Multilevel Theorizing about Creativity in Organizations: A Sensemaking Perspective

Abstract

In this article we explore assumptions about the levels of analysis embedded in the extant literature on creativity in organizations. Uncovering and then relaxing these assumptions allow us to extend the literature with an alternative but complementary model of how creativity unfolds in complex, large-scale, and long-duration organizational projects. We build on the paradigm of sensemaking and propose a multilevel model of creativity that, as its defining feature, examines how periodic organizational crises reframe the negotiated order of belief structures about creativity.