Innovation and Creativity in SMEs

3Innovation and Creative Slack in SMEs

3.1. Introduction

Innovation goes hand in hand with new, original and previously unheard of ideas (Amabile 1988). In other words, for there to be a propensity to innovate (Hadjimanolis 2000; Wang and Ahmed 2004; Kmieciak et al. 2012), it is not only the emergence, collection, selection and retention of ideas that are needed to innovate better (Liu et al. 2017), but there is also a need for a creative slack (or pool of ideas), from which to draw if necessary (Cohendet and Simon 2015). This slack is the breeding ground for innovation and differentiation strategy (Amabile 1988; Szostak 2017). We therefore consider the idea as being central to innovation. In order to define it best, we retain three characteristics that are significant (Parmentier et al. 2017b):

• – the idea is the result of an intention to act: it is not the result of chance, but of a motivated search for a solution to a problem;
• – it is based on existing knowledge;
• – it begins with a relatively vague statement and becomes a concept developed through modifications, additions, deletions and clarifications made by a group of individuals involved in the formulation of the idea (Ford 1996; Drazin et al. 1999).

Thus, SMEs can differentiate themselves from other entities thanks to ideas (Julien and Carrier 2005), but also that they can succeed in surviving the economic changes they face (Zhang and Bartol 2010). Indeed, since the current era strongly challenges the frameworks of ...