Business games and creativity stimulus: the behavior of three different teams in the ideation process
DS 91: Proceedings of NordDesign 2018, Linköping, Sweden, 14th - 17th August 2018
Year: 2018
Editor: Ekströmer, Philip; Schütte, Simon and Ölvander, Johan
Author: Rosa, Marcela; Rodrigues, Lucas; González, Mario
Series: NordDESIGN
Institution: Federal University of Rio Grande do Norte
ISBN: 978-91-7685-185-2
Abstract
Creativity is considered the source of idea generation for new products and for solving problems. Due to this companies should implement actions and enable means that favor the practice, stimulation and development of people's creative potential. In recent years several business games have been developed and are used as a training and motivation tool, although few of these games explore the stimulation of their players' creativity. On the other hand, studies indicate that considering the use of a game for the purpose of generating ideas is an efficient and effective way to implement improvements and innovations in organizations. The objective of this article is to identify behavioral and attitudinal differences among participants of a business game whose aim is to stimulate the creativity of its participants. To do so, the research contemplated a literature review and a field research with experiments concerning the application of a business game. The literature review focused on the relation between business games and creativity. The experiments occurred with the applications of the STORM business game in three groups: undergraduate engineering students, undergraduate design students and professionals working in a creative industry. In order to gather information, we used: 1) observations of a control group, whose purpose was to observe the performance of the players and 2) a questionnaire to collect the opinions and impressions of the participants about the game. As a result we present that the STORM business game stimulates the creativity of its participants, with acceptance rate of 97.5% among the players, thus demonstrating that the relationship between business game and creativity is a beneficial practice. In addition, we identified that when used for idea-generating purposes the motivation and outcome of the players was positively similar, be it with engineering students or creative industry professionals. However, when used for product development the motivation of the players has declined, although the results have remained positive.
Keywords: serious game, organizational creativity, group creativity, motivation