Creativity and Culture in Organizations
Résumé
Creativity in organizations is often overtly praised but in practice rarely welcome. Th e second statement goes against the offi cial doxa of organizations and against most literature, often written by innovation or change advocates, which assume that only some specifi c stakeholders in organizations will "resist". Th is resistance is seen as ambiguous, a combination of individual inertia, defending local interests, fear of getting a bad deal in change and so on. Th e authors of this chapter, insiders who held managerial positions in organizations and were in charge of various innovation projects, and involved pro or against many others, take the perspective that resistance is not a local phenomenon: the whole organization as a system has excellent positive reasons to actively resist creativity and innovation while being aware of needing them. We shall explain the reasons for this paradox and how organizations deal with it. We argue that resistance to change is a natural feature of an organizational culture.