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babechky@ucdavis.edu} T his paper introduces a model of collective creativity that explains how the locus of creative problem solving shifts, at times, from the individual to the interactions of a collective. The model is grounded in observations, interviews, informal conversations, and archival data gathered in intensive field studies of work in professional service firms. The evidence suggests that although some creative solutions can be seen as the products of individual insight, others should be regarded as the products of a momentary collective process. Such collective creativity reflects a qualitative shift in the nature of the creative process, as the comprehension of a problematic situation and the generation of creative solutions draw from-and reframe-the past experiences of participants in ways that lead to new and valuable insights. This research investigates the origins of such moments, and builds a model of collective creativity that identifies the precipitating roles played by four types of social interaction: help seeking, help giving, reflective reframing, and reinforcing. Implications of this research include shifting the emphasis in research and management of creativity from identifying and managing creative individuals to understanding the social context and developing interactive approaches to creativity, and from a focus on relatively constant contextual variables to the alignment of fluctuating variables and their precipitation of momentary phenomena.

Nelson, and three anonymous reviewers for their helpful comments on earlier drafts of this paper. This research was funded in part by a grant from the Center for Innovation Management Studies of Lehigh University. This paper considers the role of design, as the emergent arrangement of concrete details that embodies a new idea, in mediating between innovations and established institutional fields as entrepreneurs attempt to introduce change. Analysis of Thomas Edison's system of electric lighting offers insights into how the grounded details of an innovation's design shape its acceptance and ultimate impact. The notion of robust design is introduced to explain how Edison's design strategy enabled his organization to gain acceptance for an innovation that would ultimately displace the existing institutions of the gas industry. By examining the principles through which design allows entrepreneurs to exploit the established institutions while simultaneously retaining the flexibility to displace them, this analysis highlights the value of robust design strategies in innovation efforts, including the phonograph, the online service provider, and the digital video recorder.s The pursuit of innovation increasingly drives organizations inrapidly changing environments, where risks are high and missteps have serious consequences (Brown and Eisenhardt, 1997; Drucker, 1999). Introducing change into otherwise stable social systems is a risky endeavor, but this is exactly what entrepreneurs with potentially significant innovations must attempt to do. To be accepted, entrepreneurs must locate their ideas within the set of existing understandings and actions that constitute the institutional environment yet set their innovations apart from what already exists. Recent research has highlighted the social embeddedness of such economic actions as innovation and entrepreneurship, in which value and significance are shaped as much by cultural as economic influences (Granovetter, 1985; Dacin, 1997; Dacin, Ventresca, and Beal, 1999; Lounsbury and Glynn, 2000; Ventresca et al., 2000). One cultural determinant of an innovation's value is how well the public, as both individuals and organizations, comprehends what the new idea is and how to respond to it. And it is the concrete details of the innovation's design that provide the basis for this comprehension, as well as for new understandings and actions to emerge, which then, in turn, change the existing institutional context.When innovations meet institutions, two social forces collide, one accounting for the stability of social systems and the other for change. These moments provide opportunities to observe the shifts in collective understanding and action that throw the otherwise static institutional background into stark relief (Czarniawska-Joerges and Sev6n, 1996). Because the changes that accompany innovations often occur over years and even decades, historical cases can provide the necessary distance to observe how an innovation both emerges from and reshapes its institutional environ...

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