Social Representations of Employee Creativity in Workplace: Are Myths Still Alive?

Creative people are acknowledged as the main economic growth enhancing force. The success of talent management as well as organizational growth and competitiveness heavily relies on managers understanding of creativity and its growing importance within organizations. This research aims to highlight the social representations and attitudes towards employee creativity within workplace. The paper aims to determine whether the dominant social perceptions about creativity in Latvia coincide with scientific theories by testing the presence of nine widespread creativity myths. The sample of this research (n = 124) consists of managers or human resources managers and specialists. The structured questionnaire measures social representations in six domains: creativity definition; creativity in organizations; characteristics of creative personality; behavior, communication and thinking patterns of a creative person; motivation of creative person. The results of research indicate that Latvian human resources managers and specialists’ social representations are grounded on academic theories, however only partly—some of the myths are still present. Social representations of three dimensions of creativity (definitions, creative personality) are not in line with major theoretical assumptions. Practices relating creativity within organizations are almost aligned with latest theoretical developments.