Group Creativity and Innovation

Based on a literature review of Chinese traditional philosophies and social science research on social harmony we formulated the group harmony construct, developed a scale, and tested its validity in two studies on 167 top management groups from China. Study 1 demonstrated convergent and discriminant validity of group harmony and evaluated its predictive validity against well-established constructs of relationship conflict, task conflict, group cohesiveness, psychological safety, and conflict avoidance. Study 2 further examined the construct and nomological validity of group harmony and tested the effects of group harmony and found that, as hypothesized , group harmony enhanced group innovative performance through increasing knowledge sharing among group members. However, instead of motivating innovative performance through fostering moderate levels of task conflict, group harmony

Over the years many training methods for creativity and innovation have been developed. Despite these programs and research, further improvement is necessary, particularly in schools of technology and engineering education, where previous efforts have focused on developing solutions to defined problems, not in identifying and defining the problems themselves in ways that promote creative outcomes. This study presents initial efforts to develop an instructional program designed to teach innovation to undergraduate technology and engineering students. Results from a pre/posttest analysis using both the Torrance Tests for Creative Thinking and a survey with self-reported data indicate that the Innovation Boot Camp was successful because it (a) encapsulated innovation into a process that students could learn and apply, (b) engaged students in multidisciplinary groups, and (c) provided a hands-on, activities-oriented curriculum explicitly designed to enhance innovation. Notwithstanding, ideas for improvement and further research and development of the curriculum are described. 1

Many people, organizations, institutions, and governments want and need to generate creative breakthroughs and foster creativity, but are not aware of what conversational conditions make their occurrence more likely.  The creative collaborative process is dependent upon communication. There have been few studies that have analyzed in situ group creativity with a robust communication theory capable of showing what actual kinds of conversations create new and useful meaning.  The purpose of this research was to identify conversational conditions that facilitate creative breakthroughs in collaborative workgroups.

A case study is presented of a 4-month creative collaboration between members of a design consultancy and a senior university design class tasked with designing 21st century communication products for a well-known greeting-card company client. The research design utilized a social constructionist communication theory, the coordinated management of meaning, (CMM).  Creative breakthrough moments were identified in three different interactions from questionnaires and videotaped data. Reflective interviews of all the participants also enabled insight into the creative breakthrough moments and the narrative process that developed new meaning.  The videotaped conversational patterns that produced those creative breakthrough moments were then recursively examined and analyzed with conversational analysis, CMM research methodology, and figurative language. Six specific conversational conditions were discerned as present in creative breakthrough emergence.

A reflexive pattern of critique, relationship, responsibility, idea generation, and reframing authorship enabled participants to co-evolve design narratives that made new meaning. Creative breakthroughs and new creative meaning emerged from an improvisational structure of six specific conversational conditions. By participating within this improvisational structure, group members utilized critique as a creative springboard for innovation and took fresh perspectives. These findings are counter to the dominant themes in design and sociocultural literature that nonjudgmental conditions, brainstorming, and individuals building on input are the main pathways for creativity.

The 21st century economy often requires the innovative production of conceptual and physical artifacts. These innovations frequently are developed collaboratively within communities of workers. Previous theories about the nature of work and learning within communities have emphasized shared meaning or shared practice, but now shared innovation is required. In this paper, I describe the development of a model for conceptualizing and studying shared innovation within communities. This model was created from merging elements of social learning and creativity/innovation theories. I explain that at an intersection of these two domains is a unique kind of social structure, called a Community of Innovation, or COI. I conclude by describing the characteristics of a Community of Innovation and its implications for design and research.

This paper presents research from an ongoing study analyzing the co-creative practice of two undergraduate studio based music composers working with two peers from dance and video production. Whilst empirical research has explored joint creativity and group working processes within and across performing arts disciplines (including music), situations that bring undergraduate studio based composers into interdisciplinary collaborative creating have not previously been studied. Framed by a sociocultural theory of human activity, this research is looking at how creative achievement and the local social context for creative work is constituted through interaction. This paper explains the sociocultural methods used to build a sequential analysis of joint activity, presenting an extracted analysis before concluding with a summary of some early observations of the issues music technology students can face when creating new work collaboratively.

Three earlier published reports (Erland, 1999c, 1999d, 1998) of a two school (Schools 1 & 2), 14 classroom, grades 4-8 study, reported large gains evidenced by the Brain-Based-Accelerated Learning (AL) application of The Bridge To Achievement (The BTA). Eleven BTA/AL experimental groups were compared with two control groups from School 2 having an Alternate Media Activity (AMA), and a no-treatment comparison/control group from School 1. There was a wide range of policy adherence (98% to 25%) for the eleven experimental classrooms to the 19 Executive Criteria. Analyses of academic achievement was measured by the Iowa Tests of Basic Skills (ITBS) and cognitive skills were measured by CogAT (subtest of the ITBS), and eight subtests, four each from The Woodcock Johnson Psycho-Educational Battery-1, and The Detroit Tests of Learning Aptitude-2. This report is a follow-up investigation of two of the original three fourth grade treatment classes of School 2 (n=44); 4E1, i.e. grade 4-Experimental, class 1 (n=24), and 4E2 i.e. grade 4, Experimental, class 2 (n=20). A majority of these students had low auditory memory n=40/44. Each class had a subset of students with severe cognitive skill deficits 4E1=10, 4E2=7, two class sum: n=17/44 students. Except for one student who did not have cognitive skill deficiencies, the remaining 43 students had specific isolated auditory or visual memory encoding-decoding weaknesses. The report investigates the effect the subset of 17 low achieving/cognitive deficit students had on the score performance of the entire class as an aggregate group. Further intra-analyses looked at these 17 low students and factored out the lowest five, (4E1), and four, (4E2), from each group, classifying them as "outliers". These outliers greatly skewed the national ITBS scores by as much as 50%. Tables 12-15 show these comparisons. These two classrooms were in the top five classes that had followed the Executive Criteria policy successfully, 68%-54%. The 4E1 and 4E2 classes hovered at, or were just above, norm level proficiency for three consecutive years pre-and posttest to The BTA-Accelerated Learning (BTA/AL) intervention. Falling below norm expectation gains posttest after training would lead to the assumption that the BTA/AL treatment had not been successful. However, when these two 4E1 and 4E2 classroom were pooled posttest with the "star" high performing 4E3 class against national norm (NN) expectations, ten of the thirteen ITBS subtests for 4E1, and nine of the thirteen primary ITBS subtests for 4E2, were statistically significant showing positive trending. Furthermore, removing the nine "outliers", revealed both classrooms were now above the norms, having made gains posttest. One year longitudinally, and still pooled with the "star" 4E3 class, and with the outliers included, the 4E1 class had all thirteen primary ITBS subtests statistically significant, and the 4E2 and 4E3 classes had 12/13 ITBS primary subtests statistically significant. This indicated longitudinal ITBS score maintenance for all three experimental fourth grade classrooms. 4E1 and 4E2 were now performing at, or

The best higher education institutions do not educate and train only the students who are the new work force for the global market for the future, but also create new ideas and knowledge for the shortterm contemporary issues as well long term complex issues, which the industry needs critically.
However, not all the universities are successful in providing technology-based innovation so that they need new and dynamic strategic model and planning. The strategic model is understanding the needs of the socio-economic-political-cultural-environmental aspects of the interest groups, who are the students, the labor market, and different industries. In order to meet the needs, the higher education institutions should take into consideration their competencies and interest. While deciding and matching these two aspects, the alternative costs and profits should be taken into account critically for short-term and long-term goals of the universities.
Additionally, in the strategic goals, five aspects are critical in higher education. The first one is the democratization of knowledge and access, which means access to university education in order to gain innovative knowledge for the developing and competitive markets. The second aspect is the contestability of the market and funding, which is one of the most important subjects for all the universities in this competitive market economy. The third aspect is related to the research technologies, including digital. The universities should deal with the latest technologies in order to
create new values in the market as well as in the society. The forth perspective is about the global mobility in which most of the academics as well as the student find different opportunities for global partnership and dynamic synergy to improve talents and competencies. The most important aspect, however, is the integration with the industry. Universities need to develop significantly deeper
partnerships with industry by changing teaching and learning programs, supporting the funding and
application of research, and reinforcing the role of universities as drivers of innovation and growth.
Taking into consideration all these strategic purposes, on the other hand, the strategic plan is making a
kind of a gun chart to see the performances for one year, two years, five years, ten years, twenty years, and more.
In this study, the strategic models and plans of the public (5) and private (5) universities are analyzed from the five different aspects. In order to understand deeply the dynamics at these universities, the phenomenological interpretive analysis is preferred. In the depth interviews, the academics and the professionals of the technology transfer offices as well as the active researchers and academics answered 21 questions about the strategic model and planning.
The results show that the private universities are 75% better in developing business models and business plans. Additionally, most of the participants (88%) are not aware about the strategic model and plan. More importantly, they (95%) have wrong perception related to the strategic model and plan. Regarding to the 5 strategic purposes, two public universities as well as 3 private universities are
aware about, but they do not have well-developed and well-defined strategic model and plan.

Three earlier published reports (Erland, 1999c, 1999d, 1998) of a two school (Schools 1 & 2), 14 classroom, grades 4-8 study, reported large gains evidenced by the Brain-Based-Accelerated Learning (AL) application of The Bridge To Achievement (BTA). Eleven BTA/AL experimental groups were compared with two control groups from School 2 having an Alternate Media Activity (AMA), and a no-treatment comparison/control group from School 1. This report is a follow-up investigation of two of the original three fourth grade treatment classes of School 2. A majority of these students had low auditory memory. The report investigates the effect the subset of 17 low achieving cognitive deficit students had on the score performance of the entire class as an aggregate group. Further intra-analyses looked at these 17 low students and factored out the lowest from each group, classifying them as "outliers." These outliers greatly skewed the national ITBS scores by as much as 50%. These two classrooms were in the top five classes that had followed the executive criteria policy successfully, 68%-54%. The experimental classes hovered at, or were just above, norm level proficiency for three consecutive years pre-and posttest to the BTA/AL intervention. When these two classrooms were pooled posttest with the "star" high performing class against national norm expectations, 10 of the 13 ITBS subtests for one class, and 9 of the 13 primary ITBS subtests for the other, were statistically significant showing positive trending. Furthermore, removing the nine "outliers," revealed both classrooms were now above the norms, having made gains posttest. (Contains 43 references and 23 tables.) (RS) Reproductions supplied by EDRS are the best that can be made from the original document.

Over the years, many training methods for creativity and innovation have been developed. Despite these programs and research, further improvement is necessary, particularly in schools of technology and engineering education, where previous efforts have focused on developing solutions to defined problems, not in identifying and defining the problems themselves in ways that promote creative outcomes. This study presents initial efforts to develop an instructional program designed to teach innovation to undergraduate ...