Innovation, Creativity, and Discovery in Modern Organizations

Wayne M. Bundy. Innovation, Creativity, and Discovery in Modern Organizations. Westport, CT: Quorum, 2002, 286 pages, $69.95 hardcover.

I have been actively involved in continuous improvement projects in organizations for almost 20 years. Innovation, creativity, and change have been at the core of many of the activities associated with this work. Methods to achieve incremental improvements as well as procedures to follow for breakthrough improvements have been the focus of many books, articles, and workshops during this time frame. I eagerly approached Bundy's text.

Bundy defines innovation as "a major function of technology, and it begins with invention and concludes with commercialization." He describes creativity as "the interaction of disparate knowledge patterns by the use of both conventional and unconventional generative methods in a way that gives rise to useful, challenging, and illuminating new concepts. To be creative, the product must be both novel and useful.... The solution path must have been heuristic (exploring may different pathways) rather than algorithmic. Finally, to be creative, a product must be judged as such by the peer review process." Bundy uses the term, consilience, throughout the text. Consilience is a "jumping together of knowledge by the linking of facts and fact-based theory across disciplines to create a common groundwork of explanation."

Innovation, Creativity, and Discovery in Modern Organizations includes 20 chapters divided into three sections: background for creativity and discovery (5 chapters), a new model for creativity (11...