The Many Creativities of Business and the APT Model of Creativity

The Many Creativities of Business and the APT Model of Creativity

Creativity in business is increasingly considered a competitive advantage, and many organizations have identified creative processes and outcomes as valued organizations goals. What is less clear, however, is what these organizations and their leaders mean by creativity. Here, we present the Amusement Park Theoretical (APT) Model of Creativity as a mechanism for understanding the many creativities in business. The model addresses the role of basic levels of intelligence and motivation in individuals, and under-scores the importance of considering the context in which those individuals are employed. The model identifies several levels of context which, when applied to business, highlights the importance of considering industry, organization, job, and tasks within jobs, when defining creativity. More directly, there is not one creativity in business, there are many. Based on the model, we discuss ways in which existing approaches to business might be utilized in conjunction with a domain-specific conceptualization of creativity to further organizational creativity goals.