Creativity and its factors: problems of conceptualization in research

This work is one of the few modern background research on creativity of professionals in Russian literature. The article provides a critical analysis of existing concepts of creativity and influence of various factors on its implementation.Firstly, apropos of the question of domain generality-specificity of creativity, it is concluded that social aspects of creativity may be considered without regard to specific sphere of action. Social factors stimulating creativity, for example, of engineers is supposed will be positively related to creativity of financial analysts. And if an actor is creative in some area of his competence, he will be creative in another one. High level of competence is a necessary quality for creative actions.Secondly, although definition of creativity given by T. Amabile is the most common, it may be too rigorous in research and limit number of relevant examples of creativity. In this case the approach proposed by R. Drazin, et al. may be useful. According to Drazin, creativity is a choice made by an individual to engage in producing novel ideas.Thirdly, probably factors of creativity have been discussed. Summarizing, one can say, that two key conditions for successful creative activity are possibility and desirability of creativity within the framework of existing labour practices.Finally, in the paper it discusses applicability to Russian professionals of results derived from the survey of respondents from Western culture. Finally, it concludes the need of further research in the field of professionals’ creativity in the domestic empirical material.