Fostering Creativity in Creative Environments: An Empirical Study of Saudi Architectural Firms

Abstract

INTRODUCTIONIntense global competition is forcing the development of a culture that nurtures creativity. Conceptually, creativity is hard to define, and even when organizations succeed in innovation projects, managers are not always satisfied with the results (Fagerberg, Mowery, & Nelson, 2006). What can be done, however, is to establish a culture and environment that fosters value-added services (Coveney, 2008; Kozbelt, Beghetto, & Runco, 2010). In keeping with earlier realities of global competition, which certainly still hold true now, Amabile (1988, p. 126) asserted that creative employees have become the source of original and potentially useful ideas and solutions for a firm's renewal of products, services, and processes.Organizational creativity is considered a new research area (Shalley, Gilson, & Blum, 2009). The main focus of recent research on creativity has been on creative subprocesses in an operational sense (Rietzschel, De Dreu, & Nijstad, 2009) where there is an obvious need for an integrative framework for creativity applications in open and continuously innovative workplaces (Scharmer, 2009). The ability to develop a culture that nurtures creativity is crucial and if it does not occur spontaneously, managers need to take responsibility to establish the right work environment, as well as to develop innovation strategies that foster new ideas to be transformed into value-added services (Coveney, 2008).In the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, construction and architectural design have experienced a significant boom in recent decades. This offers possibilities for researching the nexus between creativity, innovation and Saudi architectural firms' support for creativity. Thus, this paper examines the relationship between architectural design-related management practices and creativity in Saudi Arabia. The purpose of this study is to explore the factors affecting organizational creativity in five architectural firms operating in Saudi Arabia using Amabile's componential theory. The objective is to validate the hypotheses of this theory to help executives and decision makers in Saudi architectural firms to enhance their understanding of what makes their employees, and specifically designers, more creative and their organizations more innovative.THEORETICAL CONTEXT AND RESEARCH HYPOTHESESCreativity and Innovation in the WorkplaceCreativity is "the production of novel and useful ideas in any domain" (Amabile, Conti, Coon, Lazenby, & Herron, 1996, p. 1155). Hennessey and Amabile (2010) stated that creativity is the production of a novel and appropriate response or solution to a problem. The response must be new, valuable, and fitting to a particular goal. The terms creativity and innovation are also often stated in tandem in practice although there are some variations in meaning (Hunter, Bedell, & Mumford, 2007). The main distinction between the two is that creativity is the generation of creative ideas while innovation is the implementation of these ideas (Heye, 2006). The role of individual creativity in fostering organizational creativity and innovation is an essential ingredient for longterm success and survival (Amabile, Burnside, & Gryskiewicz, 1999; Pitta, 2009).Organizational creativity is defined as "the creation of a valuable, useful new product, service, idea, procedure, or process by individuals working together in a complex social system" (Woodman, Sawyer, & Griffin, 1993, p. 293). Pitta (2009) proposed that one of the key drivers of organizational creativity is the strong support of individual creativity. Coelho, Augusto, and Lages (2011) emphasized the need for an organizational culture that supports individual creativity and innovation. Organizations which failed to foresee the importance of creativity activities have had higher failure rates because of their weakness in establishing a culture and climate that values new ideas. Fostering creativity in the organizational culture would promote innovation and increase competitiveness. …