FOR 2161:  Organized Creativity - Practices for Inducing and Coping with Uncertainty

• Subject Area: Social and Behavioural Sciences
• Term: from 2016 to 2020
• Project identifier: Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG) - Project number 248556105

Drawing on empirical comparisons of an arts-based and a science-based field, which are in turmoil because of disruptive economic, technological and regulatory changes, this research unit seeks to contribute to the development of a multi-disciplinary theory of organized creativity. The aim is to go beyond individual- and group-centered theories that presently dominate creativity research, education, and training, by providing a better understanding of the conditions under which creativity can be socially organized. The very notion of organized creativity presents an immediate tension: creative processes are inherently uncertain and elude intentional organization, but nonetheless typically unfold among networks of actors embedded in different temporal-spatial contexts exhibiting at least some degree of organizing. The central premise of the proposed research unit is that creative processes involve social structures and practices for shaping degrees of uncertainty as a central ¿ingredient¿ of creativity. More specifically, we submit that certain practices of organizing creativity involve attempts to foster, channel, and control creative endeavors by inducing, reducing, tolerating, amplifying, or coping with uncertainty. The projects within this research unit examine different dimensions of uncertainty in several practice areas and investigate how they play a role in creative processes in different contexts and over time. Empirically, this unit will apply a longitudinal mixed-method approach that combines structural analyses of organizations, interorganizational networks, professional communities, and organizational fields with a perspective that highlights the processes through which creativity is organized. Each projectwill compare these dynamics in the music and pharma industries. The findings gained from this comparative, multilevel research design will have strong implications for organization and network theories of innovation and will develop both a broader and a deeper understanding of the temporalspatial, relational, and institutional conditions for creativity.

• DFG Programme: Research Units
• International Connection: Austria

Projects

• Coordination Funds (Applicant Sydow, Jörg )
• Governance of Creativity: Distributing Uncertainty in Collaboration Practices (Applicants Ibert, Oliver ;  Jackson, Gregory )
• Organizing Creativity under Regulatory Uncertainty: Challenges of Intellectual Property (Applicants Dobusch, Leonhard ;  Quack, Sigrid )
• PROJECT I.2 Organizing Temporary Co-Presence to Induce and Cope with Uncertainty in Creative Processes (Applicants Grabher, Gernot ;  Schüßler, Elke ;  Sydow, Jörg )
• Secrecy as Organizing Uncertainty in Creative Processes (Applicant Costas, Ph.D., Jana )

• Spokesperson: Professor Dr. Jörg Sydow