ABSTRACT
This chapter discusses the generative phase of innovation, analysing certain issues relating to inventors and creativity. It outlines various historical modes of organisation and regulation of the inventive process, with particular reference to the USA: the golden age of independent inventors in the phase of liberal capitalism; the birth of the great industrial research laboratories in the Fordist phase; and the development of social and territorial systems of innovation in the post-Fordist phase. It also presents the observations of social psychologists regarding individual and collective creativity. The chapter also deals primarily with the historical process of the professionalisation of inventive activity and the research carried out by psychologists on creativity. Creative individuals make use of the information and knowledge in a particular field, introducing new ideas through the use of cognitive processes, personality traits and motivations that derive from both their own talent and their personal background.
