Great Minds Don't Think Alike? Person‐Level Predictors of Innovation at Work

Predictors of individual-level innovation at work: A meta-analysis.

“…In response to the emergence of innovation as a critical factor in creating and maintaining organizational competitiveness, a wide array of individual, job, and environmental factors have been examined in relation to employee innovation. Although numerous narrative reviews of work-related innovation have been published (e.g., Egan, 2005;Mumford, 2003;Patterson, 2002;Shalley & Gilson, 2004;Shalley, Zhou, & Oldham, 2004;Zhou & Shalley, 2003), little attention has been given to quantitative reviews. Baas, DeDreu, and Nijstad (2008) conducted a meta-analysis on mood and creativity; however, the majority of the included studies were laboratory experiments with student participants.…”

“…Drawing from a wide variety of theories and narrative reviews of empirical work on individual creativity and innovation (Amabile, 1996;Patterson, 2002;Zhou & Shalley, 2003), we identified four areas of particular importance for innovative performance (individual differences, motivation, job characteristics, and contextual influences). A visual representation of these domains can be seen in Figure 1.…”

“…Parallel with the evolving distinction between creativity and innovation, several models of the components of the innovation process have been proposed (Patterson, 2002). Although there are differences in terminology, Patterson has noted that generally the models propose an initial "creativity" or ideation stage in which the task or problem is identified and further specified with alternative approaches or ideas developed, and then an "implementation" stage in which alternatives are assessed with regard to the situational context and selected alternative (s) are implemented.…”

Innovation and the ‘Dark Side’ of Personality: Dysfunctional Traits and their Relation to Self‐Reported Innovative Characteristics

“…Over the past few decades the empirical work on the personality characteristics of innovators has revealed a reasonably stable set of core characteristics that consistently relate to innovation and creativity (Patterson, 1999;2002;King, Walker, & Broyles, 1996). These include: selfconfidence, high energy, independence of judgment, autonomy and toleration of ambiguity (Barron & Harrington, 1981;Sternberg & Lubart, 1991).…”

“…However, more recent work stipulates that divergent thinking tests are predictors of creativity rather than synonymous to it (Runco, 2006). Nevertheless, one problem for their use in measuring innovation is the omission of the domain of idea implementation (Patterson, 2002;Port, 2004). Patterson (1999) argues that innovation might be more accessibly measured in occupational populations as a set of personality characteristics that relate to the propensity to innovate in the workplace.…”