Metodo

International Studies in Phenomenology and Philosophy

Book | Chapter

226073

Creativity in/of organizations for managing things to come

lessons to be learnt from philosophy

Günther OrtmannJörg Sydow

pp. 67-88

Abstract

Organizational creativity is essential in the face of an unknown future. In this chapter, we inspect pertinent philosophical insights into the problems and paradoxes of creation and creativity. To this end, we take care not to strain the concept of paradox, which is somewhat devalued through inflation, and to replace it, in many cases, with the concepts of complementarity, recursiveness and supplementarity. Although we refer mostly to continental philosophy, we use, rather than philosophical approaches, a selection criterion that includes problems such as the necessity of imagination of the future and, therefore, of creativity as a way to cope with its uncertainty and unknowledgeability; the tension between freedom and constraint; Plato's search paradox; Jon Elster's states that are not (directly) intendable; and, not least, the problem of the emergence of organizational creativity as a capacity of corporate actors. We start, however, by considering the role of escalating contingency and the opposition of creation and destruction in (hyper-)modernity and the implied ambivalence of creativity, which is recognized but mostly neglected within creativity research.

Publication details

Published in:

Krämer Hannes, Wenzel Matthias (2018) How organizations manage the future: theoretical perspectives and empirical insights. Basingstoke, Palgrave Macmillan.

Pages: 67-88

DOI: 10.1007/978-3-319-74506-0_4

Full citation:

Ortmann Günther, Sydow Jörg (2018) „Creativity in/of organizations for managing things to come: lessons to be learnt from philosophy“, In: H. Krämer & M. Wenzel (eds.), How organizations manage the future, Basingstoke, Palgrave Macmillan, 67–88.