Organizing Creativity

Literature seems to no longer have doubts: creativity is neither a magical phenomenon nor is it merely generated by individuals endowed with flair and vision. This book aims to offer a new perspective, particularly addressing the issue from an organizational standpoint. How is innovation generated in a workplace during a creative process in the cultural industries?
After analysing theories on creativity and reviewing the relevant literature, the book evaluates a specific case from an organizational perspective: the Teatro dell'Opera di Roma, which serves as an emblem for all cultural and creative industries. This is not an arbitrary choice, but one driven by both the author's decade-long personal experience in the Foundation and by the extraordinary critical and public success achieved by the Teatro Costanzi since 2014, under the leadership of two superintendents who knew how to select and rely on three exceptional lead creators: Emma Dante, Mario Martone, and Damiano Michieletto. Three directors who explain to the author how they build a successful creative team: not only through talent but also through study and intuition, experience, inclusion and method.
In fact, recent studies have observed how a number of cultural and creative companies innovate through specific teams, whose composition has so far remained little explored. This book aims to understand the winning mix, shedding light on the collective perspective of creativity and the relationship between the lead creator and the creative team that supports them. The Opera becomes the setting in which to study the entire sector of cultural and creative industries.
This book aspires to demonstrate how the creative process is a phenomenon whose origins can be traced and whose effects can be measured in terms of innovation generated and value created, even in such a unique context as that of industries producing symbolic and intangible goods. This research highlights the teamwork led by the lead creator throughout the various phases of realizing a cultural project.

Pamela Palmi is Associate Professor of Business Organization at the University of Salento. She is the author of several publications, including La Governance dello Spettacolo dal vivo. Evoluzione manageriale e competitività: tre sfide organizzative (Cacucci, 2010) and Le fabbriche della creatività. Un'analisi organizzativa dei distretti evoluti (FrancoAngeli, 2014).