Creative Thinking and Entrepreneurship - Literature review Example

ENTREPRENEURSHIP Task Your college………………………… Words count - 2006 Table of Contents Table of Contents 2 INTRODUCTION 3 CREATIVE THINKING AND ENTREPRENEURSHIP 4 Creativity and Creative Thinking 4 Learning Creativity 4 Enhancing Creativity 5 Creativity implications on entrepreneurs 7 CONCLUSION 9 References 10 INTRODUCTION As most literatures addressed, entrepreneurship is a holistic and economic function (Julien, 2008, p. 18) that conjures up certain images of heroic efforts put in by entrepreneurs to transform their ideas and vision to a real business organization by making changes. Entrepreneurs are those who use their personal abilities and skills to innovate, think creatively, take the risks, and bear uncertainties to successfully implement a change. Most people perceive mental images of some world-renowned business personalities such as Mark Zuckerberg, Bill Gates and Steve Jobs (Baron, 2012, p. 3) for that they have made tremendous changes in the way their businesses were carried out. According to entrepreneurship principles, an entrepreneur is one who exhibits some enterprising attributes such as personal and professional behaviour and personality traits attained either innately or from learning through education, training or experiences (Gibb, 2007, p. 5). Out of all these enterprising attributes, creative thinking is perhaps one of the most important requirements for an entrepreneur to discover an opportunity for business and to convert the idea to a business reality by managing resources such as people, technology and process. Unless an entrepreneur is creative thinker, he won’t be able to recognize an opportunity, exploit it by using various and dynamic business strategies and transform the opportunity to a real business venture. This paper presents a brief review of Timmons’ comment about creativity and its implication on entrepreneurs. Jeffry Timmons stated that “the notion that creativity can be learned or enhanced holds important implications for entrepreneurs who need to be creative in their thinking (Deakins, D and Freel M, 2003, p 58). Based on literatures, this paper critically analyzes Timmons’ comment above and attempts to describe how creativity impacts entrepreneurship. CREATIVE THINKING AND ENTREPRENEURSHIP Creativity and Creative Thinking Kariv (2011, p. 54) defined creativity as the envisioning of new combinations of resources and market realities, either by questioning about conventional wisdom or by discovering of newer knowledge pertaining to market needs or technology, or by uncovering newer applications for a pre-existed knowledge. Creativity is an individual’s ability to change concepts and perceptions through his own thinking skills, and in that sense, creative thinking leads to creativity. Creativity is making and communicating of meaningful new combinations to help people think about many possibilities and in varied ways by using different points of view. It also helps people think about new unusual possibilities and to generate alternatives (Bessant and Tidd, 2007, p. 40). Creativity helps entrepreneurs lead innovation, use latest technology for newer possibilities and for applying available resources for newer possibilities. Creativity is not only a subsequent condition for innovation and development, but also unique skills at individual level that cannot be simply copied, but can be enhanced by varying methods or techniques to foster creativity. Learning Creativity Timmons Comment mentioned above highlight two theoretical frameworks, one is that creativity can be learned or enhanced and secondly since creativity can be achieved, it has greater implication on entrepreneur’s thinking about opportunity recognition, pursuing of it and converting his idea to a business entity. Bygrave (2004, p. 35) pointed that most of the people are able to spot creativity flair. Children may seem to possess creativity, may enhance and improve their skills in creativity whereas many others see to lose it. Based on some literatures, Bygrave (2004, p. 35) argued that creativity arises during the first grade in school because an individual’s life, behaviour, thinking skills etc tend to be highly influenced by structuring by others and by institutions. Similarly, intellectual development occurs during the early school years than formative years. Creativity can be learned in the early years in school and it can be further enhanced in later years after school or college education. Baron (2013, p. 49) emphasized that entrepreneurship is a undoubtedly a process, not a single event and therefore it starts with an idea for something to solve an existing issues. For that, the entrepreneur may depend on ways that are better than current means for solving the issue. He then proceeds with certain efforts to determine whether the idea can meet an entrepreneurial need. As Casakin, Davidovitch and Milgram (2010) pointed, creative thinking is a cognitive ability to generate ideas that are unusual and of high quality. They argued that creative thinkers are those who discover or produce ideas that are clever and surprising. Entrepreneurs’ creativity works more effectively when they have to solve certain issues or problems that they faced in their way of enterprising. Based on literatures, Fillis and Rentschler (2010, p. 54) argued that learning or building creativity is often influenced by certain factors such as intrinsic or extrinsic motivation. Creativity is largely influenced by a motivational synergy that can result when there are stronger levels of personal interests and involvement and that there are promises for rewards to meet competence, support skill development and enable future achievement etc. Enhancing Creativity Some literatures including Rickards (1997, p. 9) argued that all those who think and believe that they create creativity may be wrong because creativity is a gift that people possess except that it can be enhanced or developed through appropriate training and application. Though some literatures perceived creativity as a gift, most literatures agreed that creativity can be enhanced. However, there is greater debate on how it can be enhanced. What can be done to enhance creativity? Creativity can be encouraged by some factors and that is how creativity can be enhanced. Baron and Shane (2007, p. 81) argued that creativity is found to emerge from the operation of different kinds of memory, expansion or merging of concepts and related processes. They have outlined a framework to explain those factors that provide important insights into the factors that contribute to enhancing creativity. According to Baron and Shane (2007, p. 81), creativity emerged out of confluence of some basic factors and resources and this has been illustrated by a theoretical framework named confluence approach. The confluence approach suggests that creativity emerges out of confluence of several basic resources, such as: Intellectual abilities- It refers to the ability and wisdom of a person to perceive problems in newer WAYS. It also refers to the ability to recognizing those ideas that are worth pursuing coupled with persuasive or influencing skills. With intellectual abilities, a person will be able to convince other people about the value of newer ideas. A broad knowledge base- It refers to an individual’s ability to store large base of relevant information in his memory. Appropriate style of thinking- An entrepreneur can enhance his creativity by his preference for thinking in novel ways. His appropriate style of thinking involves his ability to see big picture of thinking globally as well as locally and with his confidence of escaping from mental distractions. Personality attributes- Creativity of a person can also be enhanced by his own willingness to take risks and to tolerate ambiguity etc. Intrinsic and task-focused motivation- People are usually love to be rewarded, admired and recognized. Creative people are found to love what they are doing and they like to be rewarded intrinsically for their work. An environment that can support creative ideas- An environment or a specific condition within his business or other domains that encourages changes and reforms can also largely enhance creativity in an entrepreneur (Baron and Shane, 2007, p. 81). An illustration of confluence approach is outlined above. Creativity implications on entrepreneurs The notion that creativity can be learned and enhanced holds important implications on entrepreneurs because successful entrepreneurs are those who creatively think to find an opportunity, to pursue it and to develop a business entity from the opportunity. Since creativity is closely linked to problem solving (Kuratko, 2013, p. 136), entrepreneurs with creative thinking ability will be able to tackle a wide range of problems including scientific paradoxes, ethical dilemma, complicated managerial decision making, and so on. As creativity is a significant drive to greater success of an entrepreneur, there are basically two components that he is supposed to consider, people and process. Process is a goal-oriented task that the entrepreneur has to design ways to attain solutions for his problems. People are the resources that can determine the solution for the problem (Kuratko, 2013, p. 136). Many entrepreneurs are successfully managing change because, creativity, creative thinking, creative functioning and creative responses can provide greater flexibility by increasing varying options and by helping them to cope and adapt to the changes (VanGundy, 2004, p. 3). As Treffinger Isaksen and Stead-Dorval (2005) argued, with creativity and creative thinking, entrepreneurs are able to undergo a divergent process in which he begins from a single point like single question but it extends in to variety of directions by generating varying possibilities of actions and solutions. In such problem solving contexts, entrepreneurs come across gaps, paradoxes, opportunities, problems, distractions, concerns and challenges by searching for new combinations and by finding or generating more possibilities and opportunities (Bessant and Tidd, 2007, p. 49). Implications of creativity and creative thinking on entrepreneur can be best understood from how entrepreneurial process occurs. An entrepreneur is one who finds a hidden business opportunity, exploits the opportunity by implementing strategic combination of process, people and technology and finally translates the idea, opportunity and vision to a real business organization. An entrepreneur will be successful only if he is a creative thinker about each and every steps in the process of converting idea to business entity. He therefore needs to be creative in finding the opportunity, creative thinker in searching for strategic ways to exploit the opportunity and to use creative functions at various stages of transforming the idea to business (Allen, 2011, p. 47). To summarize, creativity has following implications on entrepreneurs Creation of something that is new or is not seen until now in the contexts of business Expanding opportunities for creation of a product, service or a new business venture Synthesizing of separate elements in to a different products, ideas and services Modifying an already known creation to develop a new concept Imitating along with adaptation of an already known creation so as to adjust it to a specific need or requirement in the market (Kariv, 2011, p. 56) CONCLUSION This paper has presented a critical review and analysis on Timmons’ comment about creativity and entrepreneurship. This paper highlighted tow basic consensus highlighted in Timmons’ comment- one is that creativity can be both learned and enhanced, and the second is that creativity that is created or enhanced can have greater implications on entrepreneurship. This paper defined creativity as an envisioning of new combinations of resources including people, process, technology and strategies. Creativity is a person’s ability to transform concepts and perceptions through his logical, reasoning and thinking skills. This paper suggested that creativity is an important requirement at each and every phase of entrepreneurial process. In entrepreneurial process, an entrepreneur initially finds an opportunity for business, exploits it and finally apply certain techniques for developing a business. Throughout these stages of process, entrepreneur needs to think creatively. This paper, based on literatures, suggested that creativity can be learned mainly because it is found that creativity emerged during the first grade periods of students in their schooling. Though literatures generally agreed that creativity can be enhanced, it has been debated about what factors enhance creativity. Based on Baron and Shane (2007, p. 81), this paper suggested that creativity can be enhanced by intellectual abilities, broad knowledge base of an entrepreneur, appropriate style of thinking, personality attributes, intrinsic and task-focused motivation and an environment that can support creative ideas. Implications of creativity on entrepreneurship are also detailed in this paper. Major implications of creativity on entrepreneurship include creating something new, expanding opportunities for creating products, services or new brands, synthesizing separate elements for product or service development, modifying an existing idea or products and imitating an already known and established creation for getting accustomed with changes. References Allen, K. R, 2011, Launching New Ventures: An Entrepreneurial Approach, Sixth edition, Cengage Learning Baron, R.A. 2012, Entrepreneurship: An Evidence-based Guide, Edward Elgar Publishing Baron, R.A. 2013, Enhancing Entrepreneurial Excellence: Tools for Making the Possible Real, Edward Elgar Publishing Baron, R and Shane, S, 2007, Entrepreneurship: A Process Perspective, Second edition, Cengage Learning Bessant, J and Tidd, J, 2007, Innovation and Entrepreneurship, John Wiley & Sons Bygrave, W.D, 2004, The Portable MBA in Entrepreneurship, John Wiley & Sons Casakin, H., Davidovitch, N & Milgram, R.M, 2010,Creative Thinking as a Predictor of Creative Problem Solving in Architectural Design Students, Psychology of Aesthetics, Creativity, and the Arts, American Psychological Association Fillis, I and Rentschler, R, 2010, The role of creativity in entrepreneurship, Journal of Enterprising Culture Gibb, A. 2007, The Enterprise Culture: Threat or Opportunity, Emerald Backfiles Julien, P. 2008, A Theory of Local Entrepreneurship in the Knowledge Economy, Edward Elgar Publishing Kariv, D, 2011, Entrepreneurship: An International Introduction, Taylor & Francis Kuratko, D.F. 2013, Entrepreneurship: Theory, Process, Practice, Cengage Learning Treffinger D.J, Isaksen S.G and Stead-Dorval K.B (2005), Creative Problem Solving: An Introduction, Illustrated fourth Edition, Prufrock Press Inc VanGundy A.B (2004), 101 activities for teaching creativity and problem solving, Illustrated Edition, John Wiley and Sons Read More