Student ID Number: 109020646

MOD053 - Research Methods and Dissertation

Dissertation – Final

Sent to Repository: 12th February 2012

Word Count: 12409

Declaration

I, Tim Malone, declare that I am the sole author of this dissertation is my own unaided work and a result of my own investigations, except where indicated in the acknowledgements, the text and the references.

It is being submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Master of Arts: Leading Innovation and Change at York St. John University, United Kingdom.

An Investigation into Attitudes to Workplace Creativity and the Role of Innovation StylesTM as a Model to Enhance and Encourage Creative Thinking in Groups at NCP.

Abstract

In recent years, organisational creativity has attracted much attention from academics and leadership experts. This is due in part to the relationship between creativity and innovation and also because employees throughout organisations are facing unfamiliar, complex problems. These new problems require novel solutions and as such, a high level of creative thinking is required. Increasingly, the workforce is being asked to identify the real problem, uncover problem-related information and then produce and evaluate a diversity of possible solutions.

While organisations are constantly seeking innovative solutions, there is a great deal of evidence to suggest that leadership attitudes to creativity and organisational culture exert a powerful influence on creativity. This influence can be both positive and negative and in order for innovation to become embedded in an organisation’s culture, leaders need to find ways to ‘manage for creativity’.

There is almost universal agreement that every human being has the capacity to think creatively, and there is strong evidence to suggest that creative thinking ability diminishes over