‘Hit Them Where They Ain’t’

Creative imitation 1 is clearly a contradiction in terms. What is creative must surely be original. And if there is one thing imitation is not, it is ‘original’. Yet the term fi ts. It describes a strategy that is ‘imitation’ in its substance. What the entrepreneur does is something somebody else has already done. But it is ‘creative’ because the entrepreneur applying the strategy of ‘creative imitation’ understands what the innovation represents better than the people who made it and who innovated.