doi: 10.3850/S201046932012000263

Culture-based Creativity: Concept and Applications

Ananda Kumar Palaniappan University of Malaya, Malaysia. anandak@um.edu.my

ABSTRACT

Issues faced by man are becoming increasingly complex and sophisticated. Creativity by itself is no longer an effective component of any panacea to address these issues. Culture based creativity is being seen as an important contributor to innovative solutions to these problems. This paper endeavors to provide a psychological basis for cultural based creativity by looking at the various perspectives of creativity in terms of Process, Person, Product and Press as well as the understanding of culture in terms of values, beliefs, practices in the various domains, especially in the arts and literature. By providing a cultural perspective of creativity and using a culture based creativity model, this paper attempts to explain how the various aspects of culture influences the major components of creativity in order to provide better and more enduring solutions to these problems. Certain aspects of culture especially those relating to being original and elaborative, provision of a conducive and facilitative atmosphere both at home, school and the work place and promoting practices involving collaborative and collective decision making are found to facilitate the production of creative products and solutions to these issues. There is a compelling need to understand the various ways culture affects creativity and vice versa in order to derive solutions that are both effective and enduring. Using some relevant examples, this paper shows the importance of culture based creativity in providing value-added solutions, products and services in order to overcome the ever-growing threat to survival of businesses specifically and mankind in general.

Keywords: Creativity, Culture, Culture-based creativity.

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