Call for Papers

We invite exploration into the often-overlooked intersection of digital technologies and creative processes, with a particular focus on the unplanned and seemingly purposeless aspects of creativity in organizational contexts. While existing studies concentrate on the efficiency gains of digital technologies, this sub-theme seeks to investigate activities like play, serendipity, and experimentation in the context of digital creativity. The call emphasizes the need to understand how digital technologies might or might not influence the pleasure aspects of creative work. Furthermore, ethical considerations emerge against unchecked digital technology use in creative industries and the potential influence of AI on human values. Scholars are encouraged to explore various angles, from licensing models for artists to the ethical use of machine-learning algorithms in creative processes. Ultimately, this sub-theme invites diverse research methodologies to delve into the relationship between digital technologies and creativity in contemporary organizational landscapes.
 
Studies of creative processes focus mainly on the core activities and competencies of creative people (Acar et al., 2023). However, sometimes, what people do in organizations make little or no sense at all. Letting go of goals, strategic targets, purpose, and conscientiousness, they engage in seemingly useless and un-planned activities that serve no particular purpose. We can find many examples in anecdotes or practical accounts about such “no-purpose” or unplanned work, including Google’s 20% rule or the “genius hour” in education. And indeed, organizational scholars have long since identified the important role that the unplanned and purposeless can play in organizations, and specifically in creative processes. Basically, play, serendipity, improvisation, experimentation, accidents, surprises, and unpredictability – to name but a few – can produce new combinations of ideas, activities, or routines that fulfil a need to create (Kuk, 2023).
 
Yet, there is little engagement with the unplanned or purposeless when it comes to digital technologies. Whereas management and organizational studies scholars have enthusiastically joined the discussion around digital technologies and work and organizational processes, where some have even ventured into the broader realm of creativity and digital technologies, there are no studies that shed light on the question how digital technologies (including AI algorithms, platforms, big data, etc.) shape these creative processes of play, serendipity, improvisation, experimentation, and others. Indeed, prior literature has predominantly tackled questions of how digital technologies increase efficiency, productivity, and commercial value (Jeong & Shin, 2019), while the pleasure that is also part of work (Moser et al., 2023) – and surely of creative work – has been ignored. But of course, as digital technologies have been documented to shape many other facets of work in organizations and organizational processes (Faulconbridge et al., 2023), it stands to reason that unplanned and seemingly purposeless, yet pleasurable creative processes are affected, too.
 
In investigating the intertwined relationship between digital technologies and creativity several aspects might attract scholars’ attention. Particularly the attention for ethical aspects linked to the use of digital tech, especially generative AI, for creative work is growing. One recent example is that of Hollywood writers who negotiated protections against the unchecked use of digital technologies, pointing to challenges and ethical considerations emerging from the integration of digital technologies in creative practices (Anguiano & Beckett, 2023). Indeed, as digital technologies become for an increasing number of professions and work an integral part of the creative process (Magistretti et al., 2021), concerns about transparency, user consent, and the potential for misrepresentation surface.
 
Beyond the realm of individual creators, organizations are actively embracing digital technologies in decision-making processes. While AI has demonstrated its capacity to enhance productivity (Gama & Magistretti, 2023), there is also debate about how digital technologies can affect businesses (den Hond & Moser, 2022), human values and morality (Lindebaum et al., 2024; Moser et al., 2022) and management theories (Lindebaum et al., 2024). Assuming that complex and ambiguous organizational problems may require creativity, it is unclear as yet how digital technologies contribute to or hinder the creative process of problem framing and solving (Pham et al., 2022).
 
This sub-theme calls for papers that examine how digital technologies (e.g., AI, Big Data, Platform, VR/AR, and many others) shape creative processes. We hope to inspire your imagination with some suggestive questions (while highlighting that this list is far from exhaustive, so please be creative!). We welcome qualitative, quantitative, mixed method, reviews, and conceptual work.

• How does digital technology change how humans experience pleasure in their work?

• How can digital technologies enhance human creativity and influence the creative process of problem framing and solving?

• Which are the digital technologies that supports the unplanned creativity work?

• What are the organizational aspects that promote purposeless creativity?

• What are the ethical implications of blurring the lines between human and machine creativity?

• What licensing models are needed to protect artists’ rights and creative control?

• How can individuals and organizations engage with the (lack of) transparency and bias of the output and influence of digital technologies?

• How can individuals and organizations ethically use digital technologies, and in particular machine-learning algorithms, in creative processes?

• How do ethical considerations surrounding AI, such as bias and accountability, influence the creative outputs generated by AI systems?

• To what extent can AI systems emulate or replace the nuances of subjective experiences and cultural context, essential elements in the creative process?

• Can AI contribute to the generation of truly novel and ground-breaking ideas, or is it limited to replicating patterns and knowledge it has been trained on?

• How can AI be helping people and organizations to leverage creativity?

• What are the ‘dark sides’ of AI and creative processes?

References

• Acar, O.A., Tuncdogan, A., van Knippenberg, D., & Lakhani, K.R. (2023): “Collective Creativity and Innovation: An Interdisciplinary Review, Integration, and Research Agenda.” Journal of Management, 50 (6), 2119–2151.

• Anguiano, D., & Beckett, L. (2023): “How Hollywood writers triumphed over AI – and why it matters. Dani Anguiano and Lois Beckett in Los Angeles.” The Guardian, October 1, 2023; https://www.theguardian.com/culture/2023/oct/01/hollywood-writers-strike-artificial-intelligence.
• den Hond, F., & Moser, C. (2022): “Useful servant or dangerous master? Technology in business and society debates.” Business & Society, 62 (1), 87–116.
• Faulconbridge, J., Sarwar, A., & Spring, M. (2023): “How Professionals Adapt to Artificial Intelligence: The Role of Intertwined Boundary Work.” Journal of Management Studies, first published online on May 31, 2023; https://doi.org/10.1111/joms.12936.
• Gama, F., & Magistretti, S. (2023): “Artificial intelligence in innovation management: A review of innovation capabilities and a taxonomy of AI applications.” Journal of Product Innovation Management, first published online on September 23, 2023; https://doi.org/10.1111/jpim.12698.
• Jeong, I., & Shin, S.J. (2019): “High-Performance Work Practices and Organizational Creativity During Organizational Change: A Collective Learning Perspective.” Journal of Management, 45 (3), 909–925.
• Kuk, G. (2023): “Creative ambivalence: implementing need‐solution pairs in household 3D printing.” R&D Management, 53 (5), 861–879.
• Lindebaum, D., Moser, C., Ashraf, M., & Glaser, V.L. (2022): “Reading the technological society to understand the mechanization of values and its ontological consequences.” Academy of Management Review, 48 (3), 575–592.
• Lindebaum, D., Moser, C., & Islam, G. (2024): “Big Data, Proxies, Algorithmic Decision-Making and the Future of Management Theory.” Journal of Management Studies, 61 (6), 2724–2747.
• Magistretti, S., Pham, C.T.A., & Dell’Era, C. (2021): “Enlightening the dynamic capabilities of design thinking in fostering digital transformation.” Industrial Marketing Management, 97, 59–70.
• Moser, C., Deichmann, D., & Jurriens, M. (2023): “Business before pleasure? Bringing pleasure back into workplace relationships.” In: Gerbasi, A., Emery, C., & Parker, A. (eds.): Understanding Workplace Relationships. An Examination of the Antecedents and Outcomes. London: Palgrave McMillan, 201–222.
• Moser, C., den Hond, F., & Lindebaum, D. (2022): “Morality in the age of artificially intelligent algorithms.” Academy of Management Learning & Education, 21 (1), 139–155.
• Pham, C.T.A., Magistretti, S., & Dell’Era, C. (2023): “How do you frame ill‐defined problems? A study on creative logics in action.” creativity and innovation management, 32 (3), 493–516.