Innovation is a socio-technical process, while creativity is the foundation of any invention, i.e. creativity comes first (invention--innovation--adoption--diffusion).

Innovation is defined as carrying out new combinations to treat or think issues.

Creativity is to find those ways to foster innovation and - consequently - business opportunities.

Discussions about innovation are often made difficult because people are unclear about the exact meanings of some key terms. In particular there is confusion about the difference between creativity, innovation and invention. Let us start with some definitions:

Creativity is the capability or act of conceiving something original or unusual

Innovation is the implementation of something new.

Invention is the creation of something that has never been made before and is recognized as the product of some unique insight.

If you have a brainstorm meeting and dream up dozens of new ideas then you have displayed creativity but there is no innovation until something gets implemented. Somebody has to take a risk and deliver something for a creative idea to be turned into an innovation. An invention might be a product or device or method that has never existed before. So every invention is an innovation. But every innovation is not an invention.

Innovations can be incremental or radical. Every improvement that you make in products or services can be seen as an incremental innovation.

Creativity deals with original thought, while innovation is all about improving things that are established.

Innovation is a socio-technical process, while creativity is the foundation of any invention, i.e. creativity comes first (invention--innovation--adoption--diffusion).

An interesting topic for discussion.

Creativity is the capability or act of conceiving something original or unusual

Innovation is the implementation of something new.

The main difference between creativity and innovation is the focus.

Creativity is subjective, making it hard to measure, as our creative friends assert.

Innovation is completely measurable. Innovation is about introducing change into relatively stable systems.

Agree with members

@Shahnawaz, your definition of innovation leaves little room for/ to accommodate radical innovation.

@Stephen, i enjoy your answer and without taking from it, some argue that innovation do not necessarily require invention. But if all innovation requires creativity one way or the other, invention is then automatically implied (by your definition).

@Dmytro, good answer. Your answer also implies that innovation is the implementation of creativity.

A number of answers seem to see or define innovation as the implementation of creativity. The only possible objection to this is that entrepreneurship must then be defined, such that (the definition of) entrepreneurship then do not overlap too much with (the definition of) innovation. If innovation is implementation of creativity, it implies or involves entrepreneurship.

So you have an issue or case of:

Entrepreneurship is the (successful) implementation/ actualization of innovation, is the (successful) implementation/ actualization of creativity.

What then makes entrepreneurship distinct from innovation?

I agree with the difference, as the members said

Summarize this way: without "creativity" there is no "innovation".

Dear Researcher,

The sublime derives from the Latin sublimis, which means raised, exalted, elevated. In addition, sublimation refers to the process of converting a solid into gas without becoming liquid in premodern chemistry and alchemy. The lower-to-upper and solid-to-gas meaning of sublime are also the foundation of the more romantic sublime concept of the nineteenth century. Today, sublime refers to the transcendence quality of science, literature, and art. Sigmund Freud saw creativity itself as a sublimation of a fundamental instinct of an ascended and civilized success in the glittering world of symbols. Again, from a psychoanalytic point of view, sublimation can be expressed as the feeling of being together with the object (sublimated) with an experience that is protected from threats with the alternative of the absence or excessive existence of the object. Thoughts, suggestions and assumptions about the source of the mysterious energy fueling the creative impulse and insistence are quite high. Creative people have low flexibility, so they are not good at ignoring their thoughts. In this way, they can easily access the unconscious material they can use in their works. Undoubtedly, the most frequent areas of sublimation are science, literature and art.

Sincerely,

Mehmet Hamdi Örüm

@Mehmet,

"Creative people have low flexibility"

Not sure whether this is an universal fact.

Innovativeness often entails entrepreneurship, but only in some entrepreneurial activities and situations there is also innovation or creativity.

Best wishes

Creativity is developing new ideas, concepts and directions. It does not have to be proven as prototype, or tested on the market.

Innovation is based on creativity but is focused on the result. It could be a new product or service or their developping.

That is exactly the difference !

Firstly, creativity is a continuum that involves a sequence for stages: idea generation, idea development, idea championing and idea implementation. It is, therefore, a process that does not necessarily end up with a creative/innovative output.

Innovation, on the contrary, is the final point on that creativity continuum, the moment of successful implementation, given all the harsh requirements.

Secondly, the unit of analysis is (usually) different. Innovation refers to collective output, such as firm/department, etc, and creativity typically refers to an individual/team.

Hope it helps!

Creativity is related to imagination , but innovation is related to implementation.

Dear Brian Barnard

I am currently investigating issues surrounding creativity and (subsequently) innovation as part of my PhD research and could say your questions do not imply simple and easy answers! When you refer to creativity and innovation as to something novel and useful, you basically emphasise the most widespread and cited views championed by T. Amabile. I myself find such views too broad and unclear, therefore prefer more focused and narrower definitions of creativity, such its links with discovery (Martin and Wilson, 2017), a possibility thinking (Craft, 2000) or 'novel and personally meaningful interpretations of experiences, actions and events” (Beghetto and Kaufman, 2007). Incorporating alike views help me distinguish between creativity and innovation, by addressing levels of reference. Creativity seems to be closer related to individual/group levels, while innovation - to organisational level while implementing products of creativity.

Anna Fedorova , how is idea implementation of creativity different from successful implementation of innovation?

Anna Fedorova , Anastasia Kulichyova , is there true value in the distinction of level of innovation and creativity as individual or group vs organization. this phenomenon may be true, and occurring, but does it truly contribute anything? (i almost want to ask: so what?)

Brian Barnard , I would say that creative idea implementation does not necessarily have something to do with innovation. Think of Cultural and Creative Industries, or just any novel & useful solution to work-related problem in non-innovative context.

In particular case of innovative product creation, I do not see a huge difference beween idea implementation and implementation of innovation.

In order to answer your second question, we need to think about the context, again. Not in all settings the term of innovation is appropriate, and not always there is an "organization" in classic sense.

Brian Barnard , I agree, this much depends on the context, as well as the industry under investigation. For instance, creativity in arts would be huge different from creativity in science, the same applies to various industries and sectors of economy. We even have different perceptions about what creativity means and how it occurs.

What I however find about modern service organisations, different levels of reference have a huge role in creative problem solving. Specifically in the context of employee-driven innovation. Organisations want and try to encourage employees to actively participate in creative problem solving (because creativity is way too important to them and they need it), but products of creativity have to go through a range of stages and processes (incl bureaucratic) before they come live. Simply because successful idea implementation is too risky and uncertain. But this definitely contributes to something (your "so what?" question). For example, after my trainings, several participants (low- and mid-level employees) shared that their organisation launched a new marketing campaign which took into account (creative) ideas generated by a small group of employees.

Again, if you consider every-day creativity, or tiny-c, then you possibly don't need to consider such complexity. Creativity happens every day, do we really remember its products?

Hi Brian,

Creativity has been defined as “the production of novel and useful ideas in any domain” and innovation as “the successful implementation of creative ideas within an organization” (Amabile et al. 1996, 1155). Innovation has also been defined as “the intentional introduction and application within a role, group or organization of ideas, processes, products or procedures new to the relevant unit of adoption, designed to significantly benefit the individual, the group, organization or wider society” (West and Farr 1990, 9).

The four stages in the delivery of novel and usefull ideas, processes, products, procedures are idea exploration, idea generation, idea championing and idea implementation.

The notion of creativity is, however, distinct from innovation. The definitions turn on the “usefulness” interpretation. Amabile's notions are supported by a number of other scholars who, while accepting creativity as the idea generation stage, explicitly restrict innovation to the subsequent phases of implementation and realisation (N. R. Anderson, Potočnik, and Zhou 2014).

Still others argue that the differences are subtle (Soriano de Alencar 2012). Consequently conflicting, yet overlapping definitions abound in the literature. Further, Amabile et al (1996) restrict innovation to implementable ideas from within an organisation, implying that useful ideas outside of an organisational setting may be creative but not innovative.

West and Farr (1990), however, treat innovation more extensively by spreading its impact throughout the wider society. Harari, Reaves, and Viswesvaran (2016) similarly treat creativity as the idea generation phase only and position innovation as all-embracing covering all stages in the process from idea generation to the idea implementation stage. Still others concur positing that inovation emerges out of a long, uncertain creative process, fraught with many opportunities for failure and very limited chances of success (M. Baer 2012; Stevens and Burley 1997).

In my own work I have adopted the West and Farr (1990) and Harari, Reaves, and Viswesvaran (2016) conceptualisation and confine the discussion of creativity to the ideation phases. Innovation is then applied to the entirety of the process, from idea exploration, idea generation, idea championing to idea implementation.

In that context, creativity refers to novelty, whether such novelty is useful or not. Innovation then refers to the successful implementation of novel ideas (products, processes, and services) in the marketplace and in the wider society. Innovation, therefore, embraces both the notions of novelty as well as usefulness. The dimension of usefulness, in turn, is measured by market acceptance (Hunter, Bedell, and Mumford 2007); ie by consumers voting with their purchases to confirm the value proposition of the innovation. Again, tangible benefits to the world, society, the team and the organisation are therefore derived from the realised benefit or value of an innovation.