CREATIVITY AND INNOVATION: KEY TO SUCCESSFUL

BUSINESS ENTREPRENEURSHIP IN NIGERIA

ABSTRACT

Creativity is the act of turning new and imaginative ideas into reality. Creativity is characterized

by the ability to perceive the world in new ways, to find hidden patterns, to make connections

between seemingly unrelated phenomena, and to generate solutions. Creativity involves two

processes: thinking, then producing. Innovation is coming up with an original knowledge, idea

or introducing a new concept to change the old concept or upgrading an existing product and

reintroducing it to the market. Innovation is the implementation of a new or significantly

improved product, service or process that creates value for business, government or society.

Entrepreneurship is a tool for a sustainable, virile and stable economy. Creativity and

innovation are vital in any entrepreneurship to achieve sustainable advancement of any nation.

Therefore, creativity and innovation assists entrepreneurship perform the following functions

among others: creates employment, which lead to technological advancement, and creates more

jobs per unit of invested capital and per unit employment. The success of every entrepreneur

depends on his or her creative ability and the zeal and willingness to transform the creativity

into innovative skills. Recommendations: Nigerian youths should not wait for the government to

provide white-collar jobs for them; rather, they should source for funds through the available

means (e.g., micro finance credit) to start their own businesses, the government should also

provide necessary infrastructural facilities like good roads, pipe borne water, and as well ensure

regular electricity supply as an economy run on lanterns and generators cannot break even in

this modern age of high technology

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INTRODUCTION

It is the desire of every nation to have a level of sustainable economic development. This

could be possible through embarking on entrepreneurial activities by the citizens of that nation.

This is because the government alone cannot be the main driver of the economy. However, the

success of a nation’s entrepreneurship very much depends on the level of creativity and

innovation of her entrepreneurs. Creativity is the act of turning new and imaginative ideas into

reality. Creativity is characterized by the ability to perceive the world in new ways, to find

hidden patterns, to make connections between seemingly unrelated phenomena, and to generate

solutions. Creativity involves two processes: thinking, then producing. If you have ideas, but

don’t act on them, you are imaginative but not creative. This is what is wrong with our

educational system; we are imaginative but not creative. It is full of imagination than creativity.

A creative person can be considered as an investor and an investor a creative person. Both are

trailblazers who must have come up with new products, ideas, designs, or perceive the world in

new ways leading to new or better-quality products or solution to problems, (Bulama, 2015).

Innovation can be viewed as the application of better solutions that meet new

requirements, in articulated needs, or existing market needs. This is accomplished through more

effective products, processes, services, technologies, or ideas that are readily available to

markets, governments and society. The term innovation can be defined as something original and

more effective, a novel device is often described as an innovation, in economics, management

science, and other fields of practice and analysis. Innovation is generally considered to be a

process that brings together various novel ideas in a way that they have an impact on society.

Entrepreneurship on the other hand refers to the urge and confidence which drive

individuals to create enterprises and dominate the market mainly to make profit. This urge or

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desire to establish enterprise for profit making leads to creative thinking, innovation and ideas in

production, marketing and job creation, (Adidu, F.A. & Olannye, S. 2009)

CONCEPT OF CREATIVITY

Creativity is the act of turning new imaginative ideas into reality. Creativity is

characterized by ability to perceive the world in new ways, to find hiding patterns, to make

connections between seemingly unrelated phenomena and to generate solution. Creativity

involves the process of thinking and producing. If you have ideas but don’t act on them, you are

imaginative but not creative, (Aham, 2009). Creativity is a phenomenon whereby something

new and somehow valuable is formed. The created item may be intangible, such as an idea, a

scientific theory, a musical composition or a joke. It can also be an original physical object, such

as an invention, a literary work or a painting. Scholarly interest in creativity involves many

definitions and concepts pertaining to a number of disciplines: psychology, cognitive science,

education, philosophy (particularly philosophy of science), technology, theology, sociology,

linguistics, business studies, song writing, and economics, covering the relations between

creativity and general intelligence, mental and neurological processes, personality type and

creative ability, creativity and mental health; the potential for fostering creativity through

education and training, especially as augmented by technology; and the application of creative

resources to improve the effectiveness of teaching and learning. According to Ogbe (2012),

creativity includes such concepts as intelligence, awareness, humour, originality, persistence,

fluency and nonconformity. Spore (2014), described creativity as whatever a person or group of

persons does as a result of conscious cognitive processes that leads to new products whether or

not in response to market demands, for instance new drugs to cure diseases, management styles

or innovation that change an industry for improved production.

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CONCEPT OF INNOVATION

Innovation is coming up with an original knowledge, idea or introducing a new concept

to change the old concept or upgrading an existing product and reintroducing it to the market.

Innovation is the implementation of a new or significantly improved product, service or process

that creates value for business, government or society. Creativity is a crucial part of the

innovation equation. There is no innovation without creativity. The key metric in both creativity

and innovation is value creation. Nwafor, (2010), sees innovation as a general change that is

deliberate and coloured more by the objectives than by its causes and must never be regarded as

a simple adjustment. Duncan, (2012), pointed out that innovation has four main key components,

creativity, strategy, implementation and profitability. The above assertion clearly reveals the

relationship between creativity, innovation and entrepreneurship. Brooks (2013), described

innovation as a process by which enterprise is conceived, developed, codified and deployed on a

large scale. Innovation is the major source of growth in industrial societies today. Thus

innovation is seen as the creation of socio-technical systems which become the source of

economic growth.

Innovation is a new idea, more effective device or process. Innovation can be viewed as the

application of better solutions that meet new requirements, in articulated needs, or existing

market needs. This is accomplished through more effective products, processes, services,

technologies, or ideas that are readily available to markets, governments and society. The term

innovation can be defined as something original and more effective and, as a consequence, new,

that "breaks into" the market or society. While a novel device is often described as an innovation,

in economics, management science, and other fields of practice and analysis innovation is

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generally considered to be a process that brings together various novel ideas in a way that they

have an impact on society.

CONCEPT OF ENTREPRENEURSHIP

Entrepreneur originated from a French word “Enreprendre” meaning individuals who

undertake risks of new enterprises. Entrepreneurship is the process of starting a business,

typically a starting up company, medium scale business ownership or small scale/sole

proprietorship, offering an innovative product, process or service. The entrepreneur perceives an

opportunity and often exhibits biases in taking the decision to exploit the opportunity. The

exploitation of entrepreneurial opportunities includes design actions to develop a business plan,

acquire the human, financial and other required resources, and to be responsible for its success or

failure. Entrepreneurship may operate within an entrepreneurship ecosystem which includes

government programs and services that support entrepreneurs, entrepreneurship resources (e.g.,

business incubators and seed accelerators), entrepreneurship education and training and financing

(e.g., loans, venture capital financing, and rants). In today’s world, anybody, industry or business

leader with innovative and creative business abilities is described as an entrepreneur or someone

who engages in entrepreneurship (Okala, 2008).

In recent years, entrepreneurship has been extended from its original conception of profit

making venture or businesses to include social entrepreneurship and the concept of the political

entrepreneur. Entrepreneurship within an existing firm or large organization has been referred to

as intrapreneurship and may include corporate ventures where large entities spin off subsidiary

organizations. Entrepreneurs are leaders willing to take risk and exercise initiative, taking

advantage of market opportunities by planning, organizing, and employing resources, often by

innovating new or improving existing products. More recently, the term entrepreneurship has

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been extended to include a specific mindset resulting in entrepreneurial initiatives, e.g. in the

form of social political entrepreneurship, or knowledge entrepreneurship. Emeraton (2008)

described entrepreneurship education as that which deals with those attitudes and skills that are

necessary for the individual to respond to is environment in the process of conserving, starting

and managing a business enterprise. Aliyu (2010) defined entrepreneurship as the process of

creating something new with value by devoting the necessary time and effort assuming the

accompanying financial, psychic and social risk and receiving the resulting rewards of monetary

and personal satisfaction and independence. From the foregoing it could be deduced that

entrepreneurship is all about; • Identification of business opportunities.

• Creativity and innovativeness

• Bearing risk to utilize opportunities or implement new plan/s.

• Wealth creation.

Being creative or innovative does not mean inventing; innovation can mean changing your

business model and adapting to changes in your environment to deliver better products or

services. Successful innovation should be an in-built part of business strategy, where you create a

culture of innovation and lead the way in innovative thinking and creative problem solving.

Businesses that innovate create more efficient work processes and have better productivity and

performance.

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CREATIVITY AND INNOVATION AS KEY TO SUCCESSFUL BUSINESS

ENTREPRENEURSHIP IN NIGERIA

Entrepreneurship constitutes a vital engine for economic, social, practical and all round

development of any country. Entrepreneurship has been identified by many both globally and

nationally as a tool for a sustainable, virile and stable economy. This is why successive

governments in Nigeria attempted to strengthen relevant agencies in order to achieve this

position. The government of today perhaps looks more serious than ever in sustaining agriculture

and encouraging creativity and innovations by creating enabling environment for small and

medium scale entrepreneurs using locally sourced raw materials to survive. Buttressing this fact,

Akpomi (2009) opined that no country can as a matter of truth; move forward technologically,

industrially and economically without developing strong private partner initiative in the creation

of wealth, poverty reduction and employment generation, with required creativity and innovative

skills. These skills include managerial, comparative, communication, technical, human and

special skills to cope with the challenges of the future.

Since creativity and innovation are vital in any entrepreneurship to achieve sustainable

advancement of any nation, therefore creativity, innovation assists entrepreneurship performs the

following functions thus:

• Creates employment. The Nigeria’s teeming population plagued with unemployment can

drastically be reduced through creativity, innovation and entrepreneurial explosion.

Research has shown that 70% of the entire work force is employed by entrepreneurial

ventures

• Leads to technological advancement

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• Creates more jobs per unit of invested capital and per unit of energy consumed •

Mobilizes resources that ordinarily would have remained idle in the hands of people and

employ them productively and by doing so, capital formulation is encouraged

• Strengthens locally produced product for perfect competition

• Links up the various sectors of the economy and constitute the market for agricultural

extractive and industrial output as well as providing source of material and labour input

for big industries.

• Builds skills such as managerial, human, technical, conceptual skills in the individuals by

teaching and allowing them to start businesses with little or no money for themselves

• Reduces poverty and idleness.

• Attracts Foreign Direct Investment (FDI). Investors will flood the economy, which will

• move the nation towards industrialization

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CONCLUSION

The success of every entrepreneur depends on his or her creative ability and the zeal and

willingness to transform the creativity into innovative skills. Creativity without innovation is

imaginative and innovation without being enterprising leads to poverty. Therefore for Nigerian

entrepreneurs to succeed creative abilities and innovative skills are necessary.

RECOMMENDATION

Based on the discussions of the study, the following recommendations are given:

1. To check the excessive crimes/societal vices in our country, government should as a

matter of urgency, encourage creativity and innovation, mobilize competent entrepreneurship

personnel to move round schools and communities using both formal and informal approaches to

train and retrain youths and adults, literates and illiterates, employed and unemployed to be

creative, innovative, ingenuous in risks taking and business advancement.

2. The success of every programme is adequate supply of funds. For sustainable

entrepreneurship development to be achieved in Nigeria, the governments (Federal and States)

should release enough funds and materials to both the trainers and trainees to enable them to

apply and utilize all the relevant, creative and innovative skills and knowledge needed for

effective performance.

3 Government should provide interest free loans to the creative and innovative youths to enable

them to start up small businesses of their own.

4. Financial projects/assistance from governments should be monitored and evaluated by

economic reform implementers to ensure that such projects are actually carried out as approved.

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5. Nigerian youths should not wait for the government to provide white-collar jobs for

them; rather, they should source for funds through the available means (e.g., micro finance

credit) to start their own businesses.

6. The government should also provide necessary infrastructural facilities like good roads,

pipe borne water, and as well ensure regular electricity supply as an economy run on lanterns and

generators cannot break even in this modern age of high technology.

7. The governments should maintain adequate security, to ensure that there is no breakdown

of law and order at any time within the states which may in turn affect the spirit of creativity,

innovation and entrepreneurship.

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