Technovation 24 (2004) 697–705 www.elsevier.com/locate/technovation Knowledge creation and idea generation: a critical quality perspective R. McAdam * School of Management, University of Ulster, Jordanstown Campus, Shore Road, Newtownabbey, Co. Antrim BT37 0QB, UK Abstract Organisations, from all sectors, are facing a continual need to develop sustainable creativity and innovation as a result of increas- ingly rapid market, technology and people-based change. The aim of this paper is to briefly critique both knowledge creation (KC) and idea generation as key elements of creativity and innovation. The resultant objectives include the possible use of critically reflexive total quality management constructs as key enablers in this area. Furthermore, the determination of research directions and the enhancement of organisational approaches to creativity and innovation in the area of KC and idea generation. The concepts of distributed cognition and social constructionism are used to develop a taxonomy of KC that draws from different sources and philosophies. Critical total quality management (TQM) constructs and methods are used to illustrate how these forms of KC can be achieved in practice. It is contended that the idea generation literature and practice must address the underlying sources of KC before methods and techniques are devised.  2003 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved. Keywords: Knowledge creation; Idea generation; Quality; Critical perspective 1. Introduction The continual increase in the rate of environmental change, places demands on organisations for continual knowledge based creativity and innovation management: “the organisation that wishes to cope dynamically with the changing environment needs to be one that creates information and knowledge” (Gore and Gore, 1999). The pivotal role of creativity in organisations has been widely recognised by the academic community (Titus, 2000). Creativity is associated with that part of the inno- vation process which is labelled as ‘idea generation’ (Majaro, 1988). This approach is consistent with the definition of Heap (1989), who defined creativity as: “the synthesis of new ideas and concepts…where innovation is the implementation of creativity”. Also Titus (2000) has defined creativity as “the birth of imaginative new ideas”. However, the literature in this area reveals two separ- ate strands, namely idea generation and knowledge cre- ation (KC) literature. There is a lack of clarity in the * Tel.: +44-28-90-368146. E-mail address: r.mcadam@ulster.ac.uk (R. McAdam). 0166-4972/$ - see front matter  2003 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved. doi:10.1016/S0166-4972(02)00169-4 literature showing how KC and idea generation is linked in the overall process of creativity in organisations. In practice organisational language is mainly restricted to that of idea generation, while being relatively unaware of the underlying theme of KC. Even in the emerging field of knowledge management the equivalent issue of ‘knowledge construction’ is vague and ill-defined (Demerest, 1997). Some of the key issues in these litera- tures have a ‘resonance’ with the field of critical total quality management (TQM), especially relating to people and teamwork development. Can critical TQM developments be used to develop a more integrative approach to KC and idea generation, and hence towards organisational creativity as part of the process of inno- vation? The aim of this paper is to briefly critique both the KC and idea generation literatures as key elements of creativity and the process of innovation. The resultant objectives include the possible use of critically reflexive TQM constructs as key enablers in this area. Further- more, the determination of research directions and the enhancement of organisational approaches to creativity and innovation in the area of KC and idea generation.