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Factors influencing creativity in top executives
Abstract
The challenges of the turbulent environment facing most top executives today, the need for creative skills at every level in organizations and at the top in particular, and the lack of clear understanding as to what creativity is all about point out the need for an investigation into the factors influencing creativity at the top of organizations. The issues are rich and complex. The causes of the differences in creativity levels are many and not easily isolatable. The complexities of understanding the dynamics are heightened when they are put into a real-life context of a particular person, in a certain place, at a particular point in time. Much research has been conducted in the various relevant disciplines on diverse pieces of the complex puzzle, but most research has not been specifically related to the factors influencing creativity levels in top executives. The purpose of this dissertation is to better understand, through interviews with sixteen top executives of sixteen different organizations, how these executives, in their own words, perceive their personal creativity and the factors influencing its levels during their climb to and tenure at the top. As a result of the research, four themes emerge: (1) Personal issues play a much larger role than do external factors in explaining the differences in top executives' creativity levels; (2) Creativity in business is not well understood, and there are consequences from an incomplete understanding of creativity for both the top executive as well as the business; (3) The picture of the creative top executive resulting from these interviews and the literature is that of an artist. Awareness of the need for a new set of creative skills is a starting point for the development of a top executive's own program of education and growth; and (4) Several strategies for personal development are identified in this study. Implications for practitioners and aspirants, Boards of Directors, human resource specialists, and the teaching and research communities are explored. Suggestions for further research are also outlined.
Subject Area
Management|Occupational psychology
Recommended Citation
Levesque, Lynne C, "Factors influencing creativity in top executives" (1996). Doctoral Dissertations Available from Proquest. AAI9638989.
https://scholarworks.umass.edu/dissertations/AAI9638989