Proceedigs of the 15th IFAC Symposium on

Proceedigs
Proceedigs
Information of
of the
the 15th
Control15th IFAC
IFAC Symposium
ProblemsSymposium on
on
in Manufacturing
Proceedigs
Information of the 15th
Control IFAC Symposium
Problems in on
Manufacturing
Available online at www.sciencedirect.com
Information
May 11-13,
Proceedigs Control
2015.
of Problems
Ottawa,
the 15th in
Canada
IFAC Manufacturing
Symposium on
Information
May 11-13, Control
2015. Problems
Ottawa, in Manufacturing
Canada
May 11-13,
Information 2015. Ottawa,
Control Canada
Problems in Manufacturing
May 11-13, 2015. Ottawa, Canada
May 11-13, 2015. Ottawa, Canada
ScienceDirect
IFAC-PapersOnLine 48-3 (2015) 910–915
How
How to
to define
define aaa creative
creative SME
SME
How
How to
to define
define a creative
creative SME
SME
How to define
Cynthia Lavoie*,aGeorges
creative SME
Abdulnour**
Cynthia
Cynthia Lavoie*,
Lavoie*, Georges
Georges Abdulnour**
Abdulnour**
Cynthia Lavoie*, Georges Abdulnour**
*,,,**Department of Georges
Cynthia Lavoie*, Industrial Engineering
Abdulnour**
*
* ,**Department
**Department of
of Industrial
Industrial Engineering
Engineering
Université du Québec à Trois-Rivières,
* Trois-Rivières,
**Department of G9A
Industrial 5H7 Canada
(email: lavoic@uqtr.ca;
Engineering
Université du
Université du Québec
Québec àà Trois-Rivières, Trois-Rivières, Trois-Rivières, G9A
,
Trois-Rivières, G9A 5H7 Canada 5H7 Canada
(email: lavoic@uqtr.ca;
lavoic@uqtr.ca;
* **Department of Industrial
georges.abdulnour@uqtr.ca
Université du Québec à Trois-Rivières, Trois-Rivières, G9A 5H7
georges.abdulnour@uqtr.ca
)
) Canada (email:
Engineering (email: lavoic@uqtr.ca;
georges.abdulnour@uqtr.ca
Université du Québec à Trois-Rivières, Trois-Rivières, G9A 5H7
georges.abdulnour@uqtr.ca )) Canada (email: lavoic@uqtr.ca;
Abstract: Intangible assets are great transforming drivers of )enterprises and are a crucial part of their
georges.abdulnour@uqtr.ca
Abstract:
Abstract: Intangible assets are
are great transforming drivers of of enterprises and
andofare a crucial
crucial part of
of their
competitiveIntangible
Abstract: advantage.assets
Intangible The human
assets
great
are great
transforming
capital has to bedrivers
transforming built with
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enterprises
the creativity
of enterprises andofare
arethe aaemployees
crucial part
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the
of their
competitive
competitive
Abstract: advantage.
advantage.
Intangible The
assets human
The human
are great capital
capital has
transforming to be
has to publishedbuilt
bedrivers with
built with of the creativity
the creativity
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the aemployees
employees
crucial within
within
part of the
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their
firm. Despite
competitive the phenomenal amount of papers on creativity, few them studied Small and
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the phenomenal
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The human amount
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studied
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phenomenal Furthermore,
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phenomenal Furthermore,
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following question:
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enterprises
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define
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are easy to recognize.
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practitioners
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to to
include answer
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characteristics question:
of “How
creative should
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to SME?”
recognize.
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aa Delphi is method
thus trying withtoaanswergroup of theexperts,
following thequestion:
researchers “How obtained
shouldaa we list define
of characteristics
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classify internal
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non-creative characteristics.
and lead to the second step of the research, a case-study on the internal factors
affecting
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and lead to the second step of the research, a case-study on the internal factors
Keywords:
affecting Innovation,
those Creativity,
external Creativity,
characteristics. Small and medium enterprises, Creative enterprises, .
© 2015, IFAC
Keywords:
Keywords:
affecting (International
Innovation,
Innovation,
those external Creativity, Federation
characteristics. Small
Small of and
Automatic
and medium
medium Control) Hosting
enterprises,
enterprises, by Elsevier
Creative
Creative Ltd. All..rights reserved.
enterprises,
enterprises,
Keywords: Innovation, Creativity, Small and medium enterprises, Creative enterprises, .
Keywords: Innovation, Creativity, Small and medium enterprises, Creative enterprises, .
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and useful or adapted to reality; 2) Observable product. Here,
the emphasis is put on the product obtained with creativity,
which must be of quality and creative according to the
evaluation of external observers; 3) Part of a process. Here,
the creativity is seen as a part of a process, either a problem
resolution, an innovation or a mental process; 4) A set of
components. In this last category, creativity is seen as a set of
interrelated components.
According to Mumford (2003), it seems that it exists a certain
agreement around the following definition in the context of
organization (Mumford, 2003): Creativity consists of the
production of new and useful ideas in a domain. Those ideas
has to be qualified as such by observers who are familiar with
the domain (Amabile et al., 1996).
Since the present work tries to study SME and their
organizational context, a definition of a creative SME
enterprise is required. In this context, definitions of
organizational creativity have to be taken into account.
Organizational creativity is defined as the creation of a new,
valuable and useful product, service, idea, procedure or
process, by individuals who work together in a complex
social system (Woodman et al., 1993, Moneta et al., 2010).
Creativity can also refer to the employees that use a
diversified spectra of competencies, abilities, knowledge,
views and experiments to generate new ideas for decision
making, problem resolution and effective execution of tasks
(Cheung and Wong, 2011).
Those definitions are clear and useful for some kind of
researches, but as the present research seeks to answer the
question “How to recognize a creative enterprise?” it is
difficult to do so without some precisions on the external and
internal characteristics of a creative enterprise.
2.2 Impacts of creativity
A creative enterprise will be influenced by organizational
creativity, even though real impacts of creativity are not well
documented. A review of impacts of creativity is therefore
useful.
According to Amabile (1982), the creative performance of an
enterprise can be measured in an external manner by the
products or the accomplishments that can be observed as: “A
product or response is creative to the extent that appropriate
observers independently agree it is creative. Appropriate
observers are those familiar with the domain in which the
product was created or the response articulated. Thus,
creativity can be regarded as the quality of products or
responses judged to be creative by appropriate observers, and
it can also be regarded as the process by which something so
judged is produced” (Amabile, 1982).
Furthermore, Pitta (2009) underlines that “The enterprises
that cannot bring creativity and innovation in their daily tasks
find that their failures are related to their weakness in
establishing an appropriate culture and climate which value
new ideas and this will decrease profits”(Pitta, 2009). It
means that an increase of creativity plays a role in the
financial success of enterprises. For Heunks (1998), this
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financial success is related to creativity only if innovation is
present(Heunks, 1998).
Actually, creativity is, for some researchers, considered as a
component of innovation (Wright et al., 2011) or as part of
the innovation process (Westwood and Low, 2003).
Innovation comes from creativity and then creativity is
considered as “pre-innovation.” Consequently, creativity
leads to innovation (Burbiel, 2009).Considering that, a brief
review of the impacts and measures of innovation can be
taken into account to measure or recognize a creative
enterprise.
2.3 Impacts and Measures of innovation
Aas and Pedersen (2010) suggest that management literature
on innovation measures is a heterogeneous set of knowledge.
Particularly, they highlight the work of Tidd (2001), who
suggests two classes of performance measurements: “(1)
accounting and Þnancial performance measures, and (2)
market performance measures.” Tidd et al. (2001) suggest
that the impact of innovation is threefold, resulting in: (1)
Þnancial beneÞts, (2) increased customer value, and (3)
strategic success (Tidd, 2001).
On the other hand, Milway, Azer and al. (2011), propose to
measure innovation and the value it creates with the gross
domestic product (GDP) per capita (Milway et al., 2011).
According to the Organization for Economic Co-operation
and Development (OECD), innovation is a permanent
process in continuous movement, which makes it difficult to
measure. The OECD suggests some measurements that can
be used such as: the impacts on the net sales, the impacts of
the innovation process on costs and employment and the
impacts of innovations on productivity (OCDE, 2005).
It is true that this offers some avenues on how to measure the
impacts of creativity, however exploring the measures used in
the literature on creativity is crucial in order to build a list of
characteristics that allows to recognize a creative
organization.
2.4 Measures of creativity
An overview of previous researches provides a portrait of
creativity measurements applied by researchers. First, some
measures used on the individual and organizational level will
be analyzed. Then, a presentation of the external
measurements or impacts will follow.
The literature on organizational creativity shows that
creativity measures are based on individuals, instead of on
the global measurements of the entire organization.
Individual measures
Auto-evaluations are often used to measure creativity on the
individual and team levels(Hon, 2012, Zhou, 2003, Scott and
Bruce, 1994, Gough, 1979, Amabile et al., 1996). Some
authors use an auto-evaluation combined with peer or
supervisor evaluations (Hou et al., 2011), while others use the
total of individual creativity to obtain the global creativity of
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the team (Zampetakis et al., 2010).On the individual level,
researchers often use well-known innovation tools to measure
the creative capability of individuals. For example, the Kirton
Adaptation-Innovation inventory (KAI) is widely utilized and
is based on the presence of two types of people: the adaptors
and the innovators. A part of the elements used in those tools
can be utilized in researches related to creativity, for
example, “have original ideas”; “proliferates ideas” or «copes
with several new ideas at the same time.” On the individual
level, Scott and Bruce (1994) have established a scale of
measures often used in the literature on creativity (cited more
than 2000 times1). This scale helps to determine and to
understand the independent variables that affect the innovator
behaviour and that can be used to define a creative person.
Six aspects are evaluated by the respondents (supervisors) for
their employees:
1. Searches out for new technologies, processes, techniques
and/or product ideas.
2. Generates creative ideas.
3. Promotes and champions ideas.
4. Investigates and secures the funds needed to implement
new ideas.
5. Develops adequate plans and schedules for the
implementation of new ideas.
6. Is innovative.
Organizational measures
In the literature, the measurement of creativity on the
organizational level is conducted by measuring some aspects
of the organizational climate that are known to have an
impact on creativity. The KEYS is a tool commonly used to
measure the stimulants and the obstacles of creativity in a
work environment based on empirical researches and theories
related to the creativity in organizations. It uses 78 items; 66
describing the work environment and 12 validating the
performance at work evaluated according to creativity and
productivity.
The performance criteria presented in the KEYS can be used
to measure organizational creativity in an “organization or a
creative unit where a high creativity is needed and where
people think they produce creative work.” This measurement
is a self-evaluation and consists of the following items: 1- My
department is innovator; 2- My department is creative; 3-
Globally, my actual work environment helps me to develop
my own creativity; 4- A lot of creativity is needed in my day-
to-day work; 5- Globally, my actual work environment helps
me to develop my work group creativity; 6- I think I am
really creative in my work. This tool can be used in a
department, a division or a small organization, as long as the
individuals in the group perceive the same work environment,
because the perceived work environment makes a difference
on the creativity level of the organization (Amabile et al.,
1996).
Gumusluoglu & Ilsev (2009) utilize employee creativity as
measured by their leaders and do an average of the values for
1
Research conducted on April 2, 2014.
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each organization in order to obtain the measure of the
organizational creativity. They calculate two ratios: the
innovation tendency coefficient and the success of the
product innovations. The principle they used, suggested by
Mumford et
Gustafson (1988), relies on the fact that the employees’
creativity can be necessary, but not sufficient for
organizational innovation because creative ideas or solutions
can be considered as not useful or not well implemented, so
not converted into innovations for the organization or in
value creation (Gumusluoglu and Ilsev, 2009).
Hansen, Lumpkin et al. (2011) examine the connections
between individual dimensions and creativity. The key points
they used to identify the creative performances are: “I am a
creative person” and “I take time each day or week to be
creative” (Hansen et al., 2011).
To conclude, either in individual or in organizational
measures, a specific way to recognize a creative enterprise is
available. In the following section, the methodology used to
close the gap of the researches regarding SME creativity is
presented.
3. METHODOLOGY
Following the literature review, the Delphi Method was used
to elaborate a list of characteristics and a clear definition of a
creative SME. Then, the results obtained will serve as an
input for the next step, which consists in selecting a sample
of creative SME to be included in a case study. The case
study will allow to test the effects of some factors on SME
creativity.
The Delphi method was invented by Dalkey (1969) of the
RAND Corporation, in the 1960s. This method aims at
refining the judgment of group members using
questionnaires. Three elements are important in the Delphi
Method: anonymous responses, iteration and controlled
feedbacks, and statistical group responses. “These features
are designed to minimize the biasing effects of the dominant
individuals, irrelevant communications and of group pressure
toward conformity”(Dalkey, 1969). In this study, all three
features were respected. To ensure that, open questions were
asked to make sure every expert had a chance to express
his/her opinion. Two iterations were done in order to obtain a
consensus among the experts.
Emails and web-based software (SurveyMonkey.com) were
used to collect the data. On the first round, an email,
including a brief introduction, a presentation of the
researchers and the project and a link to the survey, was sent.
On the second round, only a brief introduction and the link to
the survey were sent. The details about the survey are
presented in a following section, while a description of the
respondents is presented in the next section
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3.1 The respondents
Criteria
The experts were chosen according to a list of criteria,
developed by the researchers and evaluated in the first part of
the survey. The different criteria included: expertise in
defining creativity, knowledge on tools, techniques and
success factors related to creativity, SME field experience
and finally researcher on SME. The expert group had to
include at least: 1 researcher in SME, 1 practitioner in SME,
1 researcher in creativity and 1 practitioner in creativity.
Evaluation
Among the group of experts chosen, nine out of ten people
answered the question in the first round. From those nine
people, three were creativity experts, three were experts in
creativity tools and techniques, two were experts in success
factors of creativity, three were field SME practitioners and
five were SME researchers. As for the group composition,
three were researchers in SME, two were practitioners in
SME, one was practitioner in creativity and three were
researchers in creativity.
In the second round, ten people answered the revised and
updated questionnaire. From those ten respondents, nine were
the same that answered in the first round and one was a new
respondent.
2.2 The survey content
First round
In the first round of the Delphi, eight questions were asked to
the experts. The first three questions aimed at identifying the
experts. First, they consented to answer the survey. Secondly,
they gave their last name as a reference. Thirdly, they
answered a question on their competencies based on the
criteria established. The fourth and fifth questions were
answered on a 6-point scale basis and addressed the external
and the internal characteristics related to a creative SME.
In the fourth question, 20 external characteristics, based on
the literature review, were given and the experts had to
answer whether they believed those characteristics were
appropriate to differentiate a creative enterprise from a non-
creative one or not. For example, points like the “number of
ideas implemented or commercialized in a time period” and
the “originality of the ideas, according to a group of experts”
were included.
For the fifth question, a list of 18 points were given to the
experts, and they had to identify whether or not they had seen
those characteristics in SME they would personally define as
creative.
The sixth question was an open one and asked the experts
what was their definition of a creative SME. Then, the
seventh question asked if they could name some SME they
considered as creative. Finally, the eighth and last question
was open for comments.
963
Second round
The purpose of the second round was to prioritize the list of
external and internal characteristics and to conclude with a
definition of a creative SME, one that all experts would agree
on. In the second iteration, eight questions were asked. The
first and second ones were about contentment, while the third
and fourth ones were on the characteristics of a creative
enterprise. Specifically, the third one asked the experts to
prioritize the top external characteristics obtained in the first
iteration and the fourth one asked for the prioritization of the
top internal characteristics. Seven external characteristics and
five internal ones, chosen based on the results of the first
round, were listed.
On the fifth question, a list of elements provided in the
definition of the expert formulated during the first round was
given to the experts. The experts then had to provide, on a
six-point scale, the level of importance they gave to those
elements. In the sixth question, they had to comment a
definition elaborated from a summary of all the definitions
given by the first round and express what they thought was
missing in this definition so they could be 90% satisfied of
this definition.
4. RESULTS AND DISCUSSION
First, we obtained the consent of all the participants in both
rounds. Secondly, they all provided their last name as a
reference in both rounds and thirdly, they all answered the
question on their competencies and knowledge on creativity
and SME.
4.1 Experts’ qualification
According to their evaluation, eight out of nine people had at
least one criteria evaluated as “expert in this domain” or
“high knowledge of this domain”. Furthermore, some of them
had more than one criteria evaluated as “expert in this
domain”. The global results show that, in average, 22% of the
participants consider having a high knowledge of the domain,
and 34% think they are experts in these domains, for a total
of 56%.
4.2 External characteristics of creative SMEs
In the first round, a list of 20 points were listed and evaluated
by the experts and seven characteristics were considered by
the experts as being affected by creativity in a SME:
¥ Turnover rate of ways to do things
¥ Impact of the innovations on a targeted market
¥ Impact of the innovations on the society
¥ Offer of distinctive products or services (not available at
competitors)
¥ Number of ideas implemented or commercialized by
period of time
¥ Ability to attract and retain key employees
¥ Percentage (%) of growth by year (net sales) in
comparison to the market
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In the second round, the question was to prioritize those
characteristics. The results show that the top characteristics to
consider in recognizing a creative enterprise are: 1) Offer of
distinctive products or services (not available at competitors);
2) Turnover rate of ways to do things, 3) Impact of the
innovations on the targeted market.
4.3 Internal characterisitics of a creative SME
Even though the purpose of this research is not to define the
internal characteristics of a creative SME, a question about
this subject was asked to the experts because of the lack of
studies in this field. In the first round, the experts believe,
based on their experience in SME, that those characteristics
were present:
¥ Presence of stimulating work for the employees
(challenging and significant)
¥ Presence of a CEO opened to experiments and risk taking
¥ Presence of an organizational culture allowing risk taking
and room for error
¥ Presence of organizational encouragement supporting
creativity
¥ Presence of systems, politics, procedures to foster
creativity
In the second iteration, the experts had to prioritize those
characteristics and the result is that those three characteristics
are the most important: 1) Presence of a CEO opened to
experiments and risk taking; 2) Presence of an organizational
culture allowing risk taking and room for error; 3) Presence
of stimulating work for the employees (challenging and
significant).
4.4 Definition of a creative SME
In the first round, the experts were asked to write their own
definition of a creative enterprise. In the second round,
starting from the definitions given by the respondents, two
questions were asked on this subject. The first question was
about the elements that needed to be included in the
definition of a creative enterprise, and the following elements
were listed as the most important for the experts:
The creative enterprise: 1) is distinctive by its innovations on
different levels (human resources, products, processes,
business models, etc.); 2) encourages the emergence of ideas;
3) implements ideas; 4) foster the creation of new, original
and quality ideas and 5) is an enterprise in which errors are
allowed.
In the second question on this subject, a definition, with a
wide part of the elements submit by the experts was provided
to them and they had to comment it. The definition was:
“A creative enterprise put success factors in place, as creative
individuals, a culture of empowerment, openness and risk
taking to constantly renew its ways to do things and
implement or commercialize a great number of concrete and
distinctive innovations on different levels which will have an
impact on the market and the society by its originality,
964
quality, novelty and the value creation, which will permit to
the enterprise to grow more rapidly than its competitors”
The comments on the definition are that this definition is first
too long, but consist of a set of elements that is qualify of
“complete” for some experts (three out of nine). One expert
does not agree that a creative enterprise has to grow, two
experts think that this definition is not appropriate and is
prescriptive or a set of characteristics and some suggest those
elements to be added: be more specific on the different levels
(what it included), add the recognition of the creative work
with an adapted valorization system and add the search for
excellence and innovation culture of the general manager or
the management team.
Finally, we can claim that there is no consensus among the
experts on the definition of creative enterprise, but there are
some elements they agree on, as presented earlier.
5. CONCLUSION
Even if creativity is a subject well studied in the literature,
describing the external characteristics and the definition of a
creative SME is an emerging, if not a new, research area to
be investigated. Knowing this will lead enterprises to know
the target to aim for and will facilitate the work of researchers
and practitioners in this field. As a result, even if the
definition of a creative enterprise is not found yet, it is a good
start to work on. Furthermore, the external characteristics and
elements discuss here will be useful for researchers and
practitioners, especially in this research. Following this
results, a case-study research will be conducted in order to
study the detailed internal success factors or characteristics
that will create a creative SME, recognized and measured
with the external characteristics obtained in this first part of
the research.
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