Fashion industry professionals’ viewpoints on creativity at work
Abstract
The article investigates the attitude of fashion industry managers towards creativity competence and its application in the fashion retail industry. The semi-structured interviews with middle managers allowed distinguishing three categories of activities. In the fashion retail industry, managers need creativity competence: performing technical assignments, working with clients, and working with staff members. For this research, middle managers were chosen because they are the mediators between the company’s general managers and the sales-men. Middle managers play an essential role in bringing organization’s culture, organizing sales-men’s work, and personal development. Therefore, creativity is crucial for managers to have in mind, as the fashion industry is fast changing and dynamic. Creativity competence is effective in a team only if there is proper communication of a manager who can assure all team members understand the organization’s primary purposes and values. The research revealed that managers apply various methods for promoting creativity that includes verbal interactions: discussions, delegating responsibility or tasks, sales promotion games, accumulation and systemization of information, sharing within social networks, provision of feedback, and encouragement of independent search for solutions. This study’s results can help develop job descriptions that would attract the right employees to fashion sales. Understanding the importance of creativity in a salesperson’s day-to-day work can help look at technical or repetitive work differently, increase sales staff’s motivation, and improve sales results.
Keyword : communication, creativity, empowering leadership, fashion industry, fashion management, fashion retail, retail store management
How to Cite
Bukantaitė, S., & Sederevičiūtė-Pačiauskienė, Živilė. (2021). Fashion industry professionals’ viewpoints on creativity at work. Creativity Studies, 14(1), 145-159. https://doi.org/10.3846/cs.2021.14277
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.
References
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Kawamura, Y. (2005). Fashion-ology: an introduction to fashion studies. Berg Publishers. https://doi.org/10.2752/9781847888730
Kim, M., & Beehr, T. A. (2020). Empowering leadership: leading people to be present through affective organizational commitment? The International Journal of Human Resource Management, 31(16), 2017–2044. https://doi.org/10.1080/09585192.2018.1424017
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Li-Ping Tang, Th. (2010). From increasing gas efficiency to enhancing creativity: it pays to go green. Journal of Business Ethics, 94, 149–155. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10551-009-0261-3
Liu, D., Gong, Y., Zhou, J., & Huang, J.-Ch. (2017). Human resource systems, employee creativity, and firm innovation: the moderating role of firm ownership. Academy of Management Journal, 60(3), 1164–1188. https://doi.org/10.5465/amj.2015.0230
Locke, E. A., & Latham, G. P. (2002). Building a practically useful theory of goal setting and task motivation: A 35-year odyssey. American Psychologist, 57(9), 705–717. https://doi.org/10.1037/0003-066X.57.9.705
Malterud, K., Siersma, V. D., & Guassora, A. D. (2016). Sample size in qualitative interview studies: guided by information power. Qualitative Health Research, 26(13), 1753–1760. https://doi.org/10.1177/1049732315617444
Mayer, R. E. (2002). Fifty years of creativity research. In R. J. Sternberg (Ed.), Handbook of creativity (pp. 449–460). Cambridge University Press. https://doi.org/10.1017/CBO9780511807916.024
Moser, A., & Korstjens, I. (2018). Series: Practical Guidance to Qualitative Research. Part 3: Sampling, data collection and analysis. European Journal of General Practice, 24(1), 9–18. https://doi.org/10.1080/13814788.2017.1375091
Oedzes, J. J., Rink, F. A., Walter, F., & Vegt, van der G. S. (2018). Informal hierarchy and team creativity: the moderating role of empowering leadership. Applied Psychology, 68(1), 3–25. https://doi.org/10.1111/apps.12155
Plato. (2014). The Republic. Black & White Classics.
Quinn Patton, M. (1990). Qualitative evaluation and research methods. SAGE Publications, Inc.
Ramalingam, Th., Abdul Karim, J., Piaralal, Sh., & Singh, B. (2015). Creativity and innovation (organizational factor) influence on firm performance: an empirical study on Malaysian telecommunication mobile network operators. American Journal of Economics, 5(2), 194–199.
Ronay, R., Greenaway, K., Anicich, E. M., & Galinsky, A. D. (2012). The path to glory is paved with hierarchy: when hierarchical differentiation increases group effectiveness. Psychological Science, 23(6), 669–677. https://doi.org/10.1177/0956797611433876
Ruppert-Stroescu, M., & Hawley, J. M. (2014). A typology of creativity in fashion design and development. Fashion Practice: The Journal of Design, Creative Process and the Fashion Industry, 6(1), 9–35. https://doi.org/10.2752/175693814X13916967094759
Ryan, R. M., & Deci, E. L. (2000). Self-determination theory and the facilitation of intrinsic motivation, social development, and well-being. American Psychologist, 55(1), 68–78. https://doi.org/10.1037/0003-066X.55.1.68
Salmons, J. (2017). Using social media in data collection: designing studies with the qualitative eresearch framework. In L. Sloan & A. Quan-Haase (Eds.), The SAGE handbook of social media research methods (pp. 177–197). SAGE Publications Ltd. https://doi.org/10.4135/9781473983847.n12
Smaling, A. (2003). Inductive, analogical, and communicative generalization. International Journal of Qualitative Methods, 2(1), 52–67. https://doi.org/10.1177/160940690300200105
Stein, M. I. (1953). Creativity and culture. The Journal of Psychology, 36(2), 311–322. https://doi.org/10.1080/00223980.1953.9712897
Stephens, J. P., & Carmeli, A. (2017). Relational leadership and creativity: the effects of respectful engagement and caring on meaningfulness and creative work involvement. In M. D. Mumford & D. Hemlin (Eds.), Handbook of research on leadership and creativity (pp. 273–296). Edward Elgar Publishing Limited. https://doi.org/10.4337/9781784715465.00021
Wilson, E. (2013). Adorned in dreams: fashion and modernity. I.B. Tauris.
Yin, R. K. (2013). Case study research: design and methods. SAGE Publications Inc.
Zhang, Sh., Ke, X., Wang, X.-H. F., & Liu, J. (2018). Empowering leadership and employee creativity: a dual-mechanism perspective. Journal of Occupational and Organizational Psychology, 91(4), 896–917. https://doi.org/10.1111/joop.12219
Amabile, T. M., Conti, R., Coon, H., Lazenby, J., & Herron, M. (1996). Assessing the work environment for creativity. Academy of Management Journal, 39(5), 1154–1184. https://doi.org/10.2307/256995
Barevičiūtė, J. (2014). Pagrindiniai kūrybiškumo ir kūrybingumo aspektai šiuolaikiniuose humanitariniuose bei socialiniuose moksluose. Filosofija. Sociologija, 25(1), 19–28.
Barry, B., & Stewart, G. L. (1997). Composition, process, and performance in self-managed groups: the role of personality. Journal of Applied Psychology, 82(1), 62–78. https://doi.org/10.1037/0021-9010.82.1.62
Boies, K., Fiset, J., & Gill, H. (2015). Communication and trust are key: unlocking the relationship between leadership and team performance and creativity. The Leadership Quarterly, 26(6), 1080–1094. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.leaqua.2015.07.007
Bunderson, J. S., Vegt, van der G. S., Cantimur, Y., & Rink, F. (2016). Different views of hierarchy and why they matter: hierarchy as inequality or as cascading influence. Academy of Management Journal, 59(4), 1265–1289. https://doi.org/10.5465/amj.2014.0601
Castells, M. (2000). The information age: economy, society and culture. Vol. 1: The rise of the network society. Wiley-Blackwell.
Caves, R. E. (2000). Creative industries: contracts between art and commerce. Harvard University Press.
Cortini, M., Colleluori, A., Marzini, R., Di Fiore, T., & Fantinelli, S. (2019). Creativity between individual insight and group support: an explorative study in the Italian fashion industry. Studies in Psychology, 40(3), 635–663. https://doi.org/10.1080/02109395.2019.1660059
Csikszentmihalyi, M. (2013). Creativity: the psychology of discovery and invention. Harper Perennial/Modern Classics.
Cunningham, S. (2002). From cultural to creative industries: theory, industry and policy implications. Media International Australia, 102(1), 54–65. https://doi.org/10.1177/1329878X0210200107
DeWeese, A. R., Jennings, P. A., Brown, J. L., Doyle, S. L., Davis, R. T., Rasheed, D. S., Frank, J. L., & Greenberg, M. T. (2017). Coding semistructured interviews: examining coaching calls within the CARE for teachers program. SAGE Research Methods Cases, 2, 9–15. https://doi.org/10.4135/9781473958319
Elo, S., & Kyngäs, H. (2008). The qualitative content analysis process. Journal of Advanced Nursing, 62(1), 107–115. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1365-2648.2007.04569.x
Etikan, I., Abubakar Musa, S., & Sunusi Alkassim, R. (2016). Comparison of convenience sampling and purposive sampling. American Journal of Theoretical and Applied Statistics, 5(1), 1–4. https://doi.org/10.11648/j.ajtas.20160501.11
Florida, R. (2019). The rise of the creative class. Hachette Book Group.
Fusch, P. I., & Ness, L. R. (2015). Are we there yet? Data saturation in qualitative research. The Qualitative Report, 20(9), 1408–1416. https://doi.org/10.46743/2160-3715/2015.2281
Garnham, N. (1990). Capitalism and communication: global culture and the economics of information. SAGE Publications.
Garnham, N. (1987). Concepts of culture: public policy and the cultural industries. Cultural Studies, 1(1), 23–37. https://doi.org/10.1080/09502388700490021
Gershon, I. (2011). “Neoliberal agency”. Current Anthropology, 52(4), 537–555. https://doi.org/10.1086/660866
Hu, R., Wang, L., Zhang, W., & Bin, P. (2018). Creativity, proactive personality, and entrepreneurial intention: the role of entrepreneurial alertness. Frontiers in Psychology, 9. https://doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.2018.00951
Hyatt, D. E., & Ruddy, Th. M. (1997). An examination of the relationship between work group characteristics and performance: once more into the breech. Personnel Psychology, 50(3), 553–585. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1744-6570.1997.tb00703.x
Jennings, T. (2011). Creativity in fashion design: an inspiration workbook. Fairchild Books.
Kačerauskas, T. (2016). The paradoxes of creativity management. Business Administration and Management, 19(4), 33–43. https://doi.org/10.15240/tul/001/2016-4-003
Karpova, E., Marcketti, S., & Barker, J. (2011). Putting the puzzle together: apparel professionals’ perspectives on creativity. International Journal of Fashion Design, Technology and Education, 4(2), 103–113. https://doi.org/10.1080/17543266.2010.542185
Karpova, E., Marcketti, S., & Kamm, C. (2013). Fashion industry professionals’ viewpoints on creative traits and, strategies for creativity development. Thinking Skills and Creativity, 10, 159–167. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.tsc.2013.09.001
Kaufman, J. C., & Sternberg, R. J. (Eds.). (2010). The Cambridge handbook of creativity. Cambridge University Press. https://doi.org/10.1017/CBO9780511763205
Kawamura, Y. (2005). Fashion-ology: an introduction to fashion studies. Berg Publishers. https://doi.org/10.2752/9781847888730
Kim, M., & Beehr, T. A. (2020). Empowering leadership: leading people to be present through affective organizational commitment? The International Journal of Human Resource Management, 31(16), 2017–2044. https://doi.org/10.1080/09585192.2018.1424017
Lassig, C. (2020). A typology of student creativity: creative personal expression, boundary pushing and task achievement. Thinking Skills and Creativity, 36. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.tsc.2020.100654
Lau, K. W. (2016). Understanding creativity competency for organizational learning: a study of employees’ assumptions on creativity, competency in creative industry. Journal of Management Development, 35(10), 1198–1218. https://doi.org/10.1108/JMD-12-2015-0174
Lee, A., Willis, S., & Wei Tian, A. (2018). Empowering leadership: a meta-analytic examination of incremental contribution, mediation, and moderation. Journal of Organizational Behavior, 39(3), 306–325. https://doi.org/10.1002/job.2220
Li-Ping Tang, Th. (2010). From increasing gas efficiency to enhancing creativity: it pays to go green. Journal of Business Ethics, 94, 149–155. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10551-009-0261-3
Liu, D., Gong, Y., Zhou, J., & Huang, J.-Ch. (2017). Human resource systems, employee creativity, and firm innovation: the moderating role of firm ownership. Academy of Management Journal, 60(3), 1164–1188. https://doi.org/10.5465/amj.2015.0230
Locke, E. A., & Latham, G. P. (2002). Building a practically useful theory of goal setting and task motivation: A 35-year odyssey. American Psychologist, 57(9), 705–717. https://doi.org/10.1037/0003-066X.57.9.705
Malterud, K., Siersma, V. D., & Guassora, A. D. (2016). Sample size in qualitative interview studies: guided by information power. Qualitative Health Research, 26(13), 1753–1760. https://doi.org/10.1177/1049732315617444
Mayer, R. E. (2002). Fifty years of creativity research. In R. J. Sternberg (Ed.), Handbook of creativity (pp. 449–460). Cambridge University Press. https://doi.org/10.1017/CBO9780511807916.024
Moser, A., & Korstjens, I. (2018). Series: Practical Guidance to Qualitative Research. Part 3: Sampling, data collection and analysis. European Journal of General Practice, 24(1), 9–18. https://doi.org/10.1080/13814788.2017.1375091
Oedzes, J. J., Rink, F. A., Walter, F., & Vegt, van der G. S. (2018). Informal hierarchy and team creativity: the moderating role of empowering leadership. Applied Psychology, 68(1), 3–25. https://doi.org/10.1111/apps.12155
Plato. (2014). The Republic. Black & White Classics.
Quinn Patton, M. (1990). Qualitative evaluation and research methods. SAGE Publications, Inc.
Ramalingam, Th., Abdul Karim, J., Piaralal, Sh., & Singh, B. (2015). Creativity and innovation (organizational factor) influence on firm performance: an empirical study on Malaysian telecommunication mobile network operators. American Journal of Economics, 5(2), 194–199.
Ronay, R., Greenaway, K., Anicich, E. M., & Galinsky, A. D. (2012). The path to glory is paved with hierarchy: when hierarchical differentiation increases group effectiveness. Psychological Science, 23(6), 669–677. https://doi.org/10.1177/0956797611433876
Ruppert-Stroescu, M., & Hawley, J. M. (2014). A typology of creativity in fashion design and development. Fashion Practice: The Journal of Design, Creative Process and the Fashion Industry, 6(1), 9–35. https://doi.org/10.2752/175693814X13916967094759
Ryan, R. M., & Deci, E. L. (2000). Self-determination theory and the facilitation of intrinsic motivation, social development, and well-being. American Psychologist, 55(1), 68–78. https://doi.org/10.1037/0003-066X.55.1.68
Salmons, J. (2017). Using social media in data collection: designing studies with the qualitative eresearch framework. In L. Sloan & A. Quan-Haase (Eds.), The SAGE handbook of social media research methods (pp. 177–197). SAGE Publications Ltd. https://doi.org/10.4135/9781473983847.n12
Smaling, A. (2003). Inductive, analogical, and communicative generalization. International Journal of Qualitative Methods, 2(1), 52–67. https://doi.org/10.1177/160940690300200105
Stein, M. I. (1953). Creativity and culture. The Journal of Psychology, 36(2), 311–322. https://doi.org/10.1080/00223980.1953.9712897
Stephens, J. P., & Carmeli, A. (2017). Relational leadership and creativity: the effects of respectful engagement and caring on meaningfulness and creative work involvement. In M. D. Mumford & D. Hemlin (Eds.), Handbook of research on leadership and creativity (pp. 273–296). Edward Elgar Publishing Limited. https://doi.org/10.4337/9781784715465.00021
Wilson, E. (2013). Adorned in dreams: fashion and modernity. I.B. Tauris.
Yin, R. K. (2013). Case study research: design and methods. SAGE Publications Inc.
Zhang, Sh., Ke, X., Wang, X.-H. F., & Liu, J. (2018). Empowering leadership and employee creativity: a dual-mechanism perspective. Journal of Occupational and Organizational Psychology, 91(4), 896–917. https://doi.org/10.1111/joop.12219