Keep Creative and Carry On: A Review of Digital Creativity in the Workplace

Abstract: In a rapidly changing world, as creativity has assumed a more fundamental role than ever before (Bruno, 2022), organizations require their employees to be more creative to achieve sustainable performance. Amid these changing circumstances, organizations increasingly use technologies to enhance employees’ creativity and drive innovations. Recently, scholars have used and explored the term, digital creativity, to reflect the current change. Digital creativity is a broad concept that encompasses all forms of creativity that are fueled by the use of digital tools and technologies (Lee & Chen, 2015; van Rensburg et al., 2021). This term covers a range of scenarios in which digital tools are utilized for various creativity-related activities (Lee & Chen, 2015).
Despite the recent surge in research on digital creativity, there is an absence of discussions addressing how to comprehend it. The advancement of technology and its increasing utilization are posing challenges to our traditional understanding of creativity (Amabile, 2020; Bruno, 2022). Amabile (2020) highlighted the conceptualization of this new form of creativity as the first challenge, followed by its application and the potential consequences for humans and organizations. Can we adapt traditional creativity theories and frameworks to understand digital creativity? How does creativity manifest differently in a digital context compared to the traditional concept? Unfortunately, clear answers to these questions remain elusive.
To address this void, we conduct a comprehensive review of existing literature and case studies regarding digital creativity within the workplace setting. Through this review, we aim to provide insights for constructing a framework that conceptualizes digital creativity in the workplace, drawing from a synthesis of the literature and case studies. This review also seeks to pinpoint areas where research and practice are lacking, serving as a roadmap for future studies and practical applications related to workplace digital creativity in the field of human resource development (HRD). For that purpose, we expect that this review answers the following questions.
RQ1. What are the theoretical underpins of workplace digital creativity in the current literature? (definition, prevailing theories, constructs, processes)
RQ2. How are technologies utilized to aid creativity in the workplace? What is the rationale behind the utilizations?
RQ3. What are the antecedents and consequences of workplace digital creativity? What methodologies and assessment techniques have been employed in measuring workplace digital creativity?
Methodologically, we employ a narrative literature review aimed at synthesizing the current body of literature regarding workplace digital creativity. The review follows the steps outlined by Gregory and Denniss (2018), depicted in Figure 1 using the PRISMA flow chart (Moher et al., 2009). The first step involves defining the topic and identifying the target audience for our review. Given the limited scholarly exploration of workplace digital creativity and its practical implications within the HRD literature, this study sets out to deepen the knowledge of this topic for HRD scholars and practitioners. The next step entails searching for relevant peer-reviewed articles using online databases including Academic Search Ultimate, Business Source Ultimate, Emerald Insight, Human Resources Abstracts, PsycARTICLES, PsycINFO, Web of Science. Boolean search operators were employed with the following keywords found in the title or keywords: (“digital” OR “online” OR “virtual”) AND (“creativity” OR “creativ*”) AND (“workplace” OR “management” OR “business” OR “human resource” OR “corporate”). Subsequently, any irrelevant articles were eliminated based on exclusion criteria, such as those not within a business context. An additional search will be followed to collect cases in business reports/magazines, newspapers, book chapters, and corporate web pages/blogs.
The initial search yielded 606 articles published between 1984 to 2023. Following our screening process, 573 articles were excluded, leaving us with a total of 33 articles selected for review. Additional cases will be incorporated through supplementary searches beyond peer-reviewed journals. The final selection of literature will be analyzed based on a coding framework structured for this study. Drawing upon the results, a critical discussion addressing research questions will be provided.
This study serves as a foundational endeavor to depict a comprehensive overview of the existing literature and case studies focused on workplace digital creativity within the field of HRD. Further, the study sheds light on a deeper understanding of workplace digital creativity by delving into its conceptualization as well as underlying principles and approaches to facilitation and technology applications.