Collective Creativity : Exploring Creativity in Social Network Development as Part of Organizational Learning

Creativity in organizations has become a key topic of organizational research. This work expands on existing research by exploring creativity in the dynamics of social networks. Collective creativity is introduced as a central part of organizational learning and seen as the expression of creativity on the collective level. The research is able to empirically assess creativity in the development of social structures. For the assessment of creativity this work applies a longitudinal study design by combining social network analysis with creativity studies. The approach enables to relate creativity indicators with social network measures. It is based on an empirical study of innovation projects in the automotive industry and thereby extends existing research and theories on creativity, social network dynamics and organizational learning.