Fostering Creativity and Innovation (eBook)

Flevy Lasrado is Assistant Professor of Business Excellence and Quality Management systems at the University of Wollongong in Dubai, UAE. Her research interests revolve around organisational excellence in a range of settings, and she has published over 40 publications which include research monographs, books, journal articles, conference papers and book chapters. Flevy is a qualified EFQM assessor, as well as having been an assessor for the Dubai Quality Award and the UAE Innovation Awards.

 
Table of Contents
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1.1 Introduction to Organizational Creativity and Innovation
1.2 Challenges of Global Entrepreneurship
1.3 Concepts of Design thinking
1.4 Shaping Innovation Deployment
1.5 The Ideation Process and Tools
1.6 Importance of Innovation in UAE
1.7 Innovation Legacy: The Case of the United Arab Emirates
 
Synopsis: This chapter thus illustrates the pitfalls for building a strong foundation for creativity and innovation in organisations. It also discusses the four big questions of what innovation deployment is, why we use it, how it works, and who shapes it. This is followed by a discussion of the innovation legacy of the United Arab Emirates (UAE), which ranked 35th on the 2017 Global Innovation Index and 16th in the 2017 Global Competitiveness Report. The chapter then describes the importance of innovation in UAE and introduces the UAE Innovation Award and explains how the quest for innovation has evolved over the years. Theoretical models of creativity and innovation, as well as evolution and ideation tools, are also discussed. Organizations that shed their rigidity are continually adapting and learning from within their organizations as well as from others. In recent years, research has suggested that innovation and creativity have become pillars for leveraging competitive advantage. Though the terms “innovation” and “creativity” are discussed together at times, they are defined separately. Hence, it is essential to understand these terms along with their implications for global entrepreneurs. More importantly, the success with innovation and creativity has come in many shapes and forms.
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Part 2: TQM, AMO, Innovation and Factors Impacting Organizational Creativity and Innovation
 
2.1   Theoretical Underpinnings 
2.2   Transition from Quality to Innovation
2.3   Bringing in Tools: What can we learn from
        TQM to Innovate?
2.4   Innovation and Change
2.5   Power of Ability, Opportunity and Motivation(AMO)
2.6   Factors impacting creativity and Innovation
Synopsis: General managers and entrepreneurs share a keen interest in learning how to foster innovation and creativity in ways that help their firms create wealth. In examining the various innovation contexts, it is clear that some organizational cultures produce many more innovations than others. Human beings are fundamentally creative; however, individuals can be nurtured further to produce creative ideas. Entrepreneurs need to understand how to achieve those creative outcomes that can result in organizations emerging as successful enterprises. This chapter aims to recognise factors that entrepreneurs should embrace in their organization and explains its theoretical underpinnings to the ability, opportunity, motivation (AMO), and Total Quality Management.
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Part 3: A Framework for Innovation Assessment
 
 3.1 Enablers and Outcomes
 3.2 Leadership          
 3.3 People
 3.4 Capability: Organizational Support and Resources
 3.5 Evaluation and Rewards 
 3.6 Innovation Effectiveness   
Synopsis: The goal of the assessment is to identify the problems or opportunities that can be addressed through an evaluation. This chapter introduces the assessment framework to carry out an evaluation of an organisation’s level of creativity and innovation. The assessment model includes five criteria: leadership, people, capability, evaluation and rewards, and innovation effectiveness. Each of these criteria are discussed in this chapter along with a case study. This chapter thus helps the reader understand what factors to address in order to leverage the results of innovation and to build enthusiasm for improvement.
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Part 4: “How Are We Doing”? Using a Maturity Model Assessment
 
4.1 Maturity Model Structure
4.2 Innovation and Creativity Assessment Tool (ICAT)
4.3 How to Use the ICAT and the Maturity Model
4.4 Measuring Progress and Success Using the ICAT
4.5 Defining Your Path to Success
Synopsis: This chapter focuses on helping organisations evaluate how far tan organization has  on  an innovation deployment drive and to chart a path forward. For doing so, we introduce a maturity model and the innovation and creativity assessment tool (ICAT). The five components discussed in the previous chapter make up the most important elements of the model, which uses three levels of achievement, or maturity, from grassroots efforts with ad hoc projects to world class deployment. The chapter provides advice on how to use this structured tool to address critical questions such as:
Do we have the right pieces in place? Is anything missing? What are we doing well? What are our challenges? What’s most important for us to work on next? 5
Part 5: Innovation in Action
 
5.1 Innovation Assessments
5.2 Innovation Awards
5.3 Preparing to Embrace Innovation Culture
5.4 Leading for innovation: What it is and what it is not
 
Synopsis: In this chapter, we focus on understanding global frameworks and the structure of innovation assessments. Our aim is also to help the reader understand various innovation awards and how to write a strong application for such awards. We conclude by analyzing how such frameworks are becoming relevant in today’s constantly changing market, and why it has become necessary for organisations to deploy these frameworks to gain a competitive advantage in both local and global markets. The chapter illustrates a few case scenarios about organisations who win innovation awards and continuously leverage their human capital towards the drive for innovation.
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Part 6: Sustaining Innovation and Future research implications
 
6.1 Cases of Winning Innovation Profiles
6.2 Learning from Wining Innovations
6.3 Sustaining Innovation
6.4 Emerging research streams in innovation
 
Synopsis: In this section, we introduce case studies in innovation where the emphasis is on the role and importance of innovation enablers in achieving results. Four organisations representing the private and public sectors highlight how to shape a high-performing culture of innovation. The chapter discusses the various strategies that can help organisations achieve results. We conclude by presenting an analysis of the four cases, and we reiterate the importance of sustainable innovations for organisations globally. We identify and envisage that, when it comes to innovation results, the focus has to be on the four key areas of profitability, sustainability, reputation, and governance. Further, we debate that to be successful, creativity—the ability to conceive and implement novel initiatives—becomes crucial for organisations to remain sustainably competitive. In concluding section, we will also focus on discussing the emerging research themes for future research and present new research prepositions.