Creativity in the EntrepreneurshipProgram

Jacqueline J. Schmidt

John C. Soper

Jill Bernaciak

An earlier version of this paper was presented by Small BusinessInstitute on

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February 18, 2011

Creativity in the Entrepreneurship Program

Creativity has been recognized as a key component in entrepreneurship. This study discusses the links between creativity and entrepreneurship, methods of measuring and assessing creativity and surveys the chairs/directors of the top twenty-five undergraduate entrepreneurship programs as identified by Entrepreneur magazine as to the importance of creativity/innovation in entrepreneurship programs, where creativity is taught in the program, what methods are used to teach creativity and how is it measured or assessed in these programs to provide guidelines for developing or current program review. Survey respondents felt including courses in creativity/innovation was important in their programs. Sixty-four percent have stand-alone courses in their majors and all have unit or units in both their major and minors. For ninety-two percent of the majors and eighty-one percent of the minors these units are in required courses. Although a variety of methods are used to teach and measure creativity, the dominant method is team based products followed by instructor/team evaluations. The study identifies courses in which creativity is taught and methods of instructionand evaluation, and raises issues for curriculum development.

Key words: creativity, innovation, undergraduate entrepreneurship programs, teaching and assessment,

The link between creativity and entrepreneurship has received

increasing attention. Timmons (1994) argued that creativity should be

central to entrepreneurship education. Yar Hamidi, Wennberg and

Berglund (2008) found that high scores on creativity tests and prior

entrepreneurial experiences were positively associated with

entrepreneurial intentions and contended that creativity should be

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considered in models of entrepreneurial intentions. Fillis and

Rentschler (2010) also found a link between creativity and motivation,

actualization and innovation in new firm development. A recent IBM

poll of 1500 CEO’s identified creativity as the No. 1 “leadership

competency of the future. (Bronson & Merryman , 2010) A 2010 American

Management Association (AMA) study identified creativity and

innovation as one of the four critical skills needed for business

success today and in the future stressing the need for the increased

importance comes from changes in the nature of work, global

competition, pace of change and organizational structure.

To understand the connection between entrepreneurship and

creativity/innovation, one needs only to look at a few definitions of

creativity. Sternberg (1999) defined creativity as the ability to

produce work that is both novel (original, unexpected) and appropriate

(useful, adaptive concerning task constraints) Using this definition

Youl-Lee, Florida, and Acs (2004) contend that “entrepreneurship is a

form of creativity and can be labeled as business or entrepreneurial

creativity because new businesses are original and useful” (p.882)

Golshekoh, Gholamreza, Askary, Alireza (2010) consider creativity and

innovation inseparable from entrepreneurship.

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Sternberg’s definition includes the elements generally

associated with creativity the development of divergent thinking

(generating lots of unique ideas) followed by convergent thinking

(combining these ideas into a best result) and reflected in most

discussions of creativity. In fact theorists argue that alternating

between divergent and convergent thinking is important. (Bronson &

Merryman, 2010) Treffinger, Young, Selby, and Shepardson, (2002) add

two other areas to the discussion of creativity that are critical for

the entrepreneur: openness and courage to explore ideas and listening

to one’s inner voice. Openness and courage relates to interests,

experiences, attitudes and self confidence and includes

characteristics such as problem sensitivity, curiosity, sense of humor

risk-taking, tolerance for ambiguity, adaptability, while listening to

one’s inner voice involves traits such as self reflection, vision,

perseverance, concentration, energy, and work ethic.

Although researchers differ in approaches, they do agree that

creativity can be enhanced and taught. (Treffinger, et.al. 2002;

Bronson and Merryman, 2010; AMA, 2010) The question for educational

programs is how is creativity taught and measured or assessed? Hocevar

(1981) identified ten ways in which creativity was measured. Many of

these approaches can be combined to provide general categories of

teaching and assessing creativity. These categories are: divergent

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thinking (creativity tests); attitude and interest, personality and

self reports/reflection; cases such as the study of successful people

or developments; and individual or team based products with evaluation

by team members, judges, instructors,

Hocevar (1981) contended that the most common method of

assessing creativity was to use divergent thinking (creativity tests)

noting that creativity tests unlike IQ tests require a multitude of

responses rather than a single response. Among the divergent

thinking approaches the most frequently used is the Torrance test of

creativity. Other divergent thinking tests are: the alternative uses

tests in which subjects are asked to think of alternate uses for a

variety of common objects such as a shoe, pencil, etc; plot title

tests in which subjects are asked to generate clever titles to two

stories; and the Picture word-tests in which subjects are shown a

picture and asked to write as many reactions to the picture as they

can in one minute. The reactions in the picture-word test are counted

based on the number of ideas or reactions and the variety in type of

reactions (e.g. items of senses- sight, taste, feel, sound,) products,

colors, experiences, etc. Common methods to teach divergent thinking

can be found in many creativity exercises.

Creativity can also be measured or taught through the use of

inventories of interests, personalities, biographical, and self

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reports/ reflection. One such inventory of interests or approaches is

the Guildford –Zimmerman Interest Inventory “creative interests” scale

or the Holland and Baird Preconscious Activity Scale . These tests ask

questions about how one’s attitudes or how one approaches solving

problems such as the following, “When I was a kid I was constantly

asking questions”, “My memory is good”, I like thinking puzzles”, or

“I read a lot about unrelated topics”. Journaling about one’s

experiences can also provide this information.

Another approach has been to assess the creativity of a project

produced by an individual or group through the ratings of peers,

instructors, judges or portfolios (Lindstrom, 2006). This data can be

collected through simulations or real life presentations such as

business contests and presentations. Creativity has also been taught

and measured through the examination of cases and biographies of

successful people and developments. (Kidane & Harvey, 2009)

Current Study

The purpose of this study was to examine the creativity/innovation

in academic entrepreneurship programs to determine how important

creativity/innovation is in these programs and where and how it is

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taught and measured. The top undergraduate programs in

entrepreneurship were studied in an attempt to provide some benchmarks

for developing programs or review of existing programs as to the value

of courses, methods, and approaches to creativity/innovation.

Method

This study surveyed the chairs/directors of the twenty-five top

undergraduate programs in entrepreneurship as identified by Entrepreneur

magazine for the years 2009 and 2010, a total of 29 schools. The

survey asked chairs/directors how important were courses in

creativity/innovation in an entrepreneurship program, in what courses

in their programs is creativity/ innovation taught, what methods are

used to teach creativity, and how do these programs assess or measure

creativity. For full survey see appendix. The programs surveyed were

at the following schools: University of Houston, Baylor University ,

Babson College, Brigham Young University, University of Southern

California, University of Dayton, Syracuse University, University of

Notre Dame, Washington University in St. Louis, DePaul University,

Xavier University, University of Arizona, Temple University,

Northeastern University, University of Oklahoma, Lehigh University,

City University of New York-Baruch College, Belmont University, Drexel

University, Miami University, University of Alabama, Loyola Marymount

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University, University of Wisconsin- Madison, University of North

Carolina at Chapel Hill, and Chapman University Ball State,

University of Iowa, Washington State University, and the University of

North Dakota.

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Results

Fifteen responses from the twenty-nine schools were received for

return rate of 52%. Of the fifteen programs responding ten were

private and five were public institutions. Ten of the programs were

at universities with a student population of over 10,000; four at

universities with student population of 5001-10,000, and one at an

institution between 2001-5000 students. Of the fifteen programs

responding fourteen (93%) have an undergraduate major in

entrepreneurship and eleven (73%) have an undergraduate minor in

entrepreneurship. Two programs of the four programs that did not have

a minor identified entrepreneurship as an emphasis in the management

track. Of the fourteen programs with a major, in five programs the

major was available to all majors (36%) at the university and in nine

programs (64%) only available to school of business students. Of the eleven

programs with minors, in nine programs the minor was available to all

majors (82%) at the university and in two programs (18%) the minor was

available to all students but school of business students.

Importance of Creativity/Innovation courses in an entrepreneurship program?

Directors were asked to identify how important on a scale of one

to 10 with 1 being very important and 10 being not very important was

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including courses in creativity/ innovation in an entrepreneurship

program. Including courses in creativity/innovation were rated very

important by twelve of fifteen directors (80%); 9 at 1, 2 at 2, 1 at

3. Two directors (13%) ranked it as moderate in importance (1 at 5

and 1at 7) and one director (7%) ranked it as not very important at a

10.

Where is creativity/innovation taught in entrepreneurship programs?

Directors were asked a series of questions about courses. The

first question asked was if the program had a stand-alone course in

the major in creativity/innovation. Table one panel A reports the

findings on courses in the major. Of the fourteen programs with a

major nine (64%) did have a stand-alone course (one had a 3 course

sequence for creativity/innovation); five did not, but one of

directors indicated they were currently working on one and two

directors indicated that creativity/innovation was taught in several

courses in the major. Of the nine programs with a stand-alone course;

five (55%) required the class for the major and four of these programs

had prerequisites. The prerequisites were; 1- a required freshman

course in foundations of management and entrepreneurship, 1-principles

of management, 1-intro to entrepreneurship, and a 1- 3 course sequence

in creativity/innovation.

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Directors were also asked if they had a stand-alone course on

creativity/innovation in their minor. Table one panel B reports the

findings on courses in the minor. Of the eleven schools with a minor-

four (36%) have a stand-alone course in creativity /innovation and for

two programs it is a required course. Two programs had prerequisites

for the course: 1-a three class sequence in creativity innovation and

1- required freshman course in fundamentals of management and

entrepreneurship. Two of the programs without a stand-alone course

indicated that creativity/innovation was taught in several courses.

Insert table one here

Directors were also asked if they have a course or courses with a

unit or units on creativity/innovation in major or minor. Of the

fourteen programs with a major all had courses with a unit or units on

creativity/innovation and for thirteen of the fourteen programs (92%)

the course/ courses that contained the unit were required.

Required courses with unit/units on creativity/innovation in the major

Introduction to Entrepreneurship-6 Entrepreneurial strategy -3 Entrepreneurial marketing-2 New Venture Development 2 All courses-2 Entrepreneurship and Opportunity-1 Organizational behavior-1 Feasibility Analysis-1

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Business Planning-1 Creativity and Innovation-1 Creative Strategic Thinking-1 Business Model Development-1

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Elective courses with unit/units on creativity/innovation in the major

Imagination-1CEO –Founder -1

Chairs/Directors of programs were asked if the program had a

course or courses with a unit or units on creativity/innovation in

minor. Of the eleven schools with a minor all had courses including

units on creativity/innovation for nine (81%) it was a required course

for the minor. Two had courses with units, but the course was not

required in the minor.

Required courses for minor with unit or more on creativity/innovation

Intro to Entrepreneurship-5New Venture Development 1,2,3-1Entrepreneurship and Innovation-1Entrepreneurial marketing-1Feasibility analysis-1Entrepreneurship Opportunities-1Entrepreneurship strategy-1

Elective courses with unit/units on creativity/innovation for the minor

Integrated product development-1Integrated business and engineering freshman seminar-1Imagination-1

Methods Used to teach creativity

Directors/chairs were asked what methods were used to teach

creativity. Only twelve of the fifteen directors responded to this

question. The methods are listed in order of use:

Team projects – all used (100%)

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Individual projects -10 (83%)-– creativity journals, redevelopment of an obsolete product

Creativity Exercises 9 (75%) bug report (things that bug them, exercises from Michalko’s Cracking Creativity, Snowball, mind mapping, Scamper

Cases 8 (67%) teaching the use of the metaphor requiring students to usea toy as a basis for description of him or herself to a partner and then required the partner to introduce the person, game development exercise, study of entrepreneurs

Other: boot camps workshops customer and opportunity research- answering the question what ismissing in our lives simulations experiential exercises with an entrepreneur idea excursions to an Art Institute to integrate art into entrepreneurial opportunity recognition guest speakers

How do you assess creativity development?

The directors/chairs were asked how they assessed creativity

development. Only twelve of fifteen directors responded to this

question. The results are listed in order of frequency of use.

Team Products produced -11 (92%)

Portfolio of work 9-(75%) mention a creativity journal throughout the semester- describing creative insights and how they took safe risks and exhibited courage

Team instructor ratings 9 (75%)- primarily on assignments given to individuals, several discussed group methods of evaluation of other team members in generating ideas- students given 100 points for team based on contribution and development of product.

Creativity tests – 4 (33%)used ; 2--self created one example student creates a 12 month plan with activities that would enable them to

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explores creative interests based on reading from Jonathan Feinstein’sThe Nature of Creative Development; Basad Applied Creativity

Student interviews 3 (25%)

Personality tests- 1 (8%) used not for assessment, but for students – Hermann Brain Dominance Instrument – more categorizes students on preferences

Other: look at trends from other programs; assessment exercises

Discussion and conclusions

The goal of this study was to twofold. First, to provide some

benchmarks on how creativity/innovation is valued, taught and assessed

in top undergraduate entrepreneurship programs. This information is

valuable in providing direction for developing entrepreneurship

programs or for evaluating existing entrepreneurship curriculum.

Second, to discuss what concerns/ issues are raised about this

curriculum.

The results show that inclusion of courses, stand-alone and as

units in other courses, on creativity/innovation is perceived as

important in the entrepreneurship curriculum by program

directors/chairs. A majority of programs (64%) have stand alone

courses in the entrepreneurship major, and all have units on

creativity/innovation in courses in both the major and minor. For 92%

of the majors and 81% of the minors these unit/units are in required

courses for the program. The most frequent course was

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Intro/Foundations of Entrepreneurship, a beginning course in the

program.

Methods used to assess and teach creativity/innovation are

varied. Referring to the categories identified to teach and assess,

for entrepreneurship the dominant teaching and assessment method was

team/individual projects. All of the programs used team projects to

teach and 92% used them for assessment. Portfolios of individual

work were used by 75% of the programs for assessment. The second

category used was judges/instructors evaluation. The use of

team/instructor feedback in assessment of individual creativity was

also strong as 75% of the programs used this form of analysis and most

of the focus was on team member comments. Journals and self-

reflection exercises similar to the inventories assessment categories

were used in 62% of the programs for teaching and assessment.

Although for teaching creativity exercises using divergent and

convergent thinking approaches were used by 83% of the programs and

case studies by 67% of the programs, only 33% of the programs used

creativity exercises and none used case studies for assessment

purposes.

The study also raises some concerns about the curriculum. The

difference between using divergent and convergent creativity exercises

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in teaching and not in assessment raises the question if assessment of

creativity tied heavily to product development is the best approach?

Does this send a message that creativity is about problem solving as

opposed to problem finding (identifying issues) and then solving them.

Recent studies show a serious drop in divergent thinking (the ability

to generate ideas) scores on the Torrence tests for US students.

(Bronson & Merryman, 2010) Problem finding methods need to be part of

the assessment process to demonstrate their importance in the process.

Additionally, these programs reflect a strong business

perspective (all but one develop from a business program or school).

The authors have found that many business students in our courses

often think they are not creative but rather only solve problems since

most business courses focus on lateral thinking approaches. Could the

real value in a course in creativity be in challenging one’s approach

to solving problems so that students can generate not only new ideas

and but also adapt to new /different approaches to problem solving.

Different cultures as well as different fields approach creativity in

different ways. Based on differences in values, Eastern cultures favor

more holistic than analytic approaches to conflict, negotiation,

problem solving and problem finding than Western cultures. (Choi, Koo,

& Choi, 2007)( Martin & Nakayama, 2007) (Ting-Toomey, 2005). This

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means that Eastern cultures may favor a more circular approach to

generating ideas such as the Lotus Blossom technique than the linear

approach of Western cultures such as a force field analysis. Berglund

and Wennberg (2006) also found differences between engineering and

business students from the same culture and in the same

entrepreneurship program in approaches to creativity based on their

field. In order to be able to work in the global culture identified

in the AMA study the ability to think and problem solve in different

ways is essential. Creativity is the ability to be comfortable with

the new or ambiguous and see things through varying perspectives. In

building a program it is critical to provide a wide range of

approaches to and assessment of various creativity approaches to

ensure the diversity needed for today’s business climate. This may

mean that programs and instructors may have to change or expand their

approaches to teaching and assessing creativity.

A final issue is where and how creativity is taught. Should

creativity be taught as a stand-alone course, a unit in several

courses, or both? Stand-alone courses identify the importance of

creativity that is often lost in a unit in a course and allow the

instructor to use a broader range of material. However, Morrison and

Johnston (2003) argue that creativity be introduced into the

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curriculum more systematically rather than using a stand-alone course.

Units in several courses can reinforce the value of creativity

throughout a program. Friedlan (1995) found that in a study of

accounting students that when other skills were integrated into

accounting classes students perceived them as more important than when

the skills were taught in separate classes. We would contend that

creativity should be integrally involved in the entrepreneurship

program both as a stand-alone course and then integrated in courses

throughout the program. Furthermore, in assessing projects the

creativity (newness, novelty, originality) of the project should be

considered as part of the assessment. Creativity needs to be

developed and reinforced as part of the process.

Limitations

One limitation of the study is that it was sent to

directors/chairs. These directors/chairs may not be teaching the class

and may not know the methods for teaching or assessment. In fact two

directors sent the form to the faculty person teaching the courses to

fill out this section of the survey and three directors did not fill

out this section. Additionally, it would also be good to do some

follow up research in form of interviews to develop more of the

techniques and even collect some of the assignments to ensure that the

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methods of teaching and assessing creativity are fully understood.

Some directors wrote extended notes to the survey which was very

helpful.

This study was a good start at identifying some guidelines and benchmarks for programs and

raising some questions about the curriculum. More information is needed on specific courses,

particularly the stand-alone courses and required course units and methods of assessment used in

programs are needed as entrepreneurship programs continue to develop.

References

American Management Association. (2010). AMA 2010 Critical Skills Survey. Retrieved from http://www.p21.org/.

Berglund, H. and Wennberg, K. (2006). Creativity among entrepreneurshipstudents: comparing engineering and business education. International Journal of Continuing Engineering Education and Lifelong Learning, 16, 366-379.

Bronson, P. and Merryman, A. (2010). The Creativity Crisis. Newsweek July 19, 2010

Choi, I., Koo, M., and Choi, J. (2007). Individual differences in analytic versus holistic thinking. Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, 33, 691-705.

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Fillis, I. and Rentscheler, R. (2010). The Role of Creativity in Entrepreneurship. Journal of Enterprising Culture, 18 (1), 49-81.

Friedlan, J. (1995). The effects of different teaching approaches on students’ perceptions of the skills needed to success in accounting courses and by practicing accountants. Issues in Accounting Education, 10 (1), 47-63.

Golshekoh, F. Hassan, A. Gholamreza, p. Mirsaladin, E., Askary,P. & Alireza, H., (2010). Relationship between creativity, grade point average , achievement motivations, age and Entrepreneurship among university students. Australian journal of Basic and Applied Sciences, 4 (10), 5372-5378.

Hocevar, D. (1981). Measurement of Creativity: Review and Critique. Journal of Personality Assessment, 4 (5), 450-464

Kidane, A. and Harvey, B. (2009). Profile of Entrepreneurs: employing stepwise regression analysis to determine factors that impact success of entrepreneurs. Review of Business Research 9(3), 55- 65.

Lindstrom, L. (2006). Creativity: What is it? Can you Assess it? Can it be taught? International Journal of Art and Design Education, 25(I), 3-66.

Martin, J. and Nakayama, T. (2007). Experiencing Intercultural Communication: An Introduction. New York: McGraw-Hill.

Morrison, A. and Johnston, B. (2003). Personal creativity for entrepreneurship. Active Learning in Higher Education. 4 (2), 145-158.Sternberg, J.S., and Lubart, T.I. (1999). The concept of creativity:

prospects and paradigms, 3, in Steinberg, R.J. (Ed.) Handbook of Creativity. Cambridge University Press, New York.

Timmons, J. ( 1994). New Venture Creation. Chicago: Irwin.

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Ting-Toomey, S. (2005). The Matrix of Face: an updated Face-Negotiation Theory. In W.B. Gudykunst (Ed), Theorizing about Intercultural communication (71-92) Thousand Oaks CA: Sage

Treffinger, D., Young, G., Selby, E., and Shepardson, C. (2002). Assessing Creativity: A Guide for Educators. The National Research Center on the Gifted and Talented: University of Connecticut.

Yar Hamidi, D., Wennberg, K. and Berglund, H. (2008). Creativity in Entrepreneurship Education. Journal of Small Business and Enterprise Development, 15(2) 304-320.

Youl-Lee, S., Florida, R and Acs, Z. (2004). Creativity and Entrepreneurship: A Regional Analysis of New Firm Formation. Regional Studies, 38(8), 879-891.

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Survey on Creativity

1. Do you have an undergraduate major in entrepreneurship? Yes___ No ___ Do you have an undergraduate minor in entrepreneurship? Yes

___ No___

The following questions are for the undergraduate programs only.2. How important on a scale of 1-10 with 1 being very important

and 10 being not very important is including courses in creativity/innovation in an entrepreneurship program?

Very important 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 not very important

3. Do you have a standalone course in creativity/innovation in your major? Yes___ No___

If yes, is this a required course in the major? Yes___ No___

4. Is there a prerequisite for your course in Creativity/Innovation? Yes___ No____

If yes, what is the prerequisite please list________________________

5. Do you have a standalone course in creativity/innovation in your minor? Yes___ No___

If yes, is this a required course in the minor? Yes ___ No ___

6. Is there a prerequisite for your course in Creativity/Innovation? Yes___ No____

If yes, what is the prerequisite please list________________________

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7. What methods do you use to teach creativity in these courses?Please list all that apply

Team projects ______ Cases ______ Individual projects ______Creativity exercises ______Other please list ______

8. How do you assess creativity development in these courses? Please list all you use.

Creativity tests- please list ______Personality tests- please list ______Team products produced _______Interviews with students _______Portfolio of work _______Team/Instructor ratings _______Other- please explain _______

9. Do you have a course/s with a unit on creativity in your major? Yes ___ No___

If yes, what is/are the name/s of the course/s

10. Please star any of the above courses that are required for your major.

11. Do you have course/s with a unit on creativity in your minor? Yes___ No ___

If yes, what is/are the name/s of the course/s

12. Please star any of the above courses that are required for your minor.

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13. Is your major open to: all majors ___ School of business students only____ certain majors-please list

14. Is your minor open to : all majors____ School of business students only___ certainMajors–please list

15. Is your institution public______ private______

16. What is the total population of your institution Under 2000________ 2001-5000 _______5001-10,000________Over 10,000 ________

17. What is the total number of students in your entrepreneurship minor and major? _____

Thank you for your help. If you would like a copy of the results, please send an email to

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