Facilitating creative problem solving in the entrepreneurship curriculum through authentic learning activities

Creativity and innovation are essential to the success of businesses in the networked information society of the twenty-first century (Florida,2003; McWilliam, 2007; Wood et al., 2011). Our graduating students therefore need to be creative problem solvers and have the capacity to "persevere in the face of complexity and unresolvability'' (Mc William & Haukka, 2008, p. 660 ). The benefits of introducing creativity within the marketing curriculum have been wdely reported in the literature (see, for example, Titus, 2000 ).This chapter draws on the findings from the trial of such a creative problem-solving approach through authentic activities within a postgraduate course in entrepreneurship and innovation offered by the University of Adelaide in both Adelaide, South Australia, and Singapore. The authentic activities were designed to reflect the nature of the real-world entrepreneurial environment involving the development of new product ideas for a start-up business. Students were supported in the creative problem-solving aspects of these activities through the use of a CPS tool, Ingenium, which was developed through a national funded learning and teaching project supported by the Department of Education's Office for Learning and Teaching. 1 The example demonstrates an effective approach to embedding creativity within the entrepreneurship curriculum using an authentic learning approach.