ABSTRACT
This new chapter begins a short thematic ‘arc’ which continues in the two chapters that follow. Within the last decade or so, creativity has been depicted in food and beverage management research as the fundamental driver of all matters culinary, as central to understanding both the rise of the celebrity chef ( Chapter 5) and the status of food as an art form (Chapter 6). In part, interest in culinary creativity reflects wider trends in management studies, including hospitality management. Creativity has come to be prized as a phenomenon in much the same way as those other elusive concepts – motivation and leadership – preoccupied (and still preoccupy) at any one time scores of researchers in academic institutions around the world. Much of the value attached to the concept may be attributable to the success of companies that promoted new technologies in recent years, for example Apple and Google. The discussion here takes a less forgiving view of the topic. It is suggested that the mainstream study of creativity – within psychology and, more recently, management – is so fragmented as to make discussion of creativity almost meaningless. More fundamentally, it presents the view that we may have to accept the possibility that creativity does not exist and argues that our energies would be better spent on seeking to understand why we require the concept. Although a review of all the generic research on creativity is evidently not possible here, many of the sources cited in this chapter permit the reader to range more widely over the research literature in pursuit of forming their own views.
