Editorial

Abstract

Our June 2015 issue is a rich one, with two specials to get you inspired over the summer. The first one is on the role of constraints in organizing creativity within organizations, and the second one is on Gamification. Both specials have their own more elaborate introduction, which is an academic contribution in its own right. Therefore, we keep this editorial short. Marjolein Caniels and Eric Rietzschel put a lot of guest-editing effort into their special of eight high-quality contributions. The starting point for this special was Marjolein's Key Note and subsequent call for papers presented at the CIM community meeting in Berlin in 2012. The aim of their introductory special is twofold. Firstly, they introduce the topic of constraints and creativity, and raise some of the open questions in this field. By way of illustration, they also report on a preliminary study about the role of constraints. Secondly, the stage is set for the contributions in the special issue on creativity and innovation under constraints, by identifying four central themes for further research: (i) the impact of specific constraints on individual creative behaviour, (ii) the nature of the creative process, (iii) the nature of the task at hand and (iv) organizational factors that constrain or facilitate creativity. The special on Gamification is introduced by Steffen Roth, Dirk Schneckenberg and Chia-Wen Tsai, titled ‘The Ludic Drive as Innovation Driver’. In it they claim that gamification has recently been receiving increased attention in corporate innovation and business research alike. In their article, they first outline the main streams of research on gamification in the creativity and innovation literature. Then the selection of four contributions is introduced by theoretically embedding them in their application contexts. Thus referring to research fields as different as business model innovation, design thinking and crowdsourcing, Roth et al. indicate theoretical challenges for future research on gamification, among the most important of which they count theoretical approaches to the question of whether and how organizations actually can play with persons. Reading these two highly relevant CIM specials over the summer also prepares you optimally for our 5th Creativity and Innovation Management Community Meeting, which will be held on 1–2 September 2015, hosted at the University of Twente (Enschede, the Netherlands) and will coincide with the 25th EIASM European Doctoral Summer School on Innovation and Technology Management Research and Publishing. In addition to our own editorial team (Editors-in-Chief, Associate Editors and members of the Editorial Review Board), also colleague-journal editors from R&D Management, Journal of Product Innovation Management and Research Policy will be present. Please find the programme for the CIM meeting on our website (detailed questions can go to j.m.visser-groeneveld@utwente.nl). Application for the Summer School should go via the EIASM website: www.EIASM.org. Enjoy our Summer issue, and we look forward to meeting you at one of our September events! Enschede, April 2015