Creativity Impediments and Solutions

Abstract

The chapter covers ‘Creativity Impediments and Solutions’ in organizations in Kenya. This chapter addresses what impedes creativity in organizations and yet creativity informs the entrepreneurial mind. Creativity enables one to move ideas from theory to reality. This chapter covers the introduction part explaining innovation, entrepreneurship and creativity. These are considered to be at the very core of entrepreneurship. The second part covers the barriers to creativity and the approaches the researcher employed in gathering data. It goes further by highlighting the measures of enhancing creativity before making conclusions. This part goes into the depth of the matter as an integral part of this book chapter. In the end, the chapter looks at the suggestions that have been identified as solutions of addressing this creativity gap and impediments. This is the very section that also captures the author’s imagination of the subject matter. It is hoped that this chapter will go a long way in enabling policymakers, scholars and entrepreneurs to effectively utilize creativity to support innovation and entrepreneurship development. This is an outcome of what the researcher has gathered from engagement with university scholars, industry players, experts in the field and other stakeholders over a span of time.

1. Introduction

Entrepreneurship considered to be one of the engines that drives economies and societal activities is a process that also needs other inputs. This means it requires others ingredients other than the human mind to thrive. One such input is creativity which, other than being an idea, it is a process too. It is important to briefly highlight the three closely linked concepts before the actual topic is tackled. As Bao [1] opines, one of the most fascinating descriptions of creativity is that ability being able to come about with not only new, but also innovative ideas which can be a valuable asset in many fields. In this case, the various fields can include business, education and research, as well as in the matters industrialization and in other societal spheres. The scholars further describe the individuals in this discipline as being extraordinarily creative. As it were, this can easily lead to innovation. The same creative people are termed as persons who go around asking, ‘Why not?’ What this means is that individuals of these stature are able to see not only new combinations, or new potentials, but also new opportunities and challenges particularly where others see difficulties or limitations [2].

Innovation for instance, simply put, is the value addition to what scholars, researchers or firms could be doing. It can be about innovation of a product or service, a business or a technology-a system or method of production. In essence, innovation is improvement which revolves around ‘doing something’. This is a very important concept in the field of entrepreneurship development across the globe. It is even argued that that entrepreneurship cannot be considered complete without innovation. This cannot be put any better than what Schumpeter theorized as the newness of products or services, identification of new markets or customers, seeking new sources of raw materials or supplies to the firm, adopting new and efficient methods or systems of production as well as embracing the new forms of businesses today [1]. Innovation has become necessary in society today to the extent that every basic aspect of human life is controlled by various aspects of innovation. But the bottom line is in the doing which relates to performance of improvement of undertaking things [3]. The matters innovation in the present age is considered to be very essential particularly when it comes to manufacturing. One of the reasons is that the end users of products are keen on the quality of the product they buy. The quality of the product is influenced to a large extent by the process it undergoes in transformation of the raw material to the finished product. This is how innovative manufacturing comes into play. In the emerging global economies, innovation is also taking centre stage as value addition activity which ensures there is improvement to businesses, technology or systems of production as well as on product or services. The process further improves quality and competitiveness in the market place.

Concerning entrepreneurship, scholars consider it to be a process of engaging into certain activities within a setup with specific intentions arising from the entrepreneur’s mind or concept. This process incorporates the person into a process that results in an entity referred to as an enterprise. The three important elements of entrepreneurship are the person (entrepreneur), the process (entrepreneurship) and the product (enterprise). Entrepreneurship is informed by an existing need in the society known as opportunity. The opportunity must be responded to by the entrepreneurs coming up with appropriate ideas as solution to the identified need or problem in a societal setup. Globally, entrepreneurship is considered to be the engine behind various economic activities. In essence, entrepreneurship is running many economies and is helping those in government to solve their problems of job opportunity creation; they are also acting as the sources from which governments raise their incomes in form of taxes to fund other activities in the countries. In brief, entrepreneurship through the entrepreneurs contributes in bringing about social, technological and economic changes in nations. Therefore, it goes without saying that those in authorities are doing everything within their power to support the establishment and development of entrepreneurship [4]. But in order to support this venture, a lot has to go into thinking and thinking creatively. One of the reasons for this is that viable ideas are likely to emerge from creative thinking and such ideas are the same ones that end up catalyzing entrepreneurial activities. As earlier opined by some scholars, entrepreneurship must be conducted by having change of mindset. This is what was alluded to as ‘disturbing the status quo’. This process requires that an entrepreneur does not only become passionate about business, or good at moderate risk taking, but must also be creative in all the ways, particularly in creative thinking and in the way of conducting the activities.

Creativity on its part is one of the most important aspects of entrepreneurship. What this means is that new ideas must be well thought out as essentials to the process of entrepreneurship. Creativity is in the ‘thinking’ and thinking new ideas which can later be turned into innovation for the firm and entrepreneurship development. Creative thinking requires people, an environment and support from not only the entrepreneur, but also the authorities and policymakers [5]. It has been revealed there are certain efforts that go into creative thinking, some of which conscious and others unconscious. It therefore means that deliberate measures need to be taken towards this end [4]. What is also becoming apparent is that creativity is absolutely necessary for firms’ survival in the world of entrepreneurship.

Firms need to involve their teams in creativity processes by assuring the members that success of every individual person contributes to that of the entire organization. It should be pointed out that failure in any of the steps is to be taken positively and should be considered as a point to learn.

1.1 Creativity: a necessity for survival

Firms, corporate entities as well as societies need creativity, not only for performance, but for survival and sustainability. Creativity informs entrepreneurial mindset and professional performance. If one wants to truly establish a great business, then they must apply creativity to such businesses. The entrepreneurs get paid to solve problems, and hence, they must be very creative. This is also true because creativity enables firms and societies to develop through certain modifications by taking into account the things and ideas that evolve over time. This notion is critical for flexibility of appreciating change, an essential aspect for societies and firms that need to adjust quickly to survive and flourish into unforeseeable future. Sankaran [6] posits that creativity in organizations is absolutely essential. The implication is that such firms cannot survive without embracing creativity. One of the responsibilities of the top management is essentially to ensure that creativity is not only embraced in the organization, but also practised for the survival of the firm.

1.2 Creative thinking

Creative thinking, which is the ability to come up with unique and original solutions, is required and is very essential to establishment of firms and entrepreneurial culture in any country. It is equally necessary in organizations. Sometimes it is referred to as creative problem-solving; hence, creative thinking is a valuable and marketable soft skill in a wide variety of businesses [7]. Creative thinking being a process of considering situations, from innovative perspectives to developing an open-minded mindset, is a powerful concept in the discipline of entrepreneurship development. By expending creative thinking process, one is able to generate new ideas, by interpreting circumstances, identifying themes and designing alternatives to existing approaches of operating and performance. It is the capability of considering something in a new or improved way [7]. Creative thinking can also involve a close examination of progressiveness, problem-solving, organization, as well as communication. Various employers consider creative thinkers highly, and therefore, the workers should consider highlighting their creative thinking skills when called upon time and again. The process of creative thinking acts like a seed-bed to innovation and entrepreneurship [8].

1.3 Work environment

Creativity and innovation as concepts, just like products or services, need certain environment in which they can thrive. Since these are thoughts which result in emergence of creative ideas, they are formed in the minds of individuals. Situations to make this flourish must be encouraged, team spirit should also be fostered, and employees as members of the organization have to be involved. This involvement starts with awareness creation, identification of talents and individuals as well as incentives provisions as a way of ensuring creativity and innovation emerge and grow. The best place for this to happen seems to be the workplace as the right environment [9].

1.4 Solutions

One of the intents of entrepreneurship is to solicit for resources and individuals to come up with solutions for societal problems. In view of the ever-increasing demand by consumers of services, experiences and products in the society, formulating solutions is equally necessary. This will suffice for customers, organizations as well as the governments of the day. But the aspects of creativity and innovation play a major role to the coming up with solutions [10].

1.5 Organizations

It is emerging that various organizations are beginning to embrace creativity, innovation and entrepreneurship as strategic measures for sustainability. Those that lead the pack are business organizations and the research institutions. But closely following are the institutions of higher learning and to some extent the government institutions. It is thought that if more stakeholders are involved in this venture, then it is possible that the outcome of research and effects and impact of creativity and innovation in particular will be felt large and wide. This should trickle down to individual entrepreneurs and groups of corporate organizations. When such a scenario is witnessed, then it is possible that seeds of industrialization can start to germinate [11].

2. Barriers to creativity

Barriers to creativity is also be referred to as the creativity gap, and it is becoming an area of concern to the establishment of firms, performance of the same and ultimately the development of entrepreneurship in countries. Some of the impediments to creativity as the study extracted range from attitudinal to training and even aggravated by the insufficiency of budgetary allocation. The creativity gap is also causing a number of scholars to initiate research studies in order to interrogate the said gap. The barriers seem to be at specific levels of the organizations. But before engaging in the actual investigation of the creativity gap, the research approaches were briefly highlighted for the understanding of the study in question [10].

2.1 Approaches

The data collection and analysis of the same in this study has taken several months starting sometime in February 2020 to date. This was the time when the first case of COVID-19 had just been reported in Kenya.

2.1.1 University class engagement and discussions

The researcher, who is an instructor at the university, engaged other scholars at universities on this subject. The scholars were sampled from two public universities, one private university and a TVET. Some of the respondents were not available for face-to-face interview and had to be contacted using other channels. Their responses were captured and analysed to give an insight in the subject under study.

Sampling was systematically done for purposive reasons on desired outcomes as indicted in Table 1.

University	Category	Tutor	Staff	Year 2	Year 3	Year 4	Total.
Moi	Public	2	3	5	7	10	27
U.o.E	Public	2	3	5	7	10	27
Mku	Private	2	3	5	7	10	27
TVET	Public	2	3	5	7	10	27

Table 1.

Respondents who completed the questionnaires on creativity.

2.2 Analysis of information from stakeholder organizations

Analysis of information from stakeholder organizations such as WIPO-PRV Training, KIPI, KECOBO, KeNIA, NACOSTI.

These organizations are the major stakeholders in matters of innovation, creativity and intellectual property management. The information concerning creativity was obtained from their publications and Websites. The information related to training, regulation and registration, funding among others. The sought data obtained was analysed, and important conclusions were drawn from the same.

2.2.1 A meeting and interviews with industry players

A meeting and interviews with industry players who included representatives from commercial banks, The Kenya Seed Company Ltd., Knowledge Transfer Network (KTN), Eldo Bub, and County Government of Nandi. These organizations were represented by high-ranking officials who gave their views on creativity and the possible industry and university collaborations on the subject at hand.

The officials were purposively invited on the account that they represented their organizations on this important topic. This is shown in Table 2.

Company	Category	Staff	Cadre
Absa	Bank	2	Mgrs.
Kenya Seed	Public	1	Mgr.
KTN	Private	1	Rep
EldoHub; Nandi County	Public Government	1; 1	C.E.O; D-Gov

Table 2.

Respondents who were interviewed during the meeting.

2.2.2 Input from experts

Expert opinion was sought from among others, Technology Transfer Manager [Moi University], intellectual property [IP] official from the University of Eldoret [U.o.E.] and Eldo-Hub Head. These three individuals who are experts in the area of innovation, research and intellectual property were extensively interviewed on the subject of creativity. They also made suggestions on the way forward of fostering creativity. From those interview schedules and proceedings, very essential information was obtained, and critical insights and conclusions were made in connection with creativity. This became the basis for making findings of this study for the purposes of disseminating the results.

2.2.3 Output from innovation workshops: Public lectures

As a way of creating awareness on innovation, the university arranged innovation week in the year 2021 and 2022.Other than the exhibitions that were displayed, there were engagements among the innovators and participants, and the culmination of this was public lectures that were given by scholars such as Dr. Jesper Vasell, the Deputy Director of NACOSTI in Kenya, the C.E.O of KeNIA among others. In this endeavor, the then Director of Innovation & Research at the University of Eldoret, Prof. Vincent Sudoi was very instrumental. The proceedings from these sessions of the Innovation week illuminated so much on the subject of creativity and greatly assisted in extracting some of the issues that had been identified as challenges.

2.3 Impediments to creativity

One of the ways of eliminating barriers to creativity is removing things that clutter the mindset. Impediments, barriers and gap are terms that were interchangeably used. In this case, mindset issues that contributed to barriers or impediments included the thinking state, which is the concern for certainty, and formed opinions about a certain aspect of concept. This limits creative thinking. Another issue is security hunting—it is the concern for risk. It makes one become risk averse. We also have stereotyping which is a case that keeps abstracting reality. The probability thinking, on the other hand, seeks predictable results, which ultimately impedes creativity.

2.3.1 Fear

Fear is one of the biggest reasons that make organizations as well as individuals not to achieve their full potential in creativity. They have the fear of failure in their endeavors. The fact that there is no assurance that the new idea will work makes the creative people and firms to develop fear. Fear consequently slows the creative thinking process. As it is, creative thinking process is a psychological or intuitional one. When fear is recorded, it hampers or inhibits thinking. However, coming to terms with the fact that failing is an important part of learning; when handled well, it can lead to development and progress [1].

2.3.2 Leadership issues

Studies show and scholars agree that issues of innovation and creativity can be well spearheaded from the top leadership of organizations. The top executives and directors of various firms are yet to strongly come out and support the strategic importance of innovation and creativity as key elements of corporate performance. It would appear that currently corporates are yet to take leadership on this subject in order to foster performance and development. It is thought that if top leadership of organizations changes its attitude and approach to creativity, then the performance of various firms can also change. But it means the top managers must now change and lead innovation and creativity from the front in their respective entities. They also need to start nurturing upcoming innovators and creative thinkers [12].

2.3.3 Deficient resources and capacity

Investing in creative activities and in innovations can be a very expensive affair, and the same requires massive finances and human capital. Equally needed are systems, training infrastructure and the experts. All these require huge amounts of funding which is insufficient. This is a big impediment for this creativity which is a necessary endeavor. However, firms, institutions and countries must take deliberate decisions and set budgetary provisions for this purpose. They can also employ strategies such as networking and collaborations in a bid to foster the creativity task.

2.3.4 Lack of necessary alliances

Internal budgeting and structures may not assist alliances between teams. It is reported that many years later, organizations do not appear to have embraced the required collaborations to have things changed. It also seems that various barriers are still existing. These barriers could be similar across organizations and among individuals. They still impede creativity significantly. Lacks of strategic alliances among other factors still inhibit the ability to think creatively and hence innovate. Alliances must be encouraged to foster creativity and help in the achievement of the desired results. Creative collaborations are also about bringing people together, viewing challenges from different viewpoints and then linking that knowledge and understanding together, to create a solution. This must be a solution that can then be strategically planned and implemented effectively [13].

2.4 How to enhance creativity

Various scholars in their studies have attempted to find solutions to some of the impediments that have been identified so far. Although the impediments identified earlier are weighty, they are only a representation of the myriad of other challenges. Therefore, the suggestions here are just a few ways of enhancing creativity. It means a lot more can still be done through initiating further research [14].

2.4.1 The creative process

According to Corazza and Agnoli [13], whether one calls it creativity, creative thinking or just creative ideas, there must be a process involved in it. This process needs to be meticulous and can also be learned because it involves individuals, firms and systems. Above all, it must be supported financially, morally and by establishing the right systems.

What is fascinating is that creative thinking process is largely a subconscious process. Due to this fact, the individuals must be targeted because this process takes place intuitively.

2.4.2 Techniques for improving the creative process

The findings indicate that there is the need of improving the creative process. If this process is improved, then the ideas that can be obtained as a consequence can go a long way in enhancing innovation. There will be a likelihood that those who become creative by the works of their minds may also benefit and feel valued to even improve in future. But they have to feel protected and also need to benefit from their creative minds. This is how intellectual property comes in play as an important component.

2.4.3 Intellectual property: protecting the ideas

Intellectual property protection plays a critical role in creative thinking and ultimately in supporting creativity. For instance, the generation of ideas that results in the improved efficiency or effectiveness of a system facilitates two important aspects of creativity. There is the existence of the process. Such a process is goal-oriented; it is designed to attain a solution to a problem. Then we have the people, they are the resources that determine the solution. These individuals must be assured that the works of their minds will be rewarded and also be protected from infringement.

2.4.4 Embracing kaizen concept

The Japanese term Kaizen which refers to improvement, or change for the better, can be embedded in the creativity process. This is because it can be taken to include efforts by all employees from the top most to the lowest in cadre in striving for improvement. It strives to ensure that there is improvement of all processes and systems—including coming up with creative ideas, innovation and entrepreneurship. This is intended for the functioning of a particular organization. The concept strives for long-term superior quality and ultimately customer satisfaction [8]. In today’s business world, an innovative organization can employ the Kaizen approach for evaluation of its core organizational procedures, operations and even in routine projects. Among the suggested principles of Kaizen that can address the paradigm shift include avoiding assumptions, being proactive in problem solving, creating an environment where everyone feels endowed to contribute and using creativity to find solutions to organization’s needs among others.

2.4.5 Creativity and trust

Studies indicate that there is a correlation between creativity and trust. Scholars posit that as a way of nurturing creativity in order to have an innovative and supportive system in the organization, there must be provision for mistakes that might occur. In other words, there is need for crafting a safe space that provides allowance for failure. Some of the key attributes associated with firms that foster creativity and innovation are allowing individuals to acquire lessons from mistakes made. This needs some level of trust. It means the employer will have to develop patience in order to allow the employees take charge of tasks that risky enough that can lead to failure [15].

It is further argued that this may be one of the ways of getting the employees’ very best ideas. For instance, it is said that those employees who are based and work in the field understand their area better than most of the other workers. What it therefore means is that by allowing them room to dip their hands in to become innovative is beneficial to them as well as to the organization.

Some firms have witnessed employee-driven creative ideas and innovative solutions that have enabled them to avoid costly mistakes thus save millions of dollars and hundreds of hours. Thus, if companies put its trust in the hands of the individuals who work hard for them daily, then the team and the firm is likely to reap benefits that far outweigh the risks and the occasional failures.

3. Conclusions the creativity gap

One scholar has opined that bridging the creativity gap may require getting the right crowd to the ideas that spark. The ideas must spur individuals to action of some sort. Involving the right crowd to get to ideas that spark may result in creativity. This is the number one skill needed to survive and thrive in the current market reality. But various organizations and individuals are yet to measure to this. Attainment of ideas which elicit excitement is not only a process, but also an Art. Many scholars and individuals are yet to develop the ability of thinking outside the box or are engaged in creating concepts or solutions. In sense, creativity is at the core of differentiating businesses, scholars and individuals. It is therefore necessary to embrace creative crowdsourcing. This could be one of the ways in which businesses can overcome their own limitations and bridge their creativity gaps by relying on the crowd’s collective creative intelligence [16].

Acknowledgments

I acknowledge my own organization, the University of Eldoret for immense support in this project. The support came in during the various weeks of innovation that the university allowed the author to participate. I equally acknowledge the support of colleagues such as Eng. Antony Mbayaki for his inspiration to me in writing this article as well as my colleague Mr. Tim Koskei for his immeasurable support.

Conflict of interest

The author declares no conflict of interest.

Acronyms and abbreviations

C.E.O	Chief Executive Officer
D-Gov	Deputy Governor
KeNIA	Kenya Innovation Agency
KECOBO	Kenya Copyrights Board
KIPI	Kenya Industrial Property Institute
Mgr. (s)	Manager(s)
NACOSTI National	Commission of Science and Technology Institute
TVET	Technical and Vocational Education and Training
U.o.E	University of Eldoret
WIPO-PRV	World Intellectual Property- Swedish IP Office