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Fostering creativity through critical thinking: The case of business start‐up simulations
Author(s) -
Eggers Fabian,
Lovelace Kathi J.,
Kraft Frederik
Publication year - 2017
Publication title -
creativity and innovation management
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 1.148
H-Index - 60
eISSN - 1467-8691
pISSN - 0963-1690
DOI - 10.1111/caim.12225
Subject(s) - creativity , context (archaeology) , critical thinking , entrepreneurship , new product development , divergent thinking , product (mathematics) , psychology , convergent thinking , empirical research , marketing , knowledge management , creative thinking , social psychology , computer science , mathematics education , business , epistemology , mathematics , paleontology , geometry , finance , biology , philosophy
Research suggests a positive link between critical thinking and creativity. However, this relationship has not been measured in an empirical study. This study aims to explore whether critical thinking can serve to enhance creativity and whether creativity positively mediates the relationship between critical thinking and business performance. In this study, we analyse these relationships within the entrepreneurial context of a web‐based business start‐up simulation. We examined data from 26 teams of three to four senior business students and found partial support for our hypotheses. Critical thinking positively influenced creativity, measured as the total number of unique product designs. Creativity (unique product designs) also positively mediated the link between critical thinking and performance. This effect, however, did not exist when creativity was assessed through advertisement designs. This research contributes to entrepreneurship and innovation management by demonstrating the importance of critical thinking as a basis for creativity and testing this relationship in a business start‐up simulation context.