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Unprecedented future disaster events will require emergency managers to be creative in their thinking. The backbone of creativity is divergent thinking; cognitive thoughts that do not converge on one correct answer but diverge to a range of possible options. Preliminary research with emergency services organisations, not-for-profit organisations and the critical infrastructure sector identified an increase in creative output when personnel are given a set of constraints, both resources and context, in which to ‘think divergently’. Consequently, future challenges for decision-makers in emergency and crisis management is identifying when creativity is required and how to use constraints to enhance creativity when organisational cultures demand compliance. This paper provides an overview of creativity in the context of decision-making and what this means for future leaders in the sector.

Item Type:	Refereed Article
Keywords:	emergency management, creativity, disasters
Research Division:	Human Society
Research Group:	Policy and administration
Research Field:	Public administration
Objective Division:	Expanding Knowledge
Objective Group:	Expanding knowledge
Objective Field:	Expanding knowledge in human society
UTAS Author:	Brooks, B (Associate Professor Benjamin Brooks)
UTAS Author:	Curnin, S (Dr Steven Curnin)
UTAS Author:	Owen, C (Dr Christine Owen)
ID Code:	135484
Year Published:	2019
Web of Science® Times Cited:	3
Deposited By:	Office of the School of Social Sciences
Deposited On:	2019-10-25
Last Modified:	2021-07-06
Downloads:	14 View Download Statistics