The management and consumption of organisational creativity

Purpose – Management within the creative industries can face many challenges, some of which may be unique to these forms of organisations. The perceptions and actions of the creative employees, consumers and clients, can impact directly on the overall creative output and end product. This paper aims to explore the current literature relating to organisational creativity within the context of creative organisations and their relationships with those whom consume their output. Design/methodology/approach – The paper opens with a discussion of the relatively recent trend towards considering social and contextual factors within creativity research. The next section discusses in detail some of the identified factors in relation to creativity and its consumption. The paper is then concluded with managerial implications and avenues for future research. Findings – The literature review uncovers issues of relevance to owners and managers relating to social control and creative: leadership; motivation; evaluation; feedback; risk; trust; role ambiguity and organisational boundary structures. The review helps to draw attention to some of the possible barriers to achieving full potential between the main stakeholder groups during long‐term creative projects. Originality/value – The review encapsulates many key issues that need to be taken into account due to the nature of the interface between creative employees and consumers. In so doing it outlines how many of these issues may interrelate, whilst providing a number of managerial implications and useful avenues for future empirical research.