Innovation and Creativity during Working Holidays

Many countries offer working holiday visas. I used to be an excited working holiday visa holder, so I fully understand why working in a foreign country can dramatically expand my outlook. ?

working holiday

  • My working holiday experience taught me creativity:

Researchers have studied various factors that contribute to creativity and innovation in the workplace. Recently, major studies have gone into detail about new aspects of employee creativity and how they influence innovation in the workplace.

For example, several decades ago, intercultural friendships and romantic relationships were not very common. However, in today’s day and age, intercultural friendships and romantic relationships have become commonplace already. Therefore, researchers have done sufficient research into how close intercultural friendships and romantic relationships spark creativity, entrepreneurship, and workplace innovation. Moreover, how social media can influence employee creativity is a relatively new topic because social media platforms such as Facebook and Twitter did not exist in the past. Clearly, these areas require modern researchers to conduct major studies that can bring value to businesses.

Why the research on creativity and innovation is important for business:

According to a survey of more than 1,500 Chief Executive Officers from 60 countries and 33 industries, creativity is ranked over global thinking and integrity as the most paramount leadership quality. Obviously, creativity is the prerequisite of innovation because creativity is about idea production, whilst innovation is about idea production as well as implementation – creativity is certainly the initial stage of innovation.

Since idea production and implementation work better when team members are cooperating with each other in an organization, it is very important for leaders and employees to perform effectively in the workplace. Usually, both leaders and employees are able to have creative ideas; nevertheless, when it comes to implementation, employees are oftentimes the main practitioners who carry out plans and implement ideas. Hence, leadership skills and employee creativity both play key roles in innovation.

In modern-day society, businesses must prioritize creativity and innovation as the competition in many industries is increasingly stiff. Working holiday experts argue that creative ideas often offer tremendous business value. For instance, taking advantage of new opportunities, creating new services and/or products, and improving workplace effectiveness can surely provide significant business value for organizations.

Therefore, research into creativity and innovation in the workplace is of vital importance for business in general, especially in contemporary society. An organization would be well-advised to make creativity/innovation a priority, thereby creating products, services, practices, and/or procedures that are new and useful to the business.

working holiday

  • Research on Workplace Creativity: A working holiday

Firstly, individuals who identify with both their host and their home cultures are much more creative than those who identify with either their host or home cultures alone. Further analysis indicates that exploring a different culture gives a person more resources; thus, a different cultural perspective is a reason for creativity.

Secondly, when work is reasonably challenging, employees tend to become more creative, for the right amount of challenge allows employees to hone their problem-solving skills which can be useful when it comes to cultivating creativity.

Thirdly, when a leader engages in unorthodox rather than conventional behavior, team members would see the leader as a role model for workplace creativity and innovation. At the same time, group members also become more creative as a result. Furthermore, co-workers might offer a source of diverse experiences and knowledge that can be used for creativity as well.

The Bottom Line:

When an organization highly values creativity, individuals become more creative. Nonetheless, when organizational support is absent, individuals display less creativity. Having said that, individuals who are naturally inclined toward creativity still demonstrate high levels of creativity, no matter whether the organization values creativity or not.

Besides, when employees are very open to experiences and receive positive feedback from supervisors and co-workers, they usually have the highest creativity at work. Interestingly, team creativity increases when the intergroup competition moves from low to moderate levels, yet decreases when the intergroup competition moves from moderate to high levels of competition.

Working holiday visa holders can learn a lot from their experiences in foreign countries.”

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