Dynamic Innovation

Innovation is a turbulent process that requires different creative thinking styles to succeed. Discover your own creative thinking profile to learn about the type of innovation projects you excel at most.

Prof. Johnathan R. Cromwell

Johnathan R. Cromwell is an Assistant Professor in the department of Entrepreneurship, Innovation, Strategy, and International Business at the University of San Francisco. His research focuses on creative problem solving in organizations, particularly how individuals and groups tackle vague, open-ended, and ambiguous problems. Through this research, he is developing a new theoretical framework called "dynamic innovation" that explains why, when, and how people dynamically iterate between different creative thinking styles as they respond to changing environmental conditions in organizations. This work has been recognized by the Academy of Management with the 2018 OB Division Best Paper Award and featured in outlets like MIT Sloan Management Review. He earned an S.B. in Chemical-Biological Engineering from MIT and a Doctorate in Management from Harvard Business School.

Supporting Research

• Cromwell, J. & Kotelly B. (2021). A framework for innovation in the COVID-19 era and beyond. MIT Sloan Management Review.

• Cohen, A. K. & Cromwell, J. R. (2020). How to respond to the COVID-19 pandemic with more creativity and innovation. Population Health Management. doi: 10.1089/pop.2020.0119. (Most downloaded article from Population Health Management in 2020.)

• Cromwell, J. R., Amabile, T. M., & Harvey, J.-F. (2018). An integrated model of dynamic problem solving within organizational constraints. In R. Reiter-Palmon, V. Kennel & J. C. Kaufman (Eds.), Individual creativity in the workplace(pp. 53–81). New York: Academic Press.

• Cromwell, J. R. (2018). Further unpacking creativity with a problem-space theory of creativity and constraint. Paper presented at the annual meeting of the Academy of Management, Chicago, IL. (Selected as "Best Paper" from more than 1,000 submissions to the OB Division.)