Fostering creativity through critical thinking: The case of business start‐up simulations

Abstract

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.

Entrepreneurial thinking: A signature pedagogy for an uncertain 21st century

“…Creativity is more than an innate ability; it can be achieved through hard work, experience, and searching for solutions in innovative ways ( Amabile, 1996 ; Puccio & Cabra, 2010 ). Within the entrepreneurship literature, creativity encompasses “the development of a novel idea, product or problem solution that is of value to the individual and/or a larger social group” ( Eggers, Lovelace, & Kraft, 2017 , p. 267). Importantly, creativity with limited resources is also crucial for entrepreneurs in order to overcome initial constraints involved in creating a new venture, which is often associated with a scarcity of resources ( Lin & Nabergoj, 2014 ).…”

Öğrencilerin 21. Yüzyıl Beceri Düzeyleri ve Beceriler Arasındaki İlişkinin İncelenmesi

“…Creativity is one of the most frequently expressed basic skills for the 21 st century (Kereluik, Mishra, Fahnoe, and Terry, 2013). It is expected that the relationship between creativity and critical thinking is significant and that the relationship level is high (Eggers, Lovelace, and Kraft, 2017); because these two skills, which are called high-level thinking skills, sometimes are used interchangeably in the literature, which is not correct though, and it is seen that they have common points in their definitions. In some studies, it is stated that critical thinking is a basic skill for creativity (Eggers et al, 2017); because critical thinking requires important skills, especially analysis, evaluation and creativity (Piniuta, 2019).…”

Creativity Among Business and Tourism Management University Students: Determining Sociodemographic Factors

“…The European Higher Education Area (EHEA) is aware of this need, specifically recommending that creativity be included in the criteria with which all the competences are organised; in this way the EHEA recognises creativity to be a highly important element in students' overall competence training. Furthermore, in the Recommendation of the European Parliament and of the Council of 18 December 2006 on Key Competences for Lifelong Learning (2006), the European Union highlights creativity, as well as other closely linked content such as critical thinking and problem solving, as essential elements that should be applied and which are of particular importance to entrepreneurship (Eggers, Lovelace, & Kraft, 2017).…”