creativity (ideas) management in industrial r&d organizations: a crea-political process model and an...

2006 The AuthorsJournal compilation 2006 Blackwell Publishing

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CREATIVITY AND INNOVATION MANAGEMENT

Volume 15 Number 3 2006

doi:10.1111/j.1467-8691.2006.00397.x

Creativity (Ideas) Management in Industrial R&D Organizations: A Crea-Political Process Model and an Empirical Illustration of Corus RD&T

Han Bakker, Kees Boersma and Sytse Oreel

Creativity management is a crucial topic to consider in the debate about the innovativeresearch department. Against the background of discussions about individual creativity andorganizational commitment, this article argues that the creative process in organizations is amatter of political strategies. The ideator literally has to sell his/her idea. The article thereforecomes up with a crea-political process model in which there is ample room for the thoughtthat ideas emerge and survive within a social-political context. In addition, the crea-politicalprocess model is used to analyse the way in which the Corus Group Research Developmentand Technology (RD&T) department has implemented an electronic idea-management system.The system, called

eureka!

, has been designed as a straightforward platform to capture, review,evaluate and select creative ideas. The ndings challenge the literature on idea managementin organizations to consider the political activities of ideators in the whole process ofcreativity.

Introduction

ost industrial R&D managers emphasizethe necessity of an innovative environ-

ment in which creativity can prosper. Whileinnovation in this respect is not a random pro-cess, R&D managers often argue that this pro-cess of knowledge creation is hard to manage(Argyres & Silverman, 2004; Tell, 2004; Tham-hain, 2003; Verhaeghe & Kr, 2002). More pre-cisely, R&D managers struggle with questionsof individual freedom in research and organi-zational commitment (Van Dijk & Van denEnde, 2002) and with matters of individualexibility (Georgdottir & Getz, 2004). Givenlocal circumstances (such as the nature, sizeand market-context of the rm) they have tond a balance between the scientic ambitionsof professionals (the key actors within thisprocess) and organizational goals such asproduct development.

In a more usual sense the question of indi-vidual freedom and organizational demandscan be problematized as the connectionbetween the actor (agent) and structure, whichhas been a important issue in social researchsince decades (e.g. Bourdieu, 1992; Giddens,

M

1984). Over recent years this problem hasreceived increasing attention within the eldof organization and management studies(see, for example, Orlikowski, 2000). What isimportant for the present article in this respectis the notion that the R&D organization canprot from knowledge creation only if theindividual action and knowledge (idea) gener-ation is embedded in organizational routinesand local research agendas, as previous empir-ical research has shown (Berends, Boersma &Weggeman, 2003; Saari & Miettinen, 2001).Strategic and active knowledge managementthat can inuence the innovative and creativecapacity of the rm is therefore a crucial topicto consider.

Recent research in organization manage-ment studies has shown the relevance ofinformation systems (e.g. intranets) to steercreativity knowledge/ideas exchange amongmembers of the organization (Curry & Stan-cich, 2000; Damsgaard & Scheepers, 2001).Information systems can become a leadingtool in shaping a community of practice in therm, which enables practitioners to shareknowledge and to create a link between learn-ing and performance (Wenger, 1998; Wenger,

CREATIVITY MANAGEMENT IN INDUSTRIAL R&D ORGANIZATIONS

297



McDermott & Snyder, 2002). Such a commu-nity is formed by people who engage in a pro-cess of collective learning in a shared domainof human endeavour such as the R&D organi-zation. For a community of practice to func-tion it needs to generate and appropriate ashared repertoire of ideas and creativity. ICT(in the sense of an electronic idea system) canbe seen as an important tool in this respect. Aswe will see in this article, such a tool is notneutral, but as a mediator and because of itsspecic technical script (Akrich, 1992) it alsopartly shapes the creative idea.

In this article we will address this problem,by focusing on creativity management withinthe Research, Development & Technology(RD&T) department of the Corus Group (aninternational metals company).

1

The idea isnot, however, to study the Corus RD&Tknowledge management in detail, since thisembraces more than just creativity manage-ment. In the following, we want to limit our-selves to the question of how, in the context ofCorus RD&Ts creativity management, indi-vidual researchers come up with creative ideasusing an ICT-tool, and how these ideas arejudged by their peers and management. In thisrespect, we see a creative idea as a new andadequate contribution (see Henry, 2005) in thespecic context of Corus RD&T. The ideatorthen, is the person who comes up with a newidea.

In contrast to static models, we study thecreative idea management as a process, which:

. . . focuses our inquiry on how individualsattempt to orient themselves to, and makecreative action in, situations or events thatare complex, ambiguous, and ill dened. Inother words, this is an issue of how individ-uals engage in sensemaking in organiza-tions. (Drazin, Glynn and Kazanjian, 1999,p. 287)

Therefore, we will come up with a model forcreativity management through which we canunderstand this process of sensemaking.

The objective of this article is twofold. First,following previous (theoretical) research, wewant to show how the process of creativity canbe managed (and modelled) within organiza-tional R&D practices. In this part we willreect upon the question of individual cre-ative action versus organizational rules.

Second, we want to study the development,implementation and adaptation of an ideamanagement system within the context of theCorus RD&T department. In this empiricalpart of the article, we will unravel how

eureka!

,an intranet tool based upon Lotus Notes, isembedded into the creativity (ideas) manage-ment (as part of the knowledge management)at Corus RD&T. The main question is how wecan understand

eureka!

in the process of cre-ativity management at Corus RD&T and howthe researchers are actually using this system.We will study the implications for theresearchers working with the program. We areinterested in how this system affects the gen-eration and evaluation of ideas within Corus how was

eureka!

dened and how is it used byresearchers to get support for their ideas?

In what follows, we rst will give a briefoverview of the literature on creativity man-agement analysing two different models ofcreativity management. We will present a newresearch model with which we will analysecreativity management as a crea-politicalactivity. Next, we will use this model to sketchthe context of Corus RD&T management andits motivation to implement

eureka!

. In doingso, we will analyse the process of sensemakingwithin Corus RD&T. In the conclusion of thisarticle we will discuss the value of our creativ-ity management model and reect upon theuse of

eureka!

at Corus in the light of thismodel.

Models of Creativity Management and R&D

Over the years, scholars have come up withdifferent theories about creativity, the manage-ment of creativity, and its relation to knowl-edge generation within (R&D) organizations.In this section, we will present two leadingmodels from the eld of management of cre-ativity that have been recently published ininternational journals: (a) the model of VanDijk and Van den Ende (2002) and (b) themodel of Hellstrm and Hellstrm (2002).Both models address the connection of theindividual actor and organization we haveraised in the introduction of this article and aretherefore interesting for us in understandingthe process of creativity management in R&Dsettings. We will discuss the background ofeach model separately, taking the theoreticalstarting points into consideration before com-ing up with an alternative model.

In the early 1980s Theresa Amabile stressedthe importance of creativity among schoolchildren. Because of her background as a psy-chologist, she opted for an individual, cogni-

1

We would like to thank the Innovation Managerand the Manager Communication and Publicity ofthe Corus RD&T for their co-operation, providingthe information about Corus in this article and fortheir useful suggestions and comments on earlierdrafts.

298




tive approach in analysing creative processes.Later on, while working at Harvard, she alsopaid attention to the urgency of creativitymanagement for the innovativeness of organi-zations and leadership (Amabile, 1998).

Many authors in the eld of creativity man-agement have been inspired by Amabilesideas of intrinsic motivation. The CreativityTransformation model by Van Dijk and Vanden Ende, published in

R&D Management

(2002), is an important example. It can be inter-preted as a reaction to the rather nave idea ofthe uni-lateral relationship between culturaland structural elements. In the model, shownin Figure 1 below, the cultural and structuralaspects are two overlapping domains of theorganization. The theoretical perspective ofthis model is based upon individually relatedfactors and organizationally related factors(e.g. Tropman, 1998). Van Dijk and Van denEndes model suggests mutual inuence ofboth factors and elements, with the main focuson the organizational part (2002, p. 388). Theauthors have developed a so-called three-stepmodel, distinguishing between idea extrac-tion, idea landing and idea follow-up (VanDijk and Van den Ende, 2002, p. 390).

This model is practical and the distin-guished variables are recognizable in organi-zational contexts. As we can see, Van Dijk andVan den Ende stress the mutual relationbetween cultural and structural factors andthe multilaterality of the process. The focusseems to be on the manager (consideringterms such as idea extraction).

Likewise, in a critical reaction on the unilat-eral ow of ideas in organizations, Hellstrmand Hellstrm introduced a management of

creativity process model. The title of their arti-cle: Highways, Alleys and By-lanes: Chartingthe Pathways for Ideas and Innovations inOrganizations is indicative of their opinionthat it is impossible to regard idea processes asunilateral. Based upon an in-depth interviewstudy with 34 members of a large Swedishtelecoms corporation, the authors tried to ndout how creativity is facilitated in organiza-tions. The main question of this study washow stimulation of new ideas comes aboutand what pathways they take through theorganization (2002, p. 107).

The authors have labelled the process as

organizational ideation

. They combined the indi-vidual/team orientation (e.g. Leonard-Barton,1992) and the concept of the knowledge broker(Prusak & Cohen, 1998) on the one hand andthe organizational structure orientation (e.g.Hitt, Ireland & Lee, 2000; Kogut & Zander,1996) on the other hand to study the involvedagency and the pathways of organizationalideation. The process of organizational ide-ation is sub-divided into four factors: ideainducement, the pathways, the rules of theroad and gate control (Hellstrm & Hell-strm, 2002), as is shown in the Figure 2. Thismodel is interesting because it shifts the atten-tion to structures that include ambiguity andinformal management, which are assets in theunpredictable processes of organizational ide-ation. Words such as highways, alleys, by-lanes, pathways, rules of the road and gatecontrol clearly indicate that these authorshave found their inspiration in the moderntrafc situation.

In the two models presented above, theauthors also interpret the role of the man-

Figure 1. Phases and Factors in the Transfer of Creativity to Practicable IdeasSource:

Van Dijk & Van den Ende, 2002

.

7

Idea extraction Encourage- ment

Idea landing Organization Support

Idea follow-upCommitted Resources

Culture Structure

- Idea responsiveness - Accessibility of the systems - Broadness of the scope

- Alignment - Possibility of reflection - Emancipation of idea receptiveness

- Intensity of evaluation - Use of rewards - Processing of ideas


299



ager in the whole process of creativity. In therst model, Van Dijk and Van den Ende, thefocus is on the manager, who is presented asan industrial entrepreneur, whereas in thesecond, that of Hellstrm and Hellstrm,there is more space for both the employeeand the manager, the manager being a roadbuilder, rule-maker and gate-controller,whereas the employee is looking for the bestroutes. It is a way to focus upon the manage-rial aspect of the organizational-creativityprocess.

However, what is missing in these twomodels is an indication of how the managercan deal with the tension between creativityas expression on the one hand and creativityas purposeful action on the other hand.Many ideas that arise in an organizationalcontext are hardly free from interpretations,expectations and other experiences that

ide-ators

have developed in their working life these are the people, operating within differ-ent organizational cultural contexts, whogive meaning to the ideas (Drazin, Glynn &Kazanjian, 1999; Weick, 1995). Their cogni-tive lters, or frames as Goffman would callthem, enable but also can easily limit theircreative expressions and hence the organiza-tions potential creative reservoir. Instead ofblack-boxing the organizational culture (asVan Dijk and Van den Ende do in theirmodel in which culture is assumed to be anorganization-wide, shared phenomenon thatis manageable to a considerable extent), wesee culture as part and parcel of the entireorganization, affecting all kinds of actionsand relations (Alvesson, 2002), especially

political actions, as we will see below. Forthat reason, culture in our model is notadded as a separate variable.

Ideas are complex wholes of interrelatedelements that form part of larger wholes. Ideaevolution is strongly shaped (and judged) bythe organizational context; in the end not allideas are equal. In order to understand thisphenomenon, we will introduce the

political

metaphor to study the creativity process inorganizations. We no longer perceive this as acreative activity

per se

but merely as a crea-political process. It is a matter of liminality(Turner, 1967); an inter-structural situationthat occurs when people exist outside theclassicatory schemes (in our case politicaland creativity) of daily organizationalpractices.

A New Research Model

While studying the wide range of literature itbecomes clear that creativity has long beenclaimed by psychologists. At present it is obvi-ous that creativity can no longer be seen as acharacteristic of an individual alone. Creativ-ity is not only the result of the genius of a per-son; it always takes place within a speciccontext (Feldman, Csikszentmihalyi & Gard-ner, 1994). Gardner (1994, p. 71) states thatpeople are never creative in general. Creativityis always related to so-called domains ofwhich a person has a certain amount of knowl-edge. Apart from that, nothing and nobody iscreative in essence, it is always about thejudgements of others. This view is also pre-

Figure 2. A Model of Organizational IdeationSource

: Hellstrm & Hellstrm, 2002.

Highways Idea inducement: - Simple positive feedback - Emotional-social gratification - Appreciation of creative potential - Competitive self-compensation - Idea herding Rules of the

road:- Speed restrictions - Moving incrementally

Gate controller Factors affecting opening/ closing:

Gate opening - Status/ trustworthiness of the ideator - Structural and process factors in organization Gate closing - Toughness of demands on ideator

- Small-mindedness - The flow of feedback

Alleys and By-lanes

300




sented by Amabile (1983, p. 32), who statesthat creativity is a subjective notion and that itis impossible to see creativity as a dichotomy.It is better to say that someone or something ismore or less creative compared to somebodyor something else.

According to us, the management of cre-ative expression within an organization is amatter of

political strategies

. Actors not onlyhave to come up with innovative ideas basedupon research in the research department (orelsewhere), but they have to sell these ideasto their colleagues, peers and managers. In theend, this is a difcult process of justication(Latour & Woolgar, 1986; Tell, 2004) in whichthe ideators have to translate their ideas fromthe individual level to the level of the R&Ddepartment. Bringing up ideas is a matter ofconcern rather than a matter of fact, and thesematters must be liked, justied and do-able(Latour, 1987). Next, on the level of the R&Ddepartment, the ideas of the ideators are beingre-interpreted by organization actors such asthe R&D manager. This is not a uni-linear cog-nitive process, but an activity that needs acareful political strategy of shaping coalitionswithin the organization. It is during such orga-nizational processes that actors develop allkinds of power strategies in order to inuencetheir organizational environments (Hardy &Clegg, 1999). In this respect, power not onlyhas to do with the individual ability to getthings done, to inuence decision outcomes,but, as Swan and Scarbrough argued in arecent article in which they refer to the work ofSteve Lukes, also with more hidden forms ofpower that involve (de)legitimation of partic-ular activities (Swan & Scarbrough, 2005).(See also the ideas of Cross & Parker, 2004,about (the) hidden power in organizationalnetworks).

This is not to say that we want to overem-phasize politics and political processes. Forexample, it is important to consider the socio-cognitive processes in which individual ideasare transformed into collective practices. Thisis another process that includes both themicro level of the individual cognition andthe organizational routines, i.e. shared cogni-tion (Garud & Rappa, 1994). Moreover, underequal circumstances some people come upwith more creative ideas than others andshow more creative behaviour than others. Inthis article, however, we want to focus on theidea that organizational members oftensearch for information and support haphaz-ardly and opportunistically because of theexistence of cognitive limits (this point hasbeen discussed earlier in terms of boundedrationality, see Eisenhardt & Zbaracki, 1992).It is this focus that justies the presentation of

a creativity management model in whichthere is room for the political part of the cre-ative process.

A Crea-Political Process Model

There is a thin blue line between where mentalaggregates become expressed or evolve fromthe ideators perspective and where theyevolve from other organizational actors per-spective (see Simonton, 1988). There are goodreasons to analyse this as a continuum, fromthe creative process at one extreme to the polit-ical process at the other, because at any timeduring the process the ideator shows both cre-ative and (intentional or unintentional) politi-cal behaviour.

However, we want to distinguish threeseparate phases or modalities in this contin-uum: the creative process, the crea-politicalprocess and the political process, because wewant to focus on the process in which the cre-ative and political dynamics become inter-linked this happens particularly andforemost in what we call the crea-politicalphase. In this phase, the new knowledge rep-resentations (as an outcome of this process ofsensemaking) come into play at both the indi-vidual and the collective level, . . . while newobjectives concerning knowledge accumula-tion and knowledge preservation enter theorganizational level (Lazaric, Mangolte &Massu, 2003).

The model must be seen as an

action model

inwhich the individual political strategies areincorporated. Part of this process can beunderstood by using the models of Van Dijkand Van den Ende (Figure 1) and Hellstrmand Hellstrm (Figure 2). In our model, how-ever, we focus more on the political strategiesof the ideator and R&D manager. The way inwhich individual researchers operate withinthe crea-political phase is visualized in Figure3 below. Of course, as in all other models, thegure is a simplication of reality (for exam-ple, the different phases and circles in themodel are overlapping in daily practice), butone that can help us to understand in a moresystematic way in the Weberian

ideal-typical

sense how in the crea-political phase theindividual and organizational levels areinterconnected.

Rationale Behind the Model

The idea behind this model is twofold. In therst place, the model lls the gap we have dis-covered in the literature the idea that creativ-ity and the activities of the ideator can be seenas a crea-political process. The model can best


301



be seen as a sensitizing model for cases inwhich one tries to understand how a creativeindividual uses political strategies to get his/her idea funded in the organization. In the sec-ond place the model gives a structure to ourempirical ndings the use of a creativityknowledge system at Corus RD&T that wewill present in the sections below. In otherwords, with the model we try to bridge thegap between abstract theory and the practiceof organizing creativity.

This gure must be read as follows. It rst ofall describes the various (bureaucratic) organi-zational circles in which the ideator operatesand in which the political strategies take place.Because an idea never comes up in isolation(i.e. ideas are always embedded in local cir-cumstances), we start with the intimate circlein which the ideator tries to convince a fewtrustworthy researchers (inside or outside theorganization) or even lay people about theusefulness of an idea. In the professional circlethe idea is tested against a group of knowl-edgeable others, for example in a peer reviewprocess or by end-users of the idea (in the caseof Corus RD&T, these people are mainly work-ing in the business units, i.e. the productionand not the research site of the company). Inthe managerial circle the ideator tries to get thecommitment of the management to develophis/her idea into a workable research plan. Inthis way, an idea becomes do-able (a termborrowed from Fujimura, 1987) within a spe-cic organizational context. This part of themodel describes the

travelling of ideas

through(local) organizational contexts during whichthe ideas are transformed in various phases of

the creative process (see also Czarniawska &Joerges, 1996).

2

Parallel to this are the actions of the individ-ual researcher, which are divided into

the cre-ating

,

selling and funding of ideas

. This processdescribes the route of an idea from the indi-viduals mind to the organizational practice(knowledge routines). It is especially in the

selling of ideas

phase that the individualresearcher has to nd support for his or heridea. This is an entrepreneurial activity thathas been labelled before as internal corporateventuring, which takes place at different levelsof the organization (Burgelman, 1983; Garud& Van de Ven, 1992). It indicates how situatedindividuals try to persuade inuential othersat the level of the corporation.

Of course, these processes do not follow aunidirectional route, in the sense that an ideasimply runs from an individual towards anorganization-wide realm. For that reason, wehave used feedback arrows (pointing to theleft in the gure) in our model, which stand forthe interactions between the different phasesin the whole crea-political process.

Figure 3. The Crea-Political Process Model

Crea-Political Phase

Funding of ideas Selling of ideas Creating of ideas

Professionalcircle

Intimate circle

Managerial circle

2

While travelling, the ideas undergo a constantprocess of translation giving then different mean-ings as a result of changing contexts. It is outsidethe scope of this article to describe the epistemolog-ical implications of this process (i.e. like Latour andWoolgar did in

Laboratory Life

, 1986). Instead, wewant to focus more on the social interactions andstrategies of Corus (research) employees.

302




The Crea-Political Process Model and the Use of ICT-Systems as a Tool

Traditionally, classical creativity systems suchas suggestion boxes are being used as a co-ordinating tool in managing creativity (Ekvall,1971). Such systems have been followed morerecently followed by more advanced knowl-edge management systems, that is, by elec-tronic spaces such as intranets (and in theexample case,

eureka!

) in which ideas can becaptured, enhanced and selected. These sys-tems can function as management tools afterthe early stages of the innovation process (thefuzzy front end, see: Boeddrich, 2004).

Ideally, the R&D information system willcreate an electronic infrastructure and knowl-edge pool, thus becoming part of the creativitymanagement process. In our model, it plays avital role in the whole crea-political process.While using information and communicationtechnologies (ICT) in R&D environments, suchas intranet platforms and other knowledgemanagement systems, the researchers produceand reproduce their social relations and com-munication patterns within the research set-ting (Orlikowski, 2000, in a study about theimplementation of Lotus Notes in differentorganizational settings). As said before in theintroduction, the Lotus Notes intranet tool

eureka!

plays an important role in our empiri-cal study of the process of managing creativitywithin Corus RD&T.

Although this was not the rst motivationfor the Corus R&D management to start with

eureka!

, the use of the program can lead to anenvironment where creativity can prosper. Theuse of the system implies that the manage-ment must have the skills and competence toselect the appropriate explicit knowledge andthe ability to translate this knowledge intoorganizational terms. After all, the creativity isnot in the computer system

eureka!

but withinhuman beings. Earlier empirical research hasshown that the implementation and use of anICT tool is a complicated process of sensemak-ing (Boersma & Kingma, 2005). The knowl-edge system (as a tool for idea management)can only

facilitate

the capturing, selection andenhancing of ideas among members of theorganization. The starting point is that theknowledge (ideas) put on the knowledge sys-tem is explicit knowledge in the terms ofMichael Polanyi that can easily be sharedand evaluated by members of the user group.For this reason, Curry and Stancich (2000)state that To obtain maximum value from anintranet, both the soft cultural issues ofinformation sharing and change in work pro-cesses must be addressed alongside the hard

systems issues of managing the Intranet as aninformation system and a business recourse(Curry & Stancich, 2000, p. 255).

Research Methods

In what follows we want to present our empir-ical case study into the idea management sys-tem of Corus RD&T. Our research into theCorus

eureka!

system is based upon a survey,interviews and secondary data that describethe initiation, development, operation andlocal impact of this knowledge managementsystem.

The survey consisted of questions aboutthe ideator (his/her motives, reputation, net-work), the screening of ideas and the role ofthe management and the funding-process. Thequestionnaire was sent by mail to about 850people; 550 of whom were researchers. We gota response of 173, which is about 33 per cent ofthe population; see the table in Appendix 1below. In our research, the survey functions asa rst step in the analysis and should not beseen as an attempt to gure out causal rela-tionships between certain research variables.The outcome of the questionnaire will be usedas a quantitative illustration of the way

eureka!

is judged by different researchers and manag-ers of Corus RD&T (see Appendix 2). We haveused the outcome of the survey to developrelevant topics that we used during ourinterviews.

We conducted in-depth interview sessionswith eight researchers who had experiencewith

eureka!

. The interviews we carriedout at two Corus RD&T sites (one in TheNetherlands and one in the UK) were semi-structured. We analysed the interviews interms of technology management, organiza-tional culture, communication processes andpower relations. We paid special attention tocommunication patterns and working rou-tines and the way

eureka!

was used by individ-ual researchers. The collected data are relatedto the process of R&D knowledge creation. Inaddition, we have consulted some

eureka!

keypersonnel, such as the Programme ManagerInnovation who set up the system, in order tounderstand the managerial problems anddilemmas.

In addition to the interviews and the survey,we obtained access to relevant documentssuch as the

eureka!

Ideas Management SystemUser Manual Lotus Notes to reconstruct the(technical) script of

eureka!

(see also Figure 4).The data we gathered were analysed in

terms of (a) the social behaviour of the ide-ator, (b) the role of the evaluator during theselection process and (c) the lobby-activities


303



that surround the funding process. In whatfollows, we will black-box both the cogni-tive, inter-personal activity and the organiza-tional implementation process after thefunding. We will focus on the question whathappens in between; in the crea-politicalphase.

Ideas Management at Corus RD&T

The Use of

Eureka!

Corus Group is an international metals com-pany, formed on 6 October 1999, through themerger of British Steel (UK) and KoninklijkeHoogovens (The Netherlands). The head-quarters are situated in London, with fourdivisions and operations worldwide. Coruspresents itself as a customer-focused, innova-tive solutions-driven company, which manu-factures, processes and distributes metalproducts (www.corusgroup.com April/May2005). The company has manufacturing oper-ations in many countries, with major plantsin the UK, The Netherlands, Germany,France, Norway and the USA, and also pro-vides design, technology and consultancyservices. Corus is divided into four mainDivisions strip products, long products, dis-tributions & building systems and aluminium each of them contains several businessunits (22 in total). Some business units haveidea management systems and pools of theirown (separate from RD&T), but a discussionof these systems is beyond the scope of thisarticle.

Corus has a research department at whichabout 900 people are working; about 500 inThe Netherlands and 400 in the UK. CorusRD&T plays an important and strategic role inthe entire process of innovation at Corus.

Recently, the Corus RD&T managementintroduced a new idea management system,

eureka!

, to handle creative ideas.

Eureka!

wasintroduced with a promising rhetoric state-ment: We have to generate a continuousstream of market winners by developing newprocesses, products, product applications andnew business concepts. The start will bebuilding up our portfolio of Ideas (

eureka!

User Manual, p. 2). It is part of the Corusintranet. Figure 4 (below) shows us the formalroute of an idea throughout the

eureka!

sys-tem.

In 2004 about 250 ideas were put in

eureka!

,20 per cent of which were funded. Since mostof Coruss products are the outcome of mass-production, one single idea can lead to anenormous saving. Besides, some of the

eureka!

ideas in 2004 resulted in patentable outcomes.

Ideally, the

eureka!

system works as follows(see also Figure 4). In the ideas capture mapall Corus RD&T workers are invited to comeup with ideas the map can easily be openedvia the Corus intranet. Only a supercialdescription of the idea is enough at this stage.Parallel to this the Corus business units cangive an idea of their needs in the opportuni-ties capture place. During the rst screenphase, the idea is judged by experts (peers)who are selected by the ideator him/herself.(S)he has to consult at least one programmemanager and one resource manger.

In the idea enhancement phase, a success-ful idea (rst screen) can be worked out by theideator. In this phase the ideator has to giveinformation with regard to the following top-ics: objectives and deliverables, probabilityof success, business unit needs that will bemet, recourses, key go/no go decisions,intellectual properties. After enhancementthe idea will be put forward into the secondscreen phase; if not, the idea will be kept inthe

eureka!

archive. In the second screen phasethe idea is put into the adoption phase mapwhere it can be picked up by one of the Corusfunding managers. If it has not been picked upafter a period of time, the idea will be put intothe archive in any case.

The route described above only mirrors theformal route of an idea throughout

eureka!

.The aim of the system is to cover more and bet-ter ideas within a shorter amount of time. Fur-thermore, according to us, it can be interpretedas an attempt by the R&D managers to limitthe subjective judgement of ideas. In daily

Figure 4. The Formal Structure of eureka!Source:

Corus RD&T

IdeasCapture

OpportunitiesCapture

1st Screen

2nd Screen

Adoption

Funding

Enhancement& Evaluation

CreateLinkedIdeas

Yes

No

EnrichIdea

MatchCriteria?

IDEASArchive

Yes

No

Fast -trackIdea

304




practice, however, we found out that research-ers take alternative routes to get an ideafunded or, in other words, that the way ideastravel through the organization is much morecomplicated. In the sections below, we willshow how in the context of

eureka!

the Corusresearchers not only come up with ideas, butalso try to sell ideas in order to get themfunded.

Crea-Political Strategies of Researchers at Corus RD&T

After an idea has been put into the

eureka!

system, the ideator has to select at least oneprogramme manager, at least one resourcemanager and optionally some colleagues(researchers). All have to judge the idea; if theresource (department) manager or the pro-gramme manager is positive about the idea,the ideator can continue to work on it. At thispoint, the manager who has given permissionhas to commit him/herself to the idea to stim-ulate it. Most respondents argued that it ishard to select evaluators if the idea should beapplied in a eld not well known to the ide-ator. Therefore, what they want is to have arange of people as evaluators (from the

inti-mate

and later the

professional circle

in ourmodel), selected from various areas of knowl-edge, to have the appropriate persons com-ment on the idea.

When the selected evaluators are not posi-tive about the idea they will vote no. In thatcase they have to provide a reason. Because inthis phase the evaluators do not always haveenough in-depth knowledge and expertise,according to our respondents some of theideas are not very well evaluated. Althoughthe evaluator has to give comments ono theidea with respect to the content, we found outthat most of the ideators decide not to resub-mit the idea. The remark of a respondentbelow is illustrative:

The system might be improved by havingan option to automatically resubmit anidea that has been modied in responseto specic comments evaluators whohave voted No should, in such cases,receive a notication that their concernshave been addressed and that the ideashould be re-evaluated in the light ofthese modications.

From the discussions we had with theresearch people (during the interview ses-sions) we could deduce that particularly thesocial, political activities parallel to the formalroute are a condition for success. This corre-sponds with our model, in which the actions

of the ideator and the interactions betweenthe different phases in the crea-political pro-cess are central. Researchers literally were

sell-ing

the idea the most important phase in ourmodel, since it refers to the crea-politicalactivities even if for them it is obviously anexcellent one. One respondent, for example,told us:

The system is only facilitating; you have todo the lobby-work yourself. Therefore it isalways difcult to get funding for a newproject, because it is not so much the tech-nological innovation, but the lobby-workand the organizational skills that count. Thevalue of

eureka!

lies in the formal structureand transparency.

It is in this process that the ideator tries to con-vince the knowledgeable other of the useful-ness of the idea. Maybe even more important,it is the business unit people who must be con-vinced about the usefulness of an idea (espe-cially those in the

professional circle

). If theproduction people do not commit themselvesto the outcomes of research, an idea will fail inan early stage. Thus it is necessary for theresearchers to know whether the business unitwill be interested in a certain idea or not. In thewhole process of this technology ideas trans-fer, social activities such as informal con-tacts and meetings are crucial. This idea wasconrmed by the Programme Manager Inno-vation who told us:

If you are familiar with someone you cancall to discuss your idea, and if you haveworked together, he knows that you arecapable of good research. That is differentto the situation in which one receives theidea electronically without knowing aboutthe background of the researcher.

What is important in the lobby process (the

selling of ideas

phase) is to nd and contactpeople with specic knowledge and commit-ment to the idea who can give quick and ade-quate comments. The respondents expressedan urge to receive remarks and comments toan idea within a relatively short period oftime. This is illustrated by the case in Figure 5below.

In practice, the ideator often consults aformer R&D colleague who has changed overfrom the RD&T department to a business unit.Such a person is not only part of an informalnetwork within Corus, but also has the expertknowledge (of both research and production)to judge the relative quality of an idea. Thequality of inter-unit ties seems to be veryimportant. In this respect, most of our respon-dents indicated that the reputation of the ide-


305



ator is a crucial success factor the higher thereputation of an individual researcher, thegreater the chance that a project will beapproved.

What is important for the overall successof an idea in

eureka!

is adequate feedbackfromthe manager(s) to the ideator (to facilitatethe interactions between the

creating

,

selling

and

funding

phases). For the ideator, moreover,a transparent schedule of the funding-processis crucial. It is in this phase that (s)he is sup-posed to get the (nancial) means to developand elaborate on the idea. However, we foundthat researchers at Corus are de-motivated bythe idea that positive comments from the com-mentators in the second screening round donot always (automatically) lead to funding.

In the whole process of selection it is impor-tant for the ideator to notice that an idea candiffer in quality as a result of the companysstrategy. The content manager of

eureka!

toldus that he makes a distinction between ideasthat should be done, ideas that could bedone, and ideas that do not t within thestrategy (which is an extra selection thattakes place in the

funding phase

of the model in the whole process of creativity). That meansthat even if an idea can be potentially useful, itcan still be rejected (by people in the corre-sponding

managerial circle

) at any time becauseof the lack of money available to fund all ideas.To avoid ideas of which the contents are out-

side the scope of Corus production plans,

eureka!

offers a section (the Opportunities Cap-ture Map) in which the production strategy ofeach business unit is claried. A (technicaland/or market) opportunity can be used asinspiration for one or more ideas.

But even if an idea has been rejected (in the

managerial circle

), it is put into the

eureka!

archive and in a way becomes part of theresearch departments memory. The archiveis important for at least two reasons. In therst place it can function as a back-up ofrejected ideas with which new ideas can becompared. Until now the archive has not beenused for this reason, because of capacity prob-lems and lack of time. In the second place, thecontent manager found out that it can be use-ful to re-evaluate some of the rejected ideas ata later time, because the ideas can becomeuseful because of changing technologies inproduction, the raise of the research budgetand/of contextual factors (i.e. developmentsin the market). In other words, there is a pos-sibility that an idea goes back from the

fund-ing of ideas

-phase to the

selling of ideas

-phase(represented by the arrow that points left inour model). However, at any time it is the ide-ator who has to be alert in order to breathenew life into the idea the

eureka!

archive willnot do that automatically. Again, it is the per-son and not the system that has to takeactions.

Figure 5. The use of eureka!, Case JanssenSource:

interview by the authors.

The use of eureka!

Mr Janssen is working at Corus RD&T IJmuiden My idea was inspired by developments in Germany. My plan to develop the idea was justified by the committee that gave me a one-year budget to develop the idea. This is the way it should work according to me.

At any time, the idea has been recorded in the system of the Business Unit and there it was finally rejected. Next, I visited the Business Unite to figure out why the idea had been rejected. The reason was the lack of informa-tion about the implications of the idea for the Business Unit. Moreover, they argued, the idea was already in use by other companies and therefore not innovative enough. At that time I continued my lobby activities to get funding for the idea, which was a hard thing to do, because I had to convince people who had rejected the idea in an earlier stage. It is often argued by R&D people that the Business Units dont have a focus. However, I think that we cannot always convince them of the importance of our ideas. At a certain moment I went to the Business Unit to talk with the people who seemed to be interested in the idea after all. So, my lesson was not to stop the lobby process after a no of a single person, but to convince others of the importance of my idea. Of course then you can also come to the conclusion that you have had a bad idea, but the argument that the Business Units cannot focus is too easy. Also the argument of budget problems is not decisive according to me try to implement the idea with a smaller budget.

So, what I did, and I think this is a success factor, is not to talk first of all with the Product Manager (which is the normal way to do it) but I went directly to the commercial people. After all they have feeling with the market and have reasons to say: this is interesting for us or not. After our meeting the commercial person went to the Product Managers with the message: This is important for us!. The influence of the commercial person on the Product Manager was of a great importance.

306




Discussion and Conclusion

In this article we have rst discussed two dif-ferent models of creativity (idea) manage-ment. It appears that within each of thesemodels there is room for the notion that cre-ativity is not so much in the mind of the indi-vidual but that it is a social process. However,even with the help of these models it is hard tond out how the individual behaviour ofthe ideator must be seen in the light of thepolitical strategies of the individual within theorganization.

Therefore, we have come up with an alter-native model in which we call attention towhat we call the crea-political phase in theprocess of creativity (idea) management. Thetheoretical contribution of this article tothe eld of creativity management is the ideathat the success of a creative idea is above all amatter of political activities and strategies ofthe ideator. It pays attention to the notion thatorganizational creativity is an individualexpression on the one hand and organizationalcommitment on the other. The major implica-tions of this model for the understanding ofcreativity (idea) management are discussed inwhat follows.

First, the model gives ample room for thenotion that an idea does not come up in isola-tion, but is the outcome of negotiation. Cre-ativity in an organizational context emergesfrom a process of sharing information withother people within the organization. Ofcourse, an idea is produced by individualswith inner creative impulses and ambitions,but such an idea only gets meaning in thesocial. In the daily reality and practice of theorganization, people of different backgroundswill identify the quality of an idea. In this way,the model gives rise to the idea we raised inthe introduction to this article, namely thatorganizations (such as, in our case, Corus) canprot from knowledge creation only if theindividual creative action and idea generation(within the different

creating

,

selling

and

fund-ing

phases) is embedded in organizationalroutines and local research agendas (repre-sented by the different

intimate

,

professional

and

managerial

circles).Apparently, not every creative expression

will result into a valuable or problem-solvingidea. Ideas can be rejected for reasons regard-ing the content (i.e. an idea is impracticable fortechnical reasons) or and even more likely for reasons related the organizational contextof an idea (i.e. budget problems, priority ofother ideas, organizational policy, competitionand so on). In order to anticipate on the ideaselection, the ideator has to put effort in thepropagation of his/her idea (the

selling of ideas

phase). For the manager, this demonstrates theneed for organizational structures (such asstrategic knowledge platforms) that stimulateand facilitate possibilities for informationsharing and exchange. For the ideator it showsthe importance of political strategies in orderto put an idea forward successfully.

Second, we paid attention to electronic ideamanagement (ICT) systems, which play a cru-cial and growing role in the whole process ofidea generation and selection within organiza-tions. Electronic idea management systemsthat are used in the crea-political phase haveboth an enabling and a constraining effectupon the success of an idea. Possible thresh-olds for new innovative ideas are loweredbecause of the easy accessibility of electronicdatabases (especially in a situation in whichemployees have equal possibilities to makeuse of the system). In this way the systemenables the ideator to develop ideas that oth-erwise would not have come up. However, asystem can also lead to indolence if the ideatorthinks that it is the system that will do the hardwork and that (s)he can lean back, which is anunintended consequence of the use of elec-tronic knowledge systems. Thus, the system-in-use can easily create the idea that there is anautomatic and one way route from a creativemoment to a viable idea (i.e. an idea that willbe funded by the organization). Accordingly,as we have argued, the system must be seen inthe context of creativity as a political (sense-making) activity. The management must beaware of the fact that an electronic idea man-agement system is not a neutral element in theprocess of creativity management, but one thatproduces an effect within a context in whichcreative ideas must be transformed into prac-ticable ideas.

In addition to the model, we presented acase study of the idea management at CorusRD&T, which is only the rst start to testthe strength of the model. The Corus R&Dmanagement has implemented an electronicidea management system in order to enableresearchers to submit ideas and to ensure thatno ideas are lost. That means that the interac-tions between the

creating of ideas

and the

funding of ideas funding

phases are facilitatedby an electronic management system. Thesystem,

eureka!, thus functions as an impor-tant element in the creativity (idea) manage-ment. Commonly speaking, we found outthat researchers at Corus judge eureka! as anenabling tool during the interactions withothers in the company. It is interesting to notethat the respondents indicate that the lobbywork (during the selling of ideas phase in ourmodel) is the most explanatory factor in thefunding process. In other words, the more

CREATIVITY MANAGEMENT IN INDUSTRIAL R&D ORGANIZATIONS 307

2006 The AuthorsJournal compilation 2006 Blackwell Publishing Volume 15 Number 3 2006

people you are familiar with within the com-pany with whom you can discuss the idea,the more likely it is that an idea will befunded in the end. While this concept wouldhardly be surprising to practitioners, it is sel-dom explicitly included in models of creativ-ity management.

The above case is an illustration of how thecrea-political phase works in daily practice.Further research into the crea-political phase isneeded in order to understand the differentstrategies that are possible, the inuence ofcontextual factors during the process of nego-tiation and circumstances in which the differ-ent strategies can be used. Moreover, in thisarticle we have not taken issues of gender anddiversity (e.g. aging, identity, professionalbackgrounds and so on) on the one hand, andorganizational structures (such as hierarchies,rm size, company structures and so on) onthe other hand, into consideration. Instead wehave presented a sensitizing model, whichlinks creative and political processes, andunderstands the management of creativity aspart of these multi-faceted and interrelatedprocesses.

Acknowledgements

Earlier versions of this article were presentedat (1) the ECCI-Conference, Lodz Poland, Sep-tember 2005 by Han Bakker, (2) the IKON sem-inar series in Warwick, UK, November 2005 byKees Boersma and (3) the ESIC seminar seriesin Eindhoven, The Netherlands, December2005 by Kees Boersma. We would like to thankthe contributors of these seminars and the twoanonymous referees of this journal for theircomments on earlier drafts of this article.

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Drs. Han Bakker ([email protected]) is Lec-turer at the Hogeschool Rotterdam in theRotterdam Institute of Social Education(RISO). His research interest is in creativ-ity, management of creativity and ideamanagement. He is author of a currentintroduction on Creative Thinking. Cur-rently, he is working on his Ph.D. on IdeaManagement in Organizations the Coruscase is part of this work. Amongst others heis teacher in the courses Creative Thinkingand Cultural Research.

Dr.ir. Kees Boersma ([email protected]) is Associate Professor at the Vrije Uni-versiteit Amsterdam in the group of Cul-ture, Organization and Management. Hisresearch interest is in science and technol-ogy studies, business history and historyof technology, and in organization, cultureand power. He published widely onR&D history, organizational learning, andorganizational culture. His publicationsappeared amongst others in journals asEnterprise and Society, History and Technol-ogy, Human Relations and Journal of StrategicInformation Systems. He is teacher in thecourses Organizational Behavior, Organiza-tional Politics and Technology and Culture.

Drs. Sytse Oreel ([email protected]) is cur-rently working as a manager in a Dutchsteel company (SME) and interested in cul-ture, organization and innovation. He stud-ied Culture, Organization and Managementat the Vrije Universiteit in Amsterdam. Hismaster-thesis (2004) was about creativityand innovation management at Corus.

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2006 The AuthorsJournal compilation 2006 Blackwell Publishing Volume 15 Number 3 2006

Appendix 1

Table A1. Number and Functions of Respondents

Appendix 2

Table A2. Outcome of the Questionnaire

Function of respondent Number Percentage

Department Manager 3 1.7Programme Manager 3 1.7Knowledge Group Leader 18 10.4Principal Scientist 7 4.1Principal Engineer 3 1.7Project Coordinator 12 6.9Senior Researcher 50 28.9Researcher 49 28.3Senior Research Assistant 3 1.7Research Assistant 11 6.4Member MT 0 0.0Other: 14 8.1Total 173 100.0

Researchcluster

Question Agree(%)

Disagree(%)

The role ofthe ideator

1 My reputation within the organization inuences the chances of success of my idea

65 35

2 I appreciate it when judges point out alternative possibilities for my idea

89 11

3 I appreciate the support of peolple from the marketing and nancial department important

89 11

The role of theevaluator

1 Sometimes the evaluator does not take the time to give thorough and adequate comments

74.5 25.5

2 I understand that the evaluators are too busy with their own tasks

72.7 27.3

3 The evaluators use other than just the formal criteria in the recommendation to select an idea for adoption or funding

86.7 13.3

4 Business Units not always benet by new, radical ideas

60.7 39.3

The lobby andfundingprocess

1 When I look for funding for my idea I have to show initiative to a funder; you cannot expect the system to do this for you

73.9 26.1

2 I do not like to annoy acquaintances with extra work of judgment in order to gain nancing

37.8 62.2

3 People in my network can help me to bring my idea further

68 32

4 After the year plans for the projects have been made it is impossible to get funding for ideas

81 19

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