The Importance of Creativity for Business Development in Latvia

Abstract

Today, the importance of innovation is particularly emphasised, and since creativity is the basis of innovation it is important to understand the importance of its development. This is especially essential in creative industries where creativity is the main asset of companies. It is significant to understand the factors influencing creativity in order to be able to purposefully stimulate its development. The purpose of the research is to assess the importance of creativity for the development of the company's competitiveness, determine the attitude of representatives of the Latvian creative industries towards the development of creativity, its importance as well as draw conclusions about the possibilities of its development. To meet the purpose of the research, the research methods were used as follows: document analysis, text analysis, content analysis, statistical analysis methods and questionnaire. The results of the research showed that creativity and creative industries are influenced by a wide range of factors, their development can be stimulated, and the company's creative environment can positively influence the sharing of ideas among the employees. Representatives of the Latvian creative industries understand the importance of development of the individual creativity of employees as one of the main competitive advantages in the company, but among them there is no unequivocal attitude towards whether creativity can be taught and whether it needs to be coordinated. It was also concluded that the representatives of the above industries implement innovations and focus more on product innovation.