Innovation and creativity: a high-tech experience

Purpose Creativity involves the generation of new knowledge or solutions, valuable and non-obvious (Amabile, 1988, 1996), while innovation refers to the implementation or “transformation of a new idea into a new product or service, or an improvement in organization or process” (Heye, 2006, p. 253). Creativity and innovation are characterized by the creation of something new that “... is central to the entrepreneurial process” (Barringer & Ireland, 2006, p. 15). They are considered inseparable from entrepreneurship most of all, as suggested by Horizon2020, in time of global crisis and hyper-competitiveness. In this perspective, the purpose of this paper is to analyze the role of creativity in the innovativeness of a high tech context. The main idea is that high-tech organizations, that realize sharing mechanisms of innovative ideas, stimulate individual creativity and, at the same time, synergistic interactions that lead not only to the creation but also to the implementation of innovative ideas. Design/methodology/approach To reach our objective we structured the paper in three steps. In a first step we examine the linkages between creativity and innovation through a literature review. The second step is focused on the presentation of the experience in a high tech firm. In the third step we discuss on the results of our analysis Findings The main findings concern the contribution of creativity to the development of new products and services in a high-tech context. The examined case, in particular, highlights that a context in which are implemented sharing mechanisms of skills and competencies fosters the design and the realization of new product and services, coherent with the structure of consumer preferences. Research limitations/implications The main limitation is related to the choice of a single case study. By this way, indeed, is not possible a generalization of our results. In the meantime, this methodology allows focusing the attention on qualitative data that highlight how high-tech firms foster the effective implementation of individual creativity within organizational boundaries.