The Importance Of Creativity And Innovation

Creativity transcends disciplines. It builds momentum, pioneers innovation, and breaks boundaries. As a state of mind, imagination is ultimately the driving force of creativity. The imagination is a perpetual engine of change; translating novel ideas into practice. The scope of this research aims to explore creativity within the context of an organization, specifically that of the animation industry, and study the intricacies of creative practices within three globally admired animation studios.

Collective Creativity

Many organizations are teeming with creative talent; how they catalyze creativity into innovation is what sustains a firm’s competitive advantage (Rao, 2015). Within the context of the firm, organizational creativity is the “creation

Ed Catmull expresses his nostalgia in his book Creativity Inc., recalling, “More than half a century later, we all remember the glass slipper, the Island of Lost Boys, and that scene where the cocker spaniel and the mutt slurp spaghetti” (Catmull & Wallace, 2014). At Walt Disney Animation Studios, creativity and innovation are the cornerstones of their success. Since 1928, Walt Disney had been “stoking the fire” of creativity with Steamboat Willie, the first animated short feature with synchronized sound. As such, “more than seven decades later, the creative mindset that Walt and Roy Disney brought to their small animation studio remains firmly rooted in a highly successful, global corporation” (Lynch,

The physical environment of DreamWorks is built around small, intimate groups of four to six employees to encourage ingenuity and “the best visual output from each person” (Grose, 2013). Additionally, the smaller team size is designed to be more advantageous for communication, creating a friendlier setting for brainstorming, and thwarts social loafing (Rao, 2015). This style of teams within DreamWorks’ ultimately augments their competitive advantage. There are diminishing returns on performance and creativity in larger teams, making them less alluring. DreamWorks Animation clearly adheres to this theory as a core tenet of their creative