Marc Stierand

Creativity and innovation in haute cuisine: towards a systemic model

The contribution of this study is an increased understanding of personal creativity and the innovation process in haute cuisine, a validation of the socio‐cultural systems view of creativity and a model that accounts for the socio‐cultural dimensions of haute cuisine. In this paper we discuss existing views that conceptualize creativity and innovation in this sector as a sequential developmental process following the principles of operations management. However, based on in‐depth interviews with world‐renowned chefs, we argue for a systemic rather than sequential developmental process view. The reason for this is that the chefs interviewed understand the ‘creativity part’ of the innovation process as an embodied experience often guided by intuition and the ‘innovation part’ as a process of social evaluation greatly dependent on the perception, knowledge and value judgement of the testers from the leading restaurant guides. The main implications of the findings go beyond the haute cuisine sector and open areas for future research on creativity and intuition more generally.

Reflecting on a phenomenological study of creativity and innovation in haute cuisine

Purpose – This paper aims to present and reflect on a phenomenological research process used to elucidate the nature of creativity and innovation in haute cuisine.Design/methodology/approach – In‐depth unstructured interviews and field notes capturing subjective experiences were employed to elucidate the experiences of 18 top chefs from the UK, Spain, France, Austria and Germany with regards to creativity and innovation.Findings – The findings are twofold: first, an empirical sample finding is presented in order to contextualize the type of findings obtained; second, key methodological findings are presented explaining the process of elucidating the nature of creativity and innovation through iterative learning from the descriptions of the interviewees and the subjective experiences gathered.Research limitations/implications – The underlying phenomenological study is limited to male haute cuisine chefs in five European countries. Future research is planned including female and male chefs from other countr...

The art of creating culinary innovations

The life worlds of innovating chefs are identified as important aspects towards a better understanding of culinary innovation. Hence, the concept of personal culinary innovation is proposed as a verifiable way to identify innovators in the field. Current studies, however, interchangeably use the term invention and innovation and fail to address central dimensions such as artistic aspiration, continuous and discontinuous conditions, learning and networking, adoption and diffusion as well as perceived newness and change. As a result, improving the dialogue between chefs and scholars is believed to be the key to better research in the field.

Developing creativity in practice: Explorations with world-renowned chefs

Relatively little practice-based research explores situated learning beyond the level of basic skill development. This article seeks to expand our understanding by focusing on the situated development of high-level creativity in the practice of haute cuisine and the role of the master–apprentice relationship in this development. Much has been written on what creativity is and where it happens, but little is known about how it is developed. By using an insider to investigate highly creative practitioners, namely, world-renowned chefs, this research provides the necessary contextual understanding for studying and explaining the development of high-level creativity in this field.

Reflecting on Hospitality Management Education through a Practice Lens.

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to reflect on hospitality management education from a “practice epistemology” and discuss how a connecting of savoir (theoretical knowledge or “knowing”), savoir-faire (knowing how to do tasks, i.e. task-related skills) and savoir-etre (knowing how to be, i.e. behavior) can develop into practical knowledge. Design/methodology/approach – The purpose of the paper is achieved through novel reading of the literature on practical knowledge and formativeness applied to a higher education context. Findings – The paper suggests that it is only through the creation of context that a sensation of practicing for students can be provided, which ultimately may lead to practical knowledge. Context must be actively created through situations that invite participation to explore the logic of practice. Therefore, savoir should be treated as “organizing knowing” and savoir-faire and savoir-etre as “practicing knowing” to do and to be, respectively. The terms savoir, savoir-faire and s...

The problem of addressing culture in workplace strategies

Purpose – This conceptual paper explores the problems associated with trying to address culture as one of the key aspects in effective workplace strategies.Design/methodology/approach – This paper critically addresses the relationship between workplace strategies and the behavioural components of locality. It reviews the role that the concept of culture has, so far, played in trying to predict these behavioural consequences as part of (literature discussing) efforts to design appropriate workplace strategies.Findings – The discussion reveals the need to further address this relation through dedicated research. What is more, it is argued that there is a clear need to focus explicitly on work patterns, and how these can be accounted for in workplace strategies, instead of continuing to focus on the concept of culture as a predictor for successfulness. It is argued that the latter does not allow for practical application, whereas the former could help us to better understand and predict the effectiveness of ...

Researching intuition in personal creativity

This chapter introduces Insider Explanatory Phenomenology (IEP) as viable approach to researching intuition in personal creativity. Drawing on a study elucidating experiences of personal creativity, the key contribution is to make explicit why IEP is particularly suitable for investigating context-dependent cognitive and nebulous phenomena such as intuition. IEP is distinct from such approaches like participant observation or ethnography more generally since it does not depend on cultivating personal relationships with research participants as a means of learning but rather starts from a relationship of shared inherited (occupational) background which allows the investigators to immediately enter in-depth expert-level discourse.