ESF-Project “Fit for innovation: Developing creativity and innovativeness in SMEs”


How do we enhance curiosity, problem sensitivity and initiative among our employees? What is meant by ambiguity tolerance and why is it so important for creativity? Which criteria should we use to separate good ideas from bad ones? Is our fault tolerance high enough (or is it already too high)? With the ESF-funded project “Fit for innovation” we seek answers to these questions that take the possibilities and constraints of small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) into consideration. Together with 15 SMEs from Franconia we are currently creating and testing a web-based training program for the development of creativity and innovativeness in a stepwise approach:

  • Step 1: Needs analyses. Initially, on-site interviews are conducted in the SMEs to identify common challenges and areas of improvement with regard to creativity and innovativeness

  • Step 2: Web-based knowledge transfer._ Online material is created from current research literature on topics of interest related to creativity and innovativeness. The selection of topics is based on the results of the needs analyses and provided on a moodle-platform.

  • Step 3: Practice transfer. Face-to-face trainings are conducted to develop the individual competencies of participants from different SMEs to manage organizational change processes (i.e., to deal with complexity and ambiguity in a dynamic environment). For this purpose a computer-based business game is used.

The project is funded within the program “Netzgestützter Wissenstransfer von Hochschulen in Unternehmen” (WiT-HuB) by the European Social Fund in Bavaria (ESF in Bayern), the University of Bamberg and the government of Bavaria. The project was launched in May 2017 and will run for two years. For further information please visit out website at www.fit-fuer-innovation.de, download our leaflet or write a message to esf.allgpsych@uni-bamberg.de.

Logo

Contact persons for “Fit for innovation”:

  • Prof. Dr. Claus-Christian Carbon (Head of Department)

  • Dipl.-Psych. Stefan Ortlieb

  • Dipl.-Psych. Thorsten Schmittlutz

  • Dr. Dipl.-Psych. Marius Raab (B.Sc.)