Magic or not? Creative Cues, SECI and Ba for Creative Knowledge Generation

Creative approaches used by designers and artists, or arts-based initiatives, have often been investigated by management and organization scholars.This article presents an exploratory single case study by blending sensemaking and empathic service design approaches. It explores how creative cues and design approaches in facilitation may aid in creating new work opportunities for a small case company in different industrial contexts, as well as support prototyping the case company´s vision, values and identity. The aim is to support designers and creative professionals in their contextual settings.

Theoretically, the article links the use of creative cues as found in design and arts-based methods in interorganisational collaboration with the seminal knowledge creation model by Nonaka and Takeuchi (1995) and colleagues. It is suggested that the case company together with the university research team has been involved in creative knowledge creation, stretching to third parties. The contribution suggested to the original SECI model is the entanglement of creative cues in ongoing sensemaking in a company´s own and its clients´ situations. Creative cues blend knowledge and knowing throughout knowledge creation as a possibility. Such knowing can rather be nurtured than managed and may raise awareness of power and structures next to divergent outcomes.