Teaching creative problem solving methods to undergraduate economics and business students

Abstract

This paper seeks to explore the need for and possibility of teaching current and potential problem solvers – undergraduate students in the economic and business field to define problems, to generate and choose creative and useful ideas and to verify them. It aims to select an array of quick and easy-to-use creative problem solving (CPS) techniques. As the result of our exploratory and descriptive research we compiled an array of CPS techniques, broken down by their primary functions within the CPS. The selected menu of traditional methods proposed in this paper can be adopted for undergraduate study of economics and business. The paper adapts the phases of the CPS process, where multi-criteria decision-making methods are used when choosing alternatives. With adopted knowledge about the selected methods for CPS and the acquired ability to understand and use them to support creating and decision-making, current and potential problem solvers in economics and business can act as coordinators in practice. This way of CPS is a step forward from facilitated modelling: it is not necessary to include an outside facilitator to solve every problem. The selection provided in the paper may encourage problem solvers to adapt the techniques for use in practical situations.