Inspiring Change in Public Universities: Examining the Intended Effects of a One‐Day Creativity Training Workshop for Administrative Staff

ABSTRACT Due to common stereotypes of bureaucratic work, administrative staff in the public sector, and in public universities in particular have often been perceived as uncreative. This is at odds with the strong societal push for public sector innovation, where creativity is considered both the origin and the means to achieve this goal. To address this stereotype, the current study drew on prior creativity training literature to develop a 1‐day training workshop aimed at improving the creative thinking of public university administrative staff. The training was tested for its limited efficacy using a sample of administrative staff from three public universities across Vietnam. Training outcomes of creative self‐efficacy ( N = 75) and divergent thinking ( N = 73) were collected immediately before and after the workshop on the same training day. Bootstrapped mixed‐ANOVA and t ‐tests showed limited effects on divergent thinking, as participants generated more ideas; however, this effect was only significant for easier task, with no change observed for the creative value of ideas. The results for creative self‐efficacy show great promise, with significant improvement observed across all training locations. These findings contribute to the limited literature on creativity development among public servants and university administrative staff by providing preliminary evidence of the feasibility and value of a brief, evidence‐based creativity intervention. Furthermore, the results suggest that short, low‐cost creativity training workshops can be a viable tool for university leaders to promote administrative staff's confidence in their creative capabilities to support innovation agendas and broader institutional goals.