Organizational Creativity & User Innovation

Ideas, inventions and ultimately innovations are crucial for sustainable business success, that is no secret. These innovations are no longer confined to the boundaries of individual organisations' R&D departments, but come from a broader range of stakeholders such as customers, suppliers, employees, etc. In this context, it is elementary to encourage and demand creativity in order to leverage these potentials - in small as well as in large teams, online and offline, etc.

Creativity has been researched for decades, but mainly in psychology. Within the company, creativity must be promoted and challenged in a structured way. In addition to techniques, this also includes approaches for workshops and the design of spaces, with which various research directions are concerned.

The topic of open innovation has been present in research for many years, but has not yet been implemented everywhere in the corporate context. A distinction is made between inbound and outbound open innovation. The former refers to the involvement of external parties in the innovation process, which is typically already well established. The latter includes the commercialisation of own inventions, e.g. through patents and licences. This aspect is usually even less considered.