CREATIVITY MANAGEMENT IN PUBLIC ORGANIZATIONS: Jump-Starting Innovation

Abstract

Creativity management is a management practice that jump-starts the innovation process by encouraging officials to act and respond with increased creativity and initiative. This article describes recent practices of a major metropolitan city, Seoul Metropolitan Government (the world`s eighth-largest city), to increase initiative through modification of existing reward, management, and training systems. Detailed descriptions are provided. Results of a multimethod study show that during a two-year period, employees and managers proposed 62,666 ideas, of which 13 percent were selected for implementation. Survey results among 1,194 managers and employees also show that the percentage of officials who now view their divisions as innovative doubled in a two-year period, from 16 percent to 33 percent, thus providing further evidence of jump-starting innovation. Creativity management is presented as an effective approach for encouraging new ideas and solutions and broadening innovation practices in public organizations.