Fostering Management Students ’ Creativity

In the Renaissance, creativity might have been a luxury for the few, but by now it is a necessity for all. —Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi At first glance, this issue of the Journal of Management Education (JME) may appear to be a random selection of unrelated experiential exercises, activities and simulations: a case-based exercise for teaching strategy, a framework useful in teaching entrepreneurship, and two well-tested experi-ential exercises relevant to courses about human behavior in organizations that replicate the complexities of organizational contexts. However, underly-ing these apparent differences is a common theme: a commitment to fostering students ’ creativity. Creativity has been defined as “the ability to produce work that is novel (i.e., original, unexpected), high in quality, and appropriate (i.e., useful, meets task constraints) ” (Sternberg, Kaufman, & Pretz, 2001, p. 1). Although creativity is a key success factor in business and management, higher educa-tion generally devotes little time or attention to developing it and often even discourages it (Edwards, McGoldrick, & Oliver, 2006). Students learn how to answer questions and solve problems, but opportunities to produce original ideas are rare. So it is not surprising that some of the authors in this issue note that when a task that demands innovative thinking and creativity is assigned, students experience and express frustration. Assignments that require creativity also create challenges for instructors who must find ways to evaluate student creativity. Cowan (2006) neatly summarize