Fostering Creativity in Business

Changing dynamics in responsible and sustainable business comes as a must in the post-COVID-19 era, while energetic, influential, and powerful transformational leaders represent the vital solution to ensuring creativity in business and a luminous future for organizations worldwide. On the one hand, the newest challenges faced by companies due to the COVID-19 pandemic are analyzed, while, on the other hand, the dominant traits of leaders are displayed in an attempt to determine the successful mix between creative actions, human resources, innovation, intangible assets, intellectual capital, research, technological advancement, and visionary managerial business processes. The study shows that transformational leaders' general focus should be on the amazing benefits derived from addressing fundamental issues, such as the well-being of individuals, the health of the planet, reaching the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), bringing circular economy (CE), artificial intelligence (AI), and smart cities (SC) closer to human beings' vital needs.

Strengths-Based Job Crafting and Employee Creativity: The Role of Job Self-Efficacy and Workplace Status

While argued to be fostering creativity, the effect of job crafting on creativity often turned out to be less effective than expected. The reason is that most existing studies focused on the top-down job design interventions. We proposed an elaborated theoretical model to explain the influence of strengths-based job crafting (SJC) on employee creativity (EC). Specifically, we examined the mediating effect of job self-efficacy (JSE) and the moderating effect of workplace status (WP) based on self-affirmation theory. A sample of 480 employees and their supervisors completed a battery of questionnaires. The results revealed that strengths-based job crafting was positively related to employee creativity, with job self-efficacy acting as a mediator for this relationship. Workplace status moderated both the direct and the indirect effects of job self-efficacy. For employees with a higher workplace status, strengths-based job crafting may generate more forces to promote employee creativity. The results suggest that strengths-based job crafting and workplace status can inspire employee creativity through a self-affirmation process.

Danger, Dirt & Degenerates: The Rebellious Act of Creativity

Creativity: a word often associated with fun, colour and play, a sentiment reflected in companies attempting to recreate it for profit. Exhibitions like the Wondr Experience litter their spaces with similar childlike aesthetics, with the superficial goal of fostering creativity, but resulting in the true aim of an endless stream of identical Instagram posts and more ticket sales. This paper reveals a darker and more authentic side to creativity, proposing that discomfort is an essential ingredient. Juxtaposing the cute spaces for 'plandids' and the bean bags and beer fridges of office spaces jumping on the hype, the study reveals that to engage in creative thought you have to be in a state of apprehension. Graphic designers often follow the security of grids designed by the likes of Josef Müller-Brockman, however the piece suggests that this kind of work is within the realms of comfort. This tendency for playing it safe is possibly because of the consumerist society we live in – not many designers can afford to take risks because failure means no paycheck. In this way, the paper ends with the suggestion that due to the culture we are in, creativity is observed as an act of rebellion.

The Cambridge Handbook of Lifespan Development of Creativity

This handbook focuses on the development and nurturance of creativity across the lifespan, from early childhood to adolescence, adulthood, and later life. It answers the question: how can we help individuals turn their creative potential into achievement? Each chapter examines various contexts in which creativity exists, including school, workplace, community spaces, and family life. It covers various modalities for fostering creativity such as play, storytelling, explicit training procedures, shifting of attitudes about creative capacity, and many others. The authors review research findings across disciplines, encompassing the work of psychologists, educators, neuroscientists, and creators themselves, to describe the best practices for fostering creativity at each stage of development.

Skills for Life: Fostering Creativity

As the global economy and workforce are constantly being diversified with a greater emphasis on technology, 21st Century citizens are required to acquire basic digital literacy competencies. In this brief, we examine the concept of literacy and digital literacy. Then, we review the latest digital literacy studies in the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO), the European Commission, the United Kingdom, and the United States. Lastly, we provide suggestions by comparing digital literacy studies, including ICT studies, in South Korea with international literacy assessment metrics. This brief aims to contribute to developing digital literacy measurements applicable to ICT in education internationally and mitigate the digital divide.

Fostering Creativity and Critical Thinking in College: A Cross-Cultural Investigation

Enhancing creativity and critical thinking have garnered the attention of educators and researchers for decades. They have been highlighted as essential skills for the 21st century. A total of 103 United States students (53 female, 24 male, two non-binary, and 24 non-reporting) and 166 Chinese students (128 female, 30 male, one non-binary, and seven non-reporting) completed an online survey. The survey includes the STEAM-related creative problem solving, Sternberg scientific reasoning tasks, psychological critical thinking (PCT) exam, California critical thinking (CCT) skills test, and college experience survey, as well as a demographic questionnaire. A confirmatory factor analysis (CFA) yields a two-factor model for all creativity and critical thinking measurements. Yet, the two latent factors are strongly associated with each other (r=0.84). Moreover, Chinese students outperform American students in measures of critical thinking, whereas Americans outperform Chinese students in measures of creativity. Lastly, the results also demonstrate that having some college research experience (such as taking research method courses) could positively influence both United States and Chinese students’ creativity and critical thinking skills. Implications are discussed.

“My mom calls it Annaland”: A Qualitative Study of Phenomenology, Daily Life Impacts, and Treatment Considerations of Sluggish Cognitive Tempo

Objective: To conduct qualitative analysis of interviews to understand phenomenology, daily life impact, and treatment considerations of sluggish cognitive tempo (SCT) behaviors in children and adolescents. Method: Youth with elevated SCT symptoms ( N = 15, ages 9–16 years) and their parents completed interviews focused on their perception and daily life impact of SCT behaviors. Parents were also asked about intervention targets. Results: Parents and youth had both negative and positive perceptions of SCT, with SCT fostering creativity/imagination and a break from stressors while also negatively impacting daily functioning. The domains most frequently selected by parents as SCT intervention targets were academics, emotions, mind wandering, morning routines, and self-esteem. Conclusion: Children and their parents share negative and positive views of SCT behaviors, while also detailing specific ways that SCT negatively impacts day-to-day functioning. This study offers insights into possible intervention targets as provided by youth and parents directly impacted by SCT.

Fostering creativity and critical thinking with the use of ICT: Theoretical foundations and empirical examples

The purpose of this article is to highlight some theoretical foundations for a connection between critical thinking and creativity as concepts to develop at school, to find the feasibility of use of ICT in such lessons, and to give examples of lessons conducted in such a logic. The competence approach, despite the ambiguous attitude towards it in secondary vocational education, has been re-examined by researchers in connection with a new wave of discussion on how to develop key competencies in secondary education. Critical thinking and creativity are seen as part of key competencies. The article describes in detail these constructs and correlates with well-known works of Russian and foreign practitioners and psychologists, such as L. Vygotsky, J. Piaget, and J. Dewey. The concepts overlap in many ways, which should be taken into account when evaluating innovation and designing educational experience of students. Despite the some differences, the existing modern didactic Russian and foreign approaches (such as problem-based learning, activity-based approach, student-centered learning, and others) meet the objectives and organization of a lesson, which foster critical thinking and creativity. Portable digital devices contribute to the development of greater student autonomy, which is one of the most important components of the development of key competencies. The final part of the article is structured through three theses on implementation of ICT in such lessons with examples of use of such practices by teachers during the project “Fostering creativity and critical thinking in education with the use of ICT” in 2018–2019. Examples allow us to determine how theoretical concepts, having many diachronic intersections, can be implemented in practice.

Some Aspects of the Creative Potential in Primary School Children

A notable theme in much recent primary education has been the concept of creativity. Nowadays it is highlighted the fact that creativity is directly responsible for the progress of the society. Creativity and creative potential are still seen as two abstracts concepts because literature in the field is updating day by day. The curriculum contributes the developing of trans and interdisciplinary activities. Throughout time, the most important innovations in different domains were possible only with the help of human who wanted to create something new, original and innovative. In this case, creativity plays a very important role. Developing the capacity of being creative, it is essential for surviving, as each of us is in great need of novelty and originality. The link between creativity and creative potential is very thin because it positively influences at the same time the educational process. In the article, the novelty is highlighted through the connections between creativity and creative potential in education and also, there are presented few theoretical interpretations of each concept. In order for an adult to become creative, fostering creativity and stimulating creative potential from an early age is required. The school system remains the main instrument, which society uses to cultivate and enhance creativity in young members, of school age. In this sense, the systemic modernization of education, in the light of pedagogy of creativity, is necessary. Although, the school play an essential role in training primary school children in order to be able to use their full creative potential in future productive activities. At the same time, creativity represents a condition of efficiency in both work and education. Creativity and creative potential in education stands for an important factor in developing primary school children in order to obtain an autonomous and creative personality.