08832323.2013.781987

Journal of Education for Business

ISSN: 0883-2323 (Print) 1940-3356 (Online) Journal homepage: http://www.tandfonline.com/loi/vjeb20

Teaching Creativity to Business Students: How Well
Are We Doing?
Regina Pefanis Schlee & Katrin R. Harich
To cite this article: Regina Pefanis Schlee & Katrin R. Harich (2014) Teaching Creativity to
Business Students: How Well Are We Doing?, Journal of Education for Business, 89:3, 133-141,
DOI: 10.1080/08832323.2013.781987
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Date: 11 January 2016, At: 20:36

JOURNAL OF EDUCATION FOR BUSINESS, 89: 133–141, 2014
C Taylor & Francis Group, LLC
Copyright 
ISSN: 0883-2323 print / 1940-3356 online
DOI: 10.1080/08832323.2013.781987

Teaching Creativity to Business Students:
How Well Are We Doing?
Regina Pefanis Schlee
Seattle Pacific University, Seattle, Washington, USA

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Katrin R. Harich
California State University, Fullerton, Fullerton, California, USA

As calls for enhancing the ability of business students to think creatively and develop innovative
goods and services have become universal, researchers in the area of creativity have expressed
concerns that the U.S. educational system may not foster creative thinking. The authors’
research is based on a sample of 442 undergraduate business students enrolled in marketing
classes at two different universities. Students’ creativity was assessed using a creativity scale
that measured ways of thinking in six different areas. The authors compared creativity scores
of different business majors in each of these six dimensions and found that contrary to earlier
research findings, students in the quantitative business disciplines of accounting, finance,
economics, and information systems outperformed other business majors in some categories
of creative thinking. Specific recommendations are presented to include training in a greater
variety of dimensions of creative thinking in the business curriculum.
Keywords: business students, creativity, creativity training, personality

Creativity has been equated with innovative thinking. A
report by the Association to Advance Collegiate Schools
of Business (AACSB) on Business Schools on an Innovation Mission calls for business schools to sharpen the creative problem solving skills of students to enable innovation (AACSB, 2010). The Harvard Business Review has
published several articles on the importance of creativity

(Florida, 2004; Pink, 2004). In addition to articles in the popular business press, concerns about fostering creative thinking in business schools have echoed in a large number of
articles in the business education literature (Driver, 2001;
Fekula, 2011; Kerr & Lloyd, 2008; Schmidt-Wilk, 2011;
Ungaretti et al. 2009; Weik, 2003).
In this study, we measure the creative thinking of business
students along six dimensions, examine the students’ own
perceptions of how creative they are, and discuss strategies
for enhancing students’ creativity. Although this research
was conducted in marketing courses, over one third of the

Correspondence should be addressed to Regina Pefanis Schlee, Seattle
Pacific University, School of Business and Economics, 3307 Third Avenue
W., Suite 201, Seattle, WA 98119-1950, USA. E-mail: rschlee@spu.edu

students in our sample are majoring in business disciplines
other than marketing.

REVIEW OF THE LITERATURE
ON CREATIVITY
Definition and Measurement

There is little agreement on the definition of creativity and its
components. Researchers understand that there are two levels
of creativity, namely the creativity of people who solve ordinary problems versus breakthrough creativity that revolutionizes a discipline. There is disagreement among researchers as
to whether creativity is a trait that affects a variety of areas, or
whether its effects are specific to one area such as art, music,
and mathematics (Baer, 1994; Plucker, 1998).
Researchers differentiate between four components of
creativity, the 4 Ps: person, product, process, and press
(Davis, 2004). The person component is usually assessed
through self-report measures identifying characteristics associated with creativity (Kelly, 2004), or by measures of
participation in previous creative activities (Bull & Davis,
1980). Measures of creativity focusing on product examine

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R. P. SCHLEE AND K. R. HARICH

the creative outcomes or products that have been generated

by a person in the past, or when that person follows the
instructions of a tester (Amabile, 1996). The process component of creativity is usually measured by divergent thinking
tests. The press component often focuses on the effects of
the environment on creativity such as the encouragement of
creative activities by an organization and the provision of
freedom and resources to engage in creative problem solving
(Amabile, Conti, Coon, Lazenby, & Herron, 1996).
The most common test measuring the creative process
was developed by Torrance in 1966 and “renormed” in 1974,
1984, 1990, and 1998 (Kim, 2006). Torrance (1966) measured creativity in terms of fluency (generating multiple
ideas), originality (the perceived novelty of the ideas), elaboration (the ability to articulate the ideas), abstractness of
titles (the ability to look beyond the concrete manifestation
of a new idea), and resistance to premature closing (keeping an open mind). Scoring the Torrance Tests of Creative
Thinking (TTCT) is very time consuming and requires that
scorers have received proper training. While the TTCT is
widely used, there are concerns about the ability of the test
to measure actual creativity (Sternberg & Lubart, 1996). In
addition, a 40-year follow up of students who had taken
the TTCT explained only about 23% in the variance in the
creative production of the individuals involved in the study

(Cramond, Matthews-Morgan, Bandalos, & Zuo, 2005).
Amabile (1982) argued that creativity should be measured more simply. She developed a consensus-based evaluation of creativity that she called the Consensual Assessment Technique. Additionally, instead of focusing on the
different dimensions of the creative thinking process, Amabile and Pillemer (2012) argued that creativity is not a trait
that a person is born with, but rather a skill that can be
taught and practiced. Fostering the creativity of employees is essential to the success of businesses in the 21st
century.
Creativity in Business Education
Within the business education literature, researchers have
posited that creativity training should be part of the critical
thinking skills of business students (Driver, 2001; Fekula,
2011; Kerr & Lloyd, 2008; Schmidt-Wilk, 2011; Smith,
2003; Ungaretti et al. 2009; Weik, 2003). However, some
studies have found that business students have lower creativity ratings than other college students. For example, McIntyre, Hite, and Rickard (2003) found that business administration undergraduate and graduate students scored relatively
lower in creativity than other groups of students, with graduate students scoring significantly lower than undergraduates.
Wang, Peck, and Chern (2010) found that business administration students had significantly lower scores than design
students in the areas of fluency (ability to generate a number
of creative ideas), flexibility (the ability to shift from one idea
to another or to change perspective), originality (the ability

to produce ideas that are not commonplace), and elaboration

(the ability to develop specific details for creative ideas).
Business students vary in terms of how they perceive
their own creativity. Accounting graduate students appear
to have both a low regard for the importance of creativity
and lower personal creativity scores than the general population of master of business administration (MBA) students
(Bryant, Stone, & Wier, 2011). Schlee, Curren, Harich, and
Kiesler (2007) found that marketing students were the most
likely to consider that the word creative described them perfectly (55%), as compared to management students (41%),
finance students (32%), accounting students (31%), and economics students (25%). Similar findings were reported by
Roach, McGaughey, and Downey (2011). Marketing is frequently seen as the most creative of the business disciplines
because by its very nature it is focused on developing and
offering “creative solutions to consumer problems” (Titus,
2000, p. 226).
Throughout the first decade of the new millennium
there have been several articles in the marketing education
literature focusing on techniques that improve the creative
abilities of marketing students. McIntyre et al. (2003) demonstrated improvement in student creativity scores after introducing creativity training to MBA students. Anderson
(2006) introduced a series of creative exercises to MBA
students to build their creativity skills. Pearce (2006) described assignments in the marketing curriculum using educational drama to develop students’ creativity. A similar
technique, the Improv Mind-Set, was used by Aylesworth

(2008) to increase creative problem solving skills in case
discussions.
Titus (2007) developed the Creative Marketing Breakthrough (CMB) model that consists of the following
elements: task motivation (necessary for perseverance),
serendipity (the chance finding of relationships), cognitive
flexibility (the willingness to break away from conventional solutions and fixed patterns of thought), and disciplinary knowledge (proficiency in a discipline). According to Titus, CMB requires that students are taught the
psychological aspects of creativity by stressing the importance of cognitive flexibility (uncommon sense), making them comfortable with uncertain situations or undefined problems, and teaching them the importance of
perseverance.
Possibly as a result of greater emphasis on the importance of creativity in marketing, McCorkle, Payan, Reardon,
and Kling (2007) found that marketing students value creativity and believe it is an important skill, although it is not
perceived to be more important than writing skills, oral presentation skills, teamwork, leadership, marketing knowledge,
and knowledge of business. Marketing students believed that
their professors encouraged but did not reward creativity.
In addition, McCorkle et al. found that although marketing
students believed they were creative, they were no more creative than other students in the following areas: flexibility,

TEACHING CREATIVITY TO BUSINESS STUDENTS

originality, fluency, and elaboration, as well as in their total
creativity scores.


135

something that creative people do, but there are no specific
creativity training programs to specifically teach this mental
practice.

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Creativity Training Techniques
Although there is disagreement on the best way to measure creativity and in spite of the fact that the validity and
reliability of most measures of creativity have been criticized, training in creativity appears to impact the creative
process with those receiving instruction outperforming control groups by approximately one standard deviation (Pyryt,
1999). Several meta-analyses of creativity studies have also
found moderate improvement in the creativity of subjects
after training (Ma, 2006; Scott, Leritz, & Mumford, 2004).
Business students generally receive some training in the idea
generation–developing multiple ideas component of creative
thinking, as brainstorming is viewed as a common way to arrive at new product ideas (Armstrong & Kotler, 2012; Kerin,
Hartley, & Rudelius, 2012). Brainstorming as a technique

for increasing creative output was pioneered by Alex Osborn
(1957) in the advertising industry. Training in brainstorming
techniques appears to increase ideational fluency (Clapham,
1997).
Training in metaphorical and analogical thinking techniques that focus on the transfer of solutions from one context into another is generally less common in the business
curriculum. Businesses, on the other hand, often participate
in workshops that enhance the metaphorical or analogical
thinking of their employees. Synectics is a program that tries
to generate creative solutions by taking a new perspective.
For example, the understanding of how some fish are able
to escape predators by having the same colors and patterns
of fish that are poisonous can help design a system for preventing bicycle theft (Gordon, 1980). One possible answer
is making the bicycle seem like something a thief would not
want to steal (i.e., a bicycle owned by the police). As Synectics is more difficult to implement than brainstorming, we
believe that most business students will not be familiar with
metaphorical or analogical thinking techniques.
There are several other dimensions of creativity that have
not been the subject of training programs, but have nevertheless been found to increase creative outcomes. For example,
incubation is a “period of preconscious, fringe conscious, offconscious or perhaps unconscious mental activity” (Davis,
2004, p. 122) that is often necessary before someone comes

up with a creative answer to a problem. Creative people
know that inspiration often does not strike when sitting at
a desk, but rather when engaged in unrelated activities such
as driving, eating, or taking a bath. There is some indication that the creative process can even occur while dreaming
because the mind is free from the distractions of everyday
life (DeAngelis, 2003). Flow, the focused state of consciousness whereby one loses track of time while involved in an
activity, is similarly a very important aspect of the creative
problem-solving process (Csikszentmihalyi, 1996). Flow is

OUR STUDY
Methodology
The Cognitive Processes Associated with Creativity (CPAC)
scale was developed by Miller (2009) and is available for
use by other researchers. The CPAC scale measures both the
person and process components of creativity. The primary
advantages of the CPAC scale are its simplicity and its ability to measure several important components of the creative
problem-solving process. The CPAC scale does not rely on
raters to determine the magnitude of the creative process, but
instead focuses on the person’s own self-report of ways of
thinking. Although social desirability has been found to confound measures of creativity based on self-reports using other
creativity scales (Whitley, 2002), the CPAC scale was found
to be unrelated to social desirability and is not correlated with
academic achievement and demographic characteristics.
The CPAC scale contains several of the components of
creativity (analogical reasoning, brainstorming, flow, imagery, incubation, and perspective-taking) and was validated
by having students also take traditional measures of creative thinking such the Abbreviated Torrance Test for Adults
(Goff & Torrance, 2002), the Scale of Creative Attributes and
Behaviors (Kelly, 2004), the Creativity Styles QuestionnaireRevised (Kumar & Holman, 1997), and several other
measures of creative reasoning. Thus, the CPAC scale measurements of creativity are comparable to those of other creativity scales such as the TTCT.
The CPAC creativity scale (Miller, 2009) consists of six
subscales measuring six different dimensions of creativity
that are characterized by ways of thinking. The perspectivetaking–idea manipulation component consists of five statements that focus on an individual’s ability to look at problems
from different angles, such as “If I get stuck on a problem,
I try to take a different perspective of the situation” and
“Looking at a problem from a different angle can lead to a
solution.” Flow is a condition that has been identified with the
creative process. Flow is measured by statements such as “I
can completely lose track of time if I am intensely working.”
The sensory dimension focuses on the attention the creative
people place on imagery, imagination, and paying attention
to their senses (what it feels like). The sensory dimension
was measured by statements such as “While working on a
problem, I try to imagine all aspects of the solution”; “I try to
act out potential solutions to explore their effectiveness”; and
“While working on something, I often pay attention to my
senses.” Metaphorical–analogical thinking, applying a solution from another situation to a new problem, is measured by
statements such as “If I get stuck on a problem, I try to apply

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136

R. P. SCHLEE AND K. R. HARICH

previous solutions to the new situation,” and “Incorporating
previous solutions in new ways leads to good ideas.” Idea
generation–developing multiple ideas is the creative process
that is usually stimulated through brainstorming. The idea
generation–developing multiple ideas was measured by statements such as “While working on something, I try to generate
as many ideas as possible” and “Combining multiple ideas
can lead to effective solutions.” Incubation, the willingness
to put the problem aside to let one’s subconscious work on
finding a solution is measured by statements such as “When
I get stuck on a problem, a solution just comes to me when
I set it aside” and “I get good ideas while doing something
routine, like driving or taking a shower.” The six dimensions
of creativity measured by the CPAC scale examine the mental
processes used to arrive at creative outputs. It is noteworthy
that most training programs in creativity focus on the mental processes measured by the CPAC scale as these ways of
thinking precede the development of creative solutions to
problems.

Hypotheses
In this research, we address several issues that pertain to the
training of business students in creativity. Earlier research by
McIntyre et al. (2003) and McCorkle et al. (2007) demonstrated that marketing students believe that they are more
creative, but their creativity scores in terms of flexibility,
originality, fluency, and elaboration as well as their total creativity scores using the TTCT scale were not significantly
different than those of other business students. Our first hypothesis examines whether business majors differ in the ways
of creative thinking as measured by the CPAC scale. Our second hypothesis follows the research of Schlee et al. (2007)
by examining whether marketing students believe that they
are more creative than other business students using selfreports of creativity. Our third hypothesis examines the relationship between creativity and academic achievement. As
some of the components of creativity appear to be related
to creative problem solving such as perspective taking and
analogical thinking, it is logical to assume that creativity is
related to academic performance. However, prior research
measuring the relationship between creativity and academic
performance is inconclusive. Some research studies show an
overall positive relationship between creativity and academic
achievement (Kuncel, Hezlett, & Ones, 2004) while other
studies have shown no clear relationship between creativity
and academic achievement (Miller, 2009; Poropat, 2009). In
this study, academic performance is measured using student
self-reports of getting mostly As, Bs, or Cs. If a significant
relationship is found to exist between student grades and certain components of creativity, business professors may provide incentives to engage high or low performing students
through the use of creativity enhancing activities.

Hypothesis 1 (H1): There would be no differences in the
components of creativity scores (as measured by the
CPAC scale) of different groups of business majors.
H2: Marketing majors would believe that they are more creative than other business majors.
H3: Academic performance would be positively related to
creativity.
Sample
Our sample consists of 442 undergraduate business students
at two AACSB-accredited business schools on the west coast
of the United States (a large public university and a private
university). During the 2011 and 2012 academic years, these
students enrolled in marketing classes taught by three different professors were asked (for extra credit) to take an online
version of the CPAC scale (Miller, 2009) and to rate their
own creativity skills. The response rate to the online survey
was over 80%.
Most of the 442 business students in our sample attended
the large public university (84%). About 65% were marketing
majors, 18% were mostly accounting, finance, information
systems, or economics majors (the quantitative business majors were combined), and 17% were mostly management
and international business majors (these non-quantitative
business majors were combined). There were slightly more
women (52%) than men (48%) in our sample. Most students
were either juniors (35%) or seniors (60%). The majority
of students reported that they get mostly Bs in their classes
(63%), with the remainder of the sample reporting that they
get mostly As (20%) or mostly Cs (16%).

FINDINGS
Differences in the Creativity Dimensions
by Business Major
Based on the findings by McIntyre et al. (2003) and McCorkle et al. (2007), we hypothesized that marketing majors would have similar scores in the different dimensions
of creativity as measured by the CPAC scale as other business majors. Table 1 shows the mean scores for each of
the six dimensions measured by the CPAC scale. Analyses
of variance (ANOVAs) were used to evaluate whether differences between the three types of business majors (marketing,
management and international business, and the quantitative
disciplines of accounting, finance, economics, and information systems) were statistically significant. The scale in each
of the dimensions ranges from 1 as the lowest score to 5
as the highest score. H1 was supported for three of the six
dimensions measured by the CPAC scale: flow, idea generation (brainstorming), and incubation. Idea generation scores
appear to be higher than flow and incubation scores, but the

TEACHING CREATIVITY TO BUSINESS STUDENTS

137

TABLE 1
Comparison of Creativity Dimension Scores of Different Business Majors

Creativity component

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Perspective taking–idea
manipulation
Flow
Sensory
Metaphorical–analogical
Idea generation–multiple
ideas
Incubation

Mean for marketing
majors

Mean for management, international
business, and other nonquantitative
business majors (excluding
marketing)

Mean for finance, accounting,
and other quantitative
business majors

F

Probability

3.75a

3.78

3.92

3.244

.040∗

3.88
3.06
3.50
3.94

3.88
3.15
3.54
3.86

4.00
3.35
3.92
3.97

1.487
6.25
2.96
0.858

.227
.002∗
.053∗
.425

3.29

3.39

3.48

2.329

.099

Note: n = 442.
from 1 (lowest score) to 5 (highest score).
∗ p ≤ .05.

aScale

differences in scores observed between the three categories
of majors were not statistically significant. There were significant differences among the three types of business majors
in the categories of perspective taking, sensory creativity, and
metaphorical–analogical thinking. However, the differences
between how the different majors scored were in an unexpected direction. Students in the quantitative business majors
appeared to score higher than the other business students in
each of these three categories of creative thinking processes.
Marketing majors not only did not score higher than students in the quantitative business majors as was documented
by McIntyre et al. (2003) and McCorkle et al. (2007), but
they actually scored lower in the scales measuring perspective taking, sensory creativity, and metaphorical/analogical
thinking.
H2 stated that marketing majors would believe that they
are more creative than other business majors based on their
self-assessment. This hypothesis was based on findings by
McCorkle et al. (2007), Schlee et al. (2007), and Roach et al.
(2011). For this study, students were asked to rate their own
creativity based on 10-point Likert-type scale ranging from
1 (low) to 10 (high). The mean rating for marketing majors
was 7.64, for management and international business majors
was 6.74, and for accounting, finance, economics, and information systems students was 7.57. Analysis of variance
revealed that the differences for the three categories of business majors were not statistically different at the .05 level
of significance. Thus, hypothesis 2 was not supported. Most
business students, regardless of their major, view themselves
as being equally creative with a mean creativity rating of
7.51.
Creativity and Academic Grades
H3 stated that creativity and academic performance would
be positively related as students who are able to engage in
creative thinking may perform better in their coursework.

Table 2 presents a comparison of the mean scores for the six
dimensions of creativity measured by the CPAC scale among
the business students who reported that they received mostly
As, Bs, or Cs in their courses. The results of our analysis
indicate significant differences in the creativity scores of A,
B, and C grade students in the areas of flow and sensory
abilities. Interestingly, in both of these areas of creativity,
the students receiving As were similar to students receiving
Cs in terms of their flow and sensory scores. Students receiving Bs received lower scores in these two dimensions of
creativity than both the high and low achieving students. A
possible explanation of the differences in the creativity dimension of flow may lie in students’ abilities to engage or to
become involved in a topic. Some students who received a
high flow score may focus intensely on coursework that interests them and thus get high grades, while the same intensity
of focus may also distract other students from their academic
work and result in C grades. Sensory creativity may have the
same effect on academic performance by either engaging the
imagination when working on a business problem or by being distracted by the imagination from course requirements.
Thus, engaging all students in creative problem solving may
represent both a challenge and an opportunity for business
educators in order to harness the creativity of low-performing
students.
DISCUSSION
In reviewing our research findings, we were surprised to
find that in contrast to expectations business majors in the
quantitative fields of accounting, finance, economics, and information systems engage in more creative ways of thinking
than previously thought. While McIntyre et al. (2003) and
McCorkle et al. (2007 found that marketing students score
no higher in actual measurements of creativity than other
business students, we found that marketing students (as well

138

R. P. SCHLEE AND K. R. HARICH
TABLE 2
Comparison of Creativity Scores by Self-Reported Student Grades

Creativity component
Perspective taking–idea
manipulation
Flow
Sensory
Metaphorical–analogical
Idea generation–multiple
Ideas
Incubation

Mean for students receiving
mostly As in their courses

Mean for students receiving
mostly Bs in their courses

Mean for students receiving
mostly Cs in their courses

F

Probability

3.87 a

3.79

3.85

1.062

.347

3.94
3.29
3.56
3.94

3.85
3.09
3.52
3.94

4.04
3.22
3.62
4.00

3.093
3.138
0.714
0.255

.046∗
.044∗
.490
.775

3.39

3.36

3.38

0.038

.963

Note: n = 442.
from 1 (lowest score) to 5 (highest score).
∗ p ≤ .05.

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aScale

as management and international business students) scored
lower than business majors in the quantitative fields of accounting, finance, economics, and information systems in
some categories of creativity. Students in the quantitative
business fields appear to be more likely to examine problems
from different perspectives in order to find solutions, are more
likely to consider their feelings and engage their imagination
when coming up with solutions (sensory creativity), and are
more likely to apply solutions from a different problem to a
new situation (metaphorical/analogical thinking).
We were similarly surprised when marketing students did
not rate themselves as being more creative (self-assessment)
than students in the other business disciplines. Earlier research by McCorkle et al. (2007), Schlee et al. (2007), and
Roach et al. (2011) had shown that marketing students are
more likely to think of themselves as being creative than
other business students. It is likely that calls for more creative thinking in some of the quantitative disciplines such
as accounting (Wynder, 2004) might have resulted in greater
emphasis in creative problem solving in those classes.
In contrast to popular beliefs that marketing is a creative
discipline (Titus, 2000), many marketing classes may not
adequately encourage and reward creativity. Marketing students appear to understand the importance of generating a
lot of ideas in the creative process, but so do most other
business students. However, a large quantity of ideas is not
synonymous with truly original ideas. Thus, the creative effort may be undermined by a focus on one of the easiest ways
to teach creative skills, namely the generation of numerous
ideas through brainstorming. Marketing students appear to be
less familiar with some of the other components of creativity such as incubation, metaphorical/analogical reasoning,
and the sensory component of creativity than students in the
quantitative business disciplines. We believe that marketing
educators in particular should integrate more creativity components in their courses. Several exercises for developing
students’ creativity skills are available by Anderson (2006),
Pearce (2006), Titus (2007), and Aylesworth (2008).

The differences in creativity scores by students’ grades
should also be considered by business educators. Our findings indicate higher creativity scores in the areas of flow and
sensory dimensions for students receiving A and C grades.
While students receiving A grades may find appropriate avenues for exercising their creativity in their business classes,
it is possible that some students who receive Cs may not engage their creativity in ways that enhance their educational
experience. Encouragement to engage in creative activities
may provide an incentive for underperforming students to
focus on business course requirements.
As creativity has been identified as an important component for business education, creativity exercises should be
included in all business courses. Research has demonstrated
that creativity exercises enhance students’ creative abilities
(Hoever, van Knippenberg, van Ginkel, & Barkema, 2012;
Nui & Liu, 2009; Reese, Parnes, Treffinger, & Kaltsounis,
1976; Ridley & Birney, 1967). In addition to the scholarly articles cited earlier that include creativity exercises, exercises
for all business students can be found outside the business
education literature. The nonprofit Center for Development
and Learning recommends that educators model creativity in
the classroom, teach students to questions assumptions, encourage idea generation, bring different groups of students
together for a cross-fertilization of creative ideas, tolerate
ambiguity and mistakes, and reward creativity (Sternberg &
Williams, 2013).
It is also important to acquaint students with the different
dimensions of creativity. We have produced a creativity exercise using a creativity technique developed by psychologist
Guilford (1967) that can be used in marketing in its current
form and modified for use in management courses (Figure 1).
Using Guilford’s technique of assessing creative thinking by
developing ideas for alternative uses of common products,
this exercise asks students to think of alternative uses for
old tires. The exercise begins with a brief paragraph that
describes the ecological problem presented by the old tires.
Students are asked to think of alternative uses for discarded

TEACHING CREATIVITY TO BUSINESS STUDENTS

139

The Problem: According to the Federal Highway Administration (2012), about 280 million tires
are discarded by U.S. motorists each year. There are several uses for old tires such as using them
for fuel (about 40% of used tires), using them as retreads, or grinding them so that they can be
reused in other products such as door mats, or as an additive to asphalt for paving roads. The
Federal Highway Administration estimates that 45% of old tires are dumped into landfills.
Your Job: To develop alternative uses for discarded tires. Please get into groups of 4 to 6
students. Appoint one group member as the recorder of your suggestions. You will have 5

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minutes to come up with creative ideas at each stage. The recorder will share your group’s
creative ideas with the class after we complete each stage of this exercise.
Stage 1: Brainstorming. All group members should come up with several ideas for new uses for
discarded tires. Feel free to build on the suggestions made by other group mates.
Stage 2. Perspective taking. Take the perspective of a driver. Can you think of any uses for old
tires that will help drivers?
Stage 3. Metaphorical/analogical thinking. Think about uses for discarded paper. What types of
products are made with recycled paper? Then think about discarded tires. Can you apply any of
the uses of recycled paper for recycling of old tires?
Stage 4. Sensory creativity. Does driving with new tires for your car feel different than when you
had old tires? How does it feel to handle products made with recycled rubber (ex. door mats)?
Can you think of any uses of old tires based on your experiences?
Stage 5. Incubation. This stage will be completed at our next class meeting. Did you think of any
new uses for old tires after our last class period? Share your ideas with your group first and then
with the class.
FIGURE 1

Alternative uses of old tires creativity exercise.

tires using a series of questions focusing on the different dimensions of creativity (idea generation, perspective taking,
sensory, analogical, metaphorical, and incubation). Figure 1
describes the sequence of steps in creative thinking. The first
step asks students to brainstorm new uses for old tires. Although brainstorming is one of the most common techniques
for generating new product ideas, the product ideas generated by students at this stage were generally not novel (e.g.,
create large plant containers, use the tires in playgrounds,
use tires for physical education classes in high schools and
colleges). The second step, perspective taking, resulted in
more elaborated creative ideas. When students were asked
to take the perspective of a driver for possible uses of old

tires, one student mentioned the use of old tires as barriers as in Go-Kart racing tracks. Another student was able
to build on the Go-Kart barrier idea by noting that old tires
can be formed into rectangular barriers to be used instead
of cement barriers to separate lanes of oncoming traffic in
highways. Rubber highway barriers were perceived by students to be superior to cement barriers because they would
cause less damage to vehicles coming in contact with the
barrier. Step 3, sensory creativity, did not result in many new
ideas for using old tires. Students liked the feel of driving
with new tires because they perceived the ride was smoother.
This stage reinforced student interest in adding ground rubber tires to asphalt pavement to achieve a smoother ride.

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140

R. P. SCHLEE AND K. R. HARICH

For Step 4, analogical creativity, students considered current
uses for recycled paper for product packages and egg cartons and suggested creating durable packing materials out
of tire rubber. Step 5, incubation, required students to consider alternative ideas for using old tires during the following
class period. This stage produced important elaborations of
the ideas that had been generated during the previous class
period such as creating better packaging materials out of rubber or improving the concept of rubber barriers for highways
by combining a cement core with an external coat of rubber. In management courses, this exercise can be modified
by focusing students’ efforts on developing alternative solutions to management issues such as increasing employee
engagement and productivity.
The exercise shown in Figure 1 not only teaches students
how to use the different dimensions of creativity when looking for solutions to problems, but also demonstrates the importance of continuing to work on creative ideas over time.
Great ideas do not always occur when one is working at
one’s desk or in the classroom. Allowing the mind to rest,
putting the problem aside for a few hours or even days, is an
important component of the incubation process of creativity. Original ideas often occur at times when one is involved
in unrelated activities such as driving or taking a shower.
Creativity also requires long-term commitment to innovative
thinking processes. Titus (2007) included task motivation and
perseverance in his Creative Marketing Breakthrough model.
Titus gave the examples of Thomas Edison who conducted
1,000 experiments before perfecting the incandescent light
bulb and Arthur Jones who worked for 20 years in the development of the Nautilus exercise machine. Creativity does not
just happen in an hour-long brainstorming session in a focus
group setting; creativity requires preparation, perseverance,
and patience. Presenting information on the lives of creative
people such as Edison and Jones can demonstrate both connections and ways of thinking, but also ways of working that
result in creative ideas (Strauss, 2002).
LIMITATIONS AND DIRECTIONS
FOR FUTURE RESEARCH
The sample of students who participated in this study may
not reflect the attitudes and thought patterns of business students in other areas of the United States. Thus, our findings
are specific to the time and place where this research took
place. The differences we observed between our findings and
the findings of McCorkle et al. (2007) might have been the
result of the specific group of students used in each study and
may not reflect an increased appreciation of creativity among
business students in the quantitative disciplines. Future research on different samples of business students using the
publically available CPAC scale as well as different scales
of creativity should provide greater insights on the state of
creativity training in the business curriculum.

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