Evoq© Software: A Springboard to Creativity

This article focuses on two levels of creativity. The first level is the one inherent to natural language, the second one the organizational creativity. The purpose of the content analysis software we developed (Evoq©) is to highlight natural creativity of language in use (first level of creativity). By focusing on the links (associations and disjunctions) between terms in discourses, Evoq© uses “plurivocity” of contextual meaning as a source of creativity (first level). This cannot be done by classical language analysis methods which center on linear causality. The software is therefore an interesting tool for researchers who conduct organizational analysis. In fact it enables them to enhance the second level of creativity, i.e. organizational creativity, thanks to the concepts and visualization offered by the tool. As illustrated by two empirical examples, Evoq© enables the researcher or consultant who focuses on discourses in one or many organizations to detect the terms of references and presuppositions in speech, the semantic universe in which speakers are embedded. And this is the first step in a process of creativity in organizations. By highlighting assumptions, contradictions, paradoxes in organizations it is then feasible to create alternatives in these settings.