Globalisation has affected the contemporary work environment in a way that most people couldn’t have imagined few decades ago. Creative class is the largest part of works force (Florida 2004) and at least half of the jobs today require high-level cognitive and personal skills (Giddens 2007, 62). The ‘once-in-a-lifetime’ transition from school to work has changed into a continuous process of identity negotiations and knowledge propagation that can be described as a series of consequential transitions (Beach 2003). Our once linear lives have become more liminal and vocational learning and organisational support must more and more consider the change situations in our work organisations. We must aim to understand the creativity in the changing work organisation to answer the questions, challenges and demands rising from the world in flux and constant change.

Research questions:

1) What kind of properties individuals place on creativity and how creativity is defined in their work environment?

2) How this perceived creativity reflects with the theories of creativity and the creative work in organisational change?

Tomorrow’s economic leaders will be the organisations that can mobilise the creative capabilities of their people (Florida & Tinagli 2004). Managers need more knowledge about creativity to base their decisions on, especially in the situations involving organisational change and expectancy for creative participation and actions from employees. For example, a common belief in the US is that the artists work alone and are blessed with a special gift of genius and unique message to communicate (Sawyer 2006, 12). Large part of the studies about creativity concentrated in this eminent and individual side of creative properties (see Sawyer 2006). Recently creativity has been presented as collaborative (Moran & John-Steiner 2004), systemic (Csikszentmihalyi 1996) and emergent (Sawyer 2007). Creativity is most commonly evaluated through novelty and value with different emphasis, although these two aren’t the only attributes associated with creativity (see Gryus, Munschl & Dewett 2011, also Sternberg & Kaufman 2010, 467). Creativity ranges from individual everyday creativity to eminent artistic creativity (see Kozbelt, Beghetto & Runco 2010).

This paper proposal is a part of a larger ethnographic study aiming for a PhD dissertation. The data was collected from one organisation, the HR department of a Finnish Health Care District, during years 2009-2010 with observations, shadowing and thematic interviews. Data consists from field notes, jottings, and audio and video recordings. The manifestations of creativity are accessed from the thematic interviews with grounded theory (see Glaser & Strauss 1967 and Glaser 1992). These findings are reflected with contemporary theories of creativity and creativity myths (see Sawyer 2006). Situations demanding creative work (i.e. problem solving) are to be identified and named from the observational data. Manifested creativity is then elaborately reflected to definitions with intention to evaluate the recognition of creativity with the support and possibilities given within the organisation.

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