Difference Between Creativity And Innovation

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The success of any plan, strategy or process either at an organizational or individual level depends substantially on the level of creativity and innovation involved in the implementation process. However, the terms creativity and innovation have been incorrectly used interchangeably for a long time because most people lack awareness of their exact meanings, which to confusion in their use. Organizations or individuals that use innovative ideas rather than imitating the actions and strategies of others usually stand out from the rest and remain competitive because they are able to produce unique and quality brands, services and applications, which their competitors can only imagine. Blended with invention, creativity and innovation results …show more content…

As Mok and Morris (2010) asserts, creativity is the ability to use mental potential to generate new and original ideas, while innovation involves implementation of the new idea. Moreover, while ideas (the main result of creativity) are intangible and thus not measurable, innovation introduces a measurable change in the existing system or develops a physical product, which makes the ideas viable. Furthermore, unlike creativity, where the level or nature and number of conceived ideas depend on imagination, knowledge and curiosity, innovations are usually incremental with every innovation being an improvement of the existing solutions. At advanced levels, creativity may also be regarded as a complete process that involves three important levels namely discovery of the idea, invention, and creation of the idea into reality. However, those who critic the concept of defining creativity and innovation as two different terms or processes may base their counterargument on the fact that both processes produce the same result of a better way of doing things. Both creativity and innovation are based on knowledge of individuals as well as capabilities to conceive and implement ideas. Thus, creativity and innovation are integral parts of the same process aimed at developing new products and improving operations in organizations and should thus be given an integrative meaning rather than being defined

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