Exploring Creativity: Evaluative Practices in Innovation, Design, and the Arts

Description

Under the guidance of Moeran and Christensen, the authors in this volume examine evaluative practices in the creative industries by exploring the processes surrounding the conception, design, manufacture, appraisal and use of creative goods. They describe the editorial choices made by different participants in a 'creative world', as they go about conceiving, composing or designing, performing or making, selling and assessing a range of cultural products. The study draws upon ethnographically rich case studies from companies as varied as Bang and Olufsen, Hugo Boss and Lonely Planet, in order to reveal the broad range of factors guiding and inhibiting creative processes. Some of these constraints are material and technical; others are social or defined by aesthetic norms. The authors explore how these various constraints affect creative work, and how ultimately they contribute to the development of creativity.

Brian Moeran is Professor of Business Anthropology at the Copenhagen Business School and founding Editor of the Open Access Journal of Business Anthropology. Bo T. Christensen is Associate Professor in the Department of Marketing at Copenhagen Business School.

'This cross-disciplinary, international collection of essays is marvelously eclectic. The central question of how creative industries evaluate their work is discussed via the lens of everything from dinnerware to clothing to film festivals to restaurant rankings. This book - particularly the outstanding synthesis by Keith Sawyer - will be of great interest to creativity researchers and organizational scholars alike.' James C. Kaufman, Professor of Psychology and Founding Director of the Learning Research Institute, California State University at San Bernardino 'There is nothing more important in studies of creativity than analyses of the process. The ethnographic approach described in this volume insures that the examples are realistic, and the focus on the field of design insures that the theories do in fact describe unambiguously creative work and the processes supporting it.' Mark A. Runco, Torrance Professor, Creative Studies & Gifted Education, University of Georgia 'Here is ongoing cultural process - creativity, then scrutiny. All through inspired close-up ethnography!' Ulf Hannerz, Professor Emeritus, Department of Social Anthropology, Stockholm University