Leveraging Human Resource Development Practice to Enhance Organizational Creativity: A Multilevel Conceptual Model

Abstract

Developing creativity is a critical challenge for the survival and success of businesses. Using Amabile’s dynamic componential theory of creativity as a framework, we examined the underexplored potential of HRD practice to develop and foster creativity at the individual, group, and organizational levels. We bring together dispersed attempts in HRD literature to hypothesize the role of individual HRD activities under a conceptual model and indicate how the different activities influence specific component/s of organizational creativity identified in the theory. The model demonstrates the potential of HRD practice to exert a multilevel influence on organizational creativity and provides a theoretical grounding for the potential of HRD to develop creativity and augment the strategic capabilities of organizations. This article also contributes to organizational creativity literature by outlining specific relationships between key HRD practices and components of organizational creativity and to an underexplored area of creativity, namely developing the creative abilities of individuals and teams within organizational contexts.