Creativity and Innovation at Gunstones Bakery - Essay Example

Creativity is defined by Steve Jobs as “Creativity is just connecting things” (Wolf, 2011). But the question is: Is creativity so simple to be defined as “connecting things” that has been defined by the greatest innovator of the time, Steve Jobs, or there is any complex method behind the innovation and creativity. The incidental perception of creativity is also questioned for not being intentional. The assignment elaborates the concept of innovation and creativity to the groups and individuals in Gunstones and what does these exactly means in terms of Gunstones competitive abilities to develop and expand.

The assignment’s standpoint will be from a worker’s view who is currently working in Gunstones bakery and who happens to be my brother Jabaar Khan. As I lack in work experience I could not fulfil the criteria to complete the assessment and thus I took help of my brother as the source of my assignment. The advantage of using my brother’s experience has helped in preparing a bias free assignment (Adair, 2007). Thus the third party perception on my brother’s experience and his organisation will permit me to inspect into the detailed picture of the organisation and how the worker and the organisation work hand in hand with prejudice (Arnold, 1956).

My brother works in the Gunstones Bakery factory which supplies packed food for Marks & Spencer’s. His experience over there and the background of the company (See Appendix 1) can be recorded by ‘The Cultural Web’ (Johnson and Scholes, 1999) representing the factory’s routine process which is known as the ‘taken-for-granted assumptions’ (Johnson and Scholes, 1999). Before proceeding towards the assessment, creativity and innovation should be defined. But it can be seen that all the definitions of creativity has two aspects which are either process oriented (Dewett, 2004) or outcome oriented (Amabile, 1996).

Creativity is defined as the production of novel and resourceful ideas in any of the domain. Amabile has said that a creative idea or a product is something that is not done before but it fulfils the desired purpose. Amabile has also defined innovation as the “successful implementation of creative ideas within an organization” and these definition has been accepted by Cook who has found the linkage between the two as the ideas (creativity) must be proficient enough (Cook, 1998) to be converted into successful actions (innovation).

OPPORTUNITIES AND INHIBITORS OF CREATIVITY AND INNOVATION ALSO THEIR IMPACT ON ORGANISATIONAL PERFORMANCES COMPONENTIAL MODEL The ‘Componential Model’ which is given in Figure 1 consists of the 3 major influential factors of the opportunity that is important for creativity. The factors are expertise, creative thinking and the intrinsic task motivation which are in built in teams and individual. Figure 1: Componential Model Source: (Amabile, 1996) EXPEPTISE OPPORTUNITY ‘Expertise factor’ consists of foundation of factual knowledge, proficiencies