Advancing the case for creativity through graduate business education

We describe an MBA course focusing on creativity and innovation in organizations. Drawing on the creativity literature and experiential learning theory, the theoretical foundations of the course are discussed. Core aspects of the course include reading articles from academic journals and business periodicals, engaging a wide variety of experiential activities, keeping a personal journal, and completing two individual projects. We sought to understand the effect of the course on students’ perceptions of the importance of creativity for organizations, their own creativity and self-perceptions of creativity, as well as their perceptions of the utility of journaling. Data were collected at the beginning and end of the course to examine these issues. The results suggest that the course had a positive influence in each case. These results are discussed and thoughts for future research are provided.