Publications

January 1996
Background Note

The Motivation for Creativity in Organizations

By: Teresa M. Amabile

People will be most creative when they feel motivated primarily by the interest, enjoyment, satisfaction, and challenge of the work itself--when they are driven by a deep involvement in their work and a passion for it. This note describes the ways in which creativity... View Details

Keywords: Compensation and Benefits; Managerial Roles; Organizations; Creativity; Motivation and Incentives; Satisfaction

Educators

January 1996
Background Note

Creativity and Innovation in Organizations

By: Teresa M. Amabile

Creativity, the production of new and useful ideas by individuals or teams, can appear in many forms and many functions within firms of all kinds--from entrepreneurial start-ups to well-established enterprises. This note describes the varieties of creativity in... View Details

Keywords: Change Management; Entrepreneurship; Collaborative Innovation and Invention; Management Analysis, Tools, and Techniques; Organizational Design; Situation or Environment; Creativity

Educators

03 Oct 2023
Research Event

Build the Life You Want: Arthur Brooks and Oprah Winfrey Share Happiness Tips

View Video “Are you happy?” asks Atlantic editor Jeffrey Goldberg of happiness expert Arthur C. Brooks. “Next question,” Brooks jokes, before answering: “No one is. Happiness is not a destination. It’s a direction.” In this video, Brooks, a View Details

Keywords: by HBS Staff

May 2011
Article

The Power of Small Wins

By: Teresa M. Amabile and Steven J. Kramer

What is the best way to motivate employees to do creative work? Help them take a step forward every day. In an analysis of knowledge workers' diaries, the authors found that nothing contributed more to a positive inner work life (the mix of emotions, motivations, and... View Details

24 Apr 2014
News

Employees crave meaningful progress in their work and find joy in making an impact

“Even incremental small wins can contribute to what we call positive inner work life,” says Teresa Amabile, Baker Foundation Professor. Amabile’s current research focuses on the psychology of everyday work life: how events in the... View Details

20 Sep 2017
Research & Ideas

The Three Types of Leaders Who Create Radical Change

says Battilana, the Joseph C. Wilson Professor of Business Administration at Harvard Business School and Alan L. Gleitsman Professor of Social Innovation at the Harvard Kennedy School, who, for more than a... View Details

Keywords: by Carmen Nobel

Web

Human Behavior & Decision-Making - Faculty & Research

Citation Educators Related Campbell, Dennis, Petros Kusmu, and Stacy Straaberg. "Taylor Guitars: Making Employee Ownership Work The Taylor Way." Harvard Business School Case 125-054, March 2025. More Publications Faculty Max H. Bazerman View Details

05 Feb 2008
First Look

First Look: February 5, 2008

standards (IAS) in 2005. Purchase this case: http://www.hbsp.harvard.edu/b01/en/common/item_detail.jhtml?id=106073 PublicationsStudying Creativity, Its Processes, and Its Antecedents: An Exploration of the Componential Theory of Creativity Authors:T. M. View Details

Keywords: Martha Lagace

15 Dec 2023
News

The Musts of 2023

the technology and where it's going—and while there are a lot of good things It's going to improve our quality of life. It's going to make things easier. But at the same time, it can easily be misused as now we see what has happened to that technology which was... View Details

September 2020
Article

Creativity, Artificial Intelligence, and a World of Surprises

By: Teresa M. Amabile

In recent years, progress has been made toward AI Creativity, which I define as the production of highly novel, yet appropriate, ideas, problem solutions, or other outputs by autonomous machines. I argue that organizational researchers of creativity and innovation... View Details

Keywords: Artificial Intelligence; AI Creativity; Computer Science; Organizational Behavior; Psychology; Creativity; Technological Innovation; AI and Machine Learning

Register to Read

2016
Article

The Dynamic Componential Model of Creativity and Innovation in Organizations: Making Progress, Making Meaning

By: Teresa M. Amabile and Michael G. Pratt

Leveraging insights gained through a burgeoning research literature over the past 28 years, this paper presents a significant revision of the model of creativity and innovation in organizations published in Research in Organizational Behavior in 1988. This... View Details

Keywords: Progress; Meaningful Work; Affect; Creativity; Organizations; Innovation and Invention; Motivation and Incentives

Read Now

01 Mar 2008
News

THE 6 MYTHS OF CREATIVITY

Creativity’s reputation as a mysterious, unknowable trait (something of a myth in itself) has led to some erroneous ideas about what it is and how it functions in organizations. Here, Professor Teresa View Details

Keywords: Arts, Sports, Language, Driving, and Other Schools; Educational Services; Management

Article

What Really Motivates Workers

By: Teresa M. Amabile and Steve J. Kramer

This essay appears in "The HBR List: Breakthrough Ideas for 2010," which is compiled by this journal in collaboration with the World Economic Forum. The ten problems and the innovative solutions are discussed in each essay. This particular essay describes research... View Details

Keywords: Problems and Challenges; Innovation and Invention; Research; Performance Improvement; Managerial Roles; Motivation and Incentives; Creativity