This article aims to demonstrate that the relationship between entrepreneurs' attitudes to creativity and business innovation practices is stronger in the case of creative industries. A sample of 454 managers of micro and medium-sized companies (94 belonging to creative industries) was surveyed using an inventory of innovative business practices and the scale of attitudes towards creativity. The results, derived from a linear regression model (two factors for the scale of attitudes -Leadership and Autonomy -and for the inventory of business practices -Performance and Strategy), confirmed the proposition by revealing the influence of the creative attitudes of managers regarding the company's innovative practices, fundamentally on Strategy, especially in the creative industries segment. The innovative manager appeared as a disciplined individual driven to collaborating with the employees. Although this research requires further evidence, the results suggest interesting characterisations of the managers who develop their activity in the cluster of creative industries.

Owing to company time restrictions and concentration on project development, we began to reduce the duration of creative problem solving (CPS) sessions, and to give more emphasis to the action planning stage. Several changes in our CPS protocol, as well as in its duration, begged the question as to whether these changes were jeopardizing efficacy. To examine this question, six groups of ten university students, working under two different CPS protocols (a five-step method and a four-step method), and three control groups (using no CPS method), were given the same objective and similar conditions. This exploratory experiment compared group performance by change in team commitment, divergent thinking preferences, productivity and the participants' evaluation of the different methods. Results show that the CPS methods were both effective in changing participants' perspectives regarding divergent thinking and team commitment. In the control groups, however, there were no changes as a consequence of the sessions. Results also suggest that the same problem-solving effectiveness can be attained in a shorter time than that traditionally used, and without prior training in CPS. These findings open the door to developing new problem-solving techniques and team work processes, and to more efficient organizational creativity and innovation methodologies.

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" tInKlo sudarYMas auKŠtoJo MoKslo studentŲ aPlInKoJe taIKant ProBleMŲ sPrendIMo MetodĄ, sKIrtĄ dIdelĖMs GruPĖMs tHe deVeloPMent oF a sMall-World netWorK oF HIGHer eduCatIon students, usInG a larGe-GrouP ProBleM-solVInG MetHod "MaŽo PasaulIo" tInKlo sudarYMas auKŠtoJo MoKslo studentŲ aPlInKoJe taIKant ProBleMŲ sPrendIMo MetodĄ, sKIrtĄ dIdelĖMs GruPĖMs tHe deVeloPMent oF a sMall-World netWorK oF HIGHer eduCatIon students, usInG a larGe-GrouP ProBleM-solVInG MetHod SOUSA, FERNANDO CARDOSO* Research interest: Organizational creativity and innovation;

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Abstract:This research focuses on the development of entrepreneurship projects, using the creative problem solving (CPS) methodology and aims at demonstrating its effectiveness in improving team commitment to entrepreneurship projects. The design follows an adaptation of the 8-step process of Basadur's problem solving approach (Basadur, 1997), into a 5-step procedure, consisting of fact finding, problem definition, solution finding and action planning. These steps are carried out in two four-hour sessions, using specific techniques that link creative people and management in order to develop a plan of action, thus initiating a system of transformation of the individual and team creativity into organizational innovation.Forty M.A. students, organized in four groups (two in art education and two in tourist entrepreneurship) were submitted to a pre-post test regarding team commitment, prior and after two 4-hour problem solving sessions, following one objective provided by the course director. At the end of the sessions they were also required to fill in a form where they were asked to express their evaluation of the method. Each project designed is now under 2 implementation, and each group is registering all the necessary data to allow for the following up of the project.Results indicated an improvement in individual attitude towards emotional team commitment, during CPS sessions, as well as positive evaluations of the method. The possibilities of making a joint project, using the CPS method, were also demonstrated.Further research is expected once the projects are carried away and more teams involve in the construction of original entrepreneurship projects.

The results indicate a change in attitude favourable to divergent thinking, the provision of a professional, efficient method of organizing knowledge in such a way that can help individuals to find original solutions to problems, and an important way to lead teams to creativity and innovation, according to companies’ different orientations.

O Projeto Educativo, como instrumento fundamental para a autonomia das escolas, em Portugal, deve aglutinar as principais expectativas da comunidade escolar, implicando rigor na metodologia de investigação, utilizada para sua elaboração, e na implementação da mudança requerida. O presente artigo relata a forma como foi possível obter esses aspectos, numa escola secundária, ao longo de mais de um ano, por meio do uso do método de Resolução Criativa de Problemas, que envolveu toda a comunidade escolar. Conforme o planeamento definido, a elaboração do Projeto Educativo seguiu os passos de um trabalho de investigação e resultou num documento estratégico e operacional, sujeito, posteriormente, a várias tentativas de implementação que, no entanto, tiveram apenas sucesso relativo. A discussão das condições necessárias para que o documento final possa servir de base à implementação das políticas e ações definidas, o que simplificaria todo o esquema de funcionamento escolar, sob um prisma de gestão efetiva das organizações, é aqui iniciada e sugerida para futuras investigações.