Entrepreneurial creativity and innovation management in engineering

Abstract

Creativity and Innovation are the two pillars of modern companies and institutions; they offer competitive advantage on the market and economic growth. The authors propose a concept of creativity and innovation training for engineering, starting with consultancy for technical problem solving, continuing with trainings (Training of Trainers and courses for graduates and entrepreneurs), based on creativity techniques and management topics, forming not just entrepreneurial behaviors, but entrepreneurial attitudes for engineering employees (intrapreneur). SMEsof the engineering branch are the beneficiaries of consultancy and trainings on these issues. Beside the creativity and innovation management courses for students, the Technical University "Politehnica"of Bucharest provides a large range of courses and flexible training modules for graduates and entrepreneurs as well. Creativity in engineering is different from creativity in other domains of activity. Among other activities, the Technology Transfer and Innovation Center for SMEs is researching and adapting creativity techniques for engineering. This paper demonstrates the acute need of a specialized literature on creativity techniques for engineering. The large amount of references from psychology has to be firstadapted and then appliedto technical issues. One example of adaption is the "ad-hoc brainstorming"among researcher teams. Copyright © (2012) by Danube Adria Association for Automation and Manufacturing (DAAAM).