Managing and fostering creativity: An integrated approach

• We highlight an integrated conceptual approach to teaching creativity in a business school.
• We offer insights and suggestions for how creativity can be developed.
• We show how design thinking can be used to generate innovative solutions.
• We offer suggestions for assisting students with challenges that arise during design thinking.

After years of seeking students with leadership skills, companies today are putting similar levels of emphasis on those with creative capabilities. Such companies need creative people to help solve their most pressing problems, and to help generate new sources of value creation for firms that have suffered years of stagnant growth. A quick glance at recent business books and magazines shows that the need for such individuals is strong and growing, as global competition becomes the new normal and economies around the world become increasingly connected. As business educators we need to reflect on how we should go about designing classes and curricular that develop creative capabilities in our students. This paper outlines an integrated approach to enhancing creativity at the individual, group, and organizational levels that is used in a Creativity Course taught at a large University in the United States. In doing so it is presented in two parts. Part I describes the conceptual underpinnings of the course and the three module framework that is used to structure content. Thus, Part I focuses on describing what is taught and explaining why. Part II illustrates how the course is implemented through a series of both individual and group projects. Additionally, it reflects on key learning outcomes that have occurred through the delivery of multiple iterations of the course. Together Part I and II combine to create a complete learning resource for anyone interested in developing and delivering a course on creativity.