Using Narratives in Creativity Research: Handling the Subjective Nature of Creative Process

Authors

Saikat Chakraborty, Indian Institute of Management, AhmedabadFollow

Abstract

For most of us, creative processes are those which can produce outcomes that are capable of being judged as creative. The outcome-centric recognition of creativity has heavily downplayed the process-perspective of creativity in organizations. Influenced significantly by individual and social subjectivities, creative processes are difficult to enquire on the basis of positivist approaches presently dominating creativity research. Use of narrative methodology in creativity research is proposed as a strategy for not just handling the subjectivities but also for making meaning from them as well as from participants' emotions. Antenarratives can help to enrich the narrated storyline, and personal narratives of the researcher allows to tie back the subjectivities through co-created meanings. The article aspires to invigorate attention towards the foundations of creativity research that has offered little scope for research paradigms that are beyond the objective-positivist tradition. Consequently, it urges the research community to seek suitable methodologies like the narrative which promises to explore the process-perspective of creativity and enlarge our organizational understanding of creativity.

Keywords

Creativity, Creative Process, Self and Subjectivity, Narrative, Antenarrative, Co-Creation

Author Bio(s)

Saikat Chakraborty is a Fellow Programme in Management participant of Organizational Behaviour at the Indian Institute of Management Ahmedabad, India. His research interests include dignity of labour, labour issues associated with transformation of workforce composition, labour relations in non-standard working arrangements, and workplace creativity. Correspondence regarding this article can be addressed directly to: saikatc@iima.ac.in or saikat1625@gmail.com.

Publication Date

11-15-2017

Creative Commons License

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-Share Alike 4.0 International License.

DOI

10.46743/2160-3715/2017.3176

Recommended APA Citation

Chakraborty, S. (2017). Using Narratives in Creativity Research: Handling the Subjective Nature of Creative Process. The Qualitative Report, 22(11), 2959-2973. https://doi.org/10.46743/2160-3715/2017.3176