Creativity and Fusion: Moving the Circles

Creativity is widely recognized as an important, even essential, driver for society in general, and for the economy specifically. In its 2010 report, The Creative Economy, the United Nations stated that ‘adequately nurtured, creativity fuels culture, infuses a human centered development and constitutes the key ingredient for job creation, innovation and trade while contributing to social inclusion, cultural diversity and environmental sustainability’(2010, xix). In his 2008 book Who’s Your City, Richard Florida claims that the economic transformation we are undergoing today, is bigger in scale than the shift from farms to factories a century or two ago. As a consequence (advanced economies) are shedding manufacturing jobs and generating jobs in two other economic sectors — low-paid service work in everything from retail sales to personal service, and high-paid professional, innovative and design work in what I call the creative sector of the economy. (p. 102; emphasis added) If business school graduates are to positively affect society in general and the economy specifically, one of the primary goals of business schools must be to develop and nurture the creative skills of their students.