How Innovation Consultants Perform “Liminality Work” in Helping Others to be Creative

Abstract – This paper develops a model of liminality work, through which innovation consultants help others to be creative by managing an in-between of freedom and structural constraints. Grounded in a qualitative study on innovation consultants’ work in a social innovation hub, we show that they engage in liminality work to combine playful experimentation with structural constraints, to facilitate a liminal experience among their clients. By carefully employing the dual practices of challenging and guiding, in response to clients’ cues, innovation consultants can help others be creative. Our model contributes to organizational literature on creativity and liminality by emphasizing the work practices of innovation consultants in creating a liminal experience for clients.