Pathway for Elaborating Model of Culture of Innovation and Creativity at Universities as Prerequisite for Their Performance

Abstract

In the twenty-first century universities, as intellectual potential formative institutions and tool for creating effective national system are needed to be much more focused on innovation and creativity, rather than on stability and standardization. An innovative and creative universities boost to the development of globally competitive economics, through forming productive and flexible workforce, idea generation, creating technologies and their dissemination. Hence, those who want to create a world class university will need to develop an organizational environment which boosts to innovative and creative behavior of its members leading to university performance and the economic development of the country. In terms of innovation capability and Skills, Georgia takes quite law positions that is proved by “The Global Competitiveness Report, 2019” according to which it takes 91st and 46th places out of 141 countries. Thereof it’s vitally important to investigate the leading countries’ (USA, Switzerland, Germany, Finland, Denmark, Singapore, Italy, Israel, Japan, Luxemburg and South Korea) world-class universities’ (THE World University Rankings 2021) key determinants of innovative and creative organizational environment as well as to outline and analyze possible strategies and pathways for elaborating model of innovative and creative environment that will fit to Georgian reality.

1 Introduction

Since the new challenging and rapidly changing era has imposed new and higher demands as well as expectations on universities, also due to the tendencies existing throughout the world of twenty-first century revealing the significance of culture of innovation and creativity at universities striving for competitive advancement in the market, also universities as intellectual potential formative institutions serving as humankind’s knowledge bank, think tank and tool for creating effective national system, are needed to be much more focused on innovation and creativity, rather than on stability and standardization in order to nurture globally competitive economics, create as well as sustain a “world-class university” that will lead them to the desired goal. In other words, university leaders need to think more deeply than at any time before in history: how can research universities sustain their vitality and continue to lead societal development?

As mentioned above, one of the most desirable and feasible roads to take for research universities is to search ways for transforming themselves into an innovative universities.

On the basis of The Global Competitiveness Report, 2019,¹ published by World Economic Forum,² Georgia’s overall (74th place out of 141 countries) as well as innovation capability (12th pillar-91st place) and Skills (6th pillar-46th place) positioning is quite unenviable. Hence, its crucial to identify key factors that inhibit innovative potential of the country and to investigate the leading countries’ (USA, Switzerland, Germany, Finland, Denmark, Singapore, Italy, Israel, Japan and Republic of Korea) world-class universities’ key determinants of innovativeness, as well as outline and analyze possible pathway for elaborating model of culture of innovation and creativity that will fit to the universities of Georgia as tertiary education provider institutions that will enable them to build collaborative innovative environment based on stable goals where individuals will have the autonomy to pursue experiments and develop and maintain world class status.

To make in-depth analyses paper starts by constructing definition of culture of innovation and creativity then on the basis of researches conducted on innovations, reveals the key cultural values as well as factors that increase and inhibit innovations. After that it provides the clear definition of The World-Class University and identifies the attributes that play key role for innovativeness in top universities and finally it emphasizes the importance of digital transformation as one of the ways for creating innovative environment at HEIs.

2 Culture of Innovation and Creativity

According to OECD and Eurostat Guidelines for Collecting and Interpreting Innovation Data (Oslo Manual, 2018) “Addressing the current and emerging economic, social and environmental challenges requires novel ideas, innovative approaches and greater levels of multilateral co-operation. Innovation and digitalization are playing an increasingly important role in virtually all sectors and in the daily lives of citizens around the world. As such, policy makers are placing the “innovation imperative” at the center of their policy agendas.”

On the basis of MaRS Discovery District “A culture of innovation is an environment that supports creative thinking and advances efforts to extract economic and social value from knowledge, and, in doing so, generates new or improved products, services or processes”.³

Innovation is also defined  by various authors according one of which “Innovation is a new idea, or more effective device, or process (Tavana et al., 2017). Innovation can be viewed as the application of better solutions that meet new requirements, unarticulated needs, or an existing market need. A novel device is often described as an innovation; but in economics, management science, and other fields of practice and analysis, innovation is generally considered to be a process that brings together novel ideas in a way that they have a noticeable impact on science, education, economy or society.

In the organizational context, innovation may be linked to positive changes in efficiency, productivity, quality and market share. However, recent research findings highlight the important role of organizational culture in enabling organizations to translate innovative activity into tangible performance enhancements.

As for the culture of creativity that encompasses three levels (discovery, invention, creation) is defined as an environment where employees feel safe and empowered, and feel a sense of ownership over the company’s products and services. As centers of knowledge creation, higher education institutions (HEIs) and, in particular, universities, have to provide academic and social environments that favor the creativity of the human potential, which in turn need to receive appropriate support from governments and other stakeholders. If universities do not succeed in this undertaking, the very goal of a knowledge society would be at stake. Purely mechanistic approaches geared towards reaching predefined targets of accumulating huge profits at the expense of quality would certainly not allow higher education institutions to achieve their strategic goals. “The complex questions of the future will not be solved “by the book”, but by creative, forward looking individuals and groups who are not afraid to question established ideas and are able to cope with the insecurity and uncertainty this entails” (EUA, 2007: 6).⁴

What are the problems that lead organizations to be wedded to cultural norms, rather than to take risks? And what are the cultural values that foster innovations?

Outcomes generated from researches (Machavariani, 2019) conducted under The Archimedes Foundation,⁵ INTAS Program,⁶ Open Science Foundation,⁷ EU Seventh Framework Program,⁸ Friedrich Ebert Stiftung Foundation South Caucasus Office,⁹ three factors of innovativeness of Georgia revealed, mainly: New Knowledge (innovation), Project (for implementing innovation), New Knowledge Transfer and innovations commercialization. As for the factors that inhibit innovative potential of Georgia are as follows:

• Lack of funds allocated to science;

• Research-teaching gap at universities;

• Weak link with business;

• Irrelevant Selection (hiring) of perspective personnel;

• Existing of non-comfortable organizational environment.

Table 1 shows researches conducted on innovations, revealing the key cultural values that foster increasing innovations, mainly: Creativity, Initiative, Entrepreneurial thinking, freedom/Autonomy, Risk taking and motivation, group working, accessible resources, marketing orientation, decision making, personnel engagement, lifelong learning and flexibility.

Table 1 Cultural values fostering innovations

2.1 The World-Class University and Its Attributes

Throughout the past decade, the term “world-class university” has become a catch phrase not simply for improving the quality of learning and research at higher education provider universities but also, for developing the capacity to compete in the global tertiary education marketplace through the acquisition, adaptation, and creation of advanced knowledge. With students looking to attend the best possible tertiary institution that they can afford, often regardless of national borders, and with governments keen on maximizing the returns on their investments in universities, global standing is becoming an increasingly important concern for institutions around the world (Williams & Van Dyke, 2007).

Becoming a member of the exclusive group of world-class universities is not achieved by self-declaration; rather, elite status is conferred by the outside world on the basis of international recognition.

In previous years there have been many ways for identifying and classifying world-class universities, though lately more systematic ways have appeared (IHEP, 2007).

In spite of the fact that most of the best-known rankings categorize universities within a given country, there have also been attempts to establish international rankings. One of them is, “The Times Higher Education World University Rankings” (THES) which include more than 1,500 universities across 93 countries and regions, making them the largest and most diverse university rankings to date.

According to the World University Rankings 2021¹⁰ (Table 2) which is based on 13 carefully calibrated performance indicators that measure an institution’s performance across four areas (teaching, research, knowledge transfer and international outlook) the leading places in the ranking take universities from US, followed by Switzerland, Germany, Singapore, Japan, South Korea, Israel, Finland, Denmark and Italy (see Table 3). These universities are recognized in part for their superior outputs. They produce well-qualified graduates who are in high demand on the labor market; they conduct leading-edge research published in top scientific journals; and in the case of science-and-technology–oriented institutions, they contribute to technical innovations through patents and licenses.

Table 2 Times Higher Education World University RankingsFootnote

The World University Rankings: https://www.timeshighereducation.com/world-university-rankings/2021/world-ranking#!/page/0/length/25/sort_by/rank/sort_order/asc/cols/stats.

Table 3 Number of leading universities on the basis of WUR 2021

To assess the relative merits of the design dimensions of the various excellence initiatives beyond looking at rankings results, this paper applies the analytical framework developed in The Challenge of Establishing World-Class Universities (Salmi, 2009). The superior results of world-class universities (WCUs)—highly sought graduates, leading-edge research, and dynamic technology transfer—can essentially be attributed to three complementary sets of factors (see Fig. 1) that play in top universities:

• (a) a high concentration of talent (faculty and students);

• (b) abundant resources to offer a rich learning environment and to conduct advanced research, and

• (c) favorable governance features that encourage strategic vision, innovation, and flexibility and that enable institutions to make decisions and to manage resources without being encumbered by bureaucracy.

Fig. 1

Characteristic of World-Class University (WCU): alignment of key factors

The first and perhaps foremost determinant of excellence is the presence of a critical mass of top students and outstanding faculty. WCUs are able to select the best students and attract the most qualified professors and researchers, not only from the country where they are located but also internationally. For instance in Georgia many universities do not have luxury of selecting the best students as they are only oriented on filling quota.

Abundance of resources is the second element that characterizes WCUs, in response to the huge costs involved in running a complex, research-intensive university. These universities have four main sources of financing: government budget funding for operational expenditures and research contract research from public organizations and private firms, the financial returns generated by endowments and gifts, and tuition fees.

The third dimension concerns the degree of academic and managerial autonomy that universities enjoy. WCUs operate in an environment that fosters competitiveness, unrestrained scientific inquiry, critical thinking, innovation, and creativity. Institutions that have complete autonomy are also more flexible because they are not restricted by externally imposed cumbersome and bureaucratic rules and standards, even in light of the legitimate accountability mechanisms that do bind them. As a result, they can manage their resources with agility and quickly respond to the demands of a rapidly changing global market. These autonomy elements are necessary, though not sufficient, to establish and maintain world-class universities. Other crucial governance features are needed, such as inspiring and persistent leaders; a strong strategic vision of where the institution is going; a philosophy of success and excellence; and a culture of constant reflection, organizational learning, and change.

2.2 Digital Transformation as One of the Prerequisite for Creating Innovative and Creative Environment in Higher Education Sector

Due to the fact that aforementioned paper is oriented on identifying pathway for elaborating culture of innovation and creativity at universities and revealing values and attributes that is needed for it, it’s also important to mention digital technologies as well as they are playing crucial role on the way of transforming people’s life, business and society. Higher education systems and institutions are particularly affected by digital transformation, which can enable new services and provide new opportunities for innovation and entrepreneurship. HEIs embracing digital technologies can become drivers of growth and development for their own ecosystems.

Digital transformation is the result of digitization and digitalization of economies and societies (OECD, 2019a). Some authors consider digital transformation as a more pervasive set of changes that digital technologies cause or affecting all aspects of human life (Stolterman & Fors, 2006). The digital transformation is intrinsically connected to what has been defined as the “fourth industrial revolution” (Schwab, 2016): a process through which digital technologies are shaping the future of society and economic development in a comparable manner to the case of steam power for the first industrial revolution.

Digital transformation is a process involving several digital technologies, from 5G to artificial intelligence, big data and Blockchain. These technologies form an ecosystem through which future economic and social changes will arise (OECD, 2019a). In particular, experts identify three categories for seven “vectors of digital transformation” (OECD, 2019d) (Fig. 2).

Fig. 2

Source OECD (2018), International Survey of Scientific Authors (ISSA) 2018, Preliminary Results, http://oe.cd/issa (accessed on 15 January 2019)

Scientific Authors’ view on the digitalization of science and its potential impact, 2018.

Academics and more generally people working in or with HEIs are becoming increasingly aware of these transformations. For instance, there is a strong positive sentiment about digitalization from the perspective of scientists and researchers concerning the promotion of collaboration and the efficiency of scientific research. However, scientists have more reservations about the role of private sector engagement, the impact that digital technologies may have on the inclusiveness of research opportunities and the engagement with the public. Based on these, the digital transformation and capabilities dimension within the HEInnovate framework could support and enable a better understanding of how digital technologies can be used to support innovation and entrepreneurship in HEIs.

Digital transformation is affecting and changing significant aspects of education, research, engagement and management activities of HEIs. The education system as a whole is called to adapt and evolve to take advantage of new technologies and tools and to develop strategies and actions to play an active role in the digital transformation process. HEIs can become the driver of digital innovation, including in the provision of the types of skills generally needed to navigate this change of paradigm.

For HEIs, dealing with digital transformation means introducing new digital processes in their organizations, adopting new digital teaching methods and tools, helping students in achieving the skills and competencies needed to act in digitalized societies and economies or having open science policies. It also means adopting a broader view of their role as actors of digital innovation. HEIs, with adequate policies and support from the government, can have an important role in helping firms, in particular small- and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs), adopt emerging technology and acquire relevant digital skills for their workers (OECD, 2019a). Start-ups and spin-offs can benefit from partnerships with HEIs in order to acquire the initial know-how, equipment and funding to test new technologies and scale-up new products and services linked to new the research results in the digital field (OECD, 2019a).

The digital transformation process then becomes an element actively supporting innovation in all HEI missions, including the third mission in all of its dimensions. This implies a dual perspective: the one internal to the organization with the digital transformation of HEIs themselves, with a new mindset taking into account the challenges and opportunities brought by digitalization and new digital processes supporting students, staff and researchers; and the one external to the HEI with the enabling role that HEIs must play to foster digital innovation and support a wider ecosystem formed by firms, institutions and stakeholders, jointly pursuing the effort of innovation and growth through the means of new innovative digital technologies.

3 Digital Skills, MOOCs and Open Science

Digital skills are crucial to navigating today’s technology-dense society and economy. However, OECD Survey of Adult Skills (PIAAC) (2012–15) data show that 13% of 16–65 year-olds in many OECD countries lack basic cognitive skills and less than 30% have a cognitive skillset combining high levels of literacy, numeracy and problem-solving skills. Younger generations of workers have a higher level of skills for problem-solving in technology-rich environments, five times more than the older generations of workers. Continuous training and upskilling are necessary to thrive in digital transformation (OECD, 2019b). These figures show the central role of education and higher education as enablers of the digital transformation.

MOOCs stands for “massive open online courses” and represents a new opportunity for digital learning that has developed in recent years. Dedicated Internet platforms provide users with access to MOOCs. Usually, the access is free and students can pay if they want the certificates recognizing their enrolment and acquisition of knowledge related to the courses. MOOCs are also used by companies for workers’ skills acquisition, with specific training developed ad hoc for these purposes.

“Open science” is a term that refers to the process of making the output of publicly funded research widely accessible to the public (scientific community, business sector and society at large) through the use of digital technologies. Science has an old tradition of openness and, together with the new digital technologies, its actors have created the new paradigm of the scientific enterprise. The main elements of open science are: open access to scientific publications and open data (OECD, 2015).

3.1 Conclusion/Recommendations

The rapid development of the world needs innovative universities to rethink their value orientation. Based on traditional functions and responsibilities, innovative universities should engage in adding value through innovation. They should not only have the capacity to compete for resources, they should, more importantly, have the capacity to consolidate high quality resources and to effectively give full play to add value and achieve excellence through innovation that will enable them to build collaborative innovative environment based on stable goals where individuals will have the autonomy to pursue experiments and develop and maintain world class status.

On the basis of all above mentioned Georgian universities are needed to be focused on changing their value orientation too. They should be oriented on elaborating innovative and creative environment at universities that will enable their members to think in innovative way and acquire world class status at global level, for which a holistic approach is required, where all factors (discussed in the paper) will be jointly considered on the way of establishing Model of Culture of Innovation and Creativity at Universities as Prerequisite for their Performance.