creativity, the corporate curriculum and the future: a case study

Futures 33 (2001) 541–555www.elsevier.com/locate/futures

Creativity, the corporate curriculum and thefuture: a case study

Bill Williamson *

Centre for Professional Development, The University of Durham, Pelaw House, Durham DH1 1TA,UK

Abstract

This paper explores the proposition that the successful companies of the future will be thosethat find the means to help their employees to think and act creatively. Based on a case studyof British managers’ perceptions of creativity and how it can be nurtured in a large US-basedmanufacturing company, the study shows that prevailing models of creativity in the organiza-tion are inadequate. Firstly, the structure of management in the organization and many featuresof the culture and corporate curriculum of the company, inhibit creative thinking and action.It is not the intention of the company to do this. The company has developed many methodsof problem-solving and team-working intended to release the creative energy of employees.The organizational culture of the company is not, however, as supportive of creative endeavouras it needs to be. Secondly, the models of creativity in the minds of managers and supervisorsreflect a wider cultural misunderstanding of the phenomenon. Creativity is perceived in highlyindividual terms. It is thought of as something which expresses itself fully in non-work areasand it is not seen as a process that can be facilitated through new ways of working and thinkingwithin the organization. To have a successful future, this company, like many others, mustchange the ways in which its managers perceive the creative potential of their employees.2001 Elsevier Science Ltd. All rights reserved.

1. Introduction

The future is unknowable. It is an open-ended field of possibilities in all domainsof human endeavour. All we can be sure of is that the future will unfold in responseto the ways in which people invent new ideas, technologies and build new relation-ships among themselves that allow for and nurture new ways of thinking and work-

* Tel.: +44-191-374-3606.E-mail address:[email protected] (B. Williamson).

0016-3287/01/$ - see front matter 2001 Elsevier Science Ltd. All rights reserved.PII: S0016 -3287(00 )00097-5

542 B. Williamson / Futures 33 (2001) 541–555

ing. The capacity of people to be creative in their approach to their work will be amajor — necessary, though not sufficient — factor in determining why some organis-ations (business corporations, government departments, professional bodies, volun-tary organisation etc.) will be successful in the future and why others will fail. Theglobal turmoil, high risks and ruthless competitiveness of all areas of modern econ-omic life guarantee a future of uncertainty, complexity and high speed change. Allplace a premium on inventiveness and creativity.

This paper reports work on managers’ models of creativity in a large multi-nationalAmerican manufacturing company. The study shows that the creative resources ofthis company are not being deployed to full advantage. The proposition drawn fromthis is that the successful development of this company in the future will requirechanges in organisational culture, attitudes and values of a kind that nurture thecreative capital of its employees. Since this company is very typical of manufacturingcompanies of its type, the lessons drawn from the study can be generalised. Whetherthe conclusions are generalisable to all types of work organisations can, of course,be debated. Our collective futures are unfolding from within dynamics of globalorganisations like this one. An understanding of how this is happening is decisivefor our collective ability as managers, workers and citizens to gain greater controlof what might be possible in the future organisation of work.

2. Creativity in context

In his account of the creative achievement of Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, NorbertElias established a major theoretical point: creativity is not a mysterious gift givenonly to the few; it is a quality wholly bound up with the structure of the socialinstitutions in which people work and live [1]. The roles, authority relationships,values and working arrangements that constitute the structure of any social formation,either nurture or stifle the creativity of people within it. Without support, freedomand acknowledgement, the creativity of people, even those with exceptional abilities,will not flourish. The society of the Salzburg Court enabled Mozart to refine hismusical abilities but it held him back in ways that he deeply resented and which,perhaps, ultimately destroyed him.

If this is true, the observation has relevance beyond the context in which it wasmade. It certainly has major implications for how we should try to understand thecreative process in the work place and in the organisations — both private andpublic — which manage the modem economy. The underlying argument of the paperis that all work organisations could become much more successful in achieving theiraims and objectives if those who manage them could see more of an nurture thelatent creative potential of all employees and colleagues. This is not merely naivehope — though there is much in the organisation of modern capitalism, as RichardSennett has recently pointed out, which devalues people at work [2]. It is a prop-osition rooted in the evidence of the experience of people who work in successfulorganisations and in a general theory of learning in adulthood. This theory statesthat learning is a situated social activity and that with the right kind of organisation

543B. Williamson / Futures 33 (2001) 541–555

to support it, it can be nurtured to generate new ideas, new ways of knowing, actingand feeling [3]. The thrust of the argument is that we should see creativity andinnovation as an aspect of the organisation of work and not as a mysterious qualityof individuals or the property of an organisation but of the ways in which the twointeract.

3. Creativity, competitiveness and the corporate curriculum

This perspective has major implications for the ways in which we should envisagethe future for work organisations. Global capitalism drives competitiveness and inno-vation. Innovation and change have become the mantras of modern management.Those organisations that really understand human creativity and are committed tonurture it and live with the consequences of doing so are the ones most likely tosucceed. Those, on the other hand, which seek to over-control their operations, toprogramme all key decisions according to known formulae, will ossify and fail.

The underlying assumption of this chapter is this: people have a capacity to inno-vate, re-frame their perceptions, solve problems and express themselves and whatthey know that is far beyond what most of them believe to be true of themselvesand certainly beyond what those in authority in many organisations believe they arecapable of. To think creatively, however, is a learned skill and atrophies when it isnot practised. It is something that can be taught and learned when individuals aregiven appropriate support, encouragement and reward.

Those organisations that reflect this, whose corporate curriculum is designed topromote new learning and new thinking — are likely to be successful. All institutionsteach. Kessels has captured this in the idea of the corporate curriculum [4]. His pointis that the corporate curriculum is much more than the formal training programmesorganisations may from time to time implement. His model of it is that of a selfregulating, problem-solving network in which working colleagues talk to oneanother, make explicit their tacit understanding of their work and develop newskills — especially reflective, meta-cognitive skills — to enable them in a spirit of‘creative turmoil’ to generate new ideas and innovations. At the core of it is dialoguebetween teams of people of a kind that will increase their motivation to enrich furtherthe learning environment of the work place.

There is, however, a negative implication to Kessel’s positive description of thecorporate curriculum. In the absence of dialogue and of a culture of enquiry in anorganisation, the tacit remains hidden from view. What people know they keep tothemselves as if it was their own intellectual property. In many organisations peopleare unwilling to apply themselves fully to the task of solving problems. They do notbelieve it is their responsibility to do so. Those whose corporate curricula rest on thebelief that only the few can learn or who which approach the process of innovation bylooking for outside help rather than building up skills and knowledge within, aremore likely to lend validity to attitudes and values which resist change and inno-vation.

Different kinds of organisational contexts are likely to sustain, to adapt a phrase


from Raymond Williams different ‘structures of feeling’ [5]. Willams uses this termto capture the cognitive elements of consciousness or, for the purposes of this paper,the elements of what people both think and feel about themselves and their work.Fig. 1 shows the possibilities that may be hypothesised.

Where employees feel that the opportunities open to them to acquire new knowl-edge and act upon it are high, there are good reasons to assume they will respondwith a sense of optimism and challenge. Where training opportunities are few andrestricted and people do not believe the organisation is willing to act on new knowl-edge, there is every likelihood people will feel unmotivated, indifferent and feel itis not their responsibility to urge or bring about improvement, innovation and change.

4. Innovation and the global challenge

A new kind of society is being forged which requires new skills, new attitudes,new ways of thinking. But the old society with its hierarchical social structures anddivision of labour, its attitudes, forms of identity, self images and modes of controlcontinues to constrain what is possible in the new one. Nico Stehr has describedmodern societies as ‘knowledge societies’, societies of ‘delicate mosaics withoutdefinite centres’ which can be contrasted with those of the past rooted in particularcommunities governed by political institutions with a pyramidical structure [6]. Inhis most recent work, Manual Castells has captured the knowledge-based society asthe ‘network society’ [7]. It is global, decentralised, innovative, flexible with a ‘cul-ture of endless deconstruction and reconstruction’ [8]. The new economy is basedon global business networks which integrate highly devolved units of production of

Fig. 1. Structures of feeling and the corporate curriculum


which only the consistently innovative and competitive survive. The key asset inmodern society is no longer capital but knowledge and in particular, the capacitycontinually to generate new knowledge and explore its applications.

Changes of such magnitude that have emerged in the past three decades, impactdirectly on how business organisations function. Successful organisations have toadapt, innovate and develop their knowledge base. Castells explains:

In an economic system where innovation is critical the organisational abilityto increase its sources from all forms of knowledge becomes the foundation ofthe innovative firm. This organisational process, however, requires the full partici-pation of workers in the innovation process, so that they do not keep their tacitknowledge solely for their own benefit [9].

What he is pointing to here is based on his interpretation of the experience ofsuccessful Japanese companies. In contrast to some of their American and Europeancounterparts, they encourage workers to learn, to co-operate in teams and solve prob-lems together so that through their initiative and problem-solving, the company candevelop a better explicit understanding of how to achieve successful change. Amer-ican and European companies have too often tacitly assumed that technical changeand specialisation will bring greater control of work process and through that achievegreater success.

Innovative organisational change is not something organisations can achieve bythemselves. Much depends on the contexts in which they work. Castells is insistentthat some kinds of ‘milieux’ nurture change and others stifle it [10]. There are parti-cular geographical locations in the global economy which in the past few years haveseen the development of very successful companies. Included among them wouldbe Silicon Valley, Paris-Sud, the London-M4 corridor, Milan, Shanghai and others.Castells has argued that these ‘milieux of innovation’ bring together people andcompanies which, in interaction with one another, develop synergetically new waysof thinking and of doing things. The point is this: the innovative capacity of anorganisation is not solely determined by the people who work in it or by how it isdesigned by its management. It depends, too, on the spatial context of its operation —and the nature of its interaction with markets, competitors, government agencies,suppliers — and the prevailing attitudes, values and modes of self and social percep-tion typical of the cultural climate of the wider society.

A fundamental element of that cultural climate concerns the ways in which peopletypically understand and perceive the process of innovation and change itself. Howdo they conceive of themselves and their capacity and willingness to learn, be innov-ative and creative and, in the case of managers, how they approach the business offacilitating their employees to think afresh and to change? The specific conclusionto be drawn from the present study, which has implications for a more general modelof learning and creativity is this: the creative capacity of people in work organisationsis directly related to the opportunities they are afforded to learn more about theirwork, refresh and deepen their skills, re-frame their approach to the problems oftheir work and to contribute, without risk of criticism to themselves, to discussions


about how the problems of their organisations might be solved. Opportunities are,from this perspective, facets both of structure and of attitude, of roles and of percep-tions, of rewards and controls. Fundamentally they are facets of self images and ofthe sense of possibility people have that they might be able to challenge successfullyconventional ways of doing things. It is this sense of possibility that is decisive increating the innovative organisation distinguishing it from the less successful. Peoplepossessed of a strong sense of their ownagencyand who are both skilled and confi-dent in working to bring about change are the ones likely to carry forward inno-vations and open up new futures for their organisations. But they could be preventedfrom doing so if the organisations they worked in were not responsive to their ideas.

5. Organisational change in EngCo

The case study described here is that of an organisation struggling to maintain itssuccessful role in a highly competitive world market but which has not yet found away to resolve the fundamental contradiction in its corporate manufacturing strategy.The manufacturing strategy of the company is essentiallyFordistwhile the legitimat-ing rhetoric of its management teams is rich in the vocabulary of the new, people-centred discourse where the talk is of team-working, the empowerment of individualemployees and constant, customer-led improvements in quality. The result is thatkey managers and supervisors, as well as shop floor employees in one of the plantswhich has been studied intensively, feel the company actually restricts the creativecontribution its employees could make to ensure its survival and success. The posi-tive news from the case study is, however, that there are ways in which the companyhas changed and can in the future change that can rectify this. The changes neededrequire change in the organisational culture of the company and its plants.

The company in question is a successful US multi-national which produces in itskey British plant, diesel engines for a variety of world markets. Over the past decadethere have been major changes in the company. There has been a steady loss ofmanufacturing jobs as production has been rationalised and modernised. Over thepast three years this involved a major plant closure in an area of high unemployment.At corporate level a whole new, customer-led strategy of production control, prob-lem-solving and quality assurance has been implemented with massive investmentin training to make it all work. All new members of staff are put through an inductioncourse that familiarises them with the production system of the company and itscentral tenets. Most recently, the company has attempted to develop a world-widestrategy to change attitudes and working practices which is centred on the develop-ment of team-based work systems.

Visitors to the plants are routinely told: ‘People make the difference’; ‘We are init for the long haul’ ‘The company seeks a common approach and continuousimprovement to become a customer-led organisation’. ‘Continuous improvement isa way of life’. ‘Empowerment’ is one of the buzz words in widespread use and thecommon approach to problem-solving engineers into all working practices a standardmethod of detecting and solving production problems so that they can be put rightsystematically.


The management style is legitimated as being ‘process-oriented’ which is a wayof thinking — one of the company handbooks refers to it as a ‘mind set’ — in whichcontinuous improvement is secured through efforts to help employees improve theways in which they do their jobs. The training handbook for the system contraststhis style with ‘results oriented management’ which is ‘well established in the West’and emphasises controls, performance, results, rewards or the denial of rewards andeven penalties. It is a company that employs explicitly well-known Japanese methodsof quality improvement — especially KAIZEN — and has established extensiveprogrammes of training and staff development.

The labour force is relatively stable, a feature of the organisational culture of thecompany which brings ambiguous benefits. On the one hand, there is a stable baseof shop floor expertise. On the other hand, many shop floor staff retain an image ofthemselves as skilled workers (often trained in motor vehicle maintenance) and resentthe fact that, as they see it, the technological changes of the past decade has resultedin a de-skilling process that simplifies and regulates their work too much. The persist-ence (certainly in one of the plants that we have studied intensively) of craft-basedperceptions of work and of older attitudes of confrontational industrial relations, hasmeant that, on occasions, there has been a strong sense of suspicion — even ofcynicism — about the intentions behind managerial initiatives on the qualityimprovement front.

The opportunity to work closely on a training course with managers and super-visors from the company, developed from a team-based work project my colleagueand I had undertaken for one plant in the company.1 The course sessions, focusedspecifically on promoting creativity and innovation took the form of two, whole daysessions with a group of managers and supervisors. During these sessions — inwhich there was some formal academic input concerning organisational change,innovation and creativity — all participants in the course were enabled to articulateand share their understanding of creativity and to produce a critical account of theirown company’s policies in this field. The sessions were followed up with written,work-based assignments in which participants reflected directly on projects they hadmanaged which were designed to be innovative and which were either successful orunsuccessful. Though arising from a training event, the data collected clarified themodels of creativity held by managers in this company. They were encouraged toreflect on these models, to think about occasions during their working lives whenthey had sought, successfully or unsuccessfully to initiate change and to assesswhether they thought the management arrangements of the company helped or hin-dered them.

The essence of the conclusions to be drawn from this study is this: the companypresents itself as an innovative one. It seeks to enable its managers and shop floor

1 The project concerned team-based work systems. Further information and reports about this projectcan be gained from the author of this paper. The general conclusion of the research was that plant-basedteams cannot function effectively without major structural change in the organisation of managementitself. Groups of employees cannot take on new responsibilities if key managers are not encouraged torelinquish theirs.


employees to be creative. On the other hand, neither the management structures ofthe company or the prevailing understanding among the managers and supervisorsof what creativity is or of how to nurture the radical changes in methods, workingpractices and performance the company is seeking, are adequate.

Discussions within the management team reveal an underlying difference amongthem that we all came to identity and acknowledge as the ‘technophile’ and ‘techno-phobe’ positions. One roots all hope of change in new investment in machines, infor-mation technology and changes in plant layout and the measurement of work flow.The other sees these approaches as secondary to that of finding the best way torelease the talent and energy of current employees. Both, of course, require more timeand resources than are currently available. With the constant, downward pressure oncosts, everyone is extremely busy and there is little ‘headroom’ to pause, to reflect,to plan, to take stock and engage in that critical reflection and creative dialogue withothers which is central to an sustained organisational development and innovation.

6. Models of creativity

People who are innovative and creative display a number of characteristics.Psychological research suggests that creative individuals commonly display four keytraits: relatively high intelligence, originality, verbal fluency and a good imagination[8] They posses a number of cognitiveabilities: to be able to think metaphorically,to be flexible in decision-making, to show independent judgement, to enjoy and copewith novelty, to think logically, visualise problems, to escape conventional ways ofthinking and to search for order in chaos. Thestyleof their thinking is iconoclasticand questioning and they are alert not only to what is known about something butabout what is not known. They are willing to take risks.

This same review of psychological research underlines that creativity involvestension, hard work and support. It builds on sound foundations of training, educationand understanding and emerges as people, within a particulardomainof knowledgepractice high-level skills of problem-solving, communication and analysis.

Clearly, the qualities of creative people which have been detected by psychologistsare not purely psychological. There is a social dimension to creative work. HowardGardiner has tried to capture it in his ‘interactive perspective’ on creativity [9]. Inthis perspective (which derives from Gardiner’s attempts to explain the creativity inthe lives of great men like Freud, Einstein and Gandhi) creativity always takes placewithin a particular field — in which significant others judge the quality of what hasbeen created — and in particulardomainsof expertise. It is therefore a processinseparable from the social and organisational and cultural contexts in which peoplelive their lives.

The logic of such arguments is that, if we are to understand the ways in whichorganisations nurture or stifle creativity, we have to find out about how members ofthose organisations perceive the nature of creativity itself. We need to explore theirmodels of creativity and their perceptions of their own creative potentialities.


7. Models of creativity among ENGCo managers and supervisors

Twelve ENGCo managers and nineteen supervisors were involved in the courseswhich generated the interpretations which follow. They were asked to fill in a shortquestionnaire which explored their personal views on creativity and which encour-aged them to assess their own abilities to innovate and be creative. In smaller groups,they were asked to consider some questions about creativity and report back theirviews in plenary session. They were then encouraged to reflect on how far theircompany met the characteristics of a creative organisation. This method of collectinginformation using a learning group as a source of information and interpretation isboth cost-effective and insightful [10]. These people (27 men and 4 women) knewtheir organisation well. They worked well in groups, knew one another and trustedthe facilitator. Through their eyes an outside observer could see much more of theattitudes, values, structures of perception and contradictions and stresses within theorganisation than would have been possible by following ostensibly harder, empiricalmethods of enquiry. The members of both groups knew the facilitator/researcherswell and appreciated that we knew their organisation and the challenges it (andthey) faced.

The questionnaire they filled in encouraged them to reflect on their understandingof creativity, to take stock of previously unfocussed thoughts and confront on paperwhat they currently believed about creative people and the roots of creativity itself.From the point of view of the research, this was an opportunity to gain some ideaof their own, tacit model of creativity. Following the exercise of completing thequestionnaire, each group was subdivided into smaller groupings charged with thetask of discussing an aspect of creativity and reporting back to the group as a whole.

Asked to reflect on the abilities of creative people, both groups highlighted four:imagination, a willingness to experiment, curiosity and open-mindedness. Of thequalities of people not related to their creative ability, both groups highlighted train-ing and family background. It emerged, then, that both groups adopted a model ofcreative ability which highlighted the psychological qualities of individuals them-selves rather than either the quality of their education and training or their capacityfor hard work.

A further question asked course members to list six people, alive or dead, whoare famous for being in some way creative. This question provides some clues aboutprevailing cultural models of creativity. Not unexpectedly, the names they listedincluded predictable ones like those of Einstein, Mozart and Galileo. This stronglysuggests a strong endorsement among this group of the prevailing cultural model ofcreativity — the genius model.

This model of creativity is often associated with the idea of giftedness, that creativeabilities are somehow inborn. This theme was explored in the questionnaire by askingwhether they thought creative abilities were primarily genetic in origin or mainly aproduct of upbringing and education.

There were no startling differences between responses of members of the twogroups. The weight of opinion was towards the view that genetic influences on thegrowth of creative abilities were not as significant as those associated with how


people were nurtured, educated and trained. There is little support here for a ‘naturalgift’ model of creativity. There are, then, exceptional people but their creative abili-ties have been nurtured. It follows, therefore, that with the right kinds of opportunityand support, people could achieve much more that they currently do.

This theme was explored finally through a question about their understanding oftheir own creativity. They were asked to consider when during their lifetimes theythought their creative abilities were at their height. What stood out is that both groupstended to see early adulthood and the recent past or present as the period in whichthey themselves were at their most creative. One or two commented that they thoughttheir personal best was yet to come. Questioned about the creative activities thatthey would like to be able to do in the future, the groups responded with a diverselist or projects.

When the specific replies in the questionnaire on this item were examined further,it became clear that very few people in either group saw their creative ambitions tobe in their place of work. They see their creative ambitions as being centred onpersonal development. This, I suspect, is a facet of the prevailing cultural model.Creativity is about art or special individual achievement. It is not thought of as anaspect of working life or of collective effort and achievement.

Questioned further about what they thought the main barriers were to their abilityto develop their creative interests and abilities further, the pattern of responses forboth groups was remarkably similar. Both groups feel held back by time constraintsand limited opportunities. In both groups a significant number — though with moreof the managers than the supervisors feeling this — felt that they lacked the abilitiesthey needed to be creative in their preferred domains. More of the supervisors, per-haps because they were more conscious of their position in the company as subordi-nates, felt that they lacked sufficient encouragement. This was not so much a problemfor managers. In neither group were the risks of failure associated within trying tobe creative a real deterrent and the difficulty of the tasks they would face was nota problem for either group. The overall impression to draw, reinforced in conver-sations with these people, is that they have the confidence to try and do things innew ways and feel their greatest drawback is the lack of time to try.

Following the questionnaires, one group — the managers — was subdivided toexplore in small groups their views on further dimensions of creativity. The aim ofthese discussions was to draw out from members of the group further clarification oftheir views and ideas and to see if there was any underlying consensus among them.

The consensus that did emerge was that it is a quality of human beings that theyare creative and that the notion of creativity embraced a wide variety of differentpractices. It would cover, in addition to the conventional things like artistic achieve-ment, such things as skills and organisational development. The main barriers to thecreativity of people were guilt, inhibitions, fear of being undervalued and, moreimportant even than these, time and money constraints. Exceptionally creative peopleshowed determination and passion. People, they felt, needed security and encourage-ment.

In plenary session they re-focused their thinking into a number of key propositionswhich they believed captured the essence of what they felt they understood about


creativity. These were as follows: people needed help to ‘step outside the frames oftheir thinking’. This takes time. It requires support so that groups of people can shareideas and set new objectives for themselves. Organisations should not put constraintson the kinds of questions employees feel able to ask. Managers should invite ques-tions and operate ‘no blame’ policies so that people are willing to take some risksin how they approach the solution to problems. Above all, they felt, creativity wasnot something that should be left to chance; it is a process to be supported, plannedand taught.

These propositions were endorsed by the group as a fair reflection of what itsmembers actually believed. When the discussion turned towards their own organis-ation and whether it enabled them to be creative, their comments were mixed butgenerally critical. They supported the overall strategy of the company to seek to bea world leader in its field. They endorsed the company’s commitment to continuousimprovement and customer-led quality. They saw great value in the company’s com-mon approach to solving problems and its expressed determination to establish team-working methods that gave more employees an opportunity to participate in decisionsand use their minds creatively at work.

On the other hand, they were acutely aware of pressures in their roles, whichlimited what they felt they could achieve. The company production system hadresulted in a de-skilling process of shop floor employees which they resented andwhich had created a range of difficult industrial relations questions about flexibility,payment rates and trust. The company, they felt, was too inclined to respond toshort-term movements in its overall financial position and to neglect to think intothe long term. Despite its commitment to people, there was agreement that too manysignificant managers actually believed that the solutions to the company’s longerterm problems will be found in new technology and cost-cutting. At the time thesecourses were being run, and during the course of the larger action research projectthat we were engaged in was taking place, the company faced major uncertaintiesabout a plant closure and was experiencing real difficulty in containing costs in themost recent round of pay-bargaining. This created a climate of both suspicion anddefensiveness that made change difficult.

8. Learning, development and change

The argument so far is this: the creativity of people is related to the contexts inwhich they work. Changes in the knowledge-based economy require companies toemploy and develop flexible, innovative employees who retain an enthusiasm forchange and a commitment to learn new ways of doing things. The people who, ona regular basis, either facilitate this process or hinder it, are managers and super-visors. In the company studied, it is clear that managers see themselves as capable,innovative people able and willing to be creative. They possess a tacit model ofcreativity which is in many ways consistent with the main findings of psychologicalresearch: that creativity is aprocessrequiring social support and which must reston a sound basis of skills and training.


With staff disposed to think this way, this company is well-positioned to makethe changes required of it to remain internationally competitive. The managers andsupervisors, however, are somewhat suspicious of the company’s willingness to prac-tice what it preaches and feel constrained by a system of management which ishierarchical, controlling and task and results-oriented. Their creative ambitions forthemselves, perhaps reflecting a wider cultural phenomenon, do not centre on theworld of their work but are focused on their own personal development. Thoseengaged in the programme reported here sought education as a means of personaldevelopment. They hoped their course would improve their practice at work. Theirmain creative ambitions, however, lay outside the plant and are not related to theirworking careers.

Analytically, the structural features of the organisation which give a particularshape to the patterns of involvement, motivation and creative capacity of itsemployees, can be visualised as shown in Fig. 2.

Fig. 2 is meant to suggest further reflection on a number of key analytical issuesthe present case study highlights. Firstly, there is the way in which the structures ofpower and communication of an organisation — vital elements of any credible con-cept of the corporate curriculum — sets constraints on the type and level of employeeparticipation in problem-solving.Fordist structures of communication and controlwith long hierarchies of decision-making and an extensive division of labourallowing few opportunities for job change, are likely to limit employee participationseverely. Flatter, more flexible, trust-based systems which require employees to usetheir minds, are likely to be more successful in encouraging new ideas, new learningand change.

Secondly, there is the question of how organisational patterns of communicationcontribute to the ways in which employees feel about themselves and, through that,influence the level of their commitment to organisational goals. When the opinionsof people are seriously sought, it is likely their self-esteem will increase with a directbearing on their willingness to engage their minds and their commitment with tryingto solve organisational problems.

Thirdly, the link between recognition and participation needs exploration. To betaken seriously, to have one’s opinions valued, is in itself a form of recognition

Fig. 2. Organisational culture and employee participation.


which will influence how much responsibility people are willing to assume for solv-ing problems. We noticed in the team-based work systems project that when individ-uals were given responsibility to work with others to suggest changes, they did sowith alacrity, learned a great deal in doing so and improved their self confidence.

The culture of an organisation — which becomes visible in the patterns and rou-tines of its working, in its rules and its symbols — is a framework of perception,of identities and patterns of communication which tacitly governs how people think,behave and value one another. It is a frame of reference from within which toapproach problems, a structure of thinking and of feeling that sets limits on whatpeople can think and do. It is a subtle but decisive feature of the corporate curriculum.The culture of the organisation in this case study has changed profoundly in the pastten years but it needs to change further if its new goals are to be achieved.

9. Conclusion

This conclusion, that this organisation needs to undergo a profound cultural changeto release the creativity necessary to achieve its commercial ambitions, is both cred-ible from a theoretical point of view and supported by the managers whose dis-cussions of the problem form the empirical core of the argument. It does not follow,however, that it will be acted upon, for other pressures that act over a shorter period,such as cost cutting measures to boost financial results for shareholders, underminedthe longer term perspectives and actions required of sustainable programmes of inno-vation. There is a wry acceptance in the company that has become part of companyfolklore that every Autumn period is a bad one. Third quarter financial results aresaid to be invariably poor and every Autumn employees expect cost cutting measuresto be implemented. In the new year, everything settles down again.

The development of innovative and competitive organisations in the modern globaleconomy, in the ‘network society’, depends on how well organisations build uponand nurture the knowledge of their employees. In modern industrial societies econ-omic life is still driven by the logic of capitalistic enterprise. As corporate structuresbecome increasingly centralised and global in scope, the need for local flexibilityand innovation in manufacturing (and other businesses) increases. There is a contra-diction here, of course. The rationalised, international, networked industrial bureauc-racy geared to respond to the stakeholder interests of owners, is not the best instru-ment to release the creative potential of individual employees. Nor is the frameworklikely to guarantee economic success in the long term in an international economydriven by knowledge and innovation.

The old world is sliding to oblivion and the new one emerging around it retainstoo much of the past. If it is to fully escape its constraints, new attitudes are requiredin manufacturing management and a new sense of the creative potential of allemployees. The evidence of this study is that many managers are capable of carryingforward these ideas and possess both the confidence and determination to do so.Their understanding of what is involved in thinking new thoughts is sound and con-sistent with what is being said by social researchers in this field. They do not believe


creativity is a matter of gifts or a quality only displayed by the young. They areaware of the structures that facilitate or hinder it. Those that hinder are forms oforganisation which restrict participation; in individuals they are inhibitions clusteredaround fear of failure, inadequate training, support and recognition. The creativechallenge facing this group of middle managers is to find the most effective way ofbringing about change within their own organisation.

The company described here is a successful one. The criticisms of it contained inthe comments of its managers are well-intentioned. The employee world-wide surveythat the company commissioned, reveals that its staff regard it as a good employer.It has training and mentoring policies. Its systems to achieve continuous, customer-led improvement are well established. What has been shown, however, is that thenext phase of its successful development, if it is to be achieved, will require profoundchanges in the organisational culture of the company to facilitate the new kinds oflearning and creativity the company requires to face its global challenge successfully.

That culture change must come from within and requires changes in the ways thatsenior managers encourage their staff to take risks, nurture change in others and helpthem acquire the skills to work with colleagues in creative ways. The moral of thestory is not confined to this particular company or, for that matter — though thisneeds debate — to only this kind of manufacturing organisation. All managers —whatever the type of organisation — require a deeper understanding of creativity.None of this would be enough, however, if it were not combined with an open debateabout the challenges of the future and the ways in which they might be met. Suchdebate cannot take place without there being a much wider sense derived from abroader discourse within the wider society that people have a right and an obligationto debate critically the future of their work organisations and, indeed, their societies.The evidence is that when they have the freedom and support to do so, people canand will think creatively about their work. When that happens, the future opens uponce more, but only if there is a widespread sense that there is always choice, thatthe future is not pre-determined and that an open society requires open, critical andcreative minds to sustain it.

Acknowledgements

A first draft of this paper was delivered to a seminar in the University of Leiden,Netherlands in November 1997 on the theme Knowledge Productivity: Concepts andIssues. The seminar was a joint venture between the University of Durham andLeiden University.

The work on which the paper is based was undertaken as part of a larger projecton team based work systems being undertaken with Dr. David Bright of DurhamUniversity Business School. I would like to thank colleagues in Durham and Leidenfor their support. Managers and supervisors at ENG.Co made it all possible and Iam grateful for their willingness to participate in this project.


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creativity, the corporate curriculum and the future: a case study

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