The literatures on creativity and innovation are each premised on the same important assumption that has gone largely unquestioned: Creativity and innovation are outcomes that are almost inherently positive. Decades of research on creativity in organizations have been motivated by the assumption that creative ideas can be implemented to realize innovations that will inevitably increase profit, strengthen competitive advantage and ensure firm survival. The assumption that creativity and innovation have positive downstream consequences has constrained existing research by forcing a myopic focus on creativity and innovation as dependent variables. Thus, in a significant departure from the existing literature, we turn the tables to conceptualize creativity and innovation as independent variables that can have a sweeping and frequently negative impact on a wide range of other important outcomes. We conclude by calling for a new stream of research to more soberly evaluate the direct costs, side effects and long-term consequences of creativity and innovation.

有关创造力和创新的文献均基于相同的重要假设，而这一假设在很大程度上没有受到质疑：创造力和创新是几乎天生就具有积极意义的成果。在组织中进行数十年研究的动机是基于这样的假设，即可以实施创意来实现创新，这些创新将不可避免地增加利润，增强竞争优势并确保公司生存。创造力和创新具有积极的下游影响的假设通过迫使近视聚焦于创造力和创新作为因变量而限制了现有研究。因此，与现有文献大相径庭的是，我们将表格转为将创意和创新概念化为独立变量，这些变量可能对广泛的其他重要结果产生广泛的负面影响。最后，我们呼吁进行新的研究，以更加清醒地评估创造力和创新的直接成本，副作用和长期后果。