Research presentation by Émilie Ruiz

Émilie Ruiz from the Savoie Mont Blanc University will visit our department and give the following research presentation:

From Creativity to Innovation: How to Manage Paradoxes? The Case of the Hospital-University Institute (HUI) of Strasbourg

Abstract
Creativity is a paramount concern for many organizations. Yet while the benefits of encouraging creativity are extensive, the transition to innovation is complex, despite both being phases of a single, holistic innovation process. Creativity is the upstream component of this process, while innovation constitutes the downstream aspect. This transition is particularly intricate given that creativity and innovation require different mechanisms and engender paradoxical tensions. An insightful approach to understanding this transition is to view it through the lens of paradox theory. Given that these paradoxes and their modes of resolution can have positive or negative implications on the overall innovation process, the question arises of how these paradoxes influence the shift from creativity to innovation. A study of the Hospital-University Institute (HUI) of Strasbourg, based on four months of intervention research and on 27 semi-structured interviews, allows for a nuanced depiction of the overall innovation process, detailing its creativity-based upstream phases and its downstream innovation segments. Our study also identifies the negative consequences of each type of paradox covered in the existing literature, with a dominant deleterious effect stemming notably from the cultural and organizational paradoxes. Furthermore, our research highlights the resolution modes employed by the HUI of Strasbourg to transform the negative consequences of the identified paradoxes into positive outcomes, thereby facilitating the transition from creativity to innovation. Beyond these findings, our work contributes to the literature on creativity and innovation by offering a novel perspective through the prism of paradox theory. It also emphasizes the pivotal role of collective-level (team) management in addressing these paradoxes, specifying that effective resolution calls for managers to favor a balance between integrative and generative actions.
 

Bio
Émilie Ruiz is associate professor of innovation management at Savoie Mont Blanc University and a member of the Institute of Research in Management and Economics (IREGE). She is also associate fellow at Strasbourg University (BETA). Her research, published in various journals such as R&D Management, Technovation or European Management Journal, focuses on open innovation, particularly with communities of innovation, organizational creativity, as well as cultural and creative industries