

Ideas in the Workplace

A set of general and company specific requirements for the management of ideas in the workplace will be worked out and presented as final results.

Introduction All innovations are originated from ideas, which are the results of creative or rational thinking processes of employees, generated individually or in group sessions. The larger the number of ideas the higher will be the probability for a successful future for a company. A large number of ideas mean a better utilisation of problem-solving knowledge. It also causes a better utilisation of human capital and key competencies. Successful innovative enterprises try to generate in the first part of the innovation process a permanent flow of ideas before starting innovation projects. In accordance with empirical research on success factors for innovations (Cooper 1992, Ernst 2001), the very early stages of the innovation process are systematically structured. The first phase of the innovation process is organised in a balance between creative scopes and well-structured - in some cases computer aided - idea pipelines (Geschka & Schwarz-Geschka, 2000). Developing first vague ideas into assessable project proposals systematically means, in accordance with decision making theory, a reduction of the uncertainty of decisions on innovation projects This influences positively the quality of the whole innovation process and enhances the probability for successful results of this process. Neither the results of empirical study nor the logical argument for a more successful innovation process through a reduction of uncertainty persuade many enterprises to invest even small sums in intellectual resources (Figure 1). Enterprises are much more focused on the second part of the innovation process, where tangible resources will be consumed (Figure 1) and a large number of various management instruments are available. At present, in most companies the steps before the start of innovation-projects remain vague and indistinct. Idea collection and idea flows are not regulated, decision criteria are not fixed and the decision authorities are unclear. The "fuzzy front end" of the in-

5

Ideas in the Workplace

novation process is accepted. Sometimes one can hear the argument that the "fuzzy front end" has to remain fuzzy, because this guarantees a creative impact on the innovation process.

SB»-Process: Innovation 1. Ideas

Use of intellectual resources

Generation, Collection, Clustering, Screening, Improvement,

Adoption, Selection,

Permanent flow of Ideas

-s

2. Decisions on Innovation Projects 3. Innovation Projects

Consumption of tangible resources

4. Results

New New New

Products, Technologies, Processes,

New ways of collaboration resources

in human

BMddyRich4gumx do

Figure 1: Main Stages of the Innovation-Process as Key Process

Furthermore some heads of R&D-Departments or Innovation-Management argue that generation of ideas, innovations and creative novelties cannot be managed. In their minds, creativity and ideas will emerge only in an absolute free and somewhat chaotic environment without systematic structures, processes etc. This is a very extreme position. One calls it the "Fantasy way to innovations". At the other end of the scale, you will find those who believe that innovation could be generated by computers and data stores. They want to collect all relevant information, experience and knowledge to transfer it into hardware and software. For them, the easiest way to generate innovations quickly is to push some buttons at the computer. One calls it the extreme "Technocratic way to innovations".

6

Ideas in the Workplace

Both ways are imperfect and without success. On the one hand, idea generation without any focus is useless for companies. On the other hand, machines are not able to duplicate certain creative functions of the human brain. However, a successful way to manage the fuzzy front end is a combination of both. The discussions show the usefulness of structuring the "fuzzy front end" of ideas in the workplace Properties of Ideas in the workplace In a discussion on properties of ideas in the workplace, new guidelines for structuring the "fuzzy front end" of the innovation process will be postulated in the following pages. Some of the properties may seem to be banal, but sometimes discussions on banalities lead to new insights. Other characteristics seem provocative. But provocation is a valuable instrument to find novel approaches. Ideas in the workplace are worthless without realisation If ideas remain in the brain of employees there will be no effective use of the key competencies. It means waste of human-capital. In certain situations, appropriate solutions will be found only by employees who are directly involved in the problem. In many cases, the co-worker in the frontline is the only one who has the knowledge to solve a certain problem (Getz & Robinson, 2003). Often managers are not aware of these aspects. Most of them believe that ideas of subordinates are not helpful to solve their problems as supervisor. Sometimes they also forget that realisation of ideas is very motivating and keep people in best of health (Zur Linden, 1996 and 1997). The first step for realising ideas is to bring them out of the brain and to confront it with the organisational environment. On this way, blockades, obstacles and barriers will turn up. Many leaders in idea-management try to support idea generation by general financial rewards or even by threats. Studies have found that such measures are not very successful (Getz &

Ideas in the Workplace

7

Robinson, 2003). Only individual exclusive rewards for good ideas that are implemented will show employees that they are a meaningful part of the company. Ideas in the workplace become more valuable the more they are used Most material resources in a company depreciate with use. Quite the opposite effect arises with ideas. Every time one takes an idea into consideration (put it back into the brain) it will become more valuable. In most companies, there is no scope in putting ideas back into brains. This means a reduction in added values from creative problem solutions. Most R&D-departments function this way. Commonly, it works only for rational logical idea development or in context with ideas execution and assessment. The full potential of creative ideas in the workplace will be tapped only in companies with a creative idea loop. This is a place where highly creative employees are allowed to play with fuzzy and creative ideas. Ideas in the workplace are fuzzy elements of problem solving knowledge Ideas are very early and only fuzzy solutions for problems. They are rough drafts, which have to be developed into feasible versions. They have to be brought to a stage, in which success and risks can be calculated. Refining ideas from rough drafts into assessable project proposals is an intellectual process. Most managers expect that creative techniques should deliver direct solutions to companies' problems. They do not consider the existence of a certain ambivalence in the use of creative techniques. If a company is searching for novelties and breakthrough ideas, it needs a highly abstract creativity technique. The abstraction leads to fuzzy results (rough draft ideas). On the one hand, those techniques initiate the chance to "conquer new horizons". On the other hand, the products of these techniques

8

Ideas in the Workplace

are far from realisation. Radical abstract creative techniques lead to risky and long lasting development projects. In the rational world of business, only outstanding managers will take these chances for a Unique Selling Proposition. If a company is under high innovation pressure - for example the need to react to changes in markets, environment, competitors' novelties etc. - it needs techniques that generate feasible results as quick as possible. This discussion shows that ideas have to be categorised and that idea managers must know which creative techniques fit in the different categories. Ideas in the workplace are mass-produced articles In all companies there are a lot of ideas for improvements in various fields. If managers say: "we have no ideas ", that means these companies have no system to adopt ideas and they have no leaders who are able to perceive ideas from employees. In such a company a creative climate does not exist. On the other hand, obviously all ideas could not be realised. Procedures for screening and execution are necessary. The large number of ideas has to be reduced by transparent and well-known criteria. A fair competition with wellknown criteria must be established. A helpful tool to administrate these mass produced articles in a competitive way is modern IT with databases. But the computer-aided idea process will not be able to drive innovations. Ideas in the workplace are the intellectual products of employees To the employees, ideas are highly valuable products of their thoughts about companies' problems. Management has to pay full attention to these ideas. Ignorance about ideas discourages people in problem solving. They lose interest in companies' goals.

9

Ideas in the Workplace

Leadership will become easier if there exists an intelligent trustful interface between employees' ideas and the idea-pipeline of the company. Managers will not be disturbed in their operational work by very creative subordinates. Creative problem solvers will not be frustrated, because they know where to deliver their ideas. One calls this broad collecting point for ideas an "intelligent link between brains and idea-pipeline".

Interface between employees' brains and idea-pipeline Date Pub//caf/on:24.03.98

Date of Inscription : 01.03.98

Author: CA1AS Name: H.-J. Boeddrich Idea-Team: RASTA Dummy Department: Computer - Aided Idea Adoption System Evaluation desired by: Creative Problem - Solving Team Evaluation Team: WavfrStyling Title/Topic: Rasta curls, ethnic hair cosmetics Category: Wave Sales channel: Hair dresser Target group: Women idea type:. New product Which problem should be solved ? Mechanical device to create a Rasta curl hair-style Problem description/solution The creation of a complete Rasta hairstyle currently takes approx. 7 hours or more. With a mechanical web device this time should be shortened. Benefit/added value for consumer, company, retailer ? As aWella Customer, the hairdresser could save time and serve more clients per day. For the final consumer the styling of Rasta curls will be mucbheaper, as a consequence, she can afford it more frequently - Wella has the chance to develop a new product range / brand RASTA-LINE J|Start| .^eiKO

|jj)tunb«imwH

t.otw -

| ^JMkroidt PowwPort

= SB WmfKMΜ

Figure 2: Example for an intelligent link between employees' brains and idea-pipeline

Such an interface starts a fruitful communication on employees" ideas. This communication never starts by asking for hard success factors (quantitative measures) such as market shares, ROI, NPV etc. It starts with easy questions on soft success factors (qualitative evaluation) and on the added values of the idea. The

intended function

is to

motivate

considerations

about

the

consequences of the ideas and how workplaces will be changed. Employees have to look at their ideas from different perspectives. The idea owners become more sensitive to their ideas and their effects on the organisational environment. They identify barriers for the ideas and become more aware on

10

Ideas in the Workplace

the efforts to overcome it. Sometimes they withdraw their problem solutions after a self-evaluation. In other cases, they seek help and promotion. Motivating employees to such behaviour enhances the input quality of an ideapipeline and companies* innovation process tremendously. Human Idea Types Model for sensitive leadership in idea-management The first obstacles to ideas emerge subconsciously in idea-owners themselves. Before problem solutions come out of brains, there will be an inner struggle (Maslow, 2000) between a certain creative impulse and the certain hesitation to confront the own ideas with the real environment. The extent of the creative impulse depends on the extraversion of the person and his inclination to creative problem solving. The degree of hesitation will be influenced by the introversion and the inclination for solving problems in a rational (linearanalytical) way. So a typological model of human idea types can be defined.

11

Ideas in the Workplace

introvert Scientist

Percipient

Preference for Linear-analytic Problem solving

Preference for Creative problem solving

Entrepreneur

Communicator extrovert

Ä

Figure 3: Typological model of human idea types

In accordance to extraverted and introverted personality and the individual preference to solve problems (in a rational or creative way) four archetypes can be distinguished. The emotional Percipient He is working for the goodness in the world and is strongly oriented to traditional values. He is a very good listener and perceives emotions in the workplace. He prefers creative problem solving in daily work but hesitates to publish his own ideas. The reserved Scientist He likes highly sophisticated results of his work and looks for appreciation of his work every time. He is asking for leadership and is excellent in concentration on the topics. He prefers linear-analytic problem solving. He fears to publish his own ideas because he hates to be criticised.

12

Ideas in the Workplace

The open Communicator He likes to be a star and is oriented towards bright and brilliant presentations. He likes ad-hoc organisation and has excellent skills in improvisation. He is excellent in convincing others. He enjoys creative problem solving. He starts communication on his ideas everywhere at any time The dominant Entrepreneur He integrates top contributions to achieve company goals and is always oriented to accepted objectives. Sometimes he is a dominant ruler and splendid in delegation of work. He prefers linear-analytic problem solving but accepts creative problem solving if the other way seems to be exhausted. These extreme types of employees do not exist in a real workplace. Every employee has a certain individual proportion of all four types. The proportions express the inner struggle between creative impulses and hesitation to bring ideas out of the brain into the organizational environment of the workplace. For the identification of the individual profiles the following questionnaire and system has been developed. At present the model is used in casting and team building of innovation projects. The simple test contents eight different office and workplace oriented situations: Within each situation one has to decide between four different scenarios (a to d). The scenarios are related to the four different quadrants (Percipient, Scientist, Communicator, Entrepreneur) of the model. Questionnaire for behaviour in daily workplace situation 1. Time consciousness a)D I am often unpunctual, but it disturbs me, if others get excited about it. b)G I am always punctual, because that makes a very good impression.

Ideas in the Workplace

13

c)D I am very often unpunctual, if the other one is disturbed, it doesn't matter. d)D I always try to be on time, if I come too late nevertheless, I don't like it.

2. Searching an address for a date a)D I often ask for the way and prefer verbal descriptions. b)D I orient myself preferably with a road map and look for the way alone without help. c)D I prefer verbal descriptions of the way and look for it without any help until I find the destination address. d)D I inform myself before hand with the road map and ask for the way, if I cannot find it. 3. Lecture situation a)D I can listen to lectures well and find it embarrassing, if I get a coughing fit. b)D Lectures without pictures and graphic language are boring; if I must sneeze, I do it. c)D I could listen to speeches with graphic language for hours; I would suppress loud sneezing or coughing during the lecture. d)D I prefer lectures with tidy facts; if I must cough, I do it without hesitation 4. Organization a)D General regulations give security, particularly if clear goals are set. b)D I like improvisation, since it indicates a certain measure of creativity. c)D Improvisation is necessary; it should not be so frequent. d)D If I have got clear goals; I can achieve best results. 5. Intuition a) • Decisions must contribute to objectives.

14

Ideas in the Workplace

b) • Emotional decisions belong to everyday life and are something natural. c) • Emotional decisions should be made only, if rational methods are exhausted. d) • I prefer rational decisions; emotional decisions are not transparent. 6. Vacation a) • My vacation goals depend on costs and attractiveness. b) • I plan my vacations spontaneously and at short notice. c) • Vacation plans result at short notice after recommendations by colleagues. d) • I plan my vacation on a long-term basis; whoever wants to can disturb me, since I leave my address in the office. 7. Filing a)D My papers are always filed after alphabet or date. They are available at any time. b)D I often look for papers in piles. I feel not ashamed if others know it. c)D I often arrange according to colours and I believe that this is unusual. d)D My papers are always arranged, if I do not find something, I grumble with my secretary 8. Telephone a)D When telephoning I take notes, in order to be available for justification. b)D While telephoning I often scratch on a paper and I keep these works in my desk. c)D I often paint when I am telephoning. After the call I throw these works immediately into the Waste-paper basket. d)D Telephone call minutes notes can help in reconstructing details from a call.

15

Ideas in the Workplace

The test persons mark those scenarios, which seems to be most acceptable to them. The marks will be transferred an evaluation sheet (Table 1).

Entrepreneur

Scientist

Percipient

Communicator

d a

b

OD CD

C

7

CD a a d d

8

CD

a d CT> a a a 1

Situation

\

1 2 3 4 5 6

2

Sum

c

d b

c

CD b b b

c c

CD CD b

c

4

1

Table 1: Evaluation sheet of the idea type questionnaire (Example)

Afterwards the personnel results will carry over to the diagonals of the model and an individual profile with a certain shape will be generated (Figure 4). introvert

Scientist

Percipient

Preference for Creative problem solving

:

Preference for Linear-analytic Problem solving

Communicator

Entrepreneur extrovert

Figure 4: Example for an individual idea type profile

16

Ideas in the Workplace

Persons with seven or eight points at one diagonal are very rare in the real world. Also the quadrate with two points on all four diagonals will not be found very often. In general, we could see from the profile how a person behaves with his ideas and in problem solving. In context with the archetypes and the peaks of the shape we will gain information what kind of support employees need in bringing ideas out of the brain into an idea adoption system. In the example above we have a person that tends to be a percipient. That means he needs to be empowered to confront his ideas with the environment. Furthermore, he needs promotional support in presenting the ideas in front of a decision making team. Maybe he also needs help in setting the objectives for the idea development and some advice by scientific oriented colleagues. The intention of the model and the test is not to test all employees of a company and to figure out how innovative the companies" staffs are, etc. The model demonstrates how complex idea adoption is and how divers employees' needs in idea-management are. A successful idea-pipeline works only with sensitive leadership that is aware of the complexity and individual behaviours in idea transformation. Successful leadership in idea-management means motivation to share problem solving know how of ideas.

Final Results From former discussions and best practice (Boeddrich, 2002), the following requirements are obviously well known for successful idea-pipelines. One differentiates between general organisational requirements and firm specific requirements.

Ideas in the Workplace

17

The general requirements of such an idea management system are: • Existence of strategic guidelines for innovations. • Installation of a broad idea collecting point. • Systematic idea clustering • Cross-functionality of the decision-making gatekeepers in the idea management process. • Prefixed and transparent criteria for idea selection and execution. • Funnel function of the selection process or Implementation of Stage gates • Simplicity of the system The company specific requirements for a successful idea management could be: • Definition of company specific categories of ideas. • Commitment to company specific evaluation methods and selection criteria. Especially on K. O. criteria for approved projects. • Commitment to the owner of the idea management process • Commitment to certain person or organisational units, which push innovations within the company. Only if both kinds of requirements are sufficiently fulfilled, a transmission of the tailor-made idea management appears meaningful on an IT platform. New Findings from the discussion in this paper: • Setting of exclusive individual rewards for implemented ideas. • Creation of a scope for putting ideas back into brains - creative idea loop. • Idea managers have to check, which creative technique fits certain idea-categories.

18

Ideas in the Workplace

• Installation of an intelligent interface between employees' brains and ideas-adapting system • Enhancement of sensitive leadership in idea-management in accordance with complexity and diverse behaviours in handling ideas.

References Boeddrich H.-J., Erfolgsfaktor Ideenmanagement, in Jahrbuch Wirtschaftswissenschaften FH Mainz 2002, University of Applied Sciences Mainz, S.6061. Cooper, R. G., The New Prod System: The Industry Experience. In: The Journal of Product Innovation Management, Vol. 9,1992, No. 2, S. 113-127. Ernst, H., Erfolgsfaktoren neuer Produkte: Wissenschaftliche Ergebnisse des Innovationserfolgspanel (leP), Vortrag im Diskussionkreis Forschungs-Entwicklungs- und Innovationsmanagement vom 30.10. 2001, www.innovationserfolgspanel.de Geschka, H. und Schwarz-Geschka, M., Ideenmanagement und dessen Unterstützung durch eine Ideen- und Projektdatenbank. In: Innovationsmanagement - Handbuch für mittelständische Betriebe, Herausgeber Dold E. und Gentsch P., 2000, Neuwied/Kriftel (Luchterhand). Getz, I & Robinson A.G., Vos idees changent!, Paris ,2003, Editions d'organisation. Herrmann, Ned, Kreativität und Kompetenz - Das einmalige Gehirn, Fulda 1991. Herrmann, Ned, Das Ganzhirn-Konzept für Führungskräfte. Wien Überreuther 1997.

Ideas in the Workplace

19

Jung,Carl Gustav, "Psychologische Typen", in Ges. Werke Band 6, 10. Auflage, Zürich Rascher 1960. Kleinschmidt, E. J., Geschka, H., Cooper, R. G., Erfolgsfaktor Markt - Kundenorientierte Produkti η novation, 1996, Berlin/Heidelberg (Springer). Maslow, Abraham H., The Maslow Business Reader. Edited by Deborah C. Stephans, 2000, New York (John Wiley & Sons). McCrue, R.R.; Costa P.T., Validation of the Five-Factor Model of Personality Across Instruments and Observers, Journal Person. Soc. Psychol., Vol. 52 No. 1, 81 - 9 0 , 1987. Probst, Gilbert; Raub, Steffen; Romhardt, Kai, Wissen baden: Gabler 1999.

Managen. Wies-

Sutton, Robert I., Weird Ideas That Work. 2001, New York (The Free Press). Zur Linden, Volker, Kreativität als bedeutsamer Faktor für Gesundheit: Plädoyer für einen neuen Denkansatz, Teil 1 und Teil 2; In: Signal, Leben mit dem Krebs, Heft 4/1996,S. 13-19, Heft 1/1997, S.22-24. Heidelberg (Hauck Verlag).

How to Stimulate Innovation in a Cluster of Organizations? Gijs van Beeck Calkoen

I will put forward to you a question, which is, I think, becoming more and more relevant to our societies, and which has everything to do with cross cultural innovation. This question is: how to stimulate innovation in a cluster of organizations. But let me first introduce myself. Introduction My name is van Beeck Calkoen. My first name is Gijs, that is a real Dutch name and therefore for most of you unpronounceable. I apologize. As part of my job as the R&D manager of the Navy, I was the last two years involved in the Dutch Maritime Cluster, a network organization made up of several maritime industries.

I was the Secretary of the Innovation Forum,

which tries to improve the awareness of the necessity of innovation and to stimulate joint innovation initiatives. Content In my presentation I will first shortly describe the Dutch Maritime Cluster to give you a reference for my invitation to you to put forward concepts and ideas of How to stimulate innovation in a cluster of organizations? It will be shown that the concept of the Dutch Maritime Cluster is based on the ideas of professor Porter, which I will briefly explain. Then I will argue that the traditional approaches to innovation don't have enough potential to stimulate innovations in the cluster as a whole.

22

How to Stimulate Innovation in a Cluster of Organizations?

I will give you three examples, which will show that innovation in a cluster has to do with designing new ways of settling accounts, sharing risks and redefinition of roles with new partners who will have by definition different perceptions on how things ought to be and how partners should behave. And that in a far wider network than ever before. I will conclude that the challenge for the next few years is to design practical and time consuming tools for large group interventions to improve awareness of the importance of innovation, to intensify interaction and to build thrust between relative strangers. After that I will give you more or less successful designed tools by the Innovation Forum. I will end this presentation asking you to put forward concepts and ideas on how to stimulate innovation in a cluster of organizations. The Dutch maritime Cluster Social construct The Dutch Maritime Cluster is a social construct, which before nineteen ninetyseven, when the foundation was established, doesn't exist in the heads of the captains of industry or even in those of the economic policy makers. Mission The mission of the Dutch Maritime Cluster is reinforce and to promote. The foundation started an extensive research project to the economic impact of the Dutch maritime sectors. The Dutch maritime cluster comprises 11 sectors and about twelve thousands companies. It is probably the most complete maritime cluster in the world.

How to Stimulate Innovation in a Cluster of Organizations?

23

Eleven maritime sectors The eleven maritime sectors are: -Shipping -Ports -Shipbuilding -Offshore -Inland shipping -Dredging -The Royal Navy -Marine equipment supply -Water sports industry -Maritime services -Fishing Facts and figures Not only is the Dutch maritime cluster very complete, it is also very large and, as it has become clear, very important to the Dutch economy. The added value is about 2,5 % of the total value added generated in the Netherlands. In addition, the Dutch maritime cluster employs about one hundred thirty seven thousand persons. The export is about fifty five percent as turnover. Porter's definition of a cluster A number of relations play an important role in the maritime cluster, like the strong technical relations, the overlapping employment markets and the relations in physical streams between sectors such as inland navigation and seaports. Basically, the Dutch maritime cluster meets Porter's definition of a cluster: "a concentration of population of geographical concentrated firms that are interrelated by: -

Suppliers of components, machinery and services

-

Customers and channels

-

Manufacturers of complementary products and common inputs, deliverers of technological advice and skills

24

-

How to Stimulate Innovation in a Cluster of Organizations?

Institutions as the government I universities, standard setting agencies, think tanks, providers of training and trade organization.

In a cluster is both cooperation as heavy competitiveness; the actors are at the same time dependent and independent. In the economic theory of Porter the productivity of a well-organized cluster of companies can outperform larger conglomerates because of the easy access - mostly face to face - to other firms and organizations, as a result of -

Better estimations of customers demands,

-

Quicker adoption of new technologies,

-

Faster availability of new components, machinery, etc,

-

Better possibilities to experiment,

-

Easy outsourcing, and

-

Constant comparison and bench marking

To put it briefly, better productivity and more innovation by access to and faster learning from interrelated companies, because of geographical and cultural nearness. It is this value that prevents knowledge-based companies to move their main facilities to low cost countries. Therefore, organizing innovation in a cluster should be a major topic in countries with high labor costs. However, how to do that? Organizing innovation in a cluster. Approaches to stimulate innovation There are roughly three theoretical approaches to stimulate innovations, - An economic approach, -

A traditional mainly social psychological or managerial approach, and, more recently,

-

An approach which takes the environment of the firm into account

How to Stimulate Innovation in a Cluster of Organizations?

25

A macro economic approach Market The economic approach consists mainly of measures to simulate the market and to reduce barriers for open competitiveness, however, strong competition drives out innovation. Subsidize R&D In most countries there is also a focus upon the building up of knowledge by subsidizing knowledge institutions and R&D in companies. But, as a study of the UK government showed, only 20% of the innovations are the effect of R&D. I'm not sure, but that points to the notion that innovations are more conceptual and organizational than technological. Also points it towards a bad technology push-demand pull interaction. In both cases there is a problem of different subcultures, those of researchers, marketing people, controllers, managers and so on. Risk funding A third element of the economic approach is he facilitating of risk funding. But, several small companies reported me that they hesitate to use the facilities of the government and the banks. They are anxious to run into time consuming and energy swallowing lawyer games. Here you see again a cultural problem between lawyers and public servants on the one hand and entrepreneurs on the other hand. The traditional approach Beside a macro economic approach there is a dominant approach that focuses on the ability of a company and of individuals to come up with ideas. It stems mainly from the social psychological and management disciplines.

26

How to Stimulate Innovation in a Cluster of Organizations?

Individual Attention is paid to techniques that enhance creativity, and also, not unimportant, the ability to recognise idea's as such, and selling and implementing them. Organisational Secondly, attention is paid to the organisational conditions as organic structures and an experimental and risk taking culture. Strategic On the strategic level the theory stresses a strong-shared vision, the setting of explicit innovation goals and a continuous looking for playing other games than the competitors. Recently Are the traditional approaches to innovation merely internal oriented, recently there is more interest in external constraints to innovation. There are some experiments to involve suppliers and customers in the innovation process, for example by giving them courses in creative thinking, with exercise to rethink the companies' products. Also the societal arrangements and the relations between firms have now become more in focus. An example of a societal arrangement, which hinders innovation, is the next. In order to classify the bottom conditions dredgers could use a laser application to measure sand grains. But, the law asks for the use of a riddle or screen. To change the law is outside the influence of the individual entrepreneur, even his trade organisation. Another example is that of the cleaning of ship's tanks. The yield of cleaning a ship's tank is determined by the amount of water used. So there is no

How to Stimulate Innovation in a Cluster of Organizations?

27

incentive to use steam instead of water, which would give a reduction in time and water use. Weak points I have shown you that, till recent times, the focus on innovation was directed on the ability of individuals to suggest idea's, on the organisational culture where in idea's have to breed and the skills of the management to identify opportunities and to articulate the innovation question. Thinking on innovation was enterprise centred, thereby neglecting important by the company uncontrollable facts in the environment. This is the case when •

There is a market need for co-operation with other companies, or

•

When the concept of operation of the company changes itself by the innovation, and

•

Also in case of a system innovation, in that case the so-called "super system" is effected.

I will give you some examples: Market need for co-operation The first example concern a market need for cooperation. Researchers are convinced that Small and Medium Enterprises are usually very innovative. But, for example, the majority of the shipyards prefer one main supplier for the ship's equipment, in order to reduce the risks of integration and the costs of co-ordination of hundreds of small suppliers of equipment. From a viewpoint of innovation, it should be better as small companies would cooperate, for example by jointly offer a yard a complete bridge or engine room. But that asks for new thinking on responsibility, sharing risks, distributing turnovers and intellectual property. Basically, co-operation is against the attitude of a small firm, especially the owner. Because e his main motivation is being independent.

28

How to Stimulate Innovation in a Cluster of Organizations?

Change of concept of operations An example showing that a change in the concept of operation urges for involvement of other companies and institutions is that of a self-unloading ship. A self-unloading ship is an Utopia, but nevertheless not impossible. The advantages are huge, not only by lowering labour costs, but also by reducing the total throughput time and enhancing the reliability of the delivery, both major issues in logistics. But the costs of the shipbuilding and exploitation would rise, while the fixed costs of the existing ports will not decrease. The change of the concept of operation will change the metric of the system. To make the innovation within reach, the distribution of costs over the whole logistic chain has to change. That calls for involvement of actors in the chain. System innovations The essence of a system innovation is that the actors involved will all benefit, but are never be able to put the system innovation at work on their own. An example, which shows the involvement of the super system, is that of modal shift. In order to decrease traffic congestion and reduction of C02, Model Shift tries to move transport from the road to the inland waterways and even to "sea highways". There is no reason not to transport beer or pampers over water. Modal shift would be very attractive to the Dutch Maritime Cluster, because it would not only increase the inland and short sea shipping, but also the need for designing innovative ships. Also it will increase the activity in ports and the demand for specialised equipment. But to utilise this chance, companies has to interact also with actors outside the Dutch Maritime Cluster such as manufactories, transport firms, distributors of goods, government, counties, cities, and even customers, and so on. The building of new ports and roads to them would even introduce new partners in the network. Everyone in the network should have to invest, but no one controls the situation, so no one will take the risk of an unilateral initiative. There is an urge for a superstructure. But how to design an adequate cross-cultural superstructure?

How to Stimulate Innovation in a Cluster of Organizations?

29

Essentials of new tools Till now I have shown you that there is a gap between Porters analysis of innovation in a cluster, and practical tools to enhance and speed up the innovation in such a cluster. What we do need is bridging the gap between the macro economic approach and the micro social psychological approach to innovation. The essentials of a meso approach to innovation should take into account multi cultural phenomena, and therefore should primarily address essentials as: •

Building awareness of the need for innovation

•

Enhance the possibility of interaction, or network building.

•

Building thrust amongst the participants

Challenges The practical challenge for the next few years is to design tools to stimulate joint initiatives in a cluster of related industries, knowledge institutes as universities and research centres, and governmental agencies. The tools should be built upon training on individual skills, organisational development and strategic learning for companies. But it has also to be combined with notions on how to establish new relations in a far more network than even before, especially when cultural differences are involved, which in a cluster by definition is. In the next I will give you some examples of already used tools for large group interventions, some were successful, some not. Advisers as brokers First of all we use advisers as brokers. They will have a maritime technical background, but nevertheless have a talent to connect people of different characters. They have to organise co-operation around an opportunity for the cluster as a whole, for example the improvement of data exchange between the owner, the shipyard, certifying agencies and suppliers during the whole process of designing, building, testing and exploiting the ship. Another

30

How to Stimulate Innovation in a Cluster of Organizations?

example is the setting up of a green Award for the short sea shipping, organising the network of port authorities, knowledge centres on environmental protection, ship's owners and the administration. An intranet via internet Four times a year we meet each other face to face, all other communication takes place via a kind of intranet via Internet. It is a cheap and very powerful application, which allows for announcements of meetings, publications, documenting, discussions, voting, virtual meetings and chatting, and so on. Till now about 200 people have access to the system, including the advisers. As we started it, we believed that it would heavenly reduce interaction costs. Well, it has become a disappointment. Nobody, except me, is using it. I don't yet know why, but I assume that it is a combination of shyness and a lack of psychological inclusion in the network, as an effect of lack of knowing each other sufficiently. Action research leader firms More promising is the setting up of an action research project with some 70-leader firms in the maritime cluster. Leader firms are important drivers of the competitiveness of clusters. They act as lead users of sophisticated demands, they co-ordinate production networks, they create new combinations of previously unrelated technologies, and because of their central role in knowledge networks, leader firms improve the transfer of knowledge in the cluster. Last year we introduced the concept of leader firms at a top-level seminar. At this moment we are interviewing the top executives as part of an awareness rising and an agenda setting intervention.

How to Stimulate Innovation in a Cluster of Organizations?

31

Small and medium enterprises Another promising concept focuses-in contrary to the leader firms- on the Small and Medium Enterprises. We have drawn up an inventory of nearly twelve innovative themes, such as integral bridge design, distributed automation and renewable energy from the sea. We seduce the small companies to join us in an afternoon seminar, presenting there a promising future possibility, for example a zero-emission ship. After that groups from different companies and different trades are discussing the potential applications and spin-offs in the presented area. Afterwards the participants can enrol themselves in a next, but then closed meeting with other interested parties, in order to establish a close co-operation on the subject. This intervention is quit successful, but labour intensive. Communities of Practice and Open Space Technology Next year we will set up Communities of Practice around typical subjects as sound and vibration, cavitations, anti fouling, electrical ships and so on. Communities of Practice are informal groups of professionals who share common goals and interests. Communities of Practice are learning environments. The literature on Communities of Practice indicates that essentials as awareness, face to face social interaction, and thrust are in this case also a requirement for success. It is therefore that we will experiment with the concept of Open Space Technology, at least as an accelerator of the process of building the community. Open Space technology is the same as organising a conference, but there are no keynote speakers and formal presentations. There are only coffee breaks, where informal, but mostly the most effective interaction takes place. I demonstrated the theoretical and practical need for designing tools to stimulate joint innovation initiatives in a cluster of related industries.

Beyond Business Planning - The Role of Creativity in Sustainable Entrepreneurial Development Matthias Eickhoff and Christoph Jakob*

„Managers do things right, leaders do the right things!" (Warren Bennis/Burt Nanus)

The following model is not based on research results, but outlines the research needs in an area of entrepreneurial development which is growing in importance; that of the creative phases. As a supplement to earlier, primarily analytical approaches, it describes the need businesses have to continuously rediscover themselves' in a fast-changing environment. The aim of this approach is to present the entrepreneurial development process as an evolutionary process, thereby providing businesses with further useful working tools. The model is presented as a discussion paper and therefore has deliberately avoided a highly theoretical, referenced

approach.

Furthermore, we would like to thank the members of the German Society for Creativity for their numerous inspiring discussions, in particular the contributions of Prof. Dr. Horst Geschka, Darmstadt and Prof. Dr. Jörg Mehlhorn, Mainz. Generally speaking, nowadays producing

a business plan is seen as a vital

step along the path of forming a business. At the same time it is used to both measure success and is a success factor in its own right. •

A business plan is necessary, because both banks and individual or private venture capitalists will only grant credit or participate in the business if the business plan convinces them and 'promises success'. Success from the

Prof. Dr. Matthias Eickhoff is the Managing Director of the Institute for Entrepreneurial Behaviour (IUH) of the University of Applied Sciences, Mainz and Director of the Institute for Innovation, Transfer and Consulting (ITB), Bingen. Christoph Jakob MA was Research Assistant at the Institute for Entrepreneurial Behaviour (IUH) and is now Project Director at the Institute for Innovation, Transfer and Consulting (ITB), Bingen.

34

Beyond Business Planning

bank's point of view means the capital invested is repaid with interest, for the venture capitalist this will mean a possibly continuous interest yield, as well as capital gains if they decide to withdraw their interest in the future. •

At the same time, the business plan gives the entrepreneur a measuring rod, which he can use to judge his own business. From a business point of view it is a hypothetical construction, which summarises the constituent parts of the business decision-making process, mentally anticipating complex developments which are likely to take place in the near future. Amongst other things, it describes the Unique Selling Propositions (the USPs) of the business, helps predict performance objectives, and transfers entrepreneurial decisions and market circumstances into units of success, which the above-mentioned providers of capital use in order to make their decisions. Thus it provides a measuring rod used to judge success as well as serving as the base for necessary changes, which may have to be made if unforeseen problems arise, or when the anticipated development reaches certain milestones.

•

What is often even more important is the educational effect of the planning process itself, forcing the entrepreneur to reflect on his own business model, exposing the origins of and obstacles to value creation, and transmitting the feeling about 'where the money is made'. The plan, or to be more precise, producing the plan, becomes an element of success in itself for the budding enterprise.

The central idea of the considerations presented here is a model of creativity and idea-management, which we wish to expand step by step: starting from a concrete question, idea-management first begins to enter a creative, divergent phase. During this phase, ideas should be gathered from a wide radius. Thoughts should diverge from the particular to the general, capturing as many ideas as possible. This first phase should not be concerned with either the technical practicability or economic feasibility of the ideas. Even ideas, which will never be used, are valuable, because they may become catalyst ideas for other, ultimately even better ideas.

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Only a small fraction of the ideas discovered will ever be feasible, in general or for the enterprise. An even smaller fraction will be incorporated into the existing set of ideas, and then, an even smaller amount will become practical and make economic sense for the enterprise. Sorting these out is done during the analytical-convergent phase, when the ideas generated are systematically evaluated and processed in order to prepare them for implementation and introduction to the market. This corresponds to the task of business planning.

Idea-Management and Business Planning Creative-Divergent Phase Idea-Generation

Analytical-Convergent Phase Idea-Evaluation

Implementation

Business Planning

Figure 1: Idea-Management and Business Planning

As the previous diagram shows, joining the two constructions means overcoming gaps and imbalances, which must be the object of further research. Taking the presented situation, three partial aspects may be recognised:

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The problem of not trivialising the task assignments of the divergent processes

•

The question of finding a formal equivalent to Business Planning in the start-up phase

•

The question of feed-back from the on-going process: the evolution of the enterprise

Precisely defining the solution to be solved, which in this case means determining the subject matter of the enterprise as its first major entrepreneurial decision is of decisive importance to ensure the quality of services offered and thus the economic success of the enterprise. Nevertheless, it is not the legal form, which is predominant here, but the economic effect of this decision because the subject matter of the enterprise, its location and legal form all interact. Behind this lies the question, how this purpose should be achieved: The business model, which in a highly abstract way describes the basic purpose of the business activity of an enterprise. Therefore, determining the subject matter of the enterprise should be the most carefully made decision of all. However, it is generally accepted that precisely this decision is often reached in an extremely unstructured, .intuitive' way. It is important to understand that the problem does not begin when evaluating and generating ideas, but when analysing and formulating the initial question. This may seem less important for technology-induced start-ups, where the technology could determine possible areas of application, and where directly determined usage might prevail (technology-push) area. On the other hand, when it may be assumed that there is an already existing market, where predominantly perceived, latent needs prevail (market pull) the actual behaviour of customers may not be based on their real preferences, but may best be described as .second-best' or alternative solutions. In this case, the so-called .solved' problem is not really the problem at all, and the value of the solution is therefore sub-optimal and accordingly liable to fail.

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In order to evaluate the acceptability of the business model, the creative-divergent phase must be extended and methodically supported beyond mere idea generation to identify the problematic area of determining the subject matter of the founding enterprise. It is not satisfactory to execute a methodically correct deduction of economically acceptable ideas if these are based on falsely identified problems which do not really exist. The relevant methodologies for determining the subject matter of the business can also be found in creativity research, using the same approaches and procedures as for idea generation. The perception of creativity as a factor for success lies far behind the typical analytical approaches used in most business management theories. Likewise it plays a minor role in university education in general, as well as in enterprise research and development in particular. Practice shows that under the concept of .creativity techniques', most people merely associate .brainstorming', whilst even other relatively simple techniques such as the Morphology Box, or Attribute Listing tend to be less well known. Likewise, the basic structural characteristics of the various techniques and their possible applications are also often ignored, which may then lead to unsatisfactory results, and in the next step a rejection of systematic idea management due to the disappointing experiences which were made. Nowadays Business Planning techniques and methods are standard procedures, whilst generating business ideas develop according to the principle of random chance, at best depending on personal intuition and prevailing circumstances. Of course, there is no guarantee that even with highly developed idea generating methods every relevant idea will be discovered, or that nothing important will be forgotten. No method could ever guarantee that , t h e idea' had emerged amongst all those collected for evaluation, neither at a particular place in time, or even less likely within a dynamic perspective. Nevertheless, ignoring a methodical approach to this challenge will certainly increase the likelihood of failure.

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One reason for this reluctance to include creativity when considering business models is that it is assumed to possess a low level of formal certainty; it has a touch of the exotic and seems unpredictable, and may also be due to a general resistance to try out new, unusual things. Furthermore, it may be felt that commercial credibility (serious creativity) is incompatible with something usually associated with artistic skills (artistic creativity). However, comparisons demonstrate similar heuristic structures when evaluating ideas as when generating them. Even when analysing business plans, attempts to make judgements about market acceptance, planning forecast figures and numerous other points, more or less plausible assumptions have to be reverted to, due to the absence of real knowledge. Using the analogy of business planning, it is imperative to establish "Business Creativity" as a new evaluatory dimension in order to further investigate the creative processes in the areas of entrepreneurial development and establishment as well as to establish it as a useful organisational tool for entrepreneurs. The third question, which must be raised, in order to set up an evolutionary development model for start-up enterprises is the question how to consider the further development of the enterprise. The effect of a business plan will extend to a greater or lesser extent into the active business phase depending on the availability of data, the industrial branch or other factors. The longer it applies, the greater is the associated risk for the entrepreneur and its investors, depending on the respective entrepreneurial environment: If the enterprise is operating in a very stable environment, or faces predicable changes, adjustment procedures may not be necessary, or can be easily anticipated. Enterprises, which are operating in a dynamic environment with predicable change situations, may only need to proceed according to flexible planning principles and make adjustment decisions in a proactive way based on past experience. In a situation of open change in the business environment, when neither the timing, type direction or strength of changes can be predicted, a completely

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different approach is required. Relying on experience, such as using an intelligent early warning system is no longer sufficient in this situation. Creative adjustment procedures are required in this scenario, based on knowledge of structures and methods. This assumes that weak change indicators are perceived as early as possible and systematically dealt with in order to discover and develop new potential business for the enterprise. The goal of this research perspective is not only to set up a strategic early clarification system for entrepreneurs, but also to methodically consolidate it. This underlines the necessity to develop a systematic and functional innovation control system which apart from examining the objects and processes of innovation systems, also controls the innovative ability of the enterprise itself, with respect to both structural as well as personnel dimensions. The need for this can be seen in the ever accelerating and increasingly radical changes which can be observed in virtually every aspect of today's entrepreneurial environment: new technological innovations are extending operational possibilities in many scientific disciplines - from the world-wide internet to nano-technologies. Political differences which were previously considered incompatible are displaced by cultural tensions; globalisation creates new economic and social challenges, many societies are being subjugated to farreaching changes in population structure or to their traditional value systems, and even nature's forces and climatic changes seem to become ever more difficult to contain. The result of all this means that life span of values in the value creating processes of enterprises has undergone a fundamental change: the half-life period of the business model is sinking.

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Behaviour and Knowledge and Change-Categories SystemDynamics

Type of Adaptation

KnowledgeCategory

None or Deterministic

Rigid

Reaction, Execution

Factual Knowledge

Stochastic

Dynamic

Proactive Adaptation

Behavioural Knowledge

Open

Chaotic

Creative Design

Structural Knowledge

Change

Figure 2: Behaviour and Knowledge and Change-Categories

Apart from the strategic early warning techniques which serve to register and identify signals as early as possible, the creativity techniques which are available and suitable to support a considered evaluation of expected changes must still be investigated. Additionally, it must be considered whether these need to be either modified or expanded, or whether new techniques need to be developed. They need to be available as signals for developing enterprises to be used at the appropriate time to re-evaluate or to develop their basic parameters as strategically laid down in their business models. Thus the business evolution process closes the model's circle by adding the business development block to its original question: The enterprise must continuously re-invent itself. It must continuously combine new performance potentials with its resources and markets and include them in its value creation processes.

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Business-Evolution-Process (BEP) Business Development Creative-Divergent Phase Definition of the Task

Idea-Generation

Analytical-Convergent Phase Idea-Evaluation

Implementation

Figure 3: Business-Evolution-Process (BEP)

A useful example to illustrate this point is the market for multifunctional mobile telecommunications.

Whilst some providers originally concentrated on the

historical function of telephoning when introducing mobile phones, other providers soon saw that this market was fast becoming saturated and developed a new market for mobile telecommunications which had previously not existed. This was, for example, to develop new services such as including digital photography to enable an immediate transfer of pictures, enabling themselves to become more successfully established in the market. The premises of this model have not yet been the subject of empirical research. This contribution hopes to direct attention to a previously neglected research object. At the same time possible research projects are briefly outlined in order to be discussed further. Above all, two main tasks present themselves:

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The need to empirically examine the connections between business creativity and entrepreneurial performance

•

The need to methodically examine available creativity techniques in various task situations: formulating the tasks, which should be used for the divergent processes, executing these processes and further developing the business model.

The empirical examination of the connections between the systematic use of creative techniques and entrepreneurial success will initially necessitate the choice of suitable success parameters as a basis for making assessments. Apart from profit and ROI (so far as it can be measured) or growth rates, connections caused by processes should also be considered, such as elasticities and intensities or structural characteristics such as the share of new products in total turnover. When choosing the aspects, which should be examined, it is important to distinguish the enterprises according to their primary financial structure. Thus it may be assumed that enterprises which are at least partly publicly financed may behave differently when facing risks, possibly reacting with larger time gaps than purely privately financed enterprises. It is also essential to group the enterprises by age (e.g. up to three years, between three and five years or over five years in the market), in order to account for possible different survival strategies, which depend on their life span. Furthermore, it is necessary to consider and provide indications for the different environmental dynamics of various branches The main difficulty will probably be to record the different activities of creative modifications to the business model. Firstly, because the business models may not necessarily be clearly formulated or available, but first need to be reconstructed, but above all because the use of creative techniques in enterprises is not yet uniformly understood and some activities may have occurred instinctively. Therefore it will first be necessary to develop an exemplary standard and then try to apply it in this area.

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Finally, it should also be considered how the results of the evolutionary process are perceived within the enterprise. Does this lead to a competitive advantage, or can the enterprise be directed into a situation of co-operative competition? Are there any internal or external signs of resistance? In the long run the BEP-Model should serve as a tool for start-up managers in order to test an idea's suitability as a sustainable business base. This may then enable forecasts to be made about the existence of specific success factors which will help the business to profitably enter a market and maintain its presence there, or to predict the innovative capability of the enterprise. The model will contribute to reducing information asymmetries during the evolutionary process for the actors involved as well as reducing their specific risks both when starting up and developing a successful business.

Beyond Systematic Innovation integration of Emergence and Recursion Concepts into TRIZ and Other Tools Darrell Mann

Abstract Present day systematic innovation capabilities exist as the result of an amalgamation taking place between a host of different creativity tools, techniques and philosophies. Collectively, these tools have been brought together from all corners of the creativity spectrum - from the highly structured (TRIZ, Six Sigma, QFD, Theory of Constraints, Complexity Theory, Viable System Model) to the highly unstructured, from those rooted in the applied sciences to those built on purely psychological foundations (DeBono, Mind-Mapping, NLP). The paper describes an ongoing programme of research to distill best practice from these methods and create a unified creativity and innovation system. The basis of the paper is a discussion built around the high-level philosophical bases of the various techniques and strategies being integrated.

Introduction The world of creativity and innovation research is filled with a wide variety of different tools, methods, techniques and strategies. Many operate at different levels. Many of them overlap with one another. Others suggest contradictory directions and strategies. Overall the message presented to the world at large is one of enormous complexity and, as a consequence, considerable confusion. The aim of the programme of research reported here has been to find a common structure into which all of the available systems fit, and to try and distill best practice from all into a unified whole.

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Following an initial programme of work (Reference 1) aimed at identifying a common foundation for a unified creativity capability, it was decided that the Soviet-originated Theory of Inventive Problem Solving, TRIZ offered the most complete framework - offering not only a very comprehensive toolkit and systematic process, but also a significant philosophical backbone. Subsequent work has then sought to position other philosophies, methods and tools into the framework provided by TRIZ. Given that the aim was to generate a unified capability and not to assume that TRIZ was untouchable, where these other techniques did not fit the framework, the framework was modified appropriately. Although integration between the different philosophies is not yet incomplete, it is becoming clear that the law of diminishing returns is a dominant factor in the drive towards achieving a more effective whole. In the terms of evolutionary SCurves, the TRIZ-based systematic innovation method is approaching some form of fundamental limit - Figure 1. To go beyond these limits - in other words, to find a new paradigm, higher level of creativity capability - requires an expansion of TRIZ in fundamental ways. Thus, while some integration activities look set to enable small-scale optimisation benefits to be accrued, more substantial shifts in capability seem likely only through more profound shifts in the underpinning philosophy.

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Figure 1: Evolution of Systematic Innovation Capabilities in S-Curve Terms

Two emerging sciences and one industry-based system - Six Sigma - appear to be offering the potential to deliver such philosophy shifts. The shifts they suggest are complexity emerging from bottom-up principles, recursion and customer focus respectively. The paper discusses all three concepts in the context of their impending impact on the world of systematic creativity and innovation, and in particular their potential to deliver completely new thinking paradigms. Existing Systematic Innovation Capability In order to begin the discussion, it is first necessary to discuss the framework provided by an evolved version of the TRIZ method. Figure 2 - taken from Reference 2 - aims to present the totality of TRIZ-based systematic innovation in terms of its philosophical roots, the overall methodology processes, and the individual tools that make up that overall process.

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Excellence/ HdealityV 'Resource^ ^FunctionalityN Contradiction 5pace/Time/l nterfacd

Philosophy

ARIZ Systematic Innovation Method (SIM) Define-Select-Generate-Evaluate^ Inventive Principles

IFR

Contradiction Matrix ^S-Fields PI Tools Trimming

Function Analysis Resources

Method

Knowledge/ Effects

Trends Subversion^ Analysis

Tool

Separation Principles

Figure 2: Current TRIZ-Based Systematic Innovation Operating Hierarchy

At the very highest level of the TRIZ philosophy is the concept of distillation of excellence from all sources of knowledge. This is the root enabling TRIZ to be receptive to other techniques. One of the commonly used TRIZ expressions is 'someone, somewhere has already solved your problem'. In order then to allow users to readily find those solutions, it has been necessary to cast the widest possible net. Slightly below this level, the five main philosophical pillars of TRIZ are: IDEALITY: all successful innovations evolve in a direction of increasing ideality - more benefits; less cost, less harm. Evolution towards an ideal final result occurs through a series of patterns that are repeated across different industries.

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CONTRADICTION: systems evolve in the direction of increasing ideality through the successive emergence and resolution of conflicts and contradictions. Evolution is therefore fundamentally discontinuous in nature. The contradiction-eliminating strategies of others have been mapped and can be used to accelerate the evolution of any system. FUNCTION: customers primarily buy functions (benefits), therefore producers should focus on the function delivered by the products and services they deliver and not just the product itself. If customers find a better way of achieving a function, they will stop buying your product or service. RESOURCES: anything in or around a system that is not being used to its maximum potential is a resource. Even the things we might think of as 'bad' or harmful in a system can become useful resources if we are able to change our perspective of them. SPACE/TIME/INTERFACE: the human brain is subject to an effect known as psychological inertia; it fools itself into looking at situations from one specific angle. When we are looking to improve a system, we need to be able to change our perspective of it. Perspective shifts can involve physical (or virtual) space, temporal issues, or the way in which different elements of a system interface and relate to one another. Taken together, these pillars offer users the capability to direct their creative efforts in directions that are known to deliver success. There are, of course, other ways to think about the creative process - very often in fact it is very desirable to employ deliberately unstructured approaches that permit drift in quite random directions. One of the big underlying concepts of TRIZ - primarily coming from the Ideality and Functionality pillars - is that when we wish it, there is a system that will systematically focus us in directions that are purely success-oriented. In order to examine how other systems might compare and integrate with the systematic innovation structure, we may see that many operate at purely the

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Beyond Systematic Innovation

methodological or tool level. We will individually examine the three that appear to offer most at the highest philosophical level. That process begins with Six Sigma: Six Sigma The Six Sigma methodology is primarily an industry created and industry deployed collection of best practices developed over the history of manufacture and service industries. In large part it is an assembly of tools, methods and philosophies from Statistical Process Control and Total Quality Management. Thanks to some significant bottom-line business benefits reported by lead users, Six Sigma currently carries a very high profile and is the subject of a variety of management texts (see for example References 3, 4). None of these texts has particularly sought to divide the whole into different hierarchical levels, but by extracting the appropriate knowledge from the best of the texts, we will arrive at an equivalent of the Systematic Innovation hierarchy map as shown in Figure 3. By again focusing only on the high level philosophical tenets, we can observe the following as the main over-riding elements of Six Sigma:

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VALUE /CUSTOMEF CONTINUITY 1 UNITY

Philosophy

Several versions of Plan-Do-Study-Act (PDSA)

Method

or ' Define-Measure-Analyse-lmprove-Control*

(DMAIC) ' Pareto Analysis

(Taguchi)

(Root C a u s e Analysis) Fishbone Diagrams

(TRIZ)

gPC (FMEA)

MGP r

Tool

(Kano analysis)

(assorted statistical analysis tools)

Process Mapping

Figure 3: Philosophy-Method-Tool Hierarchical Perspective of Six Sigma C U S T O M E R : the main underlying philosophy of Six Sigma is the focus on customers and the satisfaction of the needs and desires of those customers, whether they be internal or external to an organisation.

VALUE: Added value is what makes a customer select one product or service over another one. Six Sigma thus places considerable importance on the addition of value, and more specifically, the reduction and elimination of 'nonvalue added' activities.

CONTINUITY: improvement of systems and processes must be a continuous activity; there is no justification for relaxation of efforts to eliminate waste.

UNITY: a successful Six Sigma initiative needs to involve everyone working within the system. There can be no exceptions to this rule; buy-in is essential.

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The Six Sigma philosophy can then be seen to have the following three impacts on the initial systematic innovation framework: 1) Successful innovation gives customers more ideality; all of the functions (benefits) they want at ever lower cost and harm. Every customer is different from every other customer and in the ideal world, every individual customer gets exactly what they want. 2) TRIZ has traditionally described evolution happening in discontinuous bursts and suggests that in large part these bursts are driven by market demands. Thus, there are times when an introduced innovation will succeed and other times when it will not. Whether there is an apparent 'market need' or not, the CONTINUITY pillar of Six Sigma suggests that the innovation process should be continuous. The idea of generating an innovation that does not have a market demand appears to make little sense. The parallel phenomena of increasingly rapid global change and the increasing importance of intellectual property (at least at the present time), however, do appear to suggest the validity of a continuous innovation philosophy; even if the market is not ready for an innovation, doesn't mean that a company shouldn't own the rights to it. 3) If you don't get 'buy-in' from EVERYONE, an innovation will fail. Traditional TRIZ thinking pays no attention to buy-in. Lack of buy-in is probably the biggest single killer of TRIZ - or indeed any - generated innovations - see for example our previous article on 'if TRIZ is so good, why isn't everyone using it (Reference 5). Recursion Stafford Beer's Viable System Model emerged from the study of organisation structures and resulted in two very important conceptual findings. The first involved the identification of five essential elements that a system had to contain if it were to be 'viable'. The second involved the idea of recursiveness - and the discovery that the five element viability test still applied at different hierarchical levels of consideration of a system organisation structure. Reference 6

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describes how this first finding contradicts the TRIZ definition of 'system completeness' and how it ultimately therefore provides a stronger definition of completeness than TRIZ. The second concept of recursion is still only just being introduced into the systematic innovation framework. The simple philosophical finding of Beer and others (see for example work on Spiral Dynamics - Reference 7) is that there are strong elements of self-similarity between systems as we switch our focus from the macro scale to the micro-scale and vice versa. As far as Beer was concerned, the key self-similarity feature in organisations was that 'viability' demanded certain elements to be present at each hierarchical level. From a technical perspective, to take the specific example of helical flow, what the recursion idea allows us to do is apply solutions from one scale to another. Several natural systems operating at the micro-scale often evolve complex helical geometry forms that maximise flow efficiency. Likewise, macro-scale study of interplanetary motion have highlighted the presence of similar helical effects. Designers of novel heat exchangers - i.e. operating at a scale between these two extremes - were able to hypothesise that the same effect may be able to be used in the design of highly efficient configurations, and in fact were able to create a paradigmchanging improvement in performance as a result. The helical flow effect is thus seen to be recurrent at different size scales. Closer to the systematic innovation arena is another recursion idea, this time the recognition that as systems evolve through successive disruptive shifts from one system (s-curve) to another, the complexity of the respective systems passes through a characteristic increasing-decreasing profile - Figure 4.

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Increase Decreases

Figure 4: Recursion In System Complexity Evolution

According to preliminary work (Reference 8), this recursive effect allows us to utilise the parts of the systematic innovation toolkit most relevant to a given phase in the complexity cycle. Complexity Theory To reduce the entire scientific and mathematical base of complexity theory to a single philosophical foundation is probably a little unfair given the breadth and depth of work being devoted to the subject. Nevertheless, there is at least some justification for suggesting that the whole field emerged as a result of a very simple idea; that enormously complex systems emerge from what my be extremely simple base rules and principles. The interaction of individually simple elements, in other words, can produce some highly unexpected outcomes. One of the main applications of systematic innovation involves the use of uncovered trends of evolution to predict what future generations of designs and systems will look like. In order to illustrate the likely impact of the 'emergent complexity' philosophy on systematic innovation, in this section we examine the process of system evolution through the lens of emergent market complexity. Many researchers have spent considerable amounts of time and energy failing to translate well known and well established trend directions - for example the list illustrated in Figure 5 - into useful predictions of how a market will evolve.

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In essence, they form the simple base rules upon the complex world we live in has emerged. We examine why predictions using these trends tend to be wrong and highlight a simple strategy for improving our chances of getting the predictions right in the future. * Increasing ELECTRONIC COMMUNICATION in private life * Increasing GAP between have's and have-not's * Increasing NEED FOR DIFFERENTIATION between business customers * Increasing INFORMATION VOLUME * Need for SIMPLICITY * Global AVAILABILITY OF SERVICES * Wish for INDIVIDUAL SOLUTIONS (private customers) * DEMOGRAPHIC TRENDS (aging population, DINKs) * Wish for SELBSTVERWIRKLICHUNG ('making the most of one's life') * TIME as a valuable resource Figure 5: Well Known Customer Trend Directions

The only sure-fire result of a 'simple' market evolution prediction method is that it will be wrong. The method being proposed here - if we use it correctly - is certainly not simple, but it does use the idea of constructing complexity from simple building blocks. The principles through which the method operates are simple enough to be described relatively quickly. In-line with complexity theory, what we are looking at here is a means of assembling highly complex models from some very simple 'first principles' building blocks. Our purpose here is to merely to describe some of those building blocks and the operating principles through which we can assemble them together to form a robust and reliable model of market evolution dynamics. All of the trend directions suggested in Figure 5, or that we might find in the continuous stream of MegaTrends books (Reference 9 for example), or the output of Faith Popcorn (Reference 10), 'work' so long as the linear assumptions they make remain valid. Anyone living in the real world, of course, knows that any linear assumption is bound to go wrong sooner or later because the world is not a linear place. The predictions made from a single trend go wrong because something comes along and says 'hey, you can't keep going down

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that road anymore'. Something, in other words, comes along and stops the trend from working beyond a certain point. We can very simply see what it is that comes along and stops a trend from working when we begin to consider multiple trends. For the sake of simplicity, we will examine just two. Figure 6 illustrates two of the market trend directions picked at random from the Figure 5 list. We could actually have picked literally any pair in order to demonstrate the point. In the figure, then, the two trends are progressing as a function of time as per prediction. As shown in the figure, their trajectories are slightly different.

*

TIME

Figure 6: Two Linear Trends In Action

The progression along these two trend paths will continue as per prediction until such times as the differences between them result in some kind of mismatch - further advance along one trend becomes inconsistent with progress along the other. When this happens, there is a conflict. When a conflict occurs, one or both of the trends can no longer progress according to the predictions. Further progress, in fact, can only occur when the conflict has somehow been resolved - Figure 7.

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EMERGES

CONFLICT RESOLVED

Figure 7: Two Linear Trends In Conflict With One Another

Despite the fact that this model is both generic and simplistic (it fails to recognize, for example, that every individual customer is different and has a different affinity to any given trend pattern), it forms a very solid foundation upon which really effective market evolution models can be constructed. The immediate link with the contradiction elimination philosophy of TRIZ is that we can systematically work to eliminate the identified contradictions using the successful strategies of others (Reference 2). To again stick with just two trends, we can begin to see how this might be so by examining a modified version of the process described in Reference 11: 1) pick two trends 2) define an ideal final result (IFR) end point to each of the trends 3) extrapolate along both trends in the direction of the two ideal final results and reveal the contradiction that emerges 4) use the Inventive Principles of TRIZ to explore means by which the contradiction can be eliminated. Let's take an example using a pair of trends from Figure 5. Firstly the trend towards a desire for simple solutions, and secondly the trend towards individualized solutions. Extrapolating to the IFR in the first case might give us something like 'every system does exactly what the user wants without the user ever having to learn any set of instructions'. Extrapolating to the IFR in the

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second case might in turn give us something like 'every individual customer gets exactly the product or service they want. Hopefully the contradiction between the two evolution directions suggested by these end points becomes clear very quickly; systems must be simple for any individual user, but must also be different to take account of the fact that every customer is different. Until this simple versus adaptive contradiction is resolved, one or both of the 'increasing simplicity' or 'individual solutions' trends can no longer continue to apply. The smart forecaster will use this information to start identifying solutions to the conflict before they actually happen. For example, the increasing emergence of self-learning/adaptive computer systems is an increasingly used technology that admirably helps to solve the conflict. Combine this idea with organizations like Amazon that acquire more and more data about their customers the more they buy and we're well on the way to learning systems that know what an individual customer is like before the product arrives on the doorstep. In many senses, what we have just done here is similar to what we would have done in a traditional scenario planning exercise. There we would have taken two trends, extrapolated along them to some point in the future and used the resulting market situation as the environment in which our product or service should be designed to fit. The big difference here of course is that in the new method we are extrapolating two simple bottom-up trend directions to stably positioned end points (the two IFRs) and are actively looking to resolve the contradiction that emerges rather than trying to accommodate and trade-off. Scenario planning sessions rarely extend to looking at more than two or three trends at a time due to the complexity involved. The net result of this is that scenario planning exercise deliver reliable outputs. The implication from the findings of TRIZ on the other hand - that the evolution process acts as the successive emergence and resolution of conflicts and contradiction - provides us with a number of clues that will help us to manage this complexity issue.

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For this paper we will simply leave readers with the concept of identifying the two most dominant trends in a particular situation and using the conflict emergence and resolution strategy as a means of identifying and eliminating the conflicts before they occur in reality. We suggest this because early identification of emerging conflicts may well be enough to give us an edge in the competitive world we live in. If you think about it, 'competitive edge' is essentially the function and raison d'etre of the forecasting process anyway. Thinking ahead a little bit, what the market trend conflict concept allows us to do when we start looking at the whole thing rather than just one or two select bits is to manage the complex future picture in rather more sophisticated ways. Here's a final thought that you might like to consider before we return to it in a future paper (Reference 12): If we take all of the known market evolution trends and arrange them in a Matrix we can look at every pair in turn in order to see whether there might be any recurring patterns of conflict emergence. If there are such emergent patterns - certain contradictions that come up again and again for different pairs of trend directions - then we can probably begin to imagine that the process of designing the future will change considerably. Final Thoughts and Future Work The work reported here is still at a relatively early stage. It is believed that at the philosophical level, a solid foundation upon which a new generation of systematic innovation capability can be built has been created. The main tenets of that combined philosophy are illustrated in Figure 8. Taken together, the philosophical elements of TRIZ-based systematic innovation, Six Sigma, Recursion and Complexity Theory create seven main ideas that when used collectively will provide a highly effective focused creativity capability. The next parts of the research will involve appropriate integration of the different systems at the methodological level. This work is currently underway in the form of the CREAX Innovation Suite software system. The main design principle of the system - which operates irrespective of whether it is deployed in software or other forms - is again the concept that someone, somewhere has already solved the problem. Or at least elements of the problem. What the Innovation

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Suite aims to do is integrate all of those individual elements into a coherent, easy-to-use whole.

/ UNITY \ /RECURSIONX / RESOURCES\ / EMERGENCE \ CONTRADICTION FUNCTION/VALUE CUSTOMER IDEALITY

Figure 8: Collected Philosophical Concepts of New Generation Systematic Innovation

References 1) Mann, D.L., 'Evolving The World's Best Creativity Methods', TRIZ Journal, www.triz-journal.com, April 2002. 2) Mann, D.L., 'Hands-On Systematic Innovation', CREAX Press, April 2002. 3) Tennant, G., 'Six Sigma - SPC and TQM in Manufacturing and Services', Gower, 2001. 4) Tennant, G., 'Design For Six Sigma', Gower, 2002. 5) CREAX Newsletter, 'If TRIZ Is So Good, Why Isn't Everyone Using It, Part 37', www.creax.com, Archives, May 2003. 6) Mann, D.L., 'Laws of System Completeness', TRIZ Journal, May 2001. 7) Lessem, R., Beck, D., Cowan, C., 'Spiral Dynamics: Mastering Values, Leadership, and Change', Blackwell Publishers, 1996.

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8) Mann, D.L., 'Complexity Increases And Then...', TRIZ Journal, January 2003. 9) Naisbitt, J., Aburdene, P.,

'MegaTrends 2000', Sidgwick & Jackson,

1990. 10) Popcorn, F., 'Clicking', HarperCollins, 1996. 11) Salamatov, Y., 'TRIZ: The Right Solution At The Right Time', Insytec, The Netherlands, 1999 (page 161). 12) Mann, D.L., Dewulf, S., 'Emergent Complexity From Linear Trends And How To Manage It', paper to be published in TRIZ Journal, November 2003.

Dialectic Creativity, Based Upon Hegel's Triad of Thesis, Antithesis, and Synthesis (TAS) Heiner Müller-Merbach

Summary Heraclitus (ca. 550-480 BC), the philosopher of change, taught us the positive influence of "strife between opposites", that "war is the father of all and the king of all", and that any change is based upon the "action and reaction between opposed substances". To some extent, Hegel's (1770-1831) "triadic dialectic" - based upon "Thesis, Antithesis, and Synthesis" (TAS) - can be referred to Heraclitus, thesis and antithesis being the opposites, the bodies of action and reaction. The triadic dialectic of TAS can well be seen as a basic doctrine of Western pluralism, and as a justification of Western democracy: thesis, the intended action of the administration, and antithesis, the contrasting alternative of the opposition, should ideally be combined at a higher level of insight: synthesis. Hegel's triadic dialectic generates its power from the contradiction between two doctrines, two opinions, two opposing convictions etc.: thesis vs. antithesis. The confrontation of thesis and antithesis may be overcome by the synthesis. Example: •

Thesis: If the current state of a social system is generally accepted (i.e. if the individuals agree with the thesis: "Our system is in good conditions."), no need for change would evolve, and no change would be initiated.

•

Antithesis: Only if (at least a certain amount of) people are not satisfied (i.e. if the antithesis becomes influential: "Our system has these and

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those deficiencies which ought to be overcome."), change may be initiated. •

Synthesis: Normally, not everybody would agree with the antithesis, and any rational leader would try to find a good combination of thesis and antithesis, a selection of the most promising components of both: a better solution, not just a cheap, shallow compromise.

It is surprising that Hegel and his triadic dialectic is widely ignored in the field of creativity and innovation. It is the purpose of this paper to demonstrate the great potential of Hegel's triadic dialectic for the creation of new ideas, the development of new solutions to problems, and the extension of contradictic thoughts to new insight. 1. Creativity based upon the triad of thesis, antithesis, and synthesis (TAS) "Discovery consists of seeing what everybody has seen and thinking what nobody has thought." (Albert von Szent-Györgyi, 1893-1986) Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel (1770-1831) created the triadic dialectic, composed of thesis, antithesis, and synthesis (TAS), a powerful methodological tool for the creation of any kind of innovation. It is surprising that his dialectic (hitherto also referred to as TAS dialectic) is almost completely neglected in the literature on creativity and creativity techniques. The TAS dialectic is missing in almost all collections of creativity techniques, including brainstorming (in its many variations), Gordon's synectics, Zwicky's morphology, creative problem solving (CPS), De Bono's lateral thinking etc. (see the surveys by Geschka and Dahlem 1996, Meyer 2001, Müller-Merbach 1996, Nütten 1996 etc.). The TAS dialectic is quite simple in principle (Figure 1):

Dialectic Creativity

•

65

Thesis: There is opinion Τ about a certain situation, or an understanding Τ of a certain state of reality, or solution Τ is suggested for a certain problem.

•

Antithesis: The thesis (T) might not be generally accepted; instead, there may emerge the contrasting opinion A about the same situation, a controversial understanding A of the same state of reality, or a different solution A to the same problem. The existence of an antithesis (A) is a lucky event since the confrontation of thesis and antithesis might strongly initiate a deep process of controversial reflection or reflective debate.

•

Synthesis: The influence of reason may prevent the opponents, representing thesis and antithesis, respectively, from unproductive quarrel about the superiority of thesis or antithesis, respectively. Instead, the supporters of thesis and antithesis may sit together and analyse both, thesis and antithesis, and try to find a an opinion S of higher maturity, a deeper understanding S of the same reality, or a better solution S to the same problem. The synthesis requires a thorough analysis of thesis and antithesis, particularly of the differences. The analysis would be the foundation for the synthesis.

Figure 1: The principle of Hegel's TAS dialectic: antithesis in opposition to thesis; synthesis as unification of thesis and antithesis.

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The antithesis will in many cases be provided by a second group of people. It might, however, also be generated by the same people who came up with the thesis and who are imaginative enough to create an antithesis on their own. The TAS process may even be iteratively repeated in that the synthesis of round i is taken as thesis of round (i+1). Depending upon the complexity of the whole task, different aspects or components of the system under study may be considered in the single rounds (section 6). Heraclitus (ca. 550-480 BC) may be considered as one of the ancient predecessors of Hegel's triadic dialectic. Heraclitus states: "God is day night, winter summer, war peace, satiety hunger" (Kirk et al., p. 190). He obviously believes in the creative power of pairs of opposites. Heraclitus also believes in the dynamics between action and reaction, in strife between opposed substances; and he votes for quarrel, conflict, and war: "War is the father of all and king of all, and some he shows as gods, others as men; some he makes slaves, others free" (Kirk et al., p. 193). What Heraclitus and Hegel have in common is the belief in pairs of opposites, in contrast, in contradiction, in thesis versus antithesis. On the other hand, there is a major difference between Heraclitus and Hegel. Heraclitus sees cycles, e.g.: "Cold becomes warm, warm becomes cold, wet becomes dry, dry becomes wet", even if he does not claim that systems return to their starting positions; instead, they keep changing, driven by the power within the pairs of opposites. Anyhow, Heraclitus does not use the pairs of opposites to create solutions. He does not introduce a synthesis based upon thesis and antithesis. This is the particular property of Hegel's triadic dialectic. He welcomes the tensions between thesis and antithesis because they are the parents of synthesis.

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Synthesis means "aufheben", a German verb with three different, even controversial meanings: (i) to cancel, to annul, to abolish thesis and antithesis: they are not effective anymore; (ii) to keep, to preserve, to maintain the essence of thesis and antithesis in the synthesis: to save the content of thesis and antithesis; (iii) to raise, to lift, to elevate the content of thesis and antithesis to a higher level: to enrich the value of thesis and antithesis. The suitability of the TAS dialectic as a root for creativity techniques seems to be given. The TAS dialectic has only to be "admitted" to the club of creativity techniques. It only has to be "baptized" as a creativity technique. The TAS dialectic has not even to be changed or adapted. It may only be complemented by a procedural guide (section 6). In this paper, •

examples of the TAS dialectic will be presented in section 2,

•

the potential of the TAS dialectic for interdisciplinarity will be discussed in section 3,

•

three types of personalities, according to TAS, will be put forward in section 4,

•

the potential of the TAS dialectic for democratic processes (i.e. parliamentary solutions) will be considered in section 5,

•

the creativity technique based upon the TAS dialectic will be structured in section 6,

•

the basics of the TAS dialectic will be considered in section 7, and

•

a conclusion will be offered in section 8.

2. The TAS dialectic: Examples "I am too much of a sceptic to deny the possibility of anything." (Τ. H. Huxley, 1825-1895)

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In order to support the imagination of the readers, a variety of examples will be used to demonstrate the manifold variety of applications of the TAS dialectic (some of them taken from Müller-Merbach 1990). Simple cases may just lead to a shallow compromise, such as: •

77 Marion has green eyes.

•

A: No, she has blue eyes.

•

S: The colour of her eyes has elements of both, green and blue, and seems to be changing within a bandwidth.

Even if such a compromise does not really lead to a new understanding, it might be a bit richer than just the mean. Anyhow, TAS processes may be started with more careful formulations such that nobody is in the danger to lose his face, such as: •

T: The colour of these eyes reminds me of dark green, velvety bright reet.

•

A: To me it is the dark blue of a silver fir.

•

S: The colour if these eyes changes in mysterious nuances between dark green and dark blue such as the colour of the moon lake.

According to the wording, the differences between thesis and antithesis are harder or softer, rough or polite. The second dialogue somehow borrowed its style from the more flowery Asian (or Japanese) art of argumentation. In many cases, the TAS dialectic proves useful for hen-and-egg problems, such as: •

T: Technological progress is the trigger for economic growth.

•

A: No, you need economic growth first such that you can finance technological progress.

•

S: Technological progress and economic growth emerge in mutual interdependence, starting with small steps.

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Another case of hen and egg: •

T: New technologies start with insight through theory.

•

A: No, they start with courageous practice.

•

S: Normally, there is little theory and little experience from practice in the beginning, and both, theory and practice, develop in mutual fertilisation. The steam-engine is an example. There was little theory in the beginning when James Watts (1736-1819) started his first specimen; but there was limited practical success until Nicolas Leonard Sadi Carnot (1796-1832) developed his thermodynamic theory of circular processes. The history of engines is a history of mutual exchange between theory and practice.

Another wide field of TAS utilisation are disputes about the importance of causes, such as production factors: •

T: Labour is the only real production factor of the economy.

•

A: It may have been so in the very past. Today, the driving force is capital, becoming more and more dominant - at the macro level of national economies as well as at the micro level of the enterprises.

•

S; Economic production of wealth requires two main factors, labour and capital. They make up for a whole. They got to support and complement one another - and not wrangle each other. Conflicts (such as strikes) can occur and will occur, but they should be carried out in the consciousness that labour and capital - in the long run - continue to depend on one another.

It can well be that even theories are not in agreement and that the TAS dialectic offers a bridge, such as: •

T: Light is an electromagnetic radiation.

•

A: No, light consists of tiny particles, quantums, photons.

•

S: Light is both, radiation as well as particles, and has the attributes of both. Due to the particular phenomenon, one of either understanding may provide the more suitable explanation.

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In economics, there are two controversial doctrines about the stimulation of growth, the demand side doctrine and the supply side doctrine: •

T: The economy will flourish if sufficient demand is available to buy goods.

•

A: Additional demand requires additional purchasing power, and additional purchasing power requires additional production (or enforced redistribution of wealth or public subsidies based upon new public debt). Therefore, the demand side theory is incomplete and dangerous. Instead, the supply ought to be enforced, the conditions for value creation by production.

•

S: Both doctrines, demand and supply side, have logic and truth in themselves; on the other hand, any one of them is one-sided and covers only a limited range of economic rationality. A combination of both, demand and supply side doctrine, could be the right answer.

The TAS dialectic can even be useful in the discussion of greatness, such as: •

T: Plato (ca. 428-348 BC) was the greatest philosopher so far. This is supported by Whitehead (1861-1947) who has said that all philosophy after Plato are merely commentaries about Plato.

•

A: No, the greatest and most influential philosopher was Aristotle (384322 BC), the archfather of all science, Plato's most important scholar.

•

S: Europe is to be congratulated to have had the two fundamental giants of Western philosophy, Plato and Aristotle, who set the foundation-stone of two important orientations of philosophy, Plato with idealism, Aristotle with materialism.

A question of ongoing actuality is the intelligence of computers: •

T: Computers become more and more intelligent, and with the advancement of "electronic intelligence" will the computers gradually take over the intellectual activities of human beings.

•

A: Computers have no intelligence at all; only human beings are the carriers of intelligence, because intelligence depends on lively con-

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sciousness, on the awareness of responsibility, and on the ability of reasoning. •

S: Our future lies in man-computer tandems, an organised co-operation of mankind and machinery. Human knowledge and electronic information processing will support each other and lead to systems of new intellectual power.

In addition to such short and demonstrative examples, quite a few success cases of innovations through the TAS dialectic are available which, however, would require much more space. 3. The influence of the TAS dialectic on interdisciplinary curiosity "The trouble with the world is that the stupid are cocksure and the intelligent are full of doubt." (Bertrand Russell, 1872-1970) The awareness of the TAS dialectic may strongly influence the mental behaviour: any idea, any recommendation, any advice, any solution, any plan etc. - i.e. any thesis - may trigger the search for antitheses, not as roadblockers or killer phrases, but rather as a stimulation to search for better ideas. This has the same motivation as Zwicky's morphological principle of "negation & construction" (Zwicky 1966, pp. 134-147; Zwicky 1967, pp. 291f.). The thesis might be based upon a certain discipline - be it economics, engineering, jurisprudence, physics, sociology, computer science, psychology, ecology etc. A thesis based on one particular discipline may trigger many antitheses based upon other disciplines, such as: •

T: Any enterprise ought to be evaluated from the economic and financial point of view.

•

A: Doubt regarding the one-sidedness may lead to the invitation of social scientists to evaluate the "social capital" of the enterprise, the invitation of engineering scientists to judge about the technological advan-

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tages and disadvantages of the products and of the production processes, the invitation of computer scientists to assess the adequacy of hardware and software, the invitation of ecologists to value the environmental activities etc. •

S: The evaluation of any enterprise requires interdisciplinary

manifold-

ness. Any view is welcome, any monodisciplinary judgement may be included - only if the single monodisciplinary views do not require absolute priority. The totality of the monodisciplinary facets make up for a rich interdisciplinary totality. Quite similarly could religious pluralism be initiated, connected with active tolerance: How would our Christian position differ from a Jewish, Muslim, Buddhist, Hinduist, Confucian etc. position? The equivalent holds for different cultures, different nations, different races, different continents etc. Any such collection of several antitheses, opposing a monocultural thesis would be the pillars for a comprehensive synthesis. Whether such a comprehensive synthesis comes into being and is generally accepted depends upon many circumstances. An example is Hans Küng and his project "World Ethos". The trial as such may justify the effort. 4. Three types of personalities with reference to TAS "All men are creative but few are artists." (Paul Goodman, 1911-1972) The TAS dialectic can also be seen as an invitation to distinguish between three (idealistic) types of personalities, the T-, the A-, and the S-type: •

T-Type: The T-Type may be a Tom-with-the-quick-response.

He tends

to present his opinion spontaneously. He will unveil his understanding

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73

immediately and come up with early solutions to problems. He is creative and intuitive, but perhaps not very reflective. •

Α-Type: An Α-Type may tend to contradict, to disagree, to resist - a sceptic. He will respond to the spontaneous opinion of the T-Type, to his understanding and to his solutions. He may not immediately react to the situation or the problem as such but, instead, to the answers. His motives may be connected with some spirits of opposition, but may be far away from misanthropy. He may be an

•

Albert-of-ten-alternatives.

S-Type: The S-Type may be a more reflective and analytic character, who combines talent of systematic analysis and of systemic design. He may enjoy to analyse thesis and antitheses, compare them, evaluate the single components and combine them to a new whole. He may be a kind of Sam-the-integrator.

There is no empirical evidence that these three types exist - in separation. However, it seems to be well possible that some people have a particular Tintelligence, others a characteristic Α-intelligence, and again others a dominant S-intelligence. 5. TAS dialectic for democratic processes and parliamentary solutions "They spend their time mostly looking forward to the past." (John Osborn, 1924-1994) The TAS dialectic may also have a potential to structure and improve democratic activities and parliamentary debate and problem solving - even if such processes tend to be strongly influenced by tactical considerations. •

T: Generally spoken, the administration (and its parties) comes up with a solution to a current problem, and this solution represents - more or less, and more or less visibly - the ideology of the parties of the administration.

•

A: The opposition tends to criticise the solution for three groups of reasons: (i) Impartial reasons: The opposition does not believe in the effec-

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tiveness of the solution, (ii) Ideological reasons: The opposition unveils the underlying ideology of the administration (and its parties) and distrusts, consequently, its solution (at least identifiable parts of it), (iii) Reasons on principle: In order to please the public and in order to demonstrate its independence, the opposition seems to have the duty to criticise any solution of the administration - a somehow choreographed ceremony which will not be abolished and can not be abolished. •

S: However, through TAS dialectic, the whole process can possibly be improved. The medium would be a strict and rigorous analysis of the thesis (and its components), i.e. the proposal by the administration, the analysis of the antithesis (and its components), i.e. the counter-proposal by the opposition, and lead eventually to a synthesis, (i) either as an improved proposal by the administration or (ii) an improved alternative proposal by the opposition, or (iii) a jointly agreed proposal: the actual synthesis.

Should the opposition consists of several blocks, each of them might participate in this process independently of the other blocks. Anyhow, most parliaments seem to lack the wisdom and rationality behind the TAS-dialectic. 6. Creativity, based upon the TAS dialectic "When man wanted to make a machine that would walk he created the wheel, which does not resemble a leg." (Guillaume Apollinaire, 1880-1918) Any creativity technique based upon the TAS dialectic will consist of three basic components: a thesis as a first solution, then one or more antitheses as second (and counter) solutions, leading to one or more syntheses as third solutions. These three components can be preceded by activities such as problem definition, problem analysis etc. Any solution can be succeeded by an analysis.

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Different solutions can be compared with each other (confrontation), and the result can again be analysed (Figure 2).

Activity 1: Problem definition Activity 2: Problem analysis Activity 3: Search for a first solution (thesis) Activity 4: Analysis of thesis Activity 5: Search for second solutions (antitheses) Activity 6: Analysis of antitheses Activity 7: Confrontation of thesis with antitheses Activity 8: Search for third solutions (syntheses) Activity 9: Analysis of syntheses Activity 10: Choice of solution

Figure 2: Structure of creative problem solving processes based upon the TAS dialectic

One possible order of activities is presented in figure 2. However, this order is not a dogmatic "one-and-only" structure of the creative process. There exist many alternatives, such as: (i) The process can be organised as a tree with one thesis (the root), several antitheses (as alternative stumps) and a plenty of syntheses (the branches), (ii) The process can as well be organised as a river passing a set of islands, beginning with a quiet unified flow (thesis), splitting up into many arms between the islands (the antitheses), joining again in a unified flow (the one and only synthesis). The activities need not be organised as consecutive phases. Instead, they may overlap with one another and may partly be carried out simultaneously. The process may include iterative repetitions, according to several different principles:

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•

The single repetitions may refer to individual disciplines each, such as aspects of physics, of chemistry, of thermodynamics, of information processes and control, economics, ergonomics, cost effectiveness, appeal to customers etc.

•

The repetitions can be organised according to the four causes of Aristotle: (i) causa formalis (formal cause), i.e. the structure, form, design; (ii) causa materialis (material cause), i.e. the materials to be used; (iii) causa efficiens (efficient cause), i.e. the process of production, and (iv) causa finalis (final cause), i.e. the purpose, the end, the goal.

•

The repetitions can also be organised according to top-down hierarchies, i.e. the whole, the sections, the elements.

In any iteration, the synthesis (or choice of solution) can be taken as thesis of the next iteration. The whole process - such as outlined in figure 2 - may be specified and prescribed in more detail for particular types of problems. However, the total process should offer a high degree of freedom, particularly with respect to the combination of thesis, antitheses, and syntheses. 7. Basics of the TAS dialectic "Everything flows and nothing stays." "You can't step twice into the same river." (Heraclitus, ca. 540-480 BC) In contrast to the practical aspects of section 6, some foundations of the TAS dialectic shall be presented now, particularly enriched by quotations from philosophy. The term "dialectic" has Greek roots and is being used in philosophy since at least 2,300 years:

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"dialectic (from Greek, dialektike, the art of conversation, discussion; or dialektikos, one skilled in logical argument or debate - originally referred to debating tournaments in which the primary aim was to refute an opponent's arguments or lead the opponent to contradictions, dilemmas, or paradoxes. In general, a dialectician was one who left nothing unquestioned)" (Angeles 1992, p. 71). Among different dialectics, Angeles (1992, p. 71) outlines Hegel's triadic TAS dialectic: "dialectic (Hegel) 1. the process whereby a thought or an existing thing necessarily leads to or changes into its opposite (or contradictory), thereby arriving at a new synthesis (unity). 2. the process of change in thought and the universe in which a higher level of knowledge (truth) and of existence (unity) is reached by means of the necessary opposition of contradictories. 3. the process of necessary change involving a triad (three elements) consisting of (a) an existing thing or thought (thesis), (b) its opposite or contradictory (antithesis), and (c) the unity (synthesis) resulting from their interaction and which then becomes the basis (thesis) of another dialectical movement. Sometimes referred to as triadic dialectic. Hegel's dialectic is developmental and evolutionary in character, and its end point is complete perfection." Under "dialectical logic", Angeles (1992, p. 170) refers to the process of change: "It is thought that this process can be seen in the polarities of change (thesis and antithesis) found in all activity. Contradiction is the driving force in all things." Bertrand Russell (1979, pp. 701-715) spents the whole chapter XXII on Hegel, but does not hide his distance to him: "Even if (as I myself believe) almost all Hegel's doctrines are false, he still retains an importance ..." (p. 701). Anyhow, he emphasises Hegel's particularity: "Two things distinguish Hegel from other men who have had a more or less similar metaphysical outlook. One of these is emphasis on logic: . . . . The other distinguishing feature (which is closely connected with the first) is the triadic movement called the 'dialectic'" (p. 702), "... the dialectic, which consists of thesis, antithesis, and synthesis" (p. 703).

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Durant (1953, pp. 292-299) as well has a chapter on Hegel. Durant emphasises the power of opposites, too: "Of all relations, the most universal is that of contrast or opposition. Every condition of thought or of things - every idea and every situation in the world - leads irresistibly to its opposite, and then unites with it to form a higher or more complex whole. This 'dialectical movement' runs through everything that Hegel wrote" (p. 295), and: "thesis, antithesis and synthesis constitute the formula and secret of all development and all reality" (pp. 295f.). Durant refers to the dialectic of development:"... the future will see neither the present reality nor the visioned ideal, but a synthesis in which something of both will come together to beget a higher life" (p. 296). 8. Conclusion and outlook "When the imagination sleeps, words are emptied of their meaning." (Albert Camus, 1913-1960) The TAS dialectic is an attitude of mind. It can continuously accompany one's thinking - even if somebody else's thinking might be completely free of the TAS dialectic. The author is convinced that the consciousness of the TAS dialectic has a high potential to positively enrich the mental activity of anybody and to support his/her creative potential. The author is also convinced that the TAS dialectic - applied as a creativity technique - should remain a high degree of freedom and should not be fenced by too strict procedural rules. The TAS dialectic is a genial invention by Hegel. It still is a powerful tool for innovative thinking. "If a man will begin with certainties, he shall end in doubts; but if he will be content to begin with doubts,

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he shall end in certainties." (Francis Bacon, 1561-1626)

Literature Angeles, Peter Α., Philosophy - The HarperCollins Dictionary. New York: HarperPerennial 1992. De Bono, Edward, The Use of Lateral Thinking. Harmondsworth: Penguin 1972. Durant, Will, The Story of Philosophy. New York et al.: Pocket Books 1953 (1st edition 1926). Geschka, Horst; Stefan Dahlem, Kreativitätstechniken und Unternehmenserfolg, in: technologie & management, vol. 45, 1996, no. 3, pp. 106-110. Kirk, G. S.; J. E. Raven; M. Schofield, The Presocratic Philosophers (2nd edition). Cambridge et al.: Cambridge University Press 1983 (1st edition 1957). Küng, Hans, Projekt Weltethos (2nd edition). München: Piper 1990. Meyer, Jörn-Axel (Ed.), Innovationsmanagement in kleinen und mittleren Unternehmen. München: Vahlen 2001. Müller-Merbach, Heiner, Mit Bezug auf Hegel: Problemlösen durch dreifaches Aufheben, in: technologie & management, vol. 39, 1990, no. 1, pp. 40-45 (reprinted in the book: Müller-Merbach, Heiner: Philosophie-Splitter für das Management (3rd edition). Bad Homburg: DIE 1995, pp. 227-247). Müller-Merbach, Heiner, Kontrollierte Kreativität - Gebändigte Phantasie Gezügeltes Querdenken: Von der Kultur schöpferischer Neugestaltung, in: technologie & management, vol. 45, 1996, no. 3, pp. 99-104.

How to Make Creativity to Serve the Objectives of Corporate Strategy

Roc Irwin Peng

Introduction Helmut Maucher, CEO of Nestle said creativity is important not only in R & D but also in every aspect of enterprise activities. Creativity is becoming more and more important for enterprises to gain competitive advantages. But who, and which creative behaviors or processes contribute most to the key competitive advantages for an enterprise is hard to assess without an objective assessment metrics or system. So the requirement of building a creativity evaluation and analysis system comes. Some work has been done on creativity evaluation and assessment. As early as the year 2000, Professor Dian'nan Yang [2] from University of Shanghai for Sei. & Tech. had proposed to do the work of creativity assessment, he also explained the meaning and significance of creativity evaluation, pointing out that theoretical methodology shall be studied and evaluation metrics shall be specified first before doing creativity evaluation. In the year 2001, Professor Shixia Fu and Yongjun Sun from Peking University discussed the creativity evaluation model for science and technology organizations, pointing out the theoretical foundation and basic study methodology of creativity evaluation 0. Professor Jianbo Peng from Panzhihua Institute, Sichuan Province did creativity assessment in high education experiments for college students 0. Zhangdu Yuan 0 designed a creativity assessment table to quantify creativity of individuals. Much software has been developed to facilitate human creativity as mention by Tony Proctor 0 and Turban 0. But till now, I haven't seen solid method and implementation process introduced, especially short of study in theoretical research and practical application for use in the field of information age enterprise management. Applying management science methods and

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How to Make Creativity to Serve the Objectives of Corporate Strategy

decision support tools to evaluate creativity and creative behavior isn't seen either. So I propose the methodology and procedure of evaluating creativity using balanced scorecard on business intelligence platform, which is an integral component of enterprise information system, to make creativity better serve the corporate strategy objective. Method: Balanced Scorecard Competitiveness of an enterprise relates closely to enterprise management, so let's start from this. In the domain of enterprise management, strategy-focused management has been brought to arena long since, more and more organizations began to use the balanced scorecard to measure enterprise performance. The method is going to be the main trend in enterprise performance measurement. The balanced scorecard strategic management system (not only a measurement system) was developed for information age companies by Drs. Robert Kaplan (Harvard Business School) and David Norton (Balanced Scorecard Collaborative) in 1992. The balanced scorecard suggests that we view the organization from four perspectives, and to develop metrics, collect data and analyze it relative to each of these perspectives (Figure 1): Financial T o succeed financially, how should we appear to our shareholders?"

Customer To achieve our vision, how should we appear to our customers?*

Vision and Strategy

Learning and tn Growth I η« 0> To achieve our ο s tn > X vision, how will « s α 1 Ξ S «©sustain our Ο 2 'S ability to change and Improve?"

Figure 1: The Balanced Scorecard (Source: Balanced Scorecard Collaborative, Inc.)

How to Make Creativity to Serve the Objectives of Corporate Strategy

•

The Learning and Growth Perspective

•

The Business Process Perspective

•

The Customer Perspective

•

The Financial Perspective

83

Learning and growth perspective: creating a corporate environment that incorporates change, innovation and growth. The elements include: employee satisfaction, information usage etc. As the time goes and the information industry is more developed, this perspective will evolve into "Innovation and Creativity" as shown in Figure 2, and act as the source of financial income (value creation) as show in Figure 3.

Internal Business Processes Innovat ion &

Finiancial

|

Internal

Creativity

1 1

Processes

Figure 2: Transition of Balanced Scorecard

Figure 3: Innovation as the source of value creation

Internal Process: To make effective internal control, supply chain management, comprehensive use of ways when accessing resources, process improvement to meet the requirements of customers and stakeholders.

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How to Make Creativity to Serve the Objectives of Corporate Strategy

Customer perspective: In developing metrics for satisfaction, customers should be analyzed in terms of kinds of customers and the kinds of processes for which we are providing a product or service to those customer groups. Financial perspective: Optimized cost, corporate margin and risk tolerance for stakeholders. The first two perspectives: "learning and growth" and "internal processes" are key dimensions to evaluate creativity. The former is mainly for individual creativity evaluation while the later is for group creative behavior interaction evaluation; each dimension has its quantitative metric. Since individual creativity is shown in group activity, group collaboration and processes, the learning and growth perspective and internal process perspective is interlaced with each other. At the same time, we can see that analysis to internal process is the essential part, that is, to analyze what procedure is creative. Financial and Customer perspective can be seen as the result of creativity. The relationship of the other two perspectives is shown when using relational analysis method. Tool: Business Intelligence Platform To evaluate corporate performance, we need data input. Where is the data from? Before the popularization of computer and networks, we get these data mainly from working files, such as, contracts, orders, pay sheets, requirement specification, design specification, element manufacturing log, assembly log and customer service log, complaint case log etc. Then corporate accountants and managers spend large amount of time analyzing and summarizing these materials.

How to Make Creativity to Serve the Objectives of Corporate Strategy

Raw Data

insight

Action I

ι

Pomt-o1-S»le

85

Data

Business

||jg

Warehouse

intelligence

Graph I

Call Center Supply Chain Webitort

*

Report Γ*

*

®

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Figure 4: Enterprise Business Intelligence Systems

With the development of computer network and software, e-collaboration is becoming more and more popular among different departments and organizational levels. More and more data about individual and group objectives, activities and results, including creative activities and results, is recorded into many kinds of operational information systems in electronic form. This kind of data, called raw data, dispersed in different departments and projects, will finally be extracted, transformed and loaded (ETL) into concentrated integrated corporate data warehouse to support enterprise level decision support. As shown in Figure 4, the concentrated data warehouse is the base of enterprise Business Intelligence (Bl). Even though many companies haven't constructed their Bl system, it's a have-to for modern enterprise. All of those provided physical foundation for evaluation of individual and corporate creativity and creative behavior.

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The present phases are the core or central acting unit of a creative complex. Collaborative creativity in a creative complex is an emergent (Montuori & Purser 1999: p. 34; Sawyer 2003: pp. 10-13), dynamic and moment-to-moment phenomenon. It is different and not reducible to the added creativity of the psychic systems. In the present phases the participants come together and the communications process leads to the development of collaborative creativity. Themes (problems or tasks) are the initial reasons for creative complexes and keep the autopoiesis of the communications process going till the creative prototype is developed. They can be predetermined by others (e.g. the management of an organization) or they are part of the creative complex. During the communications process the theme structures the contributions (utterances) of the participants in a sequential way. If several participants speak simultaneously, verbal chaos will be inevitable. Therefore, listening psychic systems cannot follow any longer or unintentional subsystems structures will arise. The sequence navigates the contributions on the theme and enables

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the harmonization of each contribution (similarly Barrett 1999: p. 137). Themes and sequential structures promote collaborative creativity through a paradoxical momentum: increase of contributory variety due to a reduction of contributory possibility (Montuori & Purser 1999: p. 34). The contingent and unpredictable (Sawyer 2003: p. 6-8) variety of single contributions in the communications process speeds up mu/f/sociations (an intensifying form of Koestler's bisociations) which are necessary to find a creative solution. The relevant absent phases serve two main purposes. As the psychic systems are closely coupled with the communications process in the present phase, they do not have enough time for sufficient reflexions. What has been said (and documented!) can be examined by incubation of the psychic systems. Additionally, the participants of the creative complex get the chance to work on the theme in private study or in other interaction systems.4 The gained knowledge can be a point of contact for a subsequent present phase. With the help of the relevant absent phases possible blinkers of the participants may be prevented early and the horizon of the contributory variety is expanded. In summary, a creative complex is characterized by a singular and sequential communications process in the present phases which is complemented by a plurality of psychic and communicative processes in the relevant absent phases. How can the creativity process in a creative complex be described? First, it has to be said that there is not the one and only generic and standardized creativity process (Tardif & Sternberg 1988: pp. 431-432; Lubart 2000/01: pp. 304-305). Each single process is individual and determined by the situation. In this article an ideal type of a creativity process is presented. Phase models developed by psychological creativity research are useful (for an overview of different models Nickerson 1999: pp. 394-396; Lubart 2000/01). With regard to a theory of creative complexes these phases are viewed not only psychically but also socially. It is decisive that the classically known phases are synchronized with the present/absent phases. A basic framework is illustrated by figure 3. The dotted lines and the curved arrow make clear, that the creativity process is distinguished by co-occurrence, interrelations and feedback loops.

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The figure shows the flowing performance in a creative complex. However, it is only one (but the core) part of the creativity process. The open-ended length of the curved arrow is designed to explain connected external phases. The most important post-phase e.g. is the social acceptance (prestige) of the prototype. After successful implementation in the relevant social systems experts and audience can name a prototype as an innovation or creation. I call the attributing communications process of social acceptance creativation.

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Practical implications The starting point for the practical implications is uniqueness of each single creative complex. Hence, generalizing copy-cat predictions in form of a toolbox do not approach the complexity and emergence of collaborative creativity (Sawyer 2003: p. 163), but tendencies can be observed. The described practical implications focus on some aspects which in my opinion are particularly important to initiate and handle a creative complex. Generally speaking, there exist two kinds of initiating a creative complex: intrinsic or extrinsic. Intrinsically initiated creative complexes emerge from one or several participants themselves. They know each other in advance and they often have a close relationship. Their creative success is hardly predictable, as it depends very much on serendipity. However, intrinsically initiated creative complexes can produce paradigmatic creations through exceptional collaborative creativity (for historical examples see John-Steiner 2000). Extrinsically initiated creative complexes are found by non-participatory people or social systems, above all by organizations: Management or even employees promote collaborative creativity. The extrinsic creative collaborations are widespread and "common in their uniqueness". Therefore, they are especially important for analysis and are focused in the following part.5 For the success of a creative complex especially in the present phases the composition of participation is fundamental. A rough idea of kind of the developing prototype helps the initiator to choose the right participants. The prototype can be regarded either as an improved innovation or as a paradigmatic creation. Sternberg, Kaufman and Pretz (2002: pp. 9-13) make a distinction between eight kinds of creative contributions. For predicting a creative prototype an initiator needs profound knowledge about the relevant domain(s). As collaborative creativity can only emerge in a multisociative communications process, a small-group

encounter is a necessary requirement (Conti &

Amabile 1999: p. 214; Paulus & Larey & Dzindolet 2001: p. 333; Sawyer 2003: p. 21). The intension is to avoid a passive observer. In order to give each psy-

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chic system a chance to participate in the communicative flow, the number of persons should be restricted (around 8). The selection of participants is a tricky task: persons who are attributed high creativity do not automatically have high collaborative creativity. A successful formation needs experience and a sense of tact, for the distinctions of the psychic systems affect the communications process (cf. Kurtzberg & Amabile 2000/01: p. 287; Sawyer 2003: pp. 47-50). The paradox "harmony in opposition" serves as a guideline for the composition of the creative complex. With their psychoeconomic view of creative work in groups Rubenson and Runco (1995) offer a stimulating approach which implies "that groups should be composed of heterogeneous participants who vary in their experiences within the domain in question, and who are only moderately familiar with one another, for most successful creative performance." (p. 232) An oscillation between the characteristics (e.g. domain experience, flexibility of thinking) is necessary during the creativity process. Collaborative creativity is maximized by a harmonious balance and complementarity (cf. John-Steiner 2000: pp. 7-8) of the personal differences in the creative complex. In the selection process a further paradox is unavoidable and has to be handled. On the one hand, the participants can only be chosen with regard to their present role in the organization regardless of all the hidden personal facets of their psychic systems (see again Figure 2). On the other hand, collaborative creativity will grow, if the creative complex is not dominated by status. Ideally, the role status has to be made invisible for the duration of the creative complex. This can be achieved by symmetric structures, which are formed at the beginning of the first present phase. Equality ensures unconstrained actions and reduces communicative restraints. It might be helpful to prepare the selected participants for the intended equality in advance, e.g. through one-toone conversations or training. Immediately after the initiation the participants develop the communicative rules, which is part of a warm-up period. External support in this phase is useful but not as direct intervention in the structuring of the creative complex. It

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may have a negative effect on motivation (basically Amabile 1996) and the complete acceptance of the theme (problem or task).6 Additionally, there is a risk that the organizational roles of the participants become apparent. Only the creative complex is responsible for the handling of the creativity process. To foster multisociations strong communicative rules are to be avoided. This is supported by Kylen and Shani (2002), who see rigid interaction patterns as blocks for creativity. In particular, two ruling aspects are important to clarify: leadership and decision-making.

A collaboration leader is helpful to coordinate the forming

process (for the role of a creative team leader see Rickards & Moger 1999). Generally speaking his role focuses on motivation, mediation and climate (cf. Bennis & Biederman 1997: pp. 26-27) in the creative complex. I think that a second type of leadership is desirable during the creativity process: These are focal figures, who alternately undertake a voluntary leading expert role in the different process phases (e.g. preparation or verification) to push the flowing performance. The splitted leadership avoids dominance of a single human being and ensures a peer structure. As the object of each creative complex is to produce a creative prototype, decisions have to be made during the creativity process. The participants agree about the decision-making at the beginning of the first present phase. A decision can be reached by consensus, majority or leadership (in case of irreconcilable difference of opinion). During the flowing performance the creative complex observes the development of the ongoing creativity. Self-observation and self-assessment should be an intrinsic part of the communications process (cf. Rickards & Moger 1999: p. 23). Modifications are implemented, when the potential for appropriate novelty is insufficient. For instance, theme and solution-finding reach a saturation point, after which new contributions are no longer anticipated (Luhmann 1995: p. 156). To keep the performance alive and to refresh the communications process, several strategies are possible: (1) use creativity techniques and learning aid to enhance creativity (cf. Nickerson 1999; Rickards & Moger 1999)7, (2) speed up the alternation between present and absent phases, (3) recruit new participants and/or exchange present ones.

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Problems can arise in the last case, if the identity of the creative complex is eroded. Alternatively, the creative complex could seek advice of external consultants (e.g. a motivation coach or a domain expert), so that the participatory structure keeps alive. Creative complexes do not operate in a vacuum, as they are mutually dependent on their environment, e.g. places (domains, social systems), prestige (experts, audiences) and other relevant people. In general, the social context must allow creative complexes to emerge and must be willing to change their own status quo. It can encourage the initiation of creative complexes through an open-minded culture and structure. Many incentive measures are conceivable, but first of all it is decisive to take creative complexes and their work seriously in practical settings. Concluding remarks Multidisciplinary research is necessary to understand collaborative creativity in a holistic way (cf. Montuori & Purser 1999: p. 20-23; Sawyer 2003: p. 13). The presented model of creative complexes offers such an approach. In particular, the phenomenon of structural couplings is a promising idea to close the gap between psychological and sociological creativity research. What could be points of contact for future research? As the model only outlines the essentials of creative complexes, the theoretical basis has to be cultivated. Not only a further reference to Niklas Luhmann's systems theory could be fruitful but also a reference to e.g. Pierre Bourdieu's concepts of habitus and field (cf. Burow 1999). Additionally, insights are gained by a synopsis with other social/collaborative creativity approaches (Csikszentmihalyi 1999; Rickards & Moger 1999; Paulus & Larey & Dzindolet 2001; Sawyer 2003). With the model of creative complexes diverse kinds of collaborative creativity could be examined in reality. Extreme cases should also be taken into consideration: (1) creative complexes characterized by exclusive absent

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phases, e.g. creative correspondence, (2) creative complexes characterized by exclusive present phases, e.g. jazz performance, (3) multiple types characterized by cooperation of several creative complexes. The presented theory allows a new kind of reflecting and observing collaborative creativity. Two ways to work with the model of creative complexes can be imagined: historical and applied. Case study methods, e.g. the evolving systems approach (Gruber 1989), could help to analyse in retrospect historical creative collaborations (cf. Bennis & Biederman 1997; John-Steiner 2000) from the point of view of creative complexes. Interviews or participant observations could be used for applied settings to accompany and describe creative complexes in the different phases of the flowing performance. With the help of comparative analysis common interests and differences are worked out, which could serve as references for initiation and handling of creative complexes. The results of both ways will lead to improve the understanding of collaborative creativity in the future. Notes 1. It has to be said that the presented model is just one possibility for observing collaborative creativity. Sawyer (2003) e.g. develops a model of improvisational group creativity mainly based on semiotics. 2. In this article the structural coupling is explained on the systems level. On the operative level language serves the coupling of communication and consciousness in most cases (Luhmann 2002b: p. 173). 3. With regard to creativity Sawyer (2003: p. 9) writes: "In group creativity, the dependence of each action on the subsequent flow of the performance results in a situation in which it is impossible for the performers to have identical mental representations of what is going on." 4. An absent phase should not last too long, as the participants go different ways and the common information basis for the flow of the performance in the present phase can only be rebuilt with difficulty. 5. In reality hybrid forms can be observed, where extrinsic and intrinsic initiation coincides.

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6. For instance, a deadline can serve as an external control mechanism. The fixed date has a direct influence on the course of the communications process and collaborative creativity (cf. Rubenson & Runco 1995: p. 238). 7. Techniques and learning aid are not only helpful in problematic situations but also during the whole creativity process. References Amabile, Τ. M. (1996) Creativity in Context, Westview Press, Boulder, USA. Barrett, F. J. (1999) 'Knowledge creating as dialogic accomplishment: a constructionist perspective' In A. Montuori & R. E. Purser (Ed) Social Creativity Volume 1 (pp. 133-151), Hampton Press, Cresskill, USA. Bennis, W. & Biederman, P. W. (1997) Organizing Genius: the Secrets of Creative Collaboration, Perseus Books, Cambridge, USA. Burow, O.-A. (1999) Die Individualisierungsfalle: Kreativität gibt es nur im Plural, Klett-Cotta, Stuttgart, FRG. Conti, R. & Amabile, Τ. M. (1999) 'The impact of downsizing on organizational creativity and innovation' In A. Montuori & R. E. Purser (Ed) Social Creativity Volume 2 (pp. 209-232), Hampton Press, Cresskill, USA. Csikszentmihalyi, M. (1999) 'Implications of a systems perspective for the study of creativity' In R. J. Sternberg (Ed) Handbook of Creativity (pp. 313335), Cambridge University Press, New York, USA. Gruber, Η. E. (1989) 'The evolving systems approach to creative work' In D. B. Wallace & Η. E. Gruber (Ed) Creative People at Work: Twelve Cognitive Case Studies (pp. 3-24), Oxford University Press, New York, USA. John-Steiner, V. (2000) Creative Collaboration, Oxford University Press, New York, USA.

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Kurtzberg, Τ. R. & Amabile, Τ. Μ. (2000/01) 'From Guilford to creative synergy: opening the black box of team-level creativity', Creativity Research Journal, Vol. 13 No. 3 & 4, pp. 285-294. Kylen, S. F. & Shani A. B. (Rami) (2002) Triggering creativity in teams: an exploratory investigation', Creativity and Innovation Management, Vol. 11 No. 1, pp. 17-30. Lubart, Τ. I. (2000/01) 'Models of the creative process: past, present and future', Creativity Research Journal, Vol. 13 No. 3 & 4, pp. 295-308. Luhmann, N. (1991) 'Die Form "Person'", Soziale Welt, Vol. 42 No. 2, pp. 166175. Luhmann, N. (1992) 'The concept of society', Thesis Eleven, No. 31, pp. 6780. Luhmann, N. (1995) Social Systems, Stanford University Press, Stanford, USA. Originally published in German: Luhmann, N. (1984) Soziale Systeme: Grundriß einer allgemeinen Theorie, Suhrkamp, Frankfurt am Main, FRG. Luhmann, N. (2002a) 'What is communication?' In W. Rasch (Ed) Niklas Luhmann. Theories of Distinction: Redescribing the Descriptions of Modernity (pp. 155-168), Stanford University Press, Stanford, USA. Originally published in German: Luhmann, N. (1995) 'Was ist Kommunikation?' In Ν. Luhmann (Ed) Soziologische Aufklärung 6: Die Soziologie und der Mensch, (pp. 113-124), Westdeutscher Verlag, Opladen, FRG. Luhmann, N. (2002b) 'How can the mind participate in communication?' In W. Rasch (Ed) Niklas Luhmann. Theories of Distinction: Redescribing the Descriptions of Modernity (pp. 169-184), Stanford University Press, Stanford, USA. Originally published in German: Luhmann, N. (1995) 'Wie ist Bewußtsein an Kommunikation beteiligt?' In Ν. Luhmann (Ed) Soziologische Aufklärung 6:

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Die Soziologie und der Mensch, (pp. 37-54), Westdeutscher Verlag, Opladen, FRG. Montuori, A. & Purser R. E. (1999) 'Social creativity: introduction' In Α. Montuori & R. E. Purser (Ed) Social Creativity Volume 1 (pp. 1-45), Hampton Press, Cresskill, USA. Nickerson, R. S. (1999) 'Enhancing creativity' In R. J. Sternberg (Ed) Handbook of Creativity (pp. 392-430), Cambridge University Press, New York, USA. Paulus, P. B. & Larey, T. S. & Dzindolet, Μ. T. (2001) Creativity in groups and teams' In Μ. E. Turner (Ed) Groups at Work: Theory and Research (pp. 319-338), Lawrence Erlbaum Associates, Mahwah, USA. Rickards, T. & Moger S. (1999) Handbook for Creative Team Leaders, Gower Publishing Limited, Aldershot, UK. Rubenson, D. L. & Runco, M. A. (1995) 'The psychoeconomic view of creative work

in groups and organizations',

Creativity and

Innovation

Management, Vol. 4 No. 4, pp. 232-241. Sawyer, R. K. (2003) Group Creativity: Music, Theater, Collaboration, Lawrence Erlbaum Associates, Mahwah, USA. Sternberg, R. J. & Kaufman, J. C. & Pretz, J. E. (2002) The Creativity Conundrum:

A

Propulsion

Model

of

Kinds

of

Creative

Contributions,

Psychology Press, New York, USA. Tan, G. (1998) 'Managing creativity in organizations: a total system approach', Creativity and Innovation Management, Vol. 7 No. 1, pp. S. 23-31. Tardif, Τ. Z. & Sternberg, R. J. (1988) 'What do we know about creativity?' In R. J. Sternberg (Ed) The Nature of Creativity: Contemporary Psychological Perspectives (pp. 429-440), Cambridge University Press, New York, USA.

Creative Problem Solving in Software Development Outsourcing through Internet Zhenlin Xu

Abstract In the recent two years an enormous increasing number of companies turn to outsourcing by the software development towards foreign countries, in order to cut down development cost, reduce development duration, improve product quality, and concentrate on the core business activities. But the reality told us that nearly thirty percent of all outsourcing relationships end in dissatisfaction, failure, or litigation, especially when the outsourcing partner locates in foreign country. How to solve the occurred problems during this process by missing of direct face-to-face communication in time and correctly is nearly the key of success. This paper supplies a possible solution: creative usage of traditional innovation and creativity methods in Internet to solve occurred problems.

1. Introduction Each software can be considered as a unique synergy between the hardware, software and organisational context in which it will be utilised. Software development is the application of a systemic, disciplined, quantifiable approach to development, operation, and maintenance of this synergy and organisational context. It should guarantee the software quality, make it fit for the development purpose, produce it one time and within the budget. Thus software development has been described as a craft. But own of this craft is not so simple. A study of over 8,000 software development projects (Standish, 1995) reported only 16.2% of all projects were successful, 52.7% was over budget, time and had fewer features, 31.1% of projects were cancelled. The faulty quote of the software developments (over budget, time; fewer features; failure

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etc.) was especially higher if the companies develop the software by themselves (called in-house efforts), who but not own the necessary experiences and skills. A good solution of avoiding the higher faulty quote of the software developments is the outsourcing. Since software development is classified as a noncore activity in many businesses, the outsourcing could help them streamline their business processes and concern on the core business activities. Thus in the recent two years an enormous increasing number of companies turn to outsourcing by the software development, especially towards foreign countries, in order to cut down development cost, reduce development duration, improve product quality. But the reality told us that nearly thirty percent of all outsourcing relationships end in dissatisfaction, failure, or litigation (C. Jones 1998), especially when the outsourcing partner locates in foreign country. Therefore, this paper aims at pointing out a possible method that can be used to avoid the dissatisfaction, failure, litigation of the software development outsourcing. It analyzes and finds out the most occurred problem during the software development outsourcing towards foreign countries, proposes solving this problem through creative usage of traditional innovation and creativity methods in Internet. 2. Problem in software development outsourcing What is the most occurred problem during the software development outsourcing towards foreign countries? In order to answer this question, we turn to the software development outsourcing itself at first. Generally the software development outsourcing can be divided into three types (Brain G. Hermann 1999): •

product component outsourcing

the outsourcing partner is contracted to develop a part of an overall system. •

process component outsourcing

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the customer organization simply contracts for an external outsourcing partner to perform all or part of the functions of one ore more of their process steps or components. •

Software Acquisition (Total outsourcing)

the organization outsources each and every activity associated with the software which includes design, development, programming, testing and maintenance. In this paper we focus on the second type of outsourcing: process component outsourcing, which represents the most part of software development outsourcing towards foreign countries. In this type, normally only the first stage of the software development: requirements is remained by the customer, all the other stages: design, programming, testing and maintenance are performed by the outsourcing partner. This structure leads often to the most occurred problem during the software development outsourcing: misunderstanding, which limits the opinion exchange level between customer and outsourcing partner, reduces the possibility of finding newer idea/better solution. The reason for it is simple, the requirements alone tell only "what to do" in the software development, how to realize it, actually "how to do", "how well to do", etc. comes later in the design, programming, testing and maintenance stages. The establishment of corresponding correct relationship between "what to do" and "how to do" needs much more communication, discussion, understanding with each other, etc., what but often is not enough in the software development outsourcing, especially when the outsourcing partner is in the foreign country, where culture difference, language problem, missing direct face-to-face communication, etc. exists.

3. Solution Fortunately the modern technology, especially Internet supplies the possibility for the people in different countries to communicate with each other in a simple, quick and efficient way. Many common tools in Internet can be well used in the software development outsourcing towards foreign countries, just like Email could help exchange project documents, online chat tools like ICQ could

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help exchange opinion between customer and outsourcing partner real time, FTP could help transfer finished software and source codes, etc. Upon this solid basis many traditional innovation and creativity methods can be executed in different stages of software development now between customer and outsourcing partner even if they are not in the same country or can't meet each other directly. The creative usage of these traditional innovation and creativity methods is useful, because on the one hand these methods help find newer ideas/better ways (how to do) to realize a fixed purpose (what to do); on the other hand alone in the execution of these methods the customer and the outsourcing partner communicates with each other clearly more frequently, they have many chances to explain the same thing from different way to each other, it helps surely to understand each other and reduce the possible misunderstanding. A good example is the run of brainstorming session through Windows NetMeeting (a tool from Microsoft Corp., which enables more than one participants see and talk with each other through Internet). Brainstorming is well known as "a conference technique by which a group attempts to find a solution for a specific problem by amassing all the ideas spontaneously by its members" (Alex Osborn). It's ideal for the customer and outsourcing partner in the first virtual project meeting (online) to understand the purpose of the outsourced software project, search after possible solutions (by later decision the best one will be chosen from them), introduce themselves with the participants from other side and at last reduce the possible misunderstanding. And it can be organized in the following way: •

the organizer decides how and when the brainstorming session will be run and who will take part, he informs everybody through E-Mail or online chat tools with the session topic, actually the purpose of the software project.

•

the arranged time comes, the organizer open a session in Windows NetMeeting, every participants attend it; at the same time everybody should open two text windows in the computer, so that they can enter their personal ideas in one windows and the ideas shouted out by other people.

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•

171

the session begins. The brainstorming rules is conventional, no change is necessary. A dedicated secretary (or two) should be arranged during the session whose only job is to grab and notify the ideas. This releases some pressure on the facilitator who can spend more time guiding the process.

•

the session ends. Everybody sends his two lists of ideas to the organizer, who collects all the ideas together and make corresponding analyse.

4. Conclusion What is the most occurred problem during the software development outsourcing towards foreign countries? How could it be solved through creative usage of traditional innovation and creativity methods in Internet? This paper tried to answer these questions. Although it's only the beginning and the proposed usage of traditional innovation and creativity methods in Internet is very basic too, but it supplies already a possible way of solve occurred problems in the software development outsourcing towards foreign countries. References Hermann, Brain G. (1999) Ά Decision Support Tool to Categorize the Applicability of Outsourcing Strategies to Specific Software Development Projects and Goals' Ph.D. Dissertation Proposal. Jones, C. (1998) 'Software Project Management in the 21st Century', American Programmer, vol. XI, No. 2. Standish (1995) Most programming projects are late. West Yarmouth (MA): Standish Group.

Global Strategic Guidelines for Innovation Management Bernd Jöstingmeier

"And if tomorrow were the end of the world, I would plant a little apple tree even today" (Martin Luther) The phlegmatic legislation procedures of the big states of the world often only react if the worst has already happened.1 As a consequence of the depletion of the ozone layer the ultraviolet (UV) radiation arriving at the earth has gained intensity. This leads to an increased risk of skin cancer for human beings and encroachments for plant growth and plankton development in the oceans. Conserving fertile soils is an absolute prerequisite to sufficiently supply food to the global population. According to the results of the only global examination of soils to date on behalf of the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP), in 1990 there were significant degradations to be observed on nearly 15 % of the ice-free surface. A significant part of formerly fertile soils gets lost because of desertification. China yearly loses 2,550 km2 of land due to desertification. Between 1990 and 2000 the forest space decreased by 84 million ha worldwide. Between August 1999 and August 2000 around 20,000 km2 of the Amazon forest were cut down. Forests stabilize the local and regional climate, shelter from soil erosion and support ground-water recharge. During history of mankind, the forest area has reduced from 6 billion ha (8,000 years ago) to 3.9 billion ha.

1

The environmental data in this article are from the Fischer Weltalmanach 2 0 0 3 (Frankfurt am Main 2002) and the encyclopedia Aktuell 2004 (Dortmund 2003).

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In the year 2000 almost a quarter (22.8 %) of all trees in Europe were categorized as damaged, a condition which is usually identified as forest damage or forest dieback. All in all the climate has warmed up by more than 0.6 °C in the last 100 years with the increase having been three times faster since 1976 against the average of the last 100 years. The increase of the sea level by 10-20 cm observed in the last one-hundred years is for the most part probably due to the global warming and the partial melting of the polar ice caps. Today, the Arctic sea ice is only half as thick as it was 50 years ago. According to information given by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (PCC), established on UN level, the continuous global warming will have serious impacts. Among other things, we have to expect more storms, more intensive precipitation, more floods and more heat and drought periods in the decades to come. Between 1900 and 1995 the global water consumption increased by more than six times and thus grew more than twice as fast than the world population. Freshwater is the most important foodstuff for people and at the same time it is the basis for the production of all food. Globally a shortage of feshwater resources can be observed. A biological variety (animal and plant species, kinds of the individual species and variety of the ecosystems) is a basic prerequisite for the stability of the ecosystems, which in the end also people are depending on. According to experts up to 35,000 species yearly disappear from earth forever. Today 25 % of the known reptile species, 20 % of the amphibian species and 30 % of the fish species are considered to be threatened with extinction.

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The global total fish stock decreased by half between the early 1970s and the end of the 1990s.

A World Resources Institute (WRI) report drawn up by more than 175 scientists from all over the world within two years and submitted in September 2000 evokes a gloomy picture of the global, agricultural, forest, fresh water, grassland, and littoral ecosystems.

W e are all initiators of these developments. How can we stop the process?

In 2002 approximately 6.2 billion people were living on earth. Currently the global population is growing by approximately 80 million people yearly.

Can one stop around 6.2 billion people? The individual human being is comparatively flexible. If you walk on the pavement, you can change your direction within one second. If you go by car, you need several seconds. If you are on a big boat you might need some minutes for a turn. If you are on a very big boat you might need an hour. Think of the Titanic's delayed change of direction. Despite a late view of the iceberg the direction could not be changed in time. And now think of the dimensions of the earth.

What can we do for the survival of the earth?

So far, practice and science of the innovation management have given priority to short-term views. Let us, for example, take a look at a quotation from the new study by the Fraunhofer Institute from the year 2003 on "Integrated Innovation Management": "Environment Roadmap: From the information on the strategic early detection those elements having a decisive influence on the design of the product and the innovation planning are isolated. These can be, for example, amendments, expected steps from competitors or changes in customers demands." 2

2

Späth, Dieter (Ed.), Integriertes Innovationsmanagement, Erfolgsfaktoren, Methoden, Praxisbeispiele, Fraunhofer Institut Arbeitswirtschaft und Organisation, Stuttgart 2003, p. 23.

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It is true that the elements mentioned herein are only stated as examples, however, it is in fact the case that first and foremost -

the future customer demands and requirements,

-

the activities of the competitors and

-

amendments

are considered when planning innovation and designing products. In most cases, the long-term survival assurance for our planet is not considered. Some enterprises fully pass on their environmental responsibility to the state and recklessly exploit loopholes. Why can't we count on activities of the government to protect the environment? 1) The government often recognizes dangers too late - that is when they have already occurred. 2) Laws do have loopholes - and people often exploit them. 3) Criminal prosecution often is not successful - for example, if one cannot find out exactly who committed an environmental pollution. It is in this context to be also mentioned that the USA didn't ratify the KyotoProtokoll with the measures contained in it for the climate protection, for example. Why can't we count on the competition function to protect the environment? Because cost aspects often are valued higher than environmental protection - and environmental protection often costs money. Why can't we count on customer requirements and needs to protect the environment? Because most people are concentrating on their actual needs - only few of them think about the living conditions of future generations.

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Enterprises often defend their conduct by pointing to the fact that they have to seek for profit in order to survive. In most cases, customer satisfaction is the most significant factor for being economically successful. Formerly, in the science of business management it was said that an enterprise had to strive for nothing but profit maximization. If we follow this logic, with our products and services, we only need to strive for customer satisfaction of the current and potential customers with a corresponding marketing mix and production costs as low as possible. Thus we leave the responsibility as to whether future generations - that means our children - will find an environment where they can survive - completely to state. Since the state is not able to accomplish this task sufficiently, as can be seen from the development of the earth just described, our planet will thus lose the chance of a long-term survival. So what do we need? 1) We need a general awareness of the connections between environmental pollution and living conditions of future generations. As many people as possible need to become aware of the value of environmental protection for future generations. A code of conduct must develop and anchor in the heads. Of course, this does not stop some people from offending but most of us can stick to it for the welfare of all people. It is not enough to rely on the state and some specialists for sustainable development. 2) We must achieve that the willingness to protect the environment gains acceptance especially in innovation management - beyond national laws, competition activities and customer requirements.

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How can we achieve these goals? a) We can wait until the problems get so overwhelming that each of us will develop such awareness. Probably it will then be too late to save the environment because the processes of changing the environment are going long term. Today, for example, we experience environmental changes which were caused during the last 150 years. So the only solution is: b) To generate the awareness of the connections between environmental pollution and living conditions of future generations as well as the willingness to protect the environment, especially in innovation management, by means of a global campaign. We need a global marketing strategy for a code of conduct for environmental protection for the economy and all citizens as well as the willingness to protect the environment, especially in innovation management. What can an environmentally-conscious and responsible-minded enterprise do? In addition to the two factors (1) Customer requirements and needs as well as (2) the company's survival in the competition of price and performance there must be secured (3) the long-term survival for our planet already when formulating the innovation strategy and later on with the technology, business and competition strategy. Factor (3) can be put into concrete terms by global strategic guidelines for innovation management such as: •

to protect the soil: e.g. least possible immission of toxic substances

•

to protect forests and plants: e.g. reassess construction works regarding land requirements; avoid clear-cuts

Global Strategic Guidelines for Innovation Management

•

179

to protect oceans, rivers and ground water: e.g. minimize sewage; sewage with as little pollution load as possible

•

to protect the air: e.g. avoid waste gas; waste gas filters

•

to protect other natural elements: e.g. reduce consumption of resources; reduce waste

•

to protect humans and animals: e.g. noise reduction at operating plants; reduction of waste gas at operating plants; high operational safety of industrial plants; preserve connected areas of an intact natural environment; health-promoting products and services

Environment-oriented innovations do not always have a transparent benefit for today's customers as their effects may only become clear during the next decades. As a consequence, enterprises need to plainly show the customers their initial intransparent problems and benefits ("benefit in need of an explanation"). If this has been managed successfully a clear competitive advantage can be reached. It is even possible that the government follows suit and makes the environment-friendly innovation the standard. For example, in California the regulations regarding the emission of carbon dioxide by cars have been stiffened for the future in view of the development of low-emission vehicle engines and the bad ecological environmental situation. Those automobile producers who, for example, have developed engines with completely emission-free fuel cells at good time, do have a clear competitive advantage. On that score California is a pioneer and many other states will follow that role model. We should concentrate more on what extraordinary chances innovation management can have for the situation of our environment. The earth is a spaceship with limited environmental resources. And to survive in the long term we can use the only inexhaustible resource which we have on earth: Creativity!

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I would like to give you some positive examples: •

Solar energy: At "Plataforma Solar de Almeria" (Spain) in January 2003 engineers combined a solar tower power station with a gas turbine for the first time. Because of that 58 % instead of one third of the solar heat collected with mirrors could be transformed into current.

•

Protection of plants: In summer 2002 Australian researchers found out that grape vines can be protected against blight by means of a milk-water mixture.

•

In March 2003, scientists of Bonn (Germany) produced polyphenols from remnants of the olive oil production (the pomace) which protect plants against mould.

•

Protection of historic and new buildings: In April 2003, Spanish microbiologists found a germ which can protect the surface of buildings and statues against the decay by air pollution. The germs are producing carbonate crystals (limestone) which harden the surface without clogging up their pores.

We ought to start an economic chain reaction which makes environment-oriented innovations fundamental competition factors. This includes an extensive marketing which makes the relevant benefit transparent to current and potential customers, - the benefit which present and future generations have because of the environment-oriented innovations. If you don't believe that this market is really profitable, take a look at how many million Dollars and Euros are spent every year for the pleasure and well-being of babies and toddlers. People are prepared to pay a lot of money for the wellbeing of their children and the children of their children. Remind your customers that the natural environment is essential for their children.

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Bibliography von Baratta, Mario (Ed.), Der Fischer Weltalmanach 2004, Frankfurt a.M. 2003; Der Fischer Weltalmanach 2003, Frankfurt a.M. 2002. Bouncken, Ricarda Β. (Ed.), Management von KMU und Gründungsunternehmen, Festschrift für Egbert Kahle zum 60. Geburtstag, Wiesbaden 2003. Buijs, Jan / van der Lugt, Remko / van der Meer, Han (Ed.), Idea Safari, Proceedings of the Seventh European Conference on Creativity and Innovation, Enschede 2002. Gassmann, Oliver, Internationales F&E-Management, Potentiale und Gestaltungskonzepte transnationaler F&E-Projekte, München, Wien 1997. van Geffen, Leo / van der Meer, Han / Rickards, Tudor (Ed.), Fit for the Future, Proceedings of the Sixth European Conference on Creativity and Innovation, Enschede 2001. Harenberg, Β. (Ed.), Aktuell 2004, Dortmund 2003. Jöstingmeier, Bernd, Zur Unternehmensethik international tätiger Unternehmungen, Göttingen 1994 (Organisation und Management, Bd. 8). Jöstingmeier, Bernd, Pragmatische Unternehmensethik als strategischer Erfolgsfaktor, in: Jöstingmeier, Bernd (Ed.), Aktuelle Probleme der Genossenschaften aus rechtswissenschaftlicher und wirtschaftswissenschaftlicher Sicht, Göttingen 1994, pp. 251-275. Jöstingmeier, Bernd, Kreativitätstechniken zur Umsetzung der pragmatischen Unternehmensethik - Konzeptionelle Grundlagen -, in: Schatz, Roland (Ed.), Strategien für eine Mitarbeitergerechte Organisationsentwicklung, Bonn, Fribourg, Ostrava 1995, pp. 75-92.

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Jöstingmeier, Bernd I Lessel, Michael, Innovationsprojekte erfolgreich durchführen, in: Zeitschrift Führung + Organisation, September/Oktober H. 5/1999, pp. 292-295. Maunuksela, Ari J., Self-sustainable Abilities for Creative Commitments, An Indroductory Essay on Sustainability Economics for Product

Innovation

Management, in: van Geffen, Leo / van der Meer, Han / Rickards, Tudor (Ed.), Fit for the Future, Proceedings of the Sixth European Conference on Creativity and Innovation, Enschede 2001, pp. 165-174. Paech, Niko I Pfriem, Reinhard, Mit Nachhaltigkeitskonzepten zu neuen Ufern der Innovation, in: UmweltWirtschaftsForum, 10. Jg., H. 3, September 2002, pp. 12-17. Pfohl, Hans-Christian / Stölzle, Wolfgang, Planung und Kontrolle, 2. Aufl., München 1997. Porter, Michael E., Wettbewerbsvorteile, Spitzenleistungen erreichen und behaupten, 6. Aufl., Frankfurt a.M. 2000. Ravesloot, Christoph Maria, Controlled Creativity with Maximum Feasibility: Organising Sustainable Building in the City of The Hague, in: Buijs, Jan / van der Lugt, Remko / van der Meer, Han (Ed.), Idea Safari, Proceedings of the Seventh European Conference on Creativity and Innovation, Enschede 2002, pp. 295-306. Reger, Guido, Koordination und strategisches Management internationaler Innovationsprozesse, Heidelberg 1997. Rickards, Tudor / Colemont, Patrick / Groholt, Per / Parker, Marjorie / Smeekes, Hans, Creativity and Innovation: Learning from Practice, Report of the Second European Conference on Creativity and Innovation, Delft 1991.

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Rickards, Tudor / Moger, Susan I Tassoul, Marc / van de Kimmenade, Inez I van den Beuken, Jim, Creativity and Innovation: Impact, Proceedings of the Fifth European Conference on Creativity and Innovation, Maastricht 1997. Späth, Dieter (Ed.), Integriertes Innovationsmanagement, Erfolgsfaktoren, Methoden, Praxisbeispiele, Fraunhofer Institut Arbeitswirtschaft und Organisation, Stuttgart 2003. Specht, Günter / Beckmann, Christoph / Amelingmeyer, Jenny, F&E-Management, Kompetenz im Innovationsmanagement, 2. Aufl., Stuttgart 2002. Stören, Sigurd, Sustainable Product Design, Is there more to it than Science, Systems and Computers?, in: Rickards, Tudor / Moger, Susan / Tassoul, Marc / van de Kimmenade, Inez / van den Beuken, Jim, Creativity and Innovation: Impact, Proceedings of the Fifth European Conference on Creativity and Innovation, Maastricht 1997, pp. 187-195. van der Meer, Han, Innovation is not accidental, The management of Innovation in companies, in: Rickards, Tudor / Colemont, Patrick / Groholt, Per / Parker, Marjorie I Smeekes, Hans, Creativity and Innovation: Learning from Practice, Report of the Second European Conference on Creativity and Innovation, Delft 1991, pp. 101-104. Welter, Friederike, Strategien und strategisches Verhalten von KMU, in: Bouncken, Ricarda B. (Ed.), Management von KMU und Gründungsunternehmen, Festschrift für Egbert Kahle zum 60. Geburtstag, Wiesbaden 2003, pp. 27-48. Wicke, Lutz, unter Mitarbeit von Blenk, Lieselotte, Umweltökonomie: Eine praxisorientierte Einführung, 4. Aufl., München 1993. Wuppertaler Kreis e.V. (Ed.), Erfolg durch Innovation: Ein Praxisleitfaden für mittelständische Industriebetriebe, Köln 2002.

Empirical Research

Impacts of Cultural Diversity on New Ventures Theoretical and Empirical Findings Ricarda Β. Bouncken 1

Abstract Founders of new ventures require internal resources but also external resources from networks during the formulation of their business idea and early growth of the venture. Cultural diverse founder teams may provide the emerging firm with disperse and diverse resources and also with networks, which improve the innovativeness of their idea and its implementation. However, cultural diverse teams are confronted with problems of misunderstanding that foster conflicts maybe detaining the survival and growth of the new venture. This study aims to explore forms and major influences from cultural diverse founders and their networks on the formulation of the innovative idea and on early growth. The paper builds on a combination of the entrepreneurship theory and works from scholars on national cultures. The findings will be supported by six case-studies of cultural diverse founder teams in different stages of the entrepreneurial process, which show dissimilar approaches to cross-cultural management. The paper delivers insights about the process of new venture generation by cultural diverse founders. While giving managerial implications the paper contributes to an improved management of new venture by cultural diverse founders.

With thanks to Washika Haak-Saheem, M.A., Ph. D. Candidate E-mail: [email protected] for data research of three case-studies.

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Introduction New ventures often face resource constraints while not all necessary resources could be developed in the past or brought in by the founders. Founders of new ventures require internal resources but also external resources from networks during the formulation of their business idea and early growth of the venture. Suppliers, banks, or alliances can provide external material and financial resources but they seldom deliver the new venture with innovative ideas and with creativity. Especially creativity promotes the economic performance of a new venture. Scholars in the field of entrepreneurship found out that the potential economic performs profits from an entrepreneurial team, which supplies the young firm with heterogeneous resources and ideas. Cultural diverse founder teams even may provide the emerging firm with diverse resources and networks, which improve the innovativeness of their idea and its implementation. But cultural diverse teams are confronted with problems of misunderstanding that foster conflicts maybe detaining the survival and growth of the new venture. This study aims to explore forms and major influences from cultural diverse founders and their networks on the formulation of the innovative idea and on early growth. The paper builds on a combination of the entrepreneurship theory and works from scholars on national cultures. The findings will be supported by six case-studies of cultural diverse founder teams in different stages of the entrepreneurial process, which show dissimilar approaches to cross-cultural management. Our case-studies also guided a serendipitous finding according the realization of cultural diversity in the entrepreneurial team. The paper delivers insights about the process of new venture generation by cultural diverse founders. It focuses on the challenges of intercultural teams and the benefits from personal networks of the founders. While giving managerial implications the paper contributes to an improved management of new venture by cultural diverse founders.

Impacts of Cultural Diversity on New Ventures

189

Theoretical Issues Definition of Entrepreneurship Entrepreneurs tend to find new opportunities and utilize the venture's returns (Cooper et al., 1991). Entrepreneurship can exist as independent entrepreneurship and corporate entrepreneurship. In the following we will define new ventures as newly founded firms or not yet founded ventures by independent entrepreneurs. Corporate entrepreneurship sets up new ventures from the roots of established firms such as spin-offs. In the following we will define new ventures as newly founded firms or not yet founded ventures by independent entrepreneurs. Thereby we will not investigate in corporate entrepreneurship. In order to describe the entrepreneurial process the literature typically separates four key stages that vary in definition and in which more or less linear dependencies are assumed: identification, design, selection, and implementation (Olson, 1986). Identification occurs when the entrepreneur realizes a market opportunity or becomes aware of a new technical solution that can be exploited in the market. Entrepreneurs evaluate and specify their opportunity's market value in the design stage. As evaluations and specifications may lead to different alternatives an entrepreneur requires to choice one or more alternatives in the selection stage. Entrepreneurs then start to implement their opportunity in founding activities in the implementation stage. Especially, the implementation stage distinguishes entrepreneurs from people who only identify new ideas but do not engage in their implementation. As new ventures will achieve returns and growth most likely after the implementation stage we define these stages as pre-growth stages. Implementation is followed by stages of early growth that cover first returns, cash flow, earnings, and growing market share that can lead to later growth and establishing firms.

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Impacts of Cultural Diversity on New Ventures

Technology Invention

New Market Opportunity

11 Identification

Design Evaluation & Specification

Selection

Implementation

Different Alternatives Pre-growth

I *

I *

Early growth^

1 *

Early-growth

t *

Heterogeneous resource requirements

Entrepreneurial Team

Figure 1: Entrepreneurial Process

Since the entrepreneurial process requires a variety of resources and services often a team of entrepreneurs operates. Some studies even show considerable significance for higher performance of venture teams that can base upon diverse resources and competencies of the individuals. Albeit new ventures require heterogeneous resources entrepreneurial teams generally consist of a small number of colleagues who act like as social clique. As founders often develop their entrepreneurial idea in close relationships and search for understanding they build upon friendship with colleagues and develop a web of shared values and norms in which the ability to develop further new ideas can be limited. Entrepreneurs can expand their resources by external networks such as personal, strategic, regional networks that my be reinforced during the entrepreneurial process. Direct and indirect ties to other actors and firms compensate the lack of resources of entrepreneurs, which is often at maximum during the early stages of the entrepreneurial process (Witt/Rosenkranz, 2002). Especially, personal relationships allow sourcing resources, which can not be supplied at this or lower cost in the market (Dubini/Aldrich, 1991). The literature assumes per-

Impacts of Cultural Diversity on New Ventures

191

sonal networks as vehicles for transferring latent knowledge or sticky resources to new ventures (Brüderl/Preissendörfer, 1998; Hippel, 1994). Utilizing external personal and institutional networks calls for social and communication skills of entrepreneurs. Besides, they need technical knowledge to evaluate the benefits of transferred information and resources (Ritter/Gemünden, 1999). Thus, young firms profit from communication and technical skills. New ventures expand their networks continuously. New personal and institutional ties develop by personal contacts, membership in associations, purchasing orders, and trade fairs (Witt, 1999).

Networks

Figure 2: Entrepreneurial Team

Role of Creativity in Venturing Innovativeness of the entrepreneurial idea is understood as a major success factor of new ventures (Danneels, 2002; Galunic & Rodan, 1998). Consequently, new ventures benefit from structures that enhance creativity. We regard creativity as the envisioning of a new combination of resources that often

192

Impacts of Cultural Diversity on New Ventures

questions conventional wisdom and contains a vision of an opportunity together with a strategy to exploit the opportunity (Ellsworth, 1985). Wells of new ideas can be more market or more technological driven. Nevertheless creativity is only half way to success because entrepreneurship needs finding a new means-ends-relation and implementation, too (Hausschildt, 1996). Scholar focused on the process of creativity by suggesting models of creative problem solving in which stages, principles, and tools are presented in order to enhance individuals' or groups' creativity (Puccio, 1999). We will not investigate more deeply in those findings and techniques but on the antonym of innovators and adaptors of new solutions. The literature separates adaptors and innovators (Pershyn, 1992; Rickards & Puccio, 1992). Innovators are understood to explore, promote and implement higher degrees of product-based or process-based innovations. Innovators focus on collecting diverse information and using imaginations to generate ideas (Puccio, 1999). Instead, adaptors dominantly engage in clarifying the problem and developing solutions. Creativity is the basis of innovation but innovation also contains the implementation of new solutions. Thereby innovations is a broader concept than creativity although creativity is the conditio sine qua non for new solutions. Sometimes people consider creativity as something personal as a gift of an inspired artist or inventor that are largely subconscious (Gordon, 1956). On the contrary creativity is neither static nor only limited to individuals' thinking (Gordon, 1956). Creativity involves dynamic procedures that are heavily influenced by the context and interpersonal communication (Elsbach/Kramer, 2003; Jeffcutt/Pratt, 2002). Creativity is neither static nor only limited to individuals' thinking (Drucker, 1991; Gordon, 1956). Creativity involves dynamic procedures that are heavily influenced by the context and interpersonal communication (Elsbach & Kramer, 2003; Jeffcutt & Pratt, 2002). The research on diversity in teams stresses the importance of diversity on creativity (Dose, 1999; Fiol, 1994; Garcia-Prieto et al., 2000). Especially, diverse technical knowledge triggers creativity but at the same time leads to misunderstanding

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193

and time wasting argumentations. Besides, creativity benefits from collaboration when the involved persons to the situation are assertive to their own and the others' needs (Sing/Huu Phuong, 1996). As soon a innovative idea is expressed to others, it proliferates into multiple ideas because peoples' diverse frames of reference filter and guide their perceptions (Van de Ven, 1988). But if different ideas emerge choices have to be made in which only a single or some of the new ideas are developed further. With diversity, especially with cultural diversity the choice of the evoked set of new ideas is more strongly confronted with conflicts. Additionally, diverse cultural backgrounds foster misunderstanding and misinterpretation of words, gestures, mimic, ideas articulated, and other behaviour that also leads to conflicts. As a consequence, diverse technical knowledge triggers creativity but at the same time leads to misunderstanding and time wasting argumentations. Besides cultural diversity as a trigger of creativity we will now shed light on strategies to promote creativity in young firms. A general strategy to promote creativity in established firms concerns to improve the identification of highly innovators for idea generation respectively adaptors for implementation and to employ them for specific problems and distinct stages of the problem-solving process. Unclear is how heterogeneous attributes in venture teams influence idea generation and idea implementation. Although corporate entrepreneurship may profit from a selection of potential employees new ventures rely on their entrepreneurial team or require further creative potential from external partners. Therefore, entrepreneurs require judgments about their own venture team's creative potential, implementation abilities, and about reliability and usability of resources from external sources. But as established firms can render judgments about other individuals' creativity from their prior tangible results, likewise product designs, reports, and innovative programs (Elsbach/Kramer, 2003) new ventures can only build on narrow experiences. Personal information can also guide creativity assessments by information from e. g. social roles, reputation, personality tests, or other attributes likewise self-confidence, divergent thinking ability, and diverse exper-

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Impacts of Cultural Diversity on New Ventures

tise that allow an image of peoples' creativity (Feist, 1998). But despite the lack of tangible results also personal information is limited for new ventures because entrepreneurs can neither implement techniques nor sufficiently utilize various prior social ties. Especially, in situations where no prior product or results exist subjective assessments build a judgment about humans' creativity (Elsbach/Kramer, 2003)1. Consequently, entrepreneurs use subjective assessments, which profit from first- and second order personal tiers. Connection between Creativity and Cultural Diversity Internationalization and National Culture To date, with the increasing growth of complex knowledge arenas outside a single firm offers additional knowledge to companies. Interestingly, even some countries without much basic research are able to exploit the findings of basic research in other countries to develop innovation (Hage, 2000). Despite this former application of internationalization recent studies have considered the selection and embeddedness of R&D in a national culture2. Thus, for the purpose of this paper we are interested in the concept of national culture although

Banks, venture capitalists, supplier, and core customers might base their assessment of entrepreneurs' creativity on such subjective criteria especially in early stages and of the new venture, when only the idea is formulated. Besides, some studies have found a relationship between the quality of a venture's human resource base, the founders industry experiences, or education and its ability to achieve funding. External stakeholders will use other assessments in spite of entrepreneurials' capacity to implement new ideas and foster growth to reduce their uncertainty in a venture's pre-growth stages. (Fried/Bhat, 1998 (MacMillan/Zeman/Subbaranasimha, 1987 (Hall/Hofer, 1993 (Cooper /Gimeno/Woo, 1994. So external stakeholders will use other assessments in spite of entrepreneurials' capacity to implement new ideas and foster growth to reduce their uncertainty in a venture's pre-growth stages. Factors affecting the internationalization of R&D have been object to intense discussions in the literature (Bartlett/Doz/Hedlund, 1990, (Bartlett/Goshal, 1989, (Gupta/Govindarajan, 1994, (Hedlund/Rolander, 1990. Different configurations of multinational firms R&D highlight the role facility location and nearness to markets play.

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Impacts of Cultural Diversity on New Ventures

similarities

between

nations

and

dissimilarities

within

cultures

exist

(Jones/Davis, 2000). As some studies even stress the relevance of a national culture on successful innovative capacity we will propose the national culture of an entrepreneurial team to influence creativity and implementation issues of new ventures (Ghoshal/Bartlett, 1988). Although multinational firms try to recognize and exploit cultural differences in R&D this potential has nearly been neglected in entrepreneurial creativity. As indicated before cultural differences can induce diversity and thereby stimulate creativity by competing values (Hopkins & Hopkins, 2002; Ripolles, Menguzaato, & Borra, 2001; Zahra, Hayton, Marcel, & O'Neill, 2001). We here focus on the work by Hall and Hall, who provide in-depth analysis of national differences. National culture's multifaceted character directed some broad studies about differences and similarities of national cultures. Hofstede accomplished the most popular work by identifying four dimensions of culture: power distance, individualism, masculinity, and uncertainty avoidance (Hofstede, 1984). Some theoretical and empirical studies analysed Hofstede's dimensions according to their influence on innovative activities (Jones/Davis, 2000). Most of the studies found only low impacts of power distance as well of uncertainty avoidance on innovations. Contrastingly, masculinity seems to positively influence innovation activities. Instead, the results on individualism are mixed. As Hofstede's work also received some critic (e. g. basing exclusively on IBM) we here focus on the work by Hall and Hall, who provide in-depth analysis of differences.

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Impacts of Cultural Diversity on New Ventures

Powerd.

Indivi.

Mascul.

Uncert. Ξ Deutschland

Figure 3: Some dimensions of Hofstede

Cultural dimensions by Hall&Hall Hall and Hall identify three primary dimensions of cultural diversity: context, space, and time (Hall & Reed Hall, 1990). Context is bound up with the meaning and context of an event and differs between different degrees of high and low context cultures (Hall et al., 1990). High context communication employs messages in which most of information is implicit in persons. Thereby very little is embedded in the coded part of the message. High context cultures such as Japanese, Arabs, and Mediterranean people rely on extensive information networks in close personal relationships with high context (Hall et al., 1990). Thereby they keep themselves informed about many details and do not require to transport much coded information in communication. In contrast in lowcontext cultures' communication most information is explicitly verbalized. Lowcontext cultures such as Americans, Swiss, Germans, and Scandinavians compartmentalize personal relationships and work. Consequently, they require higher degrees of coded information and background information. Thereby, communication between people from different contextual backgrounds might suffer from misunderstanding because too much or too little information is communicated.

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197

Space deals with visible physical boundaries of territoriality and personal space (Hall et al., 1990). Americans and northern European define their territory to a large extend and label objects as their properties. Additionally, they keep personal distance and rely strongly on auditory screening and silence. For example order, well-defined rules and tasks, and well defined schedules are dominant themes in Germany. Quite the reverse are southern Europeans, Mediterranean people, Arabs and African who like intimate conversation and perceive space by all senses. Monochronic time deals with paying attention to and working only on one thing at a time. So northern Europeans and Americans treat time in a linear way and tend to structure procedures into scheduled segments. At the opposite polychronic cultures such as Mediterranean people and Arabs emphasis on completing human transaction and work within simultaneous occurrence of many issues combined with a great involvement with people.

Figure 4: Overview of major cultural dimension

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Impacts of Cultural Diversity on New Ventures

By a reflection on Hall and Hall's typology and our argumentation before we assume cultural diverse entrepreneurial teams profit and suffer from cultural diversity. Cultural diversity can hamper a generation of close relationships with internalised rules and norms in early and later stages of the process. Thereby cultural diverse entrepreneurs will be less apt founding an entrepreneurial team and proceed establishing a new venture during pre-growth and earlygrowth. Next, entrepreneurial teams suffer from misunderstanding and conflicting interactions and from problems with tight social connectedness, which limits collaboration (Lawrence, 1994; Lawrence & Lorch, 1967; Sing & Huu Phuong, 1996). Teamwork in which needs to transfer tacit and codified knowledge is hampered because of differing communication practices. Thereby an exploration and exploitation of new ideas is limited. Nevertheless, cultural diverse teams can profit from specific advantages as team members from diverse cultures provide diverse information, resources, and skills. As noted before different frames of references while communicating amplify new ideas (Hage, 2000; Kilduff, Angemar, & Mehra, 2000). This is even more intense in teams with cultural diverse people. Thus, different knowledge applied to problems allows for enhanced creativity and idea generation in cultural diverse teams. Further, entrepreneurs can provide networks with secondary information and resources (e. g. about foreign markets) if they are still embedded in foreign networks. Besides, if entrepreneurs enable intense and frequent communication cultural diversity can facilitate creativity and break up circles of frustration in idea generation and implementation. That also can allow for a quicker development of highly novel innovations. We assume exploration and exploitation issues in new venture generation having different roles in different stages of entrepreneurial creativity and new venture generation. So we will investigate how cultural diversity effects which stages of the entrepreneurial process and influences creativity and idea implementation in new venture.

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199

Method of the empirical study Entrepreneurship and entrepreneurial teams offer a rich field for investigation but also presents a complex issues where standardized questionnaires will not be able to identify internalised and sticky aspects. Because of the historical, contextual, and sometimes implicit character of creativity, culture, and relationships in a entrepreneurial team and its external partners we choose a casestudy approach. In our study we applied six cases in different stages of the entrepreneurial process . Our relatively open personal interviews that focused on different stages of the entrepreneurial process and on different themes about creativity and cultural diversity. We also explored personal networks of the entrepreneurs. Multiple cases were chosen here to assist generalizations (Yin, 1984). Secondary data was retrieved from the Internet and other archival data. Semi-structured interviews were carried out with founders and managers of new ventures, which lasted between 1-2 hours. The interviews were recorded and transcribed. Qualitative techniques of the grounded theory guided the data analysis (Strauss & Corbin, 1990). For data analysis, we used with-in case-analysis and cross-case analysis (Eisenhardt, 1989). Description of the cases Case I: Swiss and German entrepreneurs (Identification-Stage) The new venture concerns a new business model in the hardware-data-storage-server business. The Swiss entrepreneur considers to deliver technology and major financial resources although additional money is required for the new ventures from a European-Development Fund. As the German can build on extensive social networks he provides personal contacts (lawyers, programmers etc.) and skills in building a creative and collaborative atmosphere. Additionally, he concentrates on the architecture of the business model in Germany, which combines old models (server-space in defined contracts with specific fees) and a new controlling based model that is specified for German law. Consequently, the venture's creativity lies in the new model. In summary, the Swiss accomplishes mainly new technical and business related knowledge

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Impacts of Cultural Diversity on New Ventures

and the German brings in his social network and his knowledge about Germany where the new venture will be located. Although Swiss and Germans are both monochronic cultures that have a similar understanding about space and context here the degree on time differs. The German deals on a higher velocity of speed and tends to behave similar to polychronic cultures compared to the Swiss. The entrepreneurs both realize this cultural difference and evaluate the combination of the differences as fruitful for the new venture.

* = Interviewee

Social contacts German *

Social Network/Contacts Programmers Lawyers Creativity/Enthusiasm High velocity

Data-StorageServer Technology Swiss Expertise Financing Analytic thinker

Figure 5: Overview of Case I

Management

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Case II: High-Tech-Venture between two German and a Nigerian (DesignStage) Two Germans and a Nigerian developed a high technology product, which deals with developing an e-mail Management software, based on language technology. Their professional backgrounds differ. One of the Germans is a professor on informatics and the two others were managers in big technology firms. We here interviewed the German professor. The founders perceive a high importance of their business idea in generating on the one hand funds and on the other hand social contacts. Both goals profit from their prize-winning of a business plan competition, and from recommendations as well as consultations of former colleagues. The founders concentrate on national relationships because they strive for an established national position, first. Nevertheless, the Nigerian could supply a web of international social contacts, too. The German university professor is primarily responsible for research and development of the product, while the other German is in charge of the technical integration in the customers IT-landscape. The innovative product itself basis on one of the founder's research, with close links to research staff in various universities. Hence, the development of new ideas is based on scientific results that benefit from collaboration with other institutions. Altogether the behavior of the Germans shows a strong rule based and monochronic, low-context foundation.

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Social Network/Contacts

Figure 6: Overview of Case II Contrasting, the Nigerian partner concentrates on implementation, which might change characteristics of the products. He is in charge of sales as well as distribution and of customer relationship management. His very communicative personality triggers implementation as well as marketing and may lead to more market driven improvements of the innovative products. As he belongs to a polychronic culture, communicates more intensively about numerous aspects in a client relationship, and does not solely built on rules as well as establishes intense relations to potential clients he is able get a feeling about what customers want. Moreover, he has the gift, to sell with exotic charm. Interestingly, the interviewed German founder stresses that a successful business co-operation between members of different cultures is based on the American scientific and business culture. From his point of view cultural identity is only relevant in private life.

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Case III: High-tech-hardware venture by a German and a Chinese (SelectionStage) A Chinese and a German entrepreneur developed their idea that concerns the development of an innovative technology of a computer cooling system their technology eight months ago. The interview partner was the German. The Chinese founder studied physics and information technologies in Beijing and Brandenburg (Germany). The German was a trade merchant and studies technical economics in Brandenburg, before. The business idea profits from no competing solutions in the market while representing a new technology. Next to their newly generated radical innovation the founders use a system of generating new ideas, which is on watching for new problems and to find an applicable solution for the problem continuously. The team is collecting information from technical magazines, Internet and exhibitions, where they present their technology, too. Founders utilize a personal network to some professors at their former universities who are supporting the venture by giving specific advise for the theoretical technical realization of the project. They perceive the cultural diversity as stimulating. The Chinese works very analytically and carefully, while the German partner has the knowledge of the German language and mentality. The team evaluates these elements essential to sell the product on the German market. Because of his linguistic ability the Chinese also prepared contacts to Taiwan. He also initiated a co-operation with Taiwanese in the field of research and development. By his ability to deal with complexity and multiplex task and his ability to develop new ideas the Chinese partner is characterized by his German partner as a "generator of ideas".

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' = Interviewee

Strategy German *

Technology Ability to deal with complexity Analytical skills Contacts to Taiwan Language Creativity

Computer Cooling System

• Information collection -MBA

Management German Chinese

Operations Chinese

Figure 7: Overview of Case III

Case IV: A music production studio for international ethnic artists (Implementation-Stage) An Afghan and a German who met while visiting a technical exhibition founded the new venture in March 2002. Our interview partner was the German founder. The idea of the team is to provide an innovative studio focusing on Afghan and other, mainly Oriental artists. Their business idea is, to provide a full service to young Oriental artists and offer them everything needed to produce and sell music CDs. The modern equipped studio even has typical ethnic instruments such as drums, flutes etc., which are hard to find in Germany. The artists record their music in the studio. The production of the CDs is organized in co-operation with a "pure" German company. The innovation of the product is the merger of two demands. Young Afghan artists who want to produce a CD get the opportunity to "start a career" as a musician, the European-Afghan society can buy Afghan music, produced on high quality standards, have not been implemented in this industry before.

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Impacts of Cultural Diversity on New Ventures

The German is a technical expert for information technology and is experienced in the field of music recording. He is responsible for operations of the studio and supplies the know-how to start new ventures and to establish defined schedules and quality assurance. The German supplies knowledge of the customs and legislation related to music production and deals with German co-operation partners, authorities, technical suppliers, and coordinates the German/English/Portuguese team of recording specialists. The Afghan partner is a business man, who is well known in the Afghan society of northern Europe. He also provides the funds. The Afghan partner used make ethnic Afghan music when he was a teenager. He still receives frequent information about the ethnic Afghan music market in Europe from the contacts of his former hobby. The location for their project is Hamburg, due to a high number of migrant citizens originating from Afghanistan, Iran, and Arabian countries where they can utilize a web of social contacts, potential artist, and customers. The Afghan who is familiar with his compatriots, their customs, and mentality is responsible for all contacts with Afghan artists and with distributors in European countries as well as in Afghanistan, Pakistan, and Dubai.

Contacts to native Afghan Musicians Understanding of the culture Language

' = Interviewee

• Technology Expert • Skill in music recording • Information Technology • Contact to German Music

Full-sb(vice to young oriental artists t&oroduce a music CD

Management German Afghan

Figure 8: Overview of Case IV

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Impacts of Cultural Diversity on New Ventures

Case V :Standard Software by four entrepreneurs (Early Growth) The business idea of this new venture, founded in late 2001, is the implementation of standard software "RiskBench" for banks, insurances, and other financial service providers. The aim of the service is loan management, loan monitoring, and portfolio analysis. This solution is unique and very innovative with no competitive product in the market. The launch of this enterprise was initiated by four entrepreneurs. One founder, a German, worked as consultant for the banking module of SAP, another German was responsible for credits and loans, being a member of the board of local bank, the third founder, an Iraqi worked as a software architect. The interview partner, an Austrian, was manager of sales and distribution. He developed the business idea and brought the founding team together. Their software requires to deal with diverse needs of customers. Therefore, this ventures develops continuous incremental, mainly market driven, innovations. New ideas for customer-orientated implementation are generated while working at the customer site, gaps are identified and solutions can be developed on demand. In order to develop more radical new solutions the venture applied a systematic creative process to develop new products. In spite of his high potential in idea generation the Iraqi software architect plays a dominant role. He also delivers customer contacts from his career in the banking software business and provided a prototype of a solution. The two others provided important contacts to potential customers in Switzerland and Austria. Due to long-term and intense contacts the relationship to external partners is characterized by open and strong interrelations and even friendship. The interview partner states that the cultural background of team individuals does not influence the creativity and innovation of the new venture. Instead, they built on an international management style, which is influenced by NorthAmerican business rules. Moreover, the founder perceives creativity as an issue of the know how of the acting person, but not of nationality.

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I m p a c t s of Cultural Diversity o n N e w V e n t u r e s

* = Interviewee Social Contact Knowledge of German Software Former SAP Consultant

Software Architect Delivered Prototype Customer contacts for customized

Industry

Financing Skills Knowledge of bank

operations

solutions

"Cultural background does not influence creativity"

Entrepreneurial Initiator

Spirit

Figure 9: Overview of Case V

Case VI: IT-System by an Iranian and a Greek (Early/Later Growth) The founders' idea was to provide various solutions of IT-infrastructure and applications operating in the Rhein/Main area. The venture was founded by an Iranian and a Greek, both engineers for data processing. The knowledge of customers problems inspired the founders to develop various tools and a specific service structure, such as a system of "problem escalation", remote service via internet and virtual private network to allow very short time to react and resolve certain technical problems. The product is characterized by an extremely high level of flexibility, according to the market demand and the technical requirements of their customers. The founders built on prior information and contracts from project work with former employers. The new venture is now prospering, both founders are still working successfully together for two years. The Iranian acquires new business contacts and is responsible for key account management. The Greek

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Impacts of Cultural Diversity on New Ventures

manages operations. The Iranian sells the new products and processes to the customers. Innovations and new solutions emerge from daily work of the operative team and from external information sources. Frequent contacts to an university, journals, former employers, and the internet as well as market research and customer relationship management influence their technical innovations. Business process development is generated by the two entrepreneurs. Besides, the founders perceive customer relationship management and networking as an essential tool for this enterprise. The founders opinion is that co-operations are important for the success in a difficult economical situation with shrinking budgets and strong competition. Cultural diversity between the founders is realized to be fruitful and sub serve for the development of the young enterprise. The Iranian as well as the Greek are convinced that cultural diversity is part of competitive advantages. Moreover, the personal contact is substantial to customers. Due to this team, an Iranian is the ideal sales person, because Iranians understand a "no" as "maybe". Due to his high-context and strong polychronic cultural background he is able to manage time intense negotiations with other polychronic cultures and establish strong and long-term relationships to customers, which triggers market driven innovations and improvements. The Iranian founder describes his Greek to have a social competence in communication and leadership together with an ability to deal with complex and intertwined tasks. He supervises German employees, who provide excellent technical competence for the service to customers. From the Iranians point of view, the German employees are target-orientated, schedule-orientated, and provide a high quality in work processes. In sum, the managers have recognized the influence of culture and try to exploit the advantages of the cultural diversity in their firm.

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Delivers Technology Delivers Supervisors Contacts to former colleagues

Figure 10: Overview of Case VI

Discussion The case studies present new ventures with certain specific attributes in different stages of their entrepreneurial process. From the case studies different degrees of cultural diversity and its benefits become visible. Interestingly, some of the new ventures perceive an impact of cultural diversities on innovativeness, others do not. We tend to explore why those differences exist. Are these a matter of persons, of the industry or of the entrepreneurial stage? Moreover, we will investigate in the results of cultural diversity such as influences on generation of innovation or implementation of innovations. For example, case II, the opinion of German founder leads to the conclusion, that the generation of business advantages by using the different, ethnic minted mentalities in the team is not planned or not seen by him. He does not realize the communicational talent of the Nigerian to be based on his specific cultural dimensions. Instead, marketing, sales, and customer driven implementation of the ventures product profit from cultural diversity. Although this venture team might utilize the diverse cultural backgrounds they are not aware

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of the benefits and even neglects them. The team should became aware of the potential of their different cultural mentalities they are unknowingly using already although the German professor tends to reduce complexity and disorder what is accomplished with cultural diversity. In contrast, the founder of the Iranian-German venture and the Afghan-German venture understand the influence of culture on their business success. Especially, the Iranian who is responsible for customer relationship management uses his cultural background in a planned way to acquire new ideas, new contacts, and customers. Figure 11 gives an overview and a classification of cases first. The classification is based on information in this text but also on further details of the cases not discussed here. Measured/Perceived degree of diversity and technology focus

ο w £ α3

Τ3 _

Technology focus

Radical innovation

Continuous innovation

^^

The grey round symbolize teams who realize their cultural diversity.

Ο

The white round states teams with neglect or do not realize their cultural diversity.

Figure 11: Classification of the cases A majority of the entrepreneurial teams build on social networks that deliver additional resources and judgments about external partner's skills. Interestingly none of the interviewed founders evaluated external networks important

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for idea generation. The origin of the ideas is situated in the team rather than in external networks. Instead, they used external networks for additional services or clients. Thereby some effects on idea implementation became obvious. We presume that a relation between the technological level of a product or service, combined with educational level and skills of the team on the one hand and the negation of the cultural influence on business success on the other hand. A growing significance of technical competence reduces the role of cultural diversity influences on the enterprise culture. This is not coincidental, but results from the technical minted view on business processes. New ventures with a focus on human interaction, likewise in customer relationships or in artist fields, have an improved understanding of the cultural influences. Sometimes the entrepreneurs plan advantages by utilization of cultural diversity but sometimes advantages emerge due to intuition. We also found that the founders' individual history influences their business style and their recognition of cultural diversity. Founders mainly coming from technical backgrounds, from monochronic cultural backgrounds, or firms with strong American corporate cultures tend to ignore the effects of cultural diversity and assume rule based behaviour similar in nationalities. Moreover, we deduce that cultural diversity plays a dominant role in the implementation of a new idea and in incremental quality enhancements. Cultural diversity's importance in new idea generation is more latent. Conclusion Case evidence from new ventures, purposely selected offers grounding for the identification of key factors on the entrepreneurial process. In all cases we found a mixture of diverse cultural backgrounds of the founders, which were more or less realized and had more or less impact on idea generation and idea implementation. In summary, recognizing that cultural diverse entrepreneurial teams are nested in multiple levels of their cultural dimensions they should understand their diversity as potential to be managed and to cause tolerance. Although problems from diverse cultural background were not displayed in the

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Impacts of Cultural Diversity on New Ventures

short versions of the case studies here, we point out that communication plays a dominant role on the cultural diverse teams performance of new idea generation it has to be improved. Establishing patterns of communication to effect the ability dealing with poor understanding and uncertainty of the others' behaviour might be a strategy for monochronic cultures but polychronic cultures might dislike stable patterns. A serendipitous finding occurred according to the realization of cultural diversity and the benefits from it. Some teams understand cultural differences as a topic only relevant for private life. Therefore they neglect diversity and rely on a business style, which is apart from the person origin and internalised behaviour. I do not agree to this statement that people behaving totally different in business compared to their behavioural rules to which they have been socialized through their life. Instead, I think those entrepreneurial teams benefit from cultural diversity although they try to neglect it. A different explanation could be that these founder teams define culture differently. They might interpret culture as issues of museums, theatres etc. and thereby do reflect on culture on a different level. In our case-studies we tried to identify the origins of the innovative ideas, but new ideas develop in social interactions and not always have a time- and space-specific origination point, so were unable each time to identify the originator of a new ideas. Thereby, we could not always identify specific people from different cultures as innovators. Moreover, the findings of the paper are confronted by the limits of case-study research, which concentrates on a lack of generalizations. Instead, they allow deeper insights in the process and problems of cultural diverse entrepreneurial teams. As literature is still incomplete on this topic it calls for further theoretical and empirical studies. We recommend further studies to investigate in the effects of time pressure (e. g. pressure traps and pressure empowerment) that is often accomplished with new ventures on creativity in different stages of the entrepreneurial process. Additional research could also investigate in the question if entrepreneurial teams consist of people who specialize on tasks of social communication, information selection, information structuring, and technical knowledge.

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References Danneels, E. (2002) 'The Dynamics of Product Innovation and Firm Competencies' Strategic Management Journal, 23, pp. 1095-1121. Dose, J. J. (1999) 'The Diversity of Diversity' Human Resource Management Review, 9(1), pp. 83-108. Drucker, P. (1991) 'The Discipline of Innovation'. In D. W. Henry, D. (Ed.), Managing Innovation, London. Eisenhardt, Κ. Μ. (1989) 'Building Theories from Case Study Research' Academy of Management Review, 14(4), pp. 532-550. Ellsworth, R. R. (1985) 'Entrepreneurship in Big Business: The Impossible Dream?' In J. J. Kao, & Η. H. Stevenson (Eds.), Entrepreneurship, Boston. Elsbach, Κ. D., & Kramer, R. M. (2003) 'Assessing Creativity in Hollywood Pitch Meetings: Evidence for a Dual-Process Model of Creativity Judgments' Academy of Management Journal, 46(3), pp. 283-301. Galunic, D. C., & Rodan, S. (1998) 'Resource Recombinations in the Firm: Knowledge Structures and the Potential for Schumpeterian Innovation' Strategic Management Journal, 19, pp. 1193-1201. Gordon, W. J. J. (1956) Operational Approach to Creativity' Harvard Business Review(November-December), pp. 41-51. Hage, J. (2000) Ά Strategy for the Analysis of Idea Innovation. Networks and Institutions', Vol. 2002. Hall, Ε. T., & Reed Hall, M. (1990) Understanding Cultural Differences, Yarmouth.

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Hausschildt, J. (1996) 'Innovation, Creativity, and Information Behavior' Creativity and Innovation Management, 5(3), pp. 169-178. Hopkins, W. E., & Hopkins, S., A. (2002) 'Effects of Cultural Recomposition on Group Interaction Processes' Academy of Management Review, 27(4), pp. 541-553. Jeffcutt, P., & Pratt, A. C. (2002) 'Editorial Managing Creativity in Cultural Industries' Creativity and Innovation Management, 11(4), pp. 225-233. Kilduff, M., Angemar, R., & Mehra, A. (2000) 'Top Management Team Diversity and Firm Performance: Examining the Role of Cognitions' Organization Science, 11, pp. 11-34. Lawrence, P. (1994) 'In Another Country or the Relativization of Management Learning' Management Learning, 25(4), pp. 543-561. Lawrence, P., & Lorch, J. (1967) Organizations and Environment, Boston. Olson, P. D. (1986) 'Entrepreneurs: Opportunistic Decision Makers' Journal of Small Business Management(July), pp. 29-35. Pershyn, G. S. (1992) An Investigation into the Graphic Depictions of Natural Creativity Problem Solving Process, Buffalo. Puccio, G. J. (1999) 'Creative Problem Solving Preferences: Their Identification and Implications' Creativity and Innovation Management, 8(3), pp. 171178. Rickards, T., & Puccio, G. J. (1992) 'Problem Finding, Idea Finding, and Implementation: an Exploratory Model for Investigating Small-Group-Problem Solving'. In P. Barrar, & C. L. Cooper (Eds.), Managing Organisations in 1992: Strategic Response(pp. 247-263), London.

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The Contingency and Inevitability of Organizational Innovation — Case Analysis of Ten Innovative Enterprises Jon-Chao Hong and Chan-Li Lin

I. Introduction Innovation holds the key to sustainable business development. With the constantly changing external environment, corporate management is now forced to deal with emerging new problems every day, and to strive to achieve continuous innovations through unrelenting problem-solving. Tidd, Bessant & Paviet (2001) argue that such constant breaking through of the status quo is inevitable in technological and socio-economic transition; from the moment of a problem being solved however, the process seems in most cases, rather accidental. Many scholars hold the view that such contingency, or the moment of "Aha" in fact requires long-term incubation. In other words, the so called "contingency" has to be based upon the prior knowledge and thinking efficacy of each individual, the context of the problem, and the level of freedom afforded by the innovation platform of the organization. Team innovation skills are also important in order for individuals to develop knowledge and thinking transformation skills (including convergent and divergent thinking abilities). Continuous reoccurrence of the moment of "Aha" in an organizational context is only possible when stimulus receiving, knowledge sharing (including concept and meaning explanation, concept adequacy evaluation, and knowledge attribute classification), and new concept generating are constantly interacting with each other (Dewulf & Bailie, 1999). Constant technological innovations have altered the human life time and time again. The widespread trend of technological pragmatism has further accelerated the accumulation, exposure, transformation, and sharing of knowledge, and has expanded the insight and imagination of the humanity. Therefore, business organizations have to seek constant innovations as well. Since such innovations are environment driven,

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their occurrence is a certainty, and hence the inevitability of organizational innovation. The frequency of contingency and the timing of inevitability of organizational innovation both affect the chances of organizational survival and development. Therefore, how to increase the moment of "Aha" and to accelerate the inevitability has become the most important issue facing today's corporate management. This study thus aims to investigate the efficiency and effectiveness of the use of innovation platform as a means of innovation facilitation and to identify the sources of effective knowledge innovations as well as their development processes in business organizations. It is hoped that through examining the interactive relations between extrinsic factors such as cultural values and organizational climate and intrinsic innovation processes, we will gain a better understanding of the knowledge creation characteristics of Corporate Taiwan. II. Research Design In principle, an organizational innovation platform must be 1) open, i.e. allowing members to collaborate in idea generation and application; 2) integrated, i.e. improving cross-department and cross-level knowledge sharing interfaces; and 3) systematic, i.e. building standards and consensus for knowledge storage and application (den Hertog & Huizonga, 2000). Constrained by the business scale however, small enterprises might not easily obtain the same level of openness, integration, and systematization as large corporations. Therefore, it seems necessary for small-scaled enterprises to apply a different approach in trying to establish an innovation platform of their own, for example to generate ideas from suppliers, clients, or consultants (Tidd, Bessant & Pavilt, 2001). As mentioned earlier, technological application is a necessary element of innovation inevitability. Hence, Arnold & Thuriax (1998) divide business enterprises into the following four categories according to the efficacy of business development. 1) Unsustainable Enterprises: Enterprises who lack efficiency and effectiveness in technological application and development, or do not have technological R&D awareness. Such companies are generally short-lived

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(like street vendors) and can quickly disappear in the marketplace. 2) Small Innovative Enterprises: Enterprises who own one to two R&D personnel (basically the owners themselves) with problems partly resolved by themselves and partly with the help of consultants. 3) Medium Innovative Enterprises: Enterprises who possess a diverse pool of R&D personnel to take charge of client demand related problem solving, and usually also hire consultants to help out. 4) Large Innovative Enterprises: Enterprises who own a large R&D department to engage in more basic research (sometimes acquire applied research results from outside). The classification is illustrated in the figure below:

Large Innovative Enterprises

Diverse pool of R&D personnel Limited R&D budget Capable of participating in technological networks (e.g. trade unions)

Medium Innovative Enterprises

1~2 R&D personnel Capable of handling packaged problems In need of R&D consultants' assistance

Small Innovative Enterprises

Unsustainable Enterprises

R&D Department Stresses long-term technological development efficacy

Without any technological development efficacy No awareness or not feeling in need of technological R&D

Business Development

Figure 1: Relationship between Technological Efficacy and Business Development Source: Arnold & Thuriax (1998)

In order to gain an insight into the inevitability and contingency of corporate innovation, this study adopts purposive sampling to select ten Taiwanese enterprises according to the organizational innovation efficacy classification offered by Arnold & Thuriax (1998) for case analysis. Of the ten samples, three belong to the category of large innovative enterprises (with all technological research and development being carried out in-house), four medium innovative enterprises (with an R&D department and part of the technological R&D being carried out through collaboration with external institutions), and three

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small innovative enterprises (with only a small number of R&D personnel or with only the responsible person engaging in R&D). The study conducts indepth interviews with research subjects and uses relevant corporate information for the purpose of data triangulation. The interviewees are mainly the key figures of the selected corporations (such as the chairman, president, and R&D head). The interview is structured according the framework proposed in the book Successful Innovation, co-authored by Sgyrett & Lummiman (2002), which discusses the nature of innovation from the perspectives of 1) idea generation method, 2) idea innovation method, 3) influencing factors of idea innovation, and 4) innovation acceleration mechanism. The similarities and differences between the ten cases under survey are analyzed in order to investigate their knowledge creation models and characteristics and to pinpoint the unique strengths in knowledge creation among Taiwanese enterprises. A brief profile for each company sampled is provided below: Company A: A large innovative enterprise established in 1989 and with an employee number of 30 (of which 13 are R&D personnel). Company A is a leading manufacturer of 3D display systems and also the first in Taiwan to launch display automatic adjustment equipment, which reduces the manpower required for human eye adjustment of existing display manufacturers and helps adjust screen focus and color convergence during the manufacturing process. Company B: A large innovative enterprise established in 1998 and with an employee number of 76 (of which 25 are R&D personnel). Company Β is the first domestic company to produce self-developed bare-chip sorter, which applies visual testing system to detect chip damage and performs wafer surface inspection and positioning to help ensure bare-chip quality and improve conformity rate. Company C: A large innovative enterprise established in 1999 and with an employee number of 45 (of which 24 are R&D personnel). Company C's major product is a 12-channel automatic channel selection cordless mouse, which is the first mouse product in the world that utilizes the radio frequency (RF) technique to remove the flaws of infrared mouse such as

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restrictions on moving directions, angles and barriers to facilitate stabilized data transmission. Company D: A medium innovative enterprise established in 1996 and with an employee number of 65 (of which 32 are R&D personnel). Company D started out as a 3D scanner supplier and has devoted to technological research on 3D digitization over the years. It has successfully developed portable 3D laser scanners to enable rapid non-contact scanning and to help construct 3D curve-surface models from real objects for storage and application. Company E: A medium innovative enterprise established in 1980 and with an employee number of 80 (of which 12 are R&D personnel). Originally a precision machinery and machine tools manufacturer, Company Ε now specializes in CNC precision milling and engraving machines. Company Ε began entering the field of PCB routing machines in 1995 and is currently a specialized manufacturer of PCB routing and drilling machines in the country. Company F: A medium innovative enterprise established in 1989. The main product of Company F is acid/alkaline resistant centrifugal fan, which overcomes the problems of traditional fans by applying oil bath bearing design and FRP material in fan blade and fan case to enhance the useful life and efficiency of the product. Company G: A medium innovative enterprise established in 1996 and specializing in environment-friendly, energy-conserving air conditioner, which consumes 40% less of electricity than a regular air conditioner. Since the product discharges cool air, it avoids the warm air outdoors produced by regular air-conditioners and can reduce the chances of the warm island effect. Not only does the product improves air quality but it is power saving and environment friendly. Better yet, the air-conditioner requires no water tower to bring down the temperature, which can help eradicate the legionnaire's disease and avoid water tower noise. Company H: A small innovative enterprise established in 1997. Company H's own unique deign of USB network chip uses cable wires to enable bi-directional data transmission between computers, freeing computers of transmission restrictions between mainframe and peripheral equipment

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and facilitating communication between computers. Combined with a USB hub, the product can connect several computers with peripheral equipment to construct a network environment for resource sharing. Company I: A small innovative enterprise established in 1986 with an employee number of 10 and the chairman himself responsible for R&D. Cable and wire packaging machine is the major product of the company, which performs the repetitive operations to help reduce manpower requirement and save operational time. Company J: A small innovative enterprise established in 1988. The owner himself takes charge of product R&D and marketing. The major products of Company J include computerized auto paper-money packing and bundling machines and approximately 90% of banks and post offices in Taiwan use the packing and bundling machines of the company, making the company a leader in domestic banking machines. III. Research Findings The results from the interviews with the subjects of the case study are processed and analyzed from the perspectives of idea generation method, idea innovation method, influencing factors of idea innovation, and innovation acceleration mechanism, as discussed below: 1. Idea Generating Tissen (1998) divides idea sources into three categories of 1) media; 2) professional journals (including books); and 3) human interaction (seminars, clients etc.). These idea generating methods are associated with the level of difficulty and the type of the problem in question. In other words, idea generating methods can vary from problem to problem. Friedman (1981) points out the following methods or channels for corporate employees to collect the information they need: 1) immediate supervisor; 2) group discussion; 3) superior manager; 4) work manual, data; 5) activity briefing; 6) general journals; 7) business management reports; 8) professional

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journals; 9) bulletin board; 10) seminar; 11) media; 12) social function etc. Happ et al (1997) provides many idea generating channels for problem-solving, which include informal communicating with colleagues, referring to manuals, looking for handling methods in similar situations, participating in technology presentations, consulting with advisors, discussing with friends, referring to early works, requesting information from suppliers, reading non-relevant books, seeking assistance on-line, drawing from others' work experience, reading professional magazines, referring to similar examples, seeking advice from gurus over the Internet, taking courses in a university, following the footsteps of those who have succeeded, asking help from a colleague (of a different department), attending formal training, learning through external networks, discussing with clients, attending exhibitions and shows, participating in professional meetings, listening to music, viewing art works, and taking a walk. It is worthy of investigation which of these channels are more frequently used and which are more effective. Generally, idea generation for problem solving can be simply divided into 1) self-contemplation; 2) discussion; 3) objects exploration; and 4) literature referring. In problem solving, all of these factors need to be considered in order to effectively collect ideas. The major idea generating channels applied by the subjects of the case study include self-contemplation such as contemplating while exercising (Company I) and contemplating while waiting for a flight (Company J); discussion such as client feedback (Company E), client interaction (Company D), competitor interaction (Company G), and trade union participation (Company F); objects exploration such as domestic and foreign patents (Company H); and literature referring such as technical journals (Companies Β and C) and magazines and newspapers (Company A); as is summarized in Table 3. 2. Working with Ideas According to the business development classification of Arnold & Thuriax (1998), corporations of different levels of innovativeness differ in the process of product development. Normally, larger companies tend to lay out more

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steps for product development to ensure effectiveness. A general R&D procedure for such companies may be divided into the following seven steps: 1) demand evaluation; 2) cost appraisal preparation; 3) new order assessment; 4) project detail planning; 5) product development; 6) production planning; and 7) mass production. Based on these steps, the product development procedure in fact entails seven gate keeping activities: 1) feasibility evaluation on demand; 2) assisting clients with cost appraisal; 3) customer order acceptance; 4) project plan approval; 5) product sample inspection; 6) production plan approval; and 7) next-generation product development. For the above activities, the gatekeepers are usually a manager or president level personnel (manager level for large enterprises, president level for mid-sized enterprises), while product development is under the charge of a project supervisor (Cooper, 1993). The product development processes in large and medium enterprises can be illustrated in the figure below:

Figure 2: Mid- to Large Enterprise Innovation Process Source: Cooper (1993)

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225

In small enterprises however, product development is normally carried out by company owners themselves. Usually small enterprises follow these procedures: (1) Generate a new idea and identify the market for it; make contact with the client to refine the idea (e.g. mechanics and appearance). (2) Analyze the market (e.g. where is the market for improved mechanics) and embark on initial product design if the idea is deemed having a market potential. (3) Discuss with the client and proceed with feasibility analysis on product development. (4) Improve the design according to the feasibility study result agreed by the client. (5) Review the design with the client. If the client is not satisfied, an analysis will be carried out again on the feasibility of further improvement. If the client is satisfied, the company then proceeds with mass production (Cooper, 1993), which is illustrated below:

Figure 3: Small Enterprise Innovation Process Source: Cooper (1993)

Seen from the above product development procedures, it is clear that the owner of a small enterprise is usually required to play two roles (product R&D and marketing) at the same time. Contrarily, larger enterprises tend to separate these two functions. Since small enterprise owners are required to play

226

The Contingency and Inevitability of Organizational Innovation

different roles, they tend to interact with the outside world for knowledge innovation. For mid- to large enterprises of which the R&D and marketing are put under the charge of different departments, knowledge sharing across functions and outward seeking of new knowledge are necessary for the organization to develop quickly and stay innovative. Among the ten subjects of the case study, six adopt mid- to large enterprise product development process (Companies A, B, C, D, E, and G) and four adopt small enterprise product development process (Companies F, Η, I, and J)· 3. Sowing the Seeds Tidd, Bessant & Paviet (2001) hold the view that in order to enhance the contingency and inevitability of the innovativeness among mid- to large enterprises, it is important to share knowledge between the R&D, marketing, and production functions in order to achieve 1) flexibility: a flat organizational structure can better facilitate employee interaction; 2) key figure's commitment: to inspire members to pursue excellence and do their job as a gatekeeper; 3) team operation diversification: to establish cross-department, cross-level, cross-nation problem-solving teams; 4) intellectual capital accumulation: to provide learning resources and stimulate motivation for learning; 5) a culture of equity: where the entire organization emphasizes expertise more than seniority; 6) resilience: in pursuit of excellence and continuous improvement; 7) a win-win climate: mutual support, encouragement, and sharing; 8) forwardlooking vision: to cultivate a forward-looking thinking habit among members and strengthens their responsiveness and adaptability.

The Contingency and Inevitability of Organizational Innovation

Requirement

227

Organizational Features A flat organizational structure to facilitate

Flexibility

employees' mutual assistance and knowledge sharing. Making commitment and inspiring

Key Figure

members to pursue excellence and do their job as gatekeeper.

Team Opeartion Intellectual Capital

Cross-departmental, localized and internationalized teams for problem solving. Providing leaning resources and incentives to strengthen learning and core competences.

Culture of

Respecting expertise rather than

Equity

seniority.

Resilience Innovative Climate

Unrelenting and persistent; making continuous improvement. Mutually supporting each other and providing opportunities and encouragements.

Forward-

Cultivating a forward-looking vision, as

looking

well as responsiveness and adaptability.

Table 1: Requirement and Organizational Features of Innovation Source: Tidd, Bessant & Paviet (2001)

In accelerating the process of innovation, the innovative climate, leadership style, and member learning ability all need to be stressed in order to promote 1) project management (schedule control and execution efficiency and effectiveness; 2) finance regulation (seeking financial support to deepen as well as broaden the R&D effort); 3) think-tank (expert base) building and application; and 4) innovative process management (making breakthroughs and innovations). All these help increase the R&D efficiency and results of the organiza-

228

The Contingency and Inevitability of Organizational Innovation

tion, particularly the management of innovation process, which ensures a focused research effort (giving up non core-competence related products), and reduces the failure rate and shortens time to market so that the product can make a head start on the market (Cooper & Kleinschmidt, 1998). According to Tidd, Bessant & Paviet (2001), product R&D personnel usually have the following qualities: 1) their pressure comes from within and their main concern is the time requirement for new product development; 2) on work objectives, they pursue newer and more functionalities, and diverse product mechanics; 3) on performance, they emphasize technological breakthroughs; and 4) on new knowledge acquisition, they stress centralized, in-depth knowledge. Marketing personnel on the other hand, possess somewhat different qualities: 1) their pressure comes from outside, and their main concern is the share and duration of the product on the market; 2) on work objectives, they emphasize whether the product meets the client's demand (e.g. appearance and mechanics); 3) on performance, they care about the commercial value of the product quality; and 4) on new knowledge acquisition, they stress generalist knowledge, as is shown in the table below: R&D Personnel

Marketing Personnel

Pressure

Internal: How long will it take External: How long will the

Source

to develop the new product? product last?

Objective

Can it be improved (more and newer functions)?

Performance Technology novelty Learning

Centralized, in-depth knowledge

Can client's demand be met (functionality and appearance)? Commercial value (quality) Generalist knowledge

Table 2: R&D and Marketing Personnel Quality Compared Source: Tidd, Bessant & Paviet (2001)

Based on the personnel qualities described above, the subjects of the case study can be divided according to the key figure responsibilities into R&D ori-

The Contingency and Inevitability of Organizational Innovation

229

entated, marketing oriented, and dual-function oriented. Of the ten companies under survey, four are R&D oriented (Companies B, C, D, and E), three marketing oriented (Companies A, G, and H), and three dual-function oriented (Companies F, I, and J). 4. Successful Innovation in Practice As mentioned earlier, Dewulf & Buille (1999) explain the process of innovation as a continuous transformation of thing in an individual or a team, which includes idea generation, explanation, evaluation, and application. Therefore, a knowledge innovation platform can help increase the efficiency and effectiveness of thinking transformation, and an efficient and effective thinking transformation process (breaking through the difficulty) will be of good referential value to many other applications. The transformation process starts with cause and solution seeking, and after the idea emerges, the transformation then heads for two different directions. In thinking, individual persons are likely to begin with explaining the meaning of the idea, and then evaluate its adequacy or feasibility. If the idea is deemed adequate or feasible, it will be applied and the result will then be evaluated. The meaning of the idea normally includes idea characteristics, classification, and inferences. The figure below illustrates the transformation process of idea generation and sharing.

230

The Contingency and Inevitability of Organizational Innovation

Figure 4: Transformation Processes of Idea Generation and Sharing Source: This study.

The transformation process of the (discussion of) knowledge sharing team and of self-thinking individual very much resembles a circular loop. Some persons because of a conservative personality would first explain to themselves after the idea emerges before they explain it to other team members (a, h, B). Others not just explain to themselves but would even make self-evaluation (to make sure the idea is not too far-fetched or is sophisticated enough) before raising the idea in front of the team (a, c, i, B). In cases like this, the thinking is much restricted. Knowledge sharing is a process of idea stimulation and transmission among team members through a big circular route, hence thinking transformation is usually more effective and efficient among team members than within individuals. When the self-explanation process fails to bring out a satisfactory result, the person will go back to re-think the idea, which is represented by the a-b route. When the self-explanation works well, the per-

The Contingency and Inevitability of Organizational Innovation

231

son would then start to evaluate the adequacy and feasibility of the idea (in problem-solving, adequacy refers to the cause while feasibility refers to the solution). Afterwards, the person would set the priority for application (a, b, c, e). When the person finds through self-evaluation that the idea is inadequate or unfeasible, he then goes back to the idea (a, c, d). Again after application, the person would evaluate the result, and would go back to try to think of another new idea when the result is determined to be unsatisfactory (a, c, e, f, g). Among the ten case study subjects, Companies G, I, J tend to follow the inner loop of knowledge transformation, Companies A, B, C, E, and F appear to be in between the loops (or the "in & out loop"), while Companies D and Η tend to follow the outer loop. These differences usually have to do with the members and the culture of the organization. The organization member difference for instance depends on whether the business emphasis is on R&D or marketing. In principle, R&D oriented organizations tend to follow the inner loop of thinking transformation while marketing oriented organizations the outer loop. This study also finds that R&D oriented corporations are generally capable of constructing a democratic organizational culture. In culture, totalitarian organizations tend to follow the inner loop. A face-conscious culture too contributes to an inner-loop idea-sharing mode. In general, the smaller the organizational scale, the more chances the enterprise will adopt an outer-loop idea sharing mechanism. Moreover, the inner loop (self-explanation and self-evaluation) knowledge transformation is more commonly seen in the "face-conscious" culture of the East, in which the enterprises tend to develop a more totalitarian culture that holds seniority in high respect. In other words, the more equal the social group is, the more likely the members are open to knowledge sharing. Also, lowranking personnel adopts more frequently the inner-loop approach than the higher-ups and that operations department are more outer-loop oriented than the production department. Those who are afraid of failure also tend to go around the inner loop than risk lovers (as shown in the table below).

232

The Contingency and Inevitability of Organizational Innovation

Inner Loop

Outer Loop

Tendency

Tendency

Department

Manufacturing

Operations

Power Structure

Totalitarian

Equal

Personality

Afraid of failure

Risk-loving

Age

Old

Young

Culture

Eastern

Western

Attribute

Table 3: Cultural Attributes and Thinking Process Tendency

From the business development standpoint, the organizational structure is usually the most equal with relatively open sharing of knowledge and higher innovativeness at the beginning (Tidd, Bessant & Paviet, 2001). As the organization grows, the difference in individual abilities become apparent with those relatively incapable ones losing motivation for sharing to avoid making mistakes, or the supervisors turning arrogant because of their management function, and ceasing to listen to others. In order to sustain the sense of equality, a fair and just reward and punishment system should be established or stipulated in the early stages to prevent the loss of solidarity or the development of mutual suspicion. Therefore, it is of paramount importance to keep the sense of equality alive and replace the rule of "silence is gold" with "speaking up without hesitation" so that the knowledge sharing team can stay innovative. In other words, having something to say is a form of self-realization. Since it is about realization, saying wrong things does not matter much, as long as members are willing to help each other to improve the idea, which is what is called member inter-dependence. As a result, all members will learn more, which then adds to the knowledge capital and strengthens innovativeness of the enterprise. Knowledge sharing is a process of idea stimulation and transmission among team members through a big circular route, hence thinking transformation is usually more effective and efficient among team members than within individuals.

233

The Contingency and Inevitability of Organizational Innovation

Summary The research findings are summarized in the table below according to the major product, enterprise category, key figure, key figure quality, idea generation channel, product development process, and idea sharing process of respective companies of the case study.

Company

Major

Enterprise

Key

Key Figure

Code

Product

Category

Figure

Quality

A

Β

C

D

Ε

F

G

Η

1

J

display system

Idea

Process

Process

marketing oriented

literature referring

mid- to large

In & Out

chairman

R&D oriented

literature referring

mid- to large

In & Out

president

R&D oriented

literature referring

mid- to large

In & Out

president

R&D oriented

discussion

mid- to large

outer loop

president

R&D oriented

discussion

mid- to large

in & out

R&D head

dual-function oriented

discussion

small

in & out

mid- to large

inner loop

small

outer loop

Small

inner loop

Small

inner loop

environment medium marketing friendly air- innovative president discussion oriented con enterprises small USB network marketing objects innovative president exploration chip oriented enterprises small cable & wire dual-function selfinnovative chairman packing oriented contemplating enterprises machine automatic small dual-function selfpaper-money innovative chairman oriented contemplating packer enterprises

Table 4: Innovative Quality Analysis of the Subject Enterprises Source: This study.

Product

Development Sharing

Channel

large innovative president enterprises

large innovative enterprises large cordless innovative computer peripherals enterprises medium 3D image innovative scanner enterprises medium PCB routing innovative machine enterprises medium centrifugal innovative fan enterprises bare-chip sorter

Idea Generation

234

The Contingency and Inevitability of Organizational Innovation

IV. Conclusion Jacob (2001) believes that team thinking transformation not only stimulates individual persons to come up with "I don't know (forget) that I know" type of ideas but occasionally even the "I don't know that I don't know" as well as the "I know that I don't know" kind of ideas. In a nutshell, thinking transformation boosts mutual stimulation of ideas. If these brainstormed ideas can be collected, sorted, and distributed to relevant personnel to promote further stimulation, explanation, evaluation, and even transmission, it will help improve the comprehensiveness and forward looking-ness of the thinking. In other words, innovation process management is about universalizing and sharing ideas, so that the process of innovation will happen faster, more frequently, and have a better quality. Team thinking can sometimes utilize thinking techniques such as brainstorming, in which ideas are generated and explained to the team but not evaluated to avoid discouraging members from raising more new ideas in the process of evaluation. Another technique, idea listing, involves idea raising, explaining to the team, as well as analyzing their feasibility. The KJ method on other hand, involves idea raising, explaining to the team, and evaluating the classification adequacy of the ideas. However, no matter what thinking technique is applied to boot team thinking transformation, as long as information/knowledge is well managed throughout the various stages of idea transformation, the efficiency and effectiveness of organizational innovation will be largely enhanced. References Arnold, E. & Thuriaux, B. (1998). Developing firms technological capability. Working paper, Technoplis, Brighton. Cooper, R. G. & Kleinschmidt, Ε. J. (1998). Portfolio management for new products. New York: Perseus Books. Cooper, R. G. (1993). Winning at new products (2nd ed.). Mass: AddisonWesley.

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Den Hertog, J. F. & Huizonza, E. (2000). The knowledge enterprises. London: Imperial College Press. Dewulf, S. & Baill, C. (1999). Creating is science and engineering. EACI the 6th Conference 1999, Dec. 12-15. Lattrop, the Netherland. Friedman, S. (1991 Sep.). Where employees go for information. Administrative Management. Jacob, I. (2001). The transfer of innovative practices. EACI the 7th Conference 2001, Dec. 9-12. Enschede, the Netherland. Syrett, M. & Lammiman, J. (2002). Successful innovation: How to encourage and shape profitable ideas. New York: Economists Books. Tidd, J., Bessant, J. & Pavilt, K. (2001). Managing innovation: Integrating technology, market and organizational change. New York: John Wiley & Sons. Tissen, R.J. (1998). Value-based knowledge management. Taipei: Longman, p. 149.

Climate for Creativity in Polish Companies: Does a New Market Economy Need New Ideas?

Edward N^cka and Joanna Kwasniewska

Abstract This chapter provides a review of four studies devoted to the problem of organizational creativity in chosen Polish companies. Particular attention has been paid to the construction of reliable instruments that allow measurement of diagnostic facets of favorable or unfavorable climate for creativity in the place of work. Apart from questionnaires, which are used to assess the explicit, conscious, and verbalized attitudes, an attempt has been made to reveal the attitudes that the bearers are not aware of, and which therefore cannot be verbalized. It has been suggested that, although both kinds of attitudes toward creativity are important, the discrepancy between them may be highly diagnostic for the company. Also, the discrepancy of attitudes and perceptions shared by managerial staff and the regular employees is of high diagnostic value, because it suggests that the climate for organizational creativity is not ideal in such cases.

Climate for creativity in Polish companies: Does a new market economy need new ideas? In this chapter we review a series of studies, which have been conducted in order to investigate the climate for creativity in chosen Polish organizations. Poland is a relatively new market economy, still in transition after the changes of 1989. At present, Polish economy consists of three kinds of organizations. Firstly, there is a growing number of new private companies, and majority of them generate jobs and income. Secondly, there are local branches of various foreign or multinational companies. These corporations also generate jobs but

238

Climate for Creativity in Polish Companies

not always income, due to the fact that some of them put a lot of resources into investments, while some others transfer their revenues abroad. It is estimated that about 80% of GDP is now generated by the private sector. Finally, there are companies still owned by the state or local communities. By and large, they operate in the heavy industry (e.g., coal mines, steel works) or public services (e.g., railways) sectors, and their financial situation is usually problematic. The authors of this chapter were interested in the question of how various kinds of companies differ in the way they deal with the creative potential of their personnel. To achieve such a goal, we had to start with the construction of assessment tools that could allow identification of barriers and obstacles to creativity. Such tools have been recently developed and applied in the US and other countries (Amabile & Gryskiewicz, 1989; Basadur & Hausdorf, 1996; Isaksen, Lauer, Ekvall & Britz, 2000-2001; Rickards & Jones, 1991). Needless to say, our tools had to be applicable in the local context. We also intended to investigate the differences between employees of different status and gender in the company in reference to such barriers. Our general approach amounts to the assumption that organizational creativity is at a tangent with individual creativity but does not result from it in a direct way. Specifically, we assumed that creativity of an organization is not simply the sum of its employees' creativity. One can imagine an organization in which the general level of creativity of the personnel is relatively high because, for instance, the employees had been recruited on the basis of such a criterion. However, the psychosocial conditions within the company are not favorable enough to allow expression and growth of these individual potentials. On the other hand, one can imagine a company in which the employees are not particularly exceptional in terms of their individual creativity but a kind of synergetic confluence of various psychosocial and managerial factors makes such a company a favorable place for implementation of innovations. It seems that climate for creativity is decisive for the expression or suppression of individual creative potential in the workplace. The climate for creativity presumably consists of the following features: (1) psychosocial factors, like communication, motivation, and organizational culture, (2) managerial factors, like modes of leadership, structure of a company, and level of bureaucracy, and (3) re-

239

Climate for Creativity in Polish Companies

sources invested in innovation, such as money, equipment, human resources, and time. Putting together psychosocial factors, managerial factors, and resources, allows generating the proper potential for innovation and creativity in the workplace, providing that these factors would operate systematically during a prolonged period of time. Such a definition of the climate for creativity is consistent with the most representative positions of the literature (e.g., Amabile & Gryskiewicz, 1989; Ekvall, 1999; Ekvall & Ryhammar, 1999; Kilboume & Woodman, 1999; Prather & Gundry, 2000).

The first study In the first approach (N§cka, 1999), our main goal was to prepare a reliable instrument for the measurement of attitudes towards creativity in the workplace. For that reason, we have focused on the instrument proposed by Basadur and Hausdorf (1996). It is a questionnaire consisting of 24 items, every of which pertaining to what people think about creative thinking in the place of work. After having translated these items, we decided to eliminate many of them and to modify the rest, because of their peculiar wording or inappropriateness concerning the local specificity. Thus, we practically created a new instrument, although the main facets of the approach adopted by Basadur and Hausdorf have been preserved.

The final version of the "Attitudes and preference questionnaire" consists of 24 items that require decision on the 5-point Likert scale ("I entirely agree" versus "I entirely don't agree"). These are four exemplary items taken from this tool:

4.

New ideas seldom work.

12.

I don't have enough time to develop unusual solutions.

18.

Manager's ideas are usually better because he/she has a broader perspective to look at the problem.

22.

If everybody is developing new ideas nobody's really doing any job.

Apart from the

main

items, we

also

included

several extra

questions

concerning one's self-rated creativity ("I guess I'm generally a creative per-

240

Climate for Creativity in Polish Companies

son"), diligence ("I can describe myself as a hard-working person"), and subjective well-being ("In general, I feel happy and satisfied in my life"). Also, several buffer questions were included, which served to conceal the actual purpose of investigation. We supposed that sincerity in this respect would impel our participants to produce socially desirable rather than genuine responses. We investigated 219 respondents working for six companies: a local branch of an international concern, one of the governmental agencies (ministry), a small private printing company, an Internal Revenue Service office (IRS), a private wholesale trade pharmaceutical company, and the public TV. The results have been subjected to factor analysis, yielding a two-factor solution. After careful item analysis, the first factor was called "Creativity in the place of work is important and satisfying", whereas the second factor was identified as "There is no time for creative thinking in the place of work'. Obliminal rotation revealed that these factors were negatively correlated at the very low level (0.19). It also appeared that they explained only 25% of variance. The reliabilities of both scales, measured with Cronbach's alpha, were satisfying (0.84 and 0.79, respectively). It appeared that people's convictions that creativity in the workplace is important and satisfying correlated positively with self-rated creativity and negatively with years in service (Table 1). People's convictions that there is no time for creativity in the place of work correlated positively with age and negatively with self-rated creativity as well as subjective well-being. However, all these relationships were rather weak.

241

Climate for Creativity in Polish Companies

r

Variables Factor 1: Creativity is important and satisfying "I'm a creative person" Years in service

+0.15 -0.16

Factor 2: No time for creativity Age "I'm a creative person" Subjective well being

+0.19 -0.20 -0.16

Table 1: Relationships between two factors of the "Attitudes and preferences questionnaire" and chosen personal characteristics (N$cka, 1999).

Moreover, some

interesting differences between companies

have

been

observed but only in reference to the second factor (Fig. 1). It appeared that participants employed by the Ministry and IRS showed quite strong convictions that there is no time for creativity in their workplace. The lowest level of such a conviction characterized participants employed by the private pharmaceutical company. Other companies obtained the moderate scores on this factor. These differences between companies proved to be statistically significant (F{5,213}=4.26, pO.OOl).

242

Climate for Creativity in Polish Companies

0,60

0,40 · •j* Ο £

0,20 -

« £

0,00 -

>

'"§ -0.20a> υ«οΚ -0,40 · ν ε '•Ο -0,60 ·

1

Ο

SC -0,80 •

-1,00

'

'

'

'

International

Ministry

Printing

IRS

' Pharmac.

Public TV

Company Figure 1: Differences between six companies concerning the convictions shared by the employees that "There is no time for creativity in the place of work" (Nfcka, 1999)

The results of this first approach of ours to study creativity in the workplace should be regarded promising but problematic. On the one hand, we were able to obtain a new and quite reliable instrument, ready to apply in applied investigations and diagnoses. Differences between companies were significant and sensible in terms of what is known about their size, traditions, ownership, and organizational culture. These findings indicate that the new instrument proved its value, or at least expediency. On the other hand, the amount of variance explained by the two factors was rather small. It means that majority of factors influencing the participants' responses to the questionnaire were not captured by the factors extracted on the basis of raw data. Moreover, three- or four-factor solutions did not improve the amount of variance explained.

Climate for Creativity in Polish Companies

243

The second study In our second approach, a series of MA projects has been carried out. This time, an entirely new measurement instrument, called "Attitudes toward creativity in the workplace" (ACWP), has been developed. Primarily, 164 items have been generated by the members of the research group. These items were subjected to preliminary research, with the participation of 205 employees working for different companies at different positions. Factor analysis allowed extracting two factors, explaining about 36% percent of variance. On the basis of factor loading exceeding the value 0.40, thirty six items have been left in the final version of ACWP. These items were divided into two equal parts, referring to two extracted factors. The factors were identified as "Openness" and "Conservatism". Their respective Cronbach's alphas were 0.92 and 0.84, and the correlation between them was low but significant (-0.27). The exemplary items loading the openness factor are as follows:"Even if a problem has been already solved it is worthy to think about alternative solutions" or „New ideas are always interesting even though they appear impracticar. As to the "Conservatism" factor, the exemplary items are as follows: „Chaos in the only result of changing the routine and proved procedures" or „Creativity is difficult and time consuming, one cannot afford to be creative in the workplace". Having this new instrument ready to use, we checked whether the financial outcome of a company remains in any relationship with what employees think about creativity in the place of work (Sobczak, 2001). For that reason, a chain of nine fast food stores was investigated concerning the net income increase or decrease in three months, that is, between October and January. It appeared that there were no relations whatsoever between the financial outcome and the ACWP results in the case of managers (N=27). In the case of regular employees (N=84), the negative correlation between "Conservatism" and net financial outcome took place (r=-0.19). It means that financially more efficient companies were characterized by the conviction, expressed by the regular employees, that creativity in the workplace is not necessary or welcome because it introduces chaos and absorbs one's time. This finding,

244

Climate for Creativity in Polish Companies

though rather unexpected, should be treated with caution because of low level of the observed correlation. In the same study, a relationship between explicit and implicit attitudes toward creativity in the workplace has been investigated. Certainly, the ACWP questionnaire pertains to explicit attitudes, which may not be representative for what the employees really think. Creativity is a kind of slogan nowadays, so employees are often recruited on the basis of their assessed ability to develop new ideas. They also take part in trainings and seminars during which they can acquire rather positive attitudes concerning how much creativity and innovations are important in the market economy. However, the results of such "indoctrination" may be quite shallow, that is, not related to the actual convictions and attitudes. In other word, trainings and seminars may affect explicit attitudes, whereas the implicit attitudes, which are hidden only for the bearer, may remain intact. The implicit attitudes have been assessed with the procedure developed by Greenwald and Banaji (1995; Banaji & Greenwald, 1994), called the Implicit Association Test (IAT). Participants are asked to do a classification task. They are supposed to respond with one key to the exemplars of one category (e.g., words associated with creativity, such as original or ingenious) and with another key - to exemplars to another category (e.g., words associated with lack of creativity, such as routine or passive). This is a task simple categorization. Also, the participants are asked to respond with one key to words associated with work (e.g., office, schedule), and with another key - to the words associated with leisure (e.g., vacation, fun). This is a simple categorization task, too. In the next series, participants are supposed to do a complex categorization task. The have to respond with one key to words associated with lack of creativity or work, whereas the second key is appropriate to respond to the words associated with creativity or leisure. Still, just one word is appearing on the screen at the given moment but this word may belong to two categories instead of one. Needless to say, the complex categorization takes more time compared to the simple categorization, which is possible to assess in terms of reaction time. The most interesting version of this task takes place when par-

Climate for Creativity in Polish Companies

245

ticipants have to make a complex categorization of words, which - f o r a person who thinks creativity in the workplace is not necessary - are mutually exclusive. For instance, if one has to respond with the same key to words associated with work or creativity, a kind of cognitive dissonance appears, which is possible to capture through the analysis of reaction time. In other words, reaction time is longer if somebody cannot put the notions concerning creativity and work to the same mental category. Of course, if somebody thinks that words associated with work and creativity are not incompatible, he or she will respond with relatively short reaction time, although some increment of RT is inevitable due to the necessity to deal with complex rather than simple categorization task. With the use of this procedure to assess implicit attitudes towards creativity in the workplace, Sobczak (2001) was able to show an interesting effect of attitude dissociation. Attitudes of some participants were dissociated if the explicit attitude, assessed with ACWP, was different from the implicit attitude, assessed with IAT. As we can see (Figure 2), cohesive negative attitudes were not very frequent in the investigated sample (about 10% in both the managers and nonmanagers subgroups). This kind of attitude amounts to scoring low on openness and high on conservatism, on the one hand, and responding with particularly slow pace in the double categorization task if words associated with creativity belonged to the same category as the words associated with work, on the other hand. As to the cohesive positive attitudes, they were characteristic of participants employed at managerial positions (more than 60%), and much less characteristic of regular employees (about 30%). The cohesive positive attitude means that a given participant obtained high score on openness and low scores on conservatism; at the same time, he or she did not face too much difficulty in the task requiring double categorization of words associated with creativity or work. The dissociation effect, probably the most interesting one, refers to about 27% of managers and about 60% of regular employees. In this case, participants demonstrated a positive explicit attitude towards creativity in the workplace but their implicit attitudes remained negative. It appeared that dissociated attitudes were much more frequent in the case of participants who were not employed at managerial positions. Maybe the rea-

246

Climate for Creativity in Polish Companies

son is related to the fact that managers profit by extra trainings; moreover, they are selected for their jobs on the basis of what they really think about creativity in the place of work. The effect shown in Fig. 2 is statistically significant (c/7/'2=10.25, p

.c

δ* V. α

c c

?

Q> £ O)

c

4.2 time scheduling and risk analysis

c ο

4.1 process analysis,

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