Creativity and innovation are important inputs in the global knowledge economy.
However, while the theoretical concepts and the measurement of creativity on the
individual level have made considerable progress during the last decades, so-called
sectoral approaches to measuring creativity and innovation on the level of aggregate
units are less well developed. The article is the first to review and compare the different
approaches of the most popular international creativity rankings. Analyzed sectors are
countries, companies, and universities. It becomes apparent that company rankings, in
particular, are virtually arbitrary, yet different country and university rankings show
much higher correlations. Weaknesses in the rankings’ operationalization and modeling
of creativity and innovation measures, as well as potential improvements in methodology,
are discussed in the context of the current debate in the literature