Managing creativity in business market relationships

a r t i c l e i n f o The guest editors' introduction to the Special Issue on managing creativity in business market relationships positions the topic at the intersection between interorganizational research and creativity research. It introduces three paradoxes that managers of such processes face: a) the tension between the need for structure versus freedom to pursue new ideas, b) the dilemma between openness and organizational alignment, and c) the task of combining and prioritizing between inter-and intraorganizational views. In step with the increased importance of innovation as a means of sustaining and developing competitive positions, firms increasingly seek to develop their creative capacity. Creative performance results in employees suggesting new and useful products and ideas, hence, creativity is a basic element of innovation Creative processes frequently call for the involvement of actors, activities and resources beyond the single organization. Creative outputs typically are collective rather than individual endeavors, based on social interrelations that transcend boundaries (Perry-Smith, 2006). This is especially true in the business-to-business context, where the involvement of suppliers and customers, is increasingly prominent in the development of new products and services. Also, it is difficult to be truly innovative without at least some minimal external input or inspiration. Organizations tend to become efficient through the building of routines and perspectives to which individual employees conform and which are strengthened by structures and systems, such as budget routines and departmentalizations of tasks (Weick, 1991). Creativity, on the other hand, calls for novel insights and non-traditional perspectives that may go beyond the taken-for-granted perspectives of organizational life. For this reason, external inputs are valuable if not critical for creative processes. However, spanning boundaries and seeking to create arenas for the creative interaction of internal and external views are not automatic and also are more complex than the boundary spanning activities involving industry buyers and sales people. Developing creativity is about exploring new possibilities and following what may often be vague ideas or hunches rather than seeking support to align resources and activities in order to increase efficiency. Ultimately, the task of creativity managers and employees is to fundamentally challenge existing ways of doing things within as well as across organizations. Combining research on inter-organizational relationships with research on creativity seems to offer a potential for fruitful insights into how to tackle the paradoxical challenges involved in managing creativity across boundaries. However, these streams of research exist …