Cross‐Cultural Creativity: Conceptualization and Propositions for Global New Product Development

Abstract

In today's global business environment, where multinational companies are pressed to increase revenues in order to survive, creativity may hold the key to ensuring their new product development (NPD) efforts lead to innovations with worldwide appeal, such asApple's iPad andGillette'sFusionRazor. To leverage creativity for effective globalNPD, businesses want to know how cultures differ in their concepts of creativity and the impact of those differences on approaches to developing new products. Because global new products are increasingly developed in, by, and for multiple cultures, a particular need is for a culturally reflective understanding, or conceptualization, of creativity. While creativity is believed to be culturally tied, the dominant framework of creativity used in business and management assumes that creativity is culturally indifferent or insensitive. This knowledge gap is addressed by studying the role of creativity inNPDpractices in a cross‐cultural or global context.The study begins by first developing a culturally anchored conceptualization of creativity. Called cross‐cultural creativity, the concept draws on creativity insights from the field of art and aesthetics. The concept specifies two modes of creativity, neither of which is superior to the other, called the spontaneous orSroute and the divergent orDroute. TheSroute emphasizes adaptiveness, processes, intuitiveness, and metamorphism, while theDroute focuses on disruptiveness, results, rationality, and literalism. Next, this new concept is applied toNPDby positing how creativity in distinct cultures may shapeNPDpractices, as illustrated byJapanese andU.S. firms. Research propositions are formulated to capture these patterns, and thereafter, theoretical and practical implications of the framework and propositions are discussed. The implications center on globalNPD, which is a complex enterprise involving typically more than one culture to design and develop new products for several geographic markets. The study is of interest to researchers needing a globally situated, culturally attached framework of creativity for internationalNPDstudies, and managers seeking to exploit creativity in multinational and multicultural innovation projects.