Quelles pratiques informationnelles pour soutenir la créativité organisationnelle?

This publication presents a comparison of the distinctive roles of innovative communities and virtual communities, in the perspective of organizational creativity. The main line of investigation concerns the informational mechanisms chosen respectively by innovative communities and virtual communities, in order to match the specific features of the environment of their activity. The research methodology is that of a case-study followed by a process of research/intervention. The case of a long-standing innovative community, widely acknowledged for several generations, is compared to the case of a virtual community which has been set up thanks to the advent of new technologies of fragrance transmission via the Internet. These examples highlight some aspects of creative exchanges, such as human sensorial knowledge, emotional environment, shared emotions, tacit communication etc