Bringing novelty into being: exploring the relationship between 'creativity' and 'innovation'

‘Creativity’ and ‘Innovation’ are terms that have particular currency especially in the light of the advent of the notion of creative industries and with policy makers realising that nations need to be creative and innovative in order to compete in a globalised world. Searching through the accumulated meanings and commonsense clichés that have emerged over time, this paper provides a critical reflection on what these two concepts might actually mean, how they are either distinct or closely related to each other. The paper outlines how the terms have been applied within diverse contexts with differing etymologies, definitions and discourses characterising them. These have something to do with the communities using them. Firstly, there is a tendency in the sciences and business management to see creativity as a precursor to innovation. Secondly, there is also some argument to suggest that innovation is part of the subset of creativity. This position sees innovation as a necessary coupling with a pre-existing set of conventions and traditions in order for ideas, products or processes to be bought into being. A third position exists in seeing these two terms, creativity and innovation, as ways of describing exactly the same phenomena, a position that might revitalise current understandings of them. Finally, it is proposed that the discourses of Romanticism and/or Rationalism have fed into how the terms are conceived and used in differing arenas. Furthermore academic disciplines who claim ownership and definitional rights to these terms do so according to a general adherence to either of these discourses.