As most of the times the resources are aligned to corporate goals through structures
by managers, Leadbeater (2005: 7) highlights that “creativity, in contrast, often emerges
unplanned, from unlikely sources, and from people who feel their role is to be nonaligned”.
Howkins (2007: 9) underlines the importance of three essential conditions for
creative ideas and inventions, which are: personality, originality and meaning. Based on
these three prerequisites of creativity, we can contemplate whether our idea is creative
or not, i.e. think if it was created by a person (Howkins (2007: 6) explained this condi279
Business, Management and Education, 2011, 9(2): 277–294
tion as the presence of an individual person because it is people, not things, that are
creative), consider its originality and reflect on its meaning for everybody. In Howkins’
(2007: 9) words, creativity “occurs whenever a person says, does or makes something
that is new, either in the sense of something from nothing or in the sense of giving a new
character to something. Creativity occurs whether or not this process leads anywhere;
it is present both in the thought and in the action”. Leadbeater (2005: 7) points to this
elusory idea as the reason why creativity is so valuable.
Howkins (2007: 9) remarks that creative ideas can be produced not only by one person,
but by a group of people as well. Being creative is not only a personal experience.
Despite of the fact that creativity is “a talent and aptitude” (Howkins 2007: 9), which is
considered to be a personal rather than a group quality, “some kinds of creativity
require and flourish in a group” (Howkins 2007: 7). However, some kinds of creativity
still tend to be exercised privately or even in solitude. According to Howkins (2007: 7),
“both situations can be equally creative”.
However, it is important to keep in mind that every individual comprehends creativity
differently and depending on many aspects. Experience, education, the level of
socialisation, entrepreneurship, even the age can be the criteria. Howkins (2007: 8)
represents the ideas on distinguishing the creativity as psychological and historical,
developed by psychologist Margaret Boden (2003), of the University of Sussex. The
first, which she calls “P–creativity” (psychological creativity), is related “only to the
mind of the individual concern (Howkins 2007: 8). The second kind of creativity, which
according to Boden (2003) is called “H-creativity” (historical creativity), means that an
idea is “novel to the whole of the human history” (Howkins 2007: 8).
As creativity becomes a tangible product, one approaches the borderline between
creativity and innovations. Is one the part of the other? Or is creativity equal to innovations?
According to Levickaitė (2010: 205), although creativity is mostly thought to be
related to the arts and literature, the contemporary science more frequently acknowledges
creativity as the essential condition for innovations and inventions. Although
Howkins (2010: 10) concurs, he underlines that “creativity is not the same as innovation”.
He explains that “creativity is internal, personal and subjective, whereas innovation
is external and objective. Creativity often leads to innovation, but innovation
seldom leads to creativity. Where success depends on personal expression, people
want to be creative; if it depends on calculation and implementation they aim for innovation”
(Howkins 2010: 10). To summarize these propositions, one can infer that
creativity is a precondition for innovations. At this stage of creativity, an idea turns into
a creative product. When does it happen? When an idea becomes a creative product?
Howkins (2007: 10) explains that it happens “whenever an idea is identified, named
and made practicable and may, as a result, be owned or traded”. It means that it is the
process of an idea taking a tangible form.
As Parrish (2007: 7) said, “creativity is in and around us all”. Creativity is a tool
that helps reaching the most varied aims.