Course 2014-2015 a.y.

Course Objectives

Students learn about the basic features of the creativity and creative processes, both short term and over longer time periods, understand and come to appreciate a number of different psychological and socio psychological approaches to creativity, and learn about some of the important issues involved in managing creativity effectively including other important areas of organizational behavior research (e.g., leadership, teamwork).

Students study creativity in many domains, including business, science and technology, the arts, and life in general, relying on a mixture of lectures, readings, and discussion. To do so, they engage in a variety of class exercises (e.g., experiments) in which they explore their own creativity and group exercises in which they engage in creative activity with others. They also learn through cases, about creativity in business and how organizations foster creativity and manage creative processes.

Creativity is fascinating and incredibly important for society, and hopefully students gain a greater and greater appreciation for this in the course of our work and later as they reflect back upon their work and continue to learn about creativity, on the job and in your life.

Learning outcomes:

• Explain the influence of problem solving techniques, team processes, and environmental conditions on creativity in organizations.
• Explain the process involved in managing creativity effectively and apply this knowledge to your own creative or innovative idea. 
• Analyze organizational practices that facilitate creativity.  
• Develop case study analysis skills regarding creativity (specifically, identifying critical issues in case studies and applying course material to case studies).

Course Content Summary

How do creative ideas happen? How can we foster our creativity and the creativity of those around us? What are the paths of creative development of individuals who are successful in their creative endeavors? What are the obstacles to creativity? What is the nature of creativity in teams and organizations? These are some of the questions we address.

The list below summarizes major topics covered in this course.

• What is creativity (i.e., definition, conceptualization)?
• What is the role of creativity in organizations? Individual-specific factors that underlie or affect creativity.
  • The role of personality traits (e.g., openness to experience).

• Context-specific factors that underlie or affect creativity (i.e., making and keeping creative individuals creating).
  • The role of working environment (e.g., organizational climate).
  • The role of managers/leaders (e.g., leader humility).
  • The role of other social and cultural factors (e.g., diversity, power distance).

• Creative Idea Generation.
  • Techniques (e.g., brainstorming, lateral thinking).

• Teams and creativity.
  • How do teams become more creative?
  • Factors affecting creativity in Teams (e.g., groupthink, conflicts, diversity).

• Related, similar constructs (e.g., innovation).

Detailed Description of Assessment Methods

For attending students

No final exam. Cumulative assessment (CA) constitutes 100% of the final grade, consisting of:

1. Individual Assessment: 80% of total, consisting of

• Exams 40%
• Class participation 20%
• Individual project 20%

2. Group Assessment: 20% of total, consisting of

• Team project 20%

For non attending students

Cumulative assessment of non-attending students constitutes 100% of the final grade, consisting of a final exam. The exam will be based on the chapters of the two textbooks (Mumford, 2011 and Shalley & Zhou, 2007, please see below for session plan) assigned to sessions. Alike for attending students, the exam will include only multiple-choice questions.

Textbooks

For attending and non attending students

• M.D. MUMFORD, Handbook of Organizational Creativity, 2011.
• J. ZHOU, C.E. SHALLEY, Handbook of Organizational Creativity, 2007.
• Articles and Exercises from Journals, Magazines and other sources.