American Creativity Association
2007 International Conference

Conference Presentations and Presenters
2007 ACA International Conference
March 21 - 23, 2007 with pre-Conference Institutes - March 20, 2007
in Austin, Texas

What Makes For A Creative Organizational Climate?

William Wurtz
Director, Business & Community Services Practice
Institute for Applied Creativity
Texas A&M University
2600 Lake Austin Blvd., #19303
Austin, TX 78703-4450
512-494-4264
william.wurtz@tamu.edu
creativity.tamu.edu

William “Bud” Wurtz is a director at the Institute for Applied Creativity, Texas A&M University, where he conducts research and consults with and coaches organizational leaders on creativity and best innovation practices.  He comes from successful career as an OD/training manager for several Fortune 500 companies (agribusiness, telecommunications, hi-tech and energy). He is working on a PhD. at A&M (expected completion, sprint 2007) and has been inducted into Phi Kappa Phi, the national honor society. He is past national president, American Creativity Association; past chapter president, American Society for Training and Development; and a member, American Psychological Association.

 

What Makes For A Creative Organizational Climate?

In the race to become and remain as innovative as possible, organizations often lack reliable information on what environmental factors truly contribute to or detract from a work climate that supports high levels of creative thinking. This presentation features fresh and intriguing results, based on the author’s dissertation research, which sheds new light on what helps and hurts creativity in organizations.  The session explains these findings and offers practical steps to organization leaders on translating the information into a practical action plan to increase creative thinking and innovation.

  • Describe the key factors that make for a highly creative organizational work climate
  • List the factors that hinder or reduce creativity in an organization
  • Explain how to make an organization more "creativity-friendly."

Intermediate knowledge of topic
Since the goal of the session is to explain sophisticated research findings, a presentation/lecture is the appropriate, indeed the only practical,format. However, there will be some experiential components included, particularly in the latter stages of the session when the participants learn how to translate the findings into potential action steps to take back to their organizations.