Knowledge management and creativity: a technology-facilitated balance

A growing body of literature discusses the importance of creativity in organizations. Together with the reliance of creativity on knowledge, and the increasing use of information systems (IS) as means to support organizational knowledge, research of the relationship between IS, knowledge and creativity in organizations seems to be in order. In this paper, evidence from case studies of real-world commercial creative processes is presented. Drawing on the evidence, the creativity, knowledge and IS literatures are critically examined. A view of channeled creativity is consequently presented and discussed that takes into account a cognitive perspective of creativity. This view focuses on flexible knowledge sharing, rather than on prescriptive creativity algorithms. This view involves primarily two complementary organizational practices: communication of exemplars and references, and knowledge restriction. Unlike many of the creativity support approaches presented in the literature, it is not an isolated technique but rather a set of fairly specific organizational practices, which, brought together, seem to give rise to creativity, and mitigate against potential identity conflicts.