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In an era of "knowledge society ", dynamic organizations faced with four. major universal problems; namely, worldwide competition, ever-increasing technological advances, obliteration of boundaries in trade and vast changes in the value systems, have come to rely on creativity and innovation as the only vehicle for survival and development.
With this contention and vision, in this paper, following a definition of creativity and innovation, the distinction between
creative and noncreative ideas has been considered.
It is argued that in an effort to promote creativity in dynamic
organizations, facilitating as well as restraining forces should be
clearly. identified. ¬
Based on the assumption that the restraining forces include internal (personal) and external factors which impede creativity, a discussion of the major internal and external factors have been
presented.
In terms of the internal facilitating factors, a number of
characterisitics have been described. With regard to promoting creative ideas, attention has been directed towards the


characteristics of a creative climate.
In the final section of the paper, a number of methods and
techniques for generating Creative ideas; including, brainstorming, brainwriting, synectics, and nominal groups have been discussed.