Organizational barriers of a knowledge-based organization in the aspect of sustainable creativity development

Размещено на http://www.allbest.ru

Organizational barriers of a knowledge-based organization in the aspect of sustainable creativity development

Martina Blaskova

Aneta Sokol, Irena Figurska

Турбулентність організаційного середовища суттєво впливає на функціонування креативних організацій, заснованих на знаннях. Зміни, які відбуваються в цих малодосліджених середовищах, часто непередбачувані, тому до них неможливо підготуватися. Реагуючи на ці зміни, організації повинні креативно використовувати свої знання. Таким чином, дослідження питання організаційних бар'єрів сталого розвитку креативності в організаціях, заснованих на знаннях є надзвичайно важливим. У роботі аналізуються та узагальнюються теоретичні підходи (щодо сутності організації, заснованої на знаннях, сталого розвитку креативності в організаціях та бар'єрів, які перешкоджають цьому розвитку), обробляються емпіричні дані, перевіряються гіпотези, а також надаються висновки та пропозиції для організацій заснованих на знаннях щодо мінімізації бар'єрів, що впливають на сталий розвиток креативності. В емпіричній частині використовуються: коефіцієнт кореляції Спірмена, критерій хі -квадрат, критерій Манна-Уїтні, критерій У. Вілкоксона та простий факторний аналіз. Результати дослідження показали суттєві відмінності в таких бар'єрах сталого розвитку креативності як: відсутність знань про бачення, цілі та плани організації, поганий фінансовий стан організації та страх презентувати власні ідеї. Використовуючи зазначені статистичні інструменти вдалося 28 первинно визначених бар'єрів розбити на шість різнорідних категорій - груп бар'єрів, що обмежують сталий розвиток креативності в організаціях, заснованих на знаннях. Результати дослідження дозволили визначити напрями вдосконалення, що сприятимуть більш ефективному розвитку організації. Стаття завершується рекомендаціями, які відповідають бар'єрам, які мають найбільший негативний вплив на сталий розвиток креативності.

Ключові слова: креативність, організація заснована на знаннях, стійкий розвиток креативності, організаційні бар'єри, менеджмент.

Abstract

organizational barrier turbulence

The turbulence of the organizations' environment significantly affects the functioning of creative knowledge-based organizations. Changes that occur in this broadly understood environment are often unpredictable, so it is impossible to prepare for them. Therefore organizations must creatively use their knowledge in their response to these changes. Bearing the above in mind, the issue of organizational barriers of sustainable creativity development in knowledge based organizations seemed to be worth the research effort. The paper analyses, synthesizes and compares the theory (regarding the essence of a knowledge-based organization, the sustainable development of creativity in organizations and the barriers that hinder this development), processes empirical data, verifies hypotheses, and provides conclusions and suggestions for knowledge based organizations (both those taking up and not taking creative activities) regarding the minimization of barriers affecting the sustainable development of creativity. The empirical analysis uses the Spearman correlation coefficient, Chi-square test, Mann- Whitney test, W Wilcoxon's test and simple rotation factor analysis. The results of the research showed significant differences in the following barriers of sustainable creativity development: lack of knowledge on the organization's vision, goals and plans, poor financial condition of the organization, and fear to present own ideas. Subsequently, with use of appropriate statistical apparatus, the 28 primarily defined barriers were turned out to into the six heterogeneous category - groups of the barriers limiting the sustainable development of creativity in knowledge-based organizations. The results of the study made it possible to identify areas the improvement of those may allow for more effective development of the organization in the scope presented in the paper.

The article ends with recommendations that respond to the barriers with the strongest negative impact on the sustainable creativity development.

Keywords; creativity, knowledge-based organization, sustainable creativity development, organizational barriers, management.

Introduction

In modern economy, characterized by permanent uncertainty and volatility of conditions under which organizations operate, which results in decreased security of business activity, market success may be achieved by those of them that base their competitiveness on knowledge and creativity.

Although the issues of creativity are still under-appreciated in science either, it should be noted that growing interest in this subject has been observed in recent years. This encourages and increases the amount of research carried out into development of new forms of organizations, including those using creativity as a resource (Wang & Cheng, 2010). Knowledge-based organizations that use creativity are particularly important for the sustainable development and competitiveness of regions and countries, as well as for proper functioning of the market mechanism. It can be noticed that the proper functioning of KBOs, and within them the proper and sustainable development of creativity, depends on the creation of safe and supportive organizational conditions, including the elimination of emerging barriers. However, there are few scientific studies on this subject in the literature.

Detailed identification of sustainable creativity development's determinants is an important aspe ct due to demonstrating differences between KBOs and other economic entities. Their distinctiveness results from the specifics of function, greater sensitivity to change, need for quicker adaptation to changes, or a different structure of goals and motives of action.

Therefore, the aim of the paper is analysis, definition and enrichment of the scientific area by distinguishing two currents and scientific contributions. The first one, cognitive in nature, is focused on analyzing the subject literature which allowed a critical analysis and shaped the research framework. It deals with notions related to the development of concepts concerning knowledge-based organizations, creativity and sustainable development of creativity, e.g., in terms of exploiting and sustaining creativity, and eliminating barriers limiting its development.

From the viewpoint of the second scientific contribution, the study focuses on research conducted using an original questionnaire created on the basis of the subject literature as well as own experiences and research in the area considered in this article (Sokot, 2015; Marques, 2016; Ulewicz & Blaskova, 2018; Figurska, 2019; Luu, 2019; Blaskova et al., 2019; Zhang et al., 2019). The research sought relationships between KBOs whether carrying out creative activities or not, and barriers to sustainable creativity development in order to determine whether there were any relationships between them. Thus, adequate research methods used allowed verification of the assumed hypotheses and the research objectives.

Theoretical background

Knowledge-based organization and its creativity

Although the concept of a knowledge-based organization has already appeared in the management literature for several decades and KBO itself has become an important subject of scientific research, there is no single universally accepted definition of the term. In practice this organization is often perceived through the perspective of the degree of its products or services' knowledge saturation. However, the specifics of a KBO go beyond its products to encompass its processes, purpose and perspective (Zack, 2003).

Knowledge-based organization is an intelligent complex adaptive system (Bennet, Bennet, 2003) that "acts effectively in the present and its capable to deal effectively with the challenges of the future" (Wiig, 2000). It realizes the importance of knowledge, and applies techniques and tools to make the best use of knowledge resources for future activities (Liebowitz & Beckman,1998; Peteva, 2020). KBO consistently creates new knowledge, disseminates it and embodies it in new technologies and products (Nonaka, 1991). It acts intelligently and successfully in its domain by learning and creating knowledge in a continuum way (Neagu, 2008). KBO learns from its own experience, research, observation of the environment as well as available sources of information and knowledge (Skrzypek, 2016) and cultivates its knowledge capital, supports fundamental knowledge capabilities and leverages knowledge in every aspect of its business operations and processes (Ceruti et al., 2019). Intangible resources are the most important source of value creation in KBO having the greatest impact on its market value and competitiveness (Mikuta, 2006; Leon, 2013).

Building a KBO requires taking specific actions arising in and based on the process of creating new knowledge. In particular, these relate to redefining the organization's mission, goal and strategy, implementing knowledge management processes that support strategic knowledge, market and customer segmentation taking into account the knowledge that can be acquired from them, viewing the costs of learning as an investment, assigning importance to HRM, strengthening the organization's mission through coordinated internal and external communication (Zack, 2003).

To succeed in the highly competitive, complex world, KBOs should creatively use their knowledge and the ability to transform it into new values. Creativity as a unique and rare resource is one of the most important sources of competitive advantages of KBOs and determines the degree of development of organizations, regions and countries. Such widely understood development could be applied with use of and based on the key principles of sustainability.

Based on the modified concept of Brzezinski (2009), creativity in KBOs can be divided into conceptual and operational. Conceptual creativity consists of tasks and processes that are completely new and have not occurred in the organization before, while operational creativity is achieved through experience in putting these phenomena and processes into practice. The result of conceptual creativity is new value, while the result of operational creativity is the complete innovation. When these two types of creativity occur together, they form a holistic model of the creative process in a KBO, enriching the organization with new knowledge (Sokol, 2015).

Taking into consideration the research context of the paper, the subject of discussion may be creative employees, creative teams as well as creative structures and sustainability of processes occurring in the organization. In the paper, the latter is the focus of attention. However, KBOs using creativity should be internally integrated in all aspects mentioned above, as this is the only way to reveal possibilities of generating value from possessed knowledge with the use of creativity, which are necessary in the articulation of any proposed offer by the entity.

Sustainable development and sustainable development of creativity

Sustainable development is key to organization's competitiveness, survival, growth and profitability, although sustainability emerges as a great challenge (Souto, 2022). It relates to the responsibility of all organizations to ensure that their operations use all forms of capital in a way that ensures resources for future generations are maintained (Robbins et al., 2009). It is just the social responsibility along with environmental protection and economic progress that are a core of the sustainable develop ment (Miar et al., 2022).

The complexity of sustainable development in the different contexts requires the integration of multiple perspectives independent from backgrounds (Schulz & Mnisri, 2020). It can be therefore stated the sustainable development needs creative solutions and impulses. In this view, the sustainable development is necessarily connected with the creativity. Vice-versa, the creativity must be currently linked to the sustainable development, i.e., the creativity is such complicated and insufficient source that it has to be precisely generated, motivated and inspired, and maintained for the organizational future action - it has to be sustainably developed. It means the new challenge arises for all scholars: sustainable creativity development.

Some of studies searched the impacts of organizational creativity on sustainable development in general organizations (Alsabah & Alshura, 2022; Marie et.al., 2022). In this view innovations and creativity are perceived as one of priorities of the program of EU socio-economic development (Hrysenko, 2022), and a positive association of the sustainable economic development and creativity with economic growth in G20 countries is also confirmed (Miar et al., 2022). In other studies, Blaskova et al. (2022) constructed the taxonomy of factors involved in decision-making to sustain creativity in higher education, Prasad and Rao (2022) used the sustainable development methodology to search the business process reengineering, strategic business units, and the leadership that plays a critical role in being innovative and creative, and Popescu (2021) related the sustainable development goals to creativity, intellectual capital and innovation, etc.

However, the topic of sustainable creativity development searched in the KBOs lacks in the literature. The authors can therefore undertake to define the mentioned term, while the following will be used: a systemic approach, logical succession of thinking, theoretical hypothesizing and an

interdisciplinary and multivariate approach in combining existing knowledge and generating new ones. With the above in mind, the sustainable creativity development is defined as: A deliberate, long-lasting and consistently applied system of processes, built conditions and precisely managed efforts for the harmonious development of creativity and creative potential of individuals, groups and an entire organization, drawing on the natural need to create new and unique ideas, solutions and effects, respecting the key principles of sustainability and mechanisms of permanent self-renewal and deep respect for current and future generations and the development of all humanity.

Because the relationship between the creativity and the sustainable development is based on social interaction (Schulz & Mnisri, 2020) and on the human effort to reveal new and useful solutions, beneficial for all creative individuals, the six key principles necessary for the implementation and embedding of the sustainable development of creativity may include:

The principle of intergenerational equity that implicate an equal treatment and long-lasting responsibility to following generations (Droz, 2021; Shaukat & Ming, 2022);

The principle of intra-generational equity that treats people in each and every generation fairly (Hundloe, 2021) and enables them to be intra-psychically satisfied and opened to new challenges (Julianto et al., 2022; Dinh et al., 2022);

The principle of corporate social responsibility (Strenitzerova et al., 2022) and approaching the Society 5.0 (Rosak-Szyrocka et al., 2022; Kum et al., 2022);

The principle of effectiveness that determines the need for applying efficiency, effectivity and cost decrease in processes, including the creative processes (Krynke & Klimecka-Tatar, 2022; Chaubey et al., 2022);

The principle of permanent progress and continuing cultivation that calls for mechanisms of/for the betterment in all actions (Blaskova et al., 2022; Yannan & Zhengyu, 2022);

The principle of synergetic and/or multiplicative action that enables and needs to perform activities via multilayer creative efforts that multiply common inputs, transformations, and outputs (Blaskova et al., 2019; Blaskova et al., 2022; Junxia & Ying, 2022).

All of the listed principles accentuate the people's creative essence, and only in a case of their mutual interconnectivity they could bring the expected contributions and positives.

Barriers of a KBO in the aspect of sustainable creativity development

Nowadays, achieving market success requires anticipating and creating the future, which is part of forward thinking (Amabile, 1997). Thus, organizations that create sustainably the knowledge and transform it into innovations, create the prospect of development.

The analysis and evaluation of the organization's activities that have integrated sustainable development is critical (Sroufe, 2017) whereas the area of creativity and its systematic maintenance is extremely sensitive and complicated. The creativity of a KBO in this respect is influenced by many internal factors, such as the climate and culture of the organization, including the creative leadership style (Koehorst et al., 2021). In fact, decision-making powers vested in managers shape changes in terms of human relations and influencing their creativity, organizational structure, procedures, etc.

Inadequate design of conditions favoring the sustainable development of creativity in KBOs leads to barriers that can be categorized in terms of (Sokot, 2015; Ekvall, 1996; Amabile, 1998; Mumford et al., 2002; Jung et al., 2008; West & Sacramento, 2008; Gumusluoglu & Ilsev, 2009; Mikulastik, 2010; Frankova, 2011; Holford, 2019):

Staff selection and teamwork - homogeneous teams, unconsidered structure of teams in terms of creativity and knowledge of their members, lack of diversity of the workforce in the organization, homogeneous, monotonous work,

Motivation and organizational climate - employees' reluctance towards new ideas, lack of initiatives to encourage new ideas, atmosphere of rivalry and competition, fear of sharing information, lack of promotion of creative attitudes, lack of employees participation in management, lack of a sense of unity with the organization, no link between the effects of creative activities and the motivational system, insufficient consideration of knowledge and creativity in the recruitment process, lack of training to enhance creativity,

Leadership - lack of creative behavior, fear of taking risks, lack of autonomy, excessive control, time pressure to develop new ideas, demanding immediate results, pressure to succeed at any cost,

Organizational systems and processes - lack of knowledge and information exchange systems, lack of systematic evaluation of employees' creative achievements, hierarchical, rigid structure and a high degree of formalization, developed bureaucracy.

The analysis of the above-mentioned barriers and the authors' own experiences resulting from the research problems they undertake allowed for the identification of 28 barriers involving behaviors, activities or states of a KBO in the aspect of sustainable creativity development. These ones could consist of: 1) knowledge is treated as a source of power and superiority over others, 2) lack of time for learning, knowledge sharing, etc., 3) information chaos occurs, nobody knows where the necessary information is and who possesses it, 4) employees have no knowledge of the organization's vision, goals, plans, 5) not enough trainings, 6) improper flow of information, 7) employees keep repeating the same mistakes, 8) interpersonal relations between employees are incorrect, 9) employees are reluctant to changes, 10) organization is in poor financial position, 11) modern ICT are used insufficiently, 12) superiors say one thing and do the other, 13) lack of involvement of superiors in the work, 14) lack of employee involvement in work, 15) there are no procedures for suggesting new ideas, concepts, 16) new ideas, concepts are ignored, 17) employees have no motivation to learn, share knowledge, etc., 18) the same activities are repeated unnecessarily (by different people, departments), 19) there is 'zero tolerance for mistakes' policy in organization, 20) employees are 'discovering America' over, and over again, 21) employees don't wish to share ideas and concepts between each other, 22) employee's departure from organization results in losing his/her knowledge, 23) lack of leadership, 24) too much bureaucracy, 25) the atmosphere at work is not conducive to a sense of security, 26) lack of employee motivation to perform the work, 27) lack of the superior motivation to perform the work, 28) employees are afraid to present their ideas. From this spectrum of barriers, it is primarily barriers 1, 3, 4, 5, 7, 13, 14, 15, 16, 17, 19, 21, 23, 25, 26, 27 and 28 that prevent the sustainable development not only of the creativity, but of the entire organization.

Research objective, methodology and data

To achieve overall and sustainable development, KBOs need to build the right, organizational conditions fostering the development and creative use of knowledge. Above all, they must eliminate barriers that may impede sustainable development. Therefore, the aim of the paper is to consider the cognitive, theoretical-methodological and empirical issues of sustainable creativity development in knowledge-based organizations and to determine the extent of influence of identified barriers on sustainable development of creativity. In order to achieve the intended aim, the research procedure presented in the Figure 1 was adopted.

The starting point for implementing the presented procedure was literature studies on KBO, creativity and barriers to creativity in the context of sustainable organizational development. The background for the research carried out for the purposes of this paper was the authors' previous research on knowledge management as well as creativity and its development in knowledge-based organizations (Sokol, 2015; Figurska, 2019; Figurska & Sokol, 2020; Sokol & Figurska, 2021). The concept of sustainable development is one of the original perspectives that enrich the theoretical contribution of this paper. In this view, it is necessary to ensure the preconditions for communication, development, creativity, and constant improvement and learning at all levels for the innovative organization to continuously create new values (Marie et.al., 2022).

Fig. 1. Individual sequences in the research process

Source: own elaboration

For the purposes of this article, qualitative studies in the field of KBOs were undertaken. The main objective of the research was to obtain the opinions of respondents regarding barriers limiting the sustainable development of creativity in KBOs using creativity in the core scope of their activities and those that do not use it to such extent, as well as finding an answer to a question what conditions should be created on the part of the organization to support and develop the creativity.

This part of the study was devoted to establishing a theoretical framework and gaining a broader understanding of the relationships between the components selected for the study. Based on this, research questions were formulated as follows:

What organizational barriers most significantly determine the sustainable creativity development in knowledge-based organizations?

Are there any differences in terms of barriers to sustainable creativity development in knowledge-based organizations that use creativity and those that do not?

Accordingly, the following hypotheses were put forward:

H1: The established range of organizational barriers determining the sustainable creativity development in knowledge-based organizations includes interrelated phenomena.

H2: There exist significant differences in organizational barriers of the sustainable creativity development between knowledge-based organizations using creativity in their business activities (KBOC) and those that did not (KBONC).

To answer research questions and verify the hypotheses established in the paper, a self-descriptive study on barriers affecting the sustainable development of creativity in KBOs, both those using and not using creativity in their core business was carried out.

The study used the original form of the questionnaire which was based on the authors' many years of experience in exploring the topic of knowledge management and creativity, completed on newly added perspective - sustainable development.

After defining the sampling frame, the research sample was drawn. The sample group was selected with the stratified non-proportional random selection method and consisted of people employed in KBOs. The sample was drawn from adults - continuously learned employees.

Respondents were informed about the purpose of the study and instructed how to complete the questionnaire online. The questionnaire contained 21 closed and semi-open questions, however this article analyses several questions contained in the questionnaire.

277 individuals were participated in the survey. The largest group of respondents were people aged up to 25 years (83.5% of the surveyed population). Female accounted for almost 57% of the participants. 54% of the respondents obtained secondary education whereas 46% of the respondents obtained higher education.

Empirical analysis was conducted according to the research sequence based on findings from the questionnaire responses. The first step of the analysis involved processing the data obtained. The results for the entire population surveyed were taken into account, and then for knowledge -based organizations using (KBOC) and not using (KBONC) creativity in their activities. This step was followed by verification of the hypotheses and comparison with the theoretical part of the paper. Then final conclusions and suggestions for KBOs regarding minimalization of barriers limiting the sustainable development of creativity in the studied entities were presented.

Statistical analysis of the data was performed using the IBM SPSS Statistics package. Frequency analysis and analysis of basic descriptive statistics were carried out with the use of: the Spearman correlation coefficient to measure the relationship between ordinal variables, Chi-square test to measure the strength of association between nominal and ordinal variables (p<0.05), Mann-Whitney test to compare individual groups of KBOs and Simple Oblimin rotation to extract 6 group-factors.

The verification procedure adopted in the paper was to examine relationships between observable phenomena or facts. The research was diagnostic and exploratory in nature and allowed presenting recommendations for KBOs indicating to what extent and in what areas they must consistently work to ensure safe conditions to foster the sustainable development of creativity to support efficiency of their own growth.

Results and discussion

Analysis of the survey results

The first research aspect was assessment of the relationship of 28 barriers limiting the sustainable development of creativity in knowledge-based organizations in general and in relation to KBOC and KBONC. Creative activities are understood as activities undertaken by an organization that are new, previously unknown to it, through which it enriches and sustains itself and its environment.

Assessment involving measurement of relationship between the indicated components mentioned in the previous paragraph showed that for KBOC undertaking creative activities, significant relationships were identified regarding the following barriers limiting these activities: insufficient training, new ideas, concepts are ignored, employees are not motivated to learn, share knowledge, etc., excessive bureaucracy prevails. For KBONC significant correlations were identified in the following barriers: employees are reluctant to make any changes, the organization is in a poor financial condition, new ideas, concepts are ignored again and again, employees do not want to share ideas and concepts among themselves, excessive bureaucracy prevails.

Tab. 1

Basic descriptive statistics of the analyzed qualitative variables - barriers

ME - median, SD - standard deviation, N - the number of the examined population

Source: own study

To compare the two independent groups (KBOC and KBONC) in terms of quantitative variables, the Mann-Whitney test was used (Table 2). Results of the study using this test showed statistically significant differences in the following responses: employees have no knowledge of the organization's vision, goals, plans etc. (p=0.021), the organization is in a poor financial condition (p=0.035), employees are afraid to present their ideas (p=0.029). Lower scores were given by those working in knowledge- based organizations where creativity was used in the core business. By this, the hypothesis H1 was approved.

Tab. 2

Mann-Whitney's test

Source: own study

Then, the analysis of the correlation matrix of variables was carried out and, subsequently, the authors proceeded to select the number of factors based on the Kaiser criterion, Cattell's landslide, half criterion and sufficient proportion. Then, the simple Oblimin rotation was used.

Results of the factor analysis are presented in Table 3 and Table 4. The factors turned out to be a heterogeneous category, as six factors rather than one overall factor were revealed. Thus, the first factor referred to as 'Superiors and conditions of cooperation with employees' was created by the following barriers: (12), (13), (14), (17), (25), (26), (27), (28). The second factor, named 'Knowledge in the organization' was created by barriers: (4), (5), (6), (16), (22). The third factor named ' Organizational constraints' was created by the following barriers: (8), (9), (10), (11), (24). The fourth factor referred to as ' Security climate' was created by the following barriers: (8), (20), (21), (25). The fifth factor named ' Relationships in the organization' was created by the following barriers: (2), (4), (7), (8). And the factor six referred to as 'Other' was created by the following barriers: (1), (15), (23).

As an innovative result of the study, the authors established a six-factor structure of barriers to sustainably develop the creativity in organizations. Some of the items collect data on barriers in the field of leadership and cooperation with employees, knowledge development, organizational conditions, organizational climate and relations which prevail in the organization. T he structure characterized in this is justified in the existing indications in the literature concerning organizational barriers limiting the sustainable development of creativity.

Tab. 3

Factor analysis results - variance explained by individual factors

Source: own study

Presented analysis of the results obtained indicates positive factor charges between the variables. The first component has the highest factor charges with the variables (26) and (27), while the second component - with variables (6) and (16) but these correlations are not very high. The third component has the strongest correlations with the variables (9) and (24), the fourth component - with the variables and (21), while the fifth one - with the variables (4) and (7). To compare, the last one shows no correlation with any variable.

Tab. 4

Results of exploratory i factor analysis using the simple Oblimin rotation

Note 'Minimum residual' extraction method was used in combination with a 'Oblimin' rotation.

Source: own study

The final research aspect was a comparison of factor values between KBOC and KBONC. To this end, descriptive statistics were initially recalculated (Table 5) taking into account the new factor scale and analyzed using the Mann-Whitney test (Table 6). In this part of the analysis, the aim was to identify statistically significant differences between the two groups of organizations studied.

Tab. 5

Descriptive statistics - comparison of factor values between groups

Source: own study

Tab. 6

Source: own study Mann-Whitney's test

Results of the Mann-Whitney test showed no statistically significant differences between KBOC and KBONC in terms of the factors obtained. Although the hypothesis H2 cannot be approved by these

statistics, the result is inspiring for further scientific investigation. It is possible that small differences in the existing barriers testify that these barriers affect both types of KBOs. At the same time, it may indicate that in both types of subjects there are basic and at the same time powerful barriers, preven ting the development of creativity to be anchored permanently and sustainably.

Discussion

There is no doubt that sustainability contributes to raising the organizational creativity level, and the sustainability orientation is integrated into organizational creativity without limiting it (Alsabah & Alshura, 2022; Marie et. al., 2022).

In order for creativity to sustainably develop in an organization and generate added value, it is necessary to remove barriers that limit it and to create favorable conditions for the sustainable development of creativity. Assessment of organizational effectiveness in terms of sustainable creativity development in KBOs is very difficult to perform, as it is a complex phenomenon. Research results enabled identification of six significant groups of barriers, however, the conducted analysis did not show statistically significant differences between KBOC and KBONC in terms of the obtained six groups of barriers threatening sustainable creativity development.

The results obtained for the first group of barriers 'Superiors and conditions of cooperation with employees' are already reflected in known researches, in fact, this broad category includes all activities carried out by managers that affect organizational creativity. It is p rimarily concerned with managers' direct responsibility and their behavior. Blaskova et al. (2021) emphasize importance of the role of management in generating value for organizations in effect of creative work and sustaining the creativity in organizations. For the climate of creativity at the level of management support, it is important that managers were role models for their subordinates, employees were given an autonomy in action and decision making, were provided with an adequate support and encourage d to engage in creative activities (Zhou & Shalley, 2008; De Jong & Den Hartog, 2010).

The second group of barriers are referred to 'Knowledge in the organization' and, more specifically, insecurities to the right atmosphere for learning and sustainable development, including knowledge sharing. These behaviors are conditioned by environmental factors and interpersonal relationships. This emphasizes the nature of knowledge and sustainable creativity flowing through social networks. For business, knowledge can be a source of competitive advantage, hence, managers often attempt to figure out how to motivate employees so that there is a free flow of knowledge within the organization. Research has shown that trust leads to increased knowledge sharing. And especially, there exists a spiral effect of motivation when connected with creativity and trust which is accented by the crucial principles of sustainability (responsibility, novelty, usefulness, progress, etc.) (Blaskova et al....