Organisational Creativity in Context: Learning from a Failing Attempt to Introduce IT Support for Creativity

As a much needed quality in today’s businesses, creativity is an important area of research. Whilst implementing and evaluating computer support for electronic brainstorming, it was noticed that the sheer presence of technology does neither guarantee usage nor success. Contextual factors such as organisational culture and attitudes seem to have an equally important role, and this observation called for a more focused analysis of the motivational aspects of creativity management. Based on the empirical data from the electronic brainstorming system evaluation and literature on organisational creativity, three general pieces of managerial advice to promote corporate creativity are suggested: reconsider the use of extrinsic rewards; recognise creative initiatives, and; allow redundancy.