Page - 27 - in Digital Entrepreneurship - Impact on Business and Society

2.2 The Importance of Creativity forDigital Entrepreneurship Creativity brings numerous benefits to entrepreneurs and their teams. One of the major benefits of creativity is to stimulate entrepreneurial behaviour, and in par- ticular, innovativeness, proactiveness and risk-taking (Kuratko andMorris 2018). Therefore, it isworthwhile toexplore theeffectsofdigital technologiesoncreativity in an entrepreneurial context. There are many attributes that fall under entrepre- neurial behaviour, but perhapsoneof themost important ones is theneed andwant for change, or in otherwords, innovation. Innovation is an inevitable aspect of the businessworld, aswithout it therewouldbenoprogress.Creativity and innovation are two terms that gohand inhand fromanentrepreneurial perspective. Judgingby the creativity types explained above, youmayfind that creativity is not just a state of mind but also the work, training and the will to create something of worth for yourself and others. Entrepreneurs are drivers of change and are persistent in per- fecting the techniques and skills in their given field. ‘Acomposermust use the piano to test a song he is creating, but, if he does not know the piano execution techniqueswell, hismindwill be absorbed by choice of the correct notes, and it will distract him from his composition’ (Kamel et al. 2017, p. 5). In thinking about the above quote, wemay gather that entrepreneurs work on perfecting their techniques to pave theway for new ideas theywant to implement. A good example of an entrepreneur taking their knowledge of the industry and creatinganew,digitally creativebusiness idea isChineseentrepreneur JennyZhiya Qian, who co-founded Luckin Coffee in October 2017. Knowing the Chinese market and their habits, the company stepped away from traditional coffee shop tactics andhasopted for selling theirproducts throughadelivery service rather than at a brick-and-mortar location. Through creative digital innovation, LuckinCoffee has become one of the fastest-growing start-ups, with the average total items sold that increased 470.1% from 7.8million in the third quarter of 2018 to 44.2million during the recent quarter. Revenuewas strong,with total net revenue of$215.7millionUSD(Cardwell2020).Without creativity, thereareno innovative solutions/ideas. Creativity, in its most basic form, is about idea generation, inno- vation and the implementation of ideas (Gilson and Litchfield 2017). Digital technologies play a crucial role in facilitating meaningful, collaborative activity. Such collaborative activity refers to any project that involves building something together through a process of co-creation. The need for creativity and the use of digital technologies may be more valuable in digital entrepreneurship compared with traditional business since it is driven by ideas and innovations. Digital busi- nesses require adegreeof individual andcollectivecreativity tobeable to standout and develop an online/digital presence. As this chapter indicates, creativity and digitalisation are important as companies must innovate faster than ever to keep pace and stay alive in today’s hypercompetitivemarket. This is perhaps evenmore important in a digital business than a traditional one due to (1) the increasingly growing number of digital businesses, (2) the increase in innovation in the Internet 28 R. D. Hisrich andM. Soltanifar