Development Of Creative Solutions Research Articles

Co-designing a social robot for child health care

Social robots provide new opportunities to support general child healthcare programs. However, it is still unclear how social robots could be used in this context and how corresponding behaviours should be designed. To ensure satisfying implementations of such new technological solutions, it is essential to include the end-users in the designing process. We have conducted a co-design study at two primary schools based on three complementary, creative methods: Draw-write-and-tell and/or story-writing-and-telling, Theatre play, and Robot avatar programming. A total of 46 children aged 7–12 years old participated in four robot co-design workshops. The drawings, stories and theatre plays were analysed, resulting in evaluations of 10 scenarios as well as 21 new scenarios and 7 main user requirements for social robots providing mental support in general child healthcare. Evaluation of the activities highlight their stimulation of out-of-the-box thinking and the development of creative solutions (i.e. drawings/stories/theatre plays resulted in robot designs, scenarios and requirements), while children’s reflections show them being enjoyable for participation. The inputs gathered during these co-design workshops will greatly influence future work on the design and application of social robots in the child healthcare domain.

Роль креативного менеджменту у формуванні творчого потенціалу підприємства

Modern business trends create new requirements for the use of innovative tools for searching and generating ideas in order to increase the efficiency of enterprises. It is creativity that contributes to the personal and professional self-development and self-improvement of the company’s employees. Analyzing the research of recent years in the field of management, it can be emphasized that in order to achieve important organizational results, such as innovation, growth and management success, it is creativity that is important. Key industries in the creative economy include: advertising, architecture, arts and crafts, design, fashion, film, video, photography, music, performing arts, publishing, research and development, software, computer games, electronic publishing, television and radio. The era of informational and intellectual development became the era of the XXI century, which was marked by the transition from rationality to creativity. The concept of the “creative class” offers a new way of understanding the mechanisms of wealth creation. In the period of the “post-industrial” economy, the new driving forces of economic development are the “super creative core” (including artists, designers) and “creative professionals” (including managers, lawyers). Organizational management is complex and multidimensional in nature. It combines a number of elements, activities and processes aimed at achieving the organization’s goals. Amidst a rapidly changing business landscape, organizations are moving forward from the classic criteria of cost and performance to integrating creativity and innovation for overall efficiency. Such integration involves the study and implementation of concepts at different functional levels of management for the development of the creative potential of enterprises. Development of creative solutions at the enterprise involves market research and analysis, generation of new ideas, evaluation of alternatives and implementation of innovative solutions. Creative management is what is needed in the 21st century in order for the business to stay afloat and maintain its competitive advantage. The main skill that managers are looking for in skilled workers today is creativity. Creativity management ensures the development of an individual's creative skills, his ability to generate fundamentally new ideas and bring them to a concrete result. That is why the achievement of the goals and objectives of creative management requires improvement of the tools for the development and implementation of innovative solutions.

Study of the entrepreneurial profile of production engineering students from a Federal University in Brazil

With the increasing importance of entrepreneurship for the economic and social development of the country, it is essential that higher education institutions are aware of their role in the training of its students. Therefore, the purpose of this study is to identify the entrepreneur profile of Production Engineering students in a Higher Education Institution located in Southeast region in Brazil, to compare the data with the results provided in the report “Entrepreneurship in Brazilian Universities” developed by Endeavor Brazil and Sebrae, and to contribute to developing strategies to foster entrepreneurship in the institution and in the region where the HEI is located. Therefore, it was performed a case study encompassing 43 students in the eighth semester of the Production Engineering course. The results show that it is necessary to improve the activities related to entrepreneurship, providing theoretical background and practical activities as well to stimulate students’ creativity and willingness to become entrepreneurs. The results also show a lack of innovative mindset in the undergraduate students, reinforcing the need of developing initiatives that foster the students to thinking in an innovative way as the development of policies to approach HEIs and the private sector allowing the development of creative solutions better aligned to the market’s demands. This study only covered students from the eighth semester of the Production Engineering Course and from one single HEI, so the results cannot be generalized. Future research should use different methods such as survey research to extend the sample beyond the HEI studied, and longitudinal case studies to develop a better understanding of the findings described in this study.

Boundary Capabilities in MNCs: The Role of Opportunity Formation in Creative Solution Development

The management of knowledge across geographical, functional and unit boundaries is critical to distributed organizations. This study takes knowledge transformation as a critical boundary capability in MNCs and examines its influence on the development of creative solutions. Using detailed questionnaire data on 67 problem solving processes from 29 subsidiaries, we find that opportunity formation is an underlying mechanism linking the boundary capability of knowledge transformation to the development of creative solutions for use by the subsidiary and the wider MNC. These insights contribute by revealing the complexities of managing knowledge within the MNC, and the benefits of framing problems as opportunities.