Individual Creativity during the Ideation Phase of Product Innovation: An Interactional Perspective

Disentangling the Link between Diverse Social Networks and Creativity: The Role of Personality Traits

Past studies have shown that being exposed to ethnocultural diversity can positively impact individual creativity. Yet, little is known about the interplay between situational (i.e., diversity) and dispositional (e.g., personality) factors in predicting creativity. Taking a person-situation approach, we use social network data to test the moderating role of personality in the relationship between having an ethnoculturally diverse network and creativity. Moreover, we investigate these questions in a diverse community sample of immigrants residing in the city of Barcelona (N = 122). Moderation analyses revealed that network diversity predicted higher levels of creativity in migrant individuals with medium to high levels of extraversion, and in those with low to medium levels of emotional stability. These results highlight the need to acknowledge the important role played by interacting individual-level dispositions and more objective meso-level contextual conditions in explaining one's ability to think creatively, especially in samples that have traditionally been underrepresented in previous literature.

Individual-Level Factors are Significantly More Predictive of Employee Innovativeness Than Job-Specific or Organization-Level Factors: Results From a Quantitative Study of Health Professionals

Individual innovativeness is particularly indispensable among health professionals. The healthcare environment is complex and its knowledge workers must continually adapt to change and be comfortable with ambiguity. The objective of this study was to determine the relative importance of individual, job-specific, and organizational factors on innovative output of health professionals. Employed Canadian Registered Dietitians (n = 237) completed an online survey incorporating relevant validated tools, including the 10-item Big Five Inventory and the Alberta Context Tool. Factors were classified by level and introduced in blocks to a multivariate linear regression model, with the outcome of self-reported innovative output. Factors included in the model explained 44% of variation in self-reported innovative output. Although all blocks contributed significantly to the model, minimal variation was explained by factors at the job-specific (4%) and organizational levels (4%). Factors at the individual level most predictive of innovative output were role innovation, the personality trait of conscientiousness and voluntary membership in a professional association. To encourage employee innovativeness, health administrators, and managers of health professionals should consider how best to incorporate screens for individual-level indicators of innovative output (eg, personality tests) in their institutional hiring and selection processes.

Contributions to Sustainability in SMEs: Human Resources, Sustainable Product Innovation Performance and the Mediating Role of Employee Creativity

The analysis of human resources and sustainable innovation through organizational variables is useful, albeit limited, for predicting complex interactions for sustainability development in small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs). This paper seeks to overcome this limitation, proposing three models with variables at two levels, namely, for the development of creativity (individual level) and sustainable product innovation performance (organizational level) and sustainability development. Theoretical models are tested using the Structural Equations Model. It is posited that knowledge, motivation, and relationships (individual level) may be predictors of creativity. In addition, creativity is analyzed as a mediator between human resources and sustainable product innovation performance. In this way, it is easier for SMEs to detect on which aspects of HR they should place greater emphasis for sustainable product innovation performance (PIP), with the purpose of reducing the ones associated with the Covid-19 crisis and obtaining a sustainable world. Information was obtained through an online questionnaire involving a sample of 245 certified innovative Spanish SMEs. The results support major findings: (a) knowledge, (b) motivation, and (c) relationships have a positive impact on creativity; (d) the three models hold that creativity fully mediates human resources and sustainable product innovation performance. The paper contributes to the literature on the human resources and sustainable product innovation performance by adopting a multidisciplinary approach, as well as by analyzing variables on two levels, measuring the most internal aspects of employees (wishes, emotions, ideas, or feelings), and explaining the mediating role of employee creativity.

Exploring Creative Entrepreneurs' IEO: Extraversion, Neuroticism and Creativity

In creative industries, entrepreneurs’ creativity is the source of entrepreneurial activities. Meanwhile, the key to the success of entrepreneurship lies in the strategic tendency of leaders, referred to the individual entrepreneurial orientation (IEO). This paper is aimed to explain the process from creativity to IEO and reveal the psychological process of entrepreneurs’ creativity. We proposed an integrated model of “individuality–creativity–IEO” by drawing on the theories of big five personality and entrepreneurship. Using a sample of 202 creative entrepreneurs from China, the research found that entrepreneurs’ creativity has a positive impact on IEO, and the individuality of neuroticism and extraversion exhibited a negative U-shaped relationship with creativity. Finally, implications for both theory and practice were presented.

INDIVIDUAL INNOVATIVE WORK BEHAVIOUR: EFFECTS OF PERSONALITY, TEAM LEADERSHIP AND CLIMATE IN THE US CONTEXT

This paper is the first to empirically investigate the connections between the Big Five personality factors, ambidextrous team leadership, organisational climate of US workers that supports innovation, and individual innovative work behaviour. A self-report survey was used to obtain data from 215 team members in US-based corporations. We provide an empirically tested model of the positive influence of Openness to Experiences, Extraversion and Conscientiousness personality traits on individual innovative work behaviour. Results also confirm that supervisors’ leadership behaviours and a supportive organisational climate of innovation have a moderating influence on this set of relationships. Individuals can develop their individual innovative work behaviour. Supervisors can adopt higher levels of opening behaviours and executives can create a climate supportive of innovation to boost individual innovative work behaviour. This study further demonstrates that Big Five personality traits interact with supervisor behaviours and a supportive climate to foster individual innovative work behaviour.

Linking Personality Trait Variance in Self-Managed Teams to Team Innovation

Researchers have suggested that some personality traits are associated with better team functioning when team members are homogeneous, whereas other personality traits improve team functioning when team members are heterogeneous. This article extends these ideas to team innovation and examines (a) how team variance in extraversion, agreeableness, openness, and conscientiousness relates to innovation in teams; and (b) how these relationships dynamically evolve over time. Our study included 704 surveys completed by 243 team members in 32 teams, at three time points. Results revealed that teams with less variance in extraversion showed higher levels of team innovation. For agreeableness and openness, we did not find main effects of team heterogeneity on team innovation. For teams with low heterogeneity in agreeableness, however, team innovation decreased over time. Team variance in conscientiousness was negatively associated with team innovation. Our findings provide support that team personality plays a role for innovation.

WHAT EMPLOYEES REALLY WANT: DEMANDS FOR INDIVIDUAL IDEA DEVELOPMENT

Present research on the front-end of innovation mainly examines factors or resources influencing an employee’s creativity, measured by outcomes such as the generated ideas. From the point of articulation, the ideas are more or less easy to handle as they enter a company’s sphere of influence. However, ideas that are held back by employees are not so easy to grasp, although they could provide a large pool of ideas to gain benefits from. This qualitative-empirical study points at demands of employees that have to be met to create an environment, which supports the development of ideas. Employees have great demands during information gathering and idea evaluation. Furthermore, the moment, when employees enter ideas into the idea management system, they are very sensitive to obstacles and feedback.