Creative Behaviour in a Highly Immersive Virtual Environment

Abstract

Digital technology developments are creating new markets, disrupting existing business models and lowering entrance barriers for new competitors. This evolution calls for innovation strategies and change management as an organisation-wide practice, exceeding the research and development department. One of the essential skills for innovation is creativity, inherent to human beings and unlikely to be threatened by automation. This thesis investigates whether creativity can be stimulated with the help of information technology. Research on Virtual Reality (VR) has shown behavioural changes when individuals are exposed to virtual contexts and representation of themselves, leading to the question whether this also holds for creative behaviour. Creative behaviour is measured by self-reported levels of flow, in a sample of 50 subjects of an experiment in which a creative task is executed in VR. To bridge the gap between creativity theory stemming from real world environments and the observation of creative behaviour in VR, the phenomenon of presence is included as a measure. A VR application was selected based on creativity stimulating context criteria stemming from the available literature. The study shows that on average, people demonstrate moderate levels of flow, which mostly correlates with a general level of presence, spatial presence, and involvement. Levels of perceived realism do not affect flow states. The findings indicate that companies may stimulate the creative capabilities of their workforce by adopting Virtual Reality technology.