Dimensions of Creativty

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Fostering and measuring creativity and innovation

Fostering and measuring creativity and17.

innovation: individuals, organisations andproducts

David H. Cropley

(Defence and Systems Institute,University of South Australia)

Abstract

Tere is no doubt that creativity, and innovation, can be measured. It is notnecessary to go into the detail o the range o tests and instruments that have beendeveloped over many years. What is ar more signifcant is the act that thesemeasures have been developed across a range o disciplines rom psychologyto business and must be integrated in order to realise their potential to osterchange. It is highly signifcant that this discussion takes place against a backdropo global economic turmoil. Now, more than ever, individuals and organisationsmust be able to harness creativity and innovation in order to rebuild the strength

o our economies. Tis paper will outline ways that creativity o individuals, oproducts and o organisations can be measured, and how these measures mustinteract in order to ully realise the potential o creativity and innovation to drivesustainable economic growth. Te role o education in driving the developmentand application o measures o creativity will be discussed.

Business models of innovation

Innovation involves the introduction o something new and valuable an arteact ora method into a unctioning production, marketing, or management system. There

are a number o what might be called traditional business models o this process, large-

ly based on Schumpeters (1942) Theory o Economic Development. These are char-


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acterised by their primary ocus on the commercial and organisational aspects o in-

novation. Leier et al (2000), or example, describe radical and incremental innovation

in terms o their relative timelines: the trajectory they ollow, where in the process the

idea generation and opportunity recognition occur, the degree o ormality and linear-

ity o the process, the nature o the players in the process, the organisational struc-

tures that support the process, and the resources and competencies required. Auah

(1998) links new technological knowledge and new market knowledge to processes

and people, leading to innovation. Christensen et al (2004) reiterate the importance

o resources (what a irm has), processes (how a irm does its work), and values (what

a irm wants to do) in his RPV theory, and stresses that these deine an organisations

strengths and weaknesses in relation to the innovation process.

It may be said that these models view the introduction o a new thing or method

and the embodiment, combination, or synthesis o knowledge in original, relevant,

valued new products, processes, or services (Luecke and Katz, 2003) through the lens

o the business unctions and processes needed to turn an idea into a commercial

product. A typical example is that in Luecke and Katz (2003) and shown in Figure 1,

highlighting two stages in the process o innovation: invention and exploitation. Idea

Generation, Idea Evaluation and Opportunity Recognition embody processes and

concepts associated with invention (or what may be called creativity), while Develop-

ment and Commercialisation are concerned with the exploitation o ideas. Together,

these stages give us innovation.


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Business models of innovation, such as that shown in Figure 1, give rise to a

variety of diagnostic tools that examine the management of the innovation process

within the business organisation, including such factors as: the physical environment

in which innovation takes place; the structure of the organisation engaging in inno-

vation; and the traditions of the organisation. Such tools frequently offer not only a

description of the business innovation process, but also a prescriptive approach to

the improvement of the process. Luecke and Katz (2003) offer, for example, a Work-

place Assessment Checklist that allows managers to examine, inter alia, their lead-

ership style; the diversity of thinking and learning styles among their staff; charac-

teristics of their work groups; the psychological environment; and the nature of the

physical workspace, to see if these are fostering the organisations ability to innovate,

or hindering it. Higgins (1995) adopts a more extensive approach to organisational

diagnosis examining characteristics across seven dimensions: Skills; Strategy; Struc-

ture; Systems; Style; Staff and Shared values. These checklists offer an insight into

an organisations potential to innovate, and permit remedial action to be taken in

dimensions inhibiting innovation. The models, and associated tools, are limited in

their usefulness for one or more of the following reasons:

they do not adequately address the psychological actors that oster or inhibity

the creativity and innovation o the actors in the process;

they do not adequately address the social/environmental actors that impacty

on the innovation process;

they do noty adequately explain the detailed steps involved in the innovation

process in particular the early stages o invention or creativity;

they do not adequately address the manner in which the importance o certainy

social and psychological actors changes during the innovation process.

Psychological approaches to understanding innovation

Many of the dimensions in well-known models of the innovation process are tied

to the behaviours, actions and personalities of the individuals, or actors, engaged

in the initial, creative steps (invention) as well as the latter steps of exploitation. It

makes sense, therefore, to examine innovation not only as an organisational and

environmental phenomenon, but also from a psychological point of view. This is the

purpose of the present article. In particular, this article will draw on psychological

research and theory on creativity conceptualised here as the process of system-

atic and purposeful generation of novelty. Before it can be inserted into a system


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(for example, the market), novelty has first to be brought into existence; this is the

fundamental task of creativity. Looked at it in this way, creativity is a component of

the process of innovation and is necessary, but not sufficient, for innovation. Creativ-ity is not identical with innovation; however, it can be regarded as the first step in

a two-part process of innovation starting with generation of novelty (invention, or,

creativity) and moving on to exploitation of it (what we call insertion into a func-

tioning system). It is not the purpose here to develop a definitive theoretical model

of creativity or of the role of creativity in innovation. However, this paper will turn to

psychological research and theory on creativity as a source of ideas on how innova-

tion can be fostered in practical settings such as a business or organisation.

Psychological dimensions of creativity

From early in the modern era psychological researchers have looked at creativity

from the point of view of the three Ps (e.g. Barron, 1969): Person, Productand Proc-

ess, to which Rhodes (1961, p. 305) added the fourth P (Press; i.e. the pressure exert-

ed by the environment). Starting with Guilford (e.g. 1950), who can be regarded as

the initiator of the modern creativity era in psychological research, numbers of psy-

chologically oriented authors have discussed the Process, usually from the point ofview of thinking processes within creative individuals (i.e. from the cognitive point

of view, emphasising above all convergent and divergent thinking). There have also

been numerous psychological discussions of the creative Person. These have been

summarised by, among others, Eysenck (1997) and Helson (1999). Discussion of the

Person can be seen as involving: (a) personal properties such as openness; (b) mo-

tivation such as dissatisfaction with the status quo; and, more recently, (c) feelings

such as positive or negative affect associated with creativity (e.g. Kaufman, 2003).

From a practical point of view, however, the most interesting aspect of creativ-ity is the Products it yields and the environmental circumstances (such as manage-

ment style) that foster the emergence of such products. These latter are referred to

here as involving Press. There has been a tendency for psychological theorists to pay

relatively little attention to products, except for trivial products such as drawings

linking pages full of circles or suggestions for fanciful uses of common objects, pos-

sibly because psychologists and educators have largely, although not exclusively,

concentrated on children. Once creativity is seen as the first step in the process of

innovation, it is inevitable that attention shifts more explicitly to the output of theprocess, namely the Product, and then to the conditions that encourage (or discour-

age) appropriate products (i.e. Press).


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The idea o using psychological concepts rom creativity research to expand un-

derstanding o innovation is, in act, not new. A number o approaches o this kind ex-

ist and, regardless o their theoretical quality, several are highly developed and widely

applied. Kirton (1989), or instance, distinguished between people who seek to solve

problems by making use o what they already know and can do (adaptors), and peo-

ple who try to reorganise and restructure the problem (innovators). Kirton regarded

three psychological characteristics as central in innovation: originality (cognition),

conormity (social), and eiciency (cognition), although he also recognised the role

o risk-taking (motivation), and sel-conidence (personality), which he believed are

higher in innovators than in adaptors.

Lipman-Blumen (1991) introduced a more social-psychological approach o-

cused not on problem-solving but on achieving style. She identiied three broad

styles (Relational, Direct and Instrumental). Each o these has three orms o expres-

sion: vicarious, contributory, and collaborative (Relational style); intrinsic, competitive,

and power-oriented (Direct style); and entrusting, social, and personal (Instrumental

style). Most o these (e.g. collaborative, competitive, power-oriented, entrusting, so-

cial) are concerned with social interactions. Individual people, as well as the organi-

sation itsel, can be rated on their achieving style, and the degree o goodness o it

between people and organisation.

The paradoxes of creativity

It is implicit in many o these models, both psychological and business-oriented, that

characteristics avourable to creativity are universallyavourable throughout the inno-

vation process. For example, in Luecke and Katzs (2003) Assessing the Psychological

Environment checklist the question is posed: Do you, as the manager, encourage risk-

taking? The rating scale allows this to be seen either as a strength, as adequate, or as

a characteristic that needs improvement. This implies that a actor that is avourable

to risk-taking is universally favourable in the innovation process.

However, almost rom the beginning o the modern era, research on creativity

has yielded surprising indings that have led various writers to reer to it as involving a

bundle o paradoxes (e.g., Cropley, 1997, p. 8). A complete discussion o the paradoxes

o creativity would go ar beyond the limits o this article, but they can be illustrated

with some examples. In the area oProcess, or instance, creativity came to be equat-

ed with divergent thinking almost immediately ater Guilords (1950) seminal paper.

However, the early research o Hudson (1968) showed that people identiied by psy-

chological tests as having a marked preerence or convergentthinking none-the-less

showed high creativity on some tasks. Numerous modern writers (or a summary, see


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Cropley, 2006) have also emphasised the importance o convergent thinking, whereas

intuitively divergent thinking would be expected to be o paramount importance.

In the case o the Person, Csikszentmihalyi (1996) reerred to the importance o

a complex personality that combines contradictions such as sensitivity occurring

together with toughness, or high intelligence with naivety. In a 30-year longitudinal

study, Helson (1999) showed that personality traits such as openness and lexibility

that intuitively seem avourable to creativity can hinder it under certain circumstances.

As Kirton (1989) pointed out, both adaptation o what exists and production o some-

thing new (which he called innovation) can lead to useul novel products, so that both

adaptive personal characteristics (such as a preerence or dealing with the new by

extending the already known) and also innovative characteristics (e.g. a preerence or

dealing with the new by generating something novel) are involved in creativity.

In an overview of research on mood and creativity, Kaufman (2003) showed that

mood is a precursor to creativity, accompanies it, and results from it. Furthermore, de-

spite the widespread belief that positive mood is necessary for creativity and nega-

tive mood is fatal to it, Kaufman showed that research indicates that there is a role in

creativity for negative mood too. Thus both generative feelings such as the thrill of the

chase when facing a challenge, the feeling of excited anticipation when generatingnovelty, or the feeling of satisfaction after achieving an effectively novel product, but

also conserving feelings such as anxiety in the face of uncertainty, frustration when

progress is impeded, or disappointment when a product is not validated play a role in

generating effective novelty.

Many studies have confirmed that motivation plays an important role in creativ-

ity. To take a single example, Park and Jang (2005) investigated motivation for sci-

entific creativity by interviewing both theoretical and applied physicists. They con-

cluded that, in addition to feelings such as interest or curiosity, these scientists werealso affected by what they called cognitive motives essentially deriving from their

knowledge about phenomena in the external world. In particular, they identified:

(a) recognition of gaps in existing knowledge (incompleteness);

(b) a drive to round out recently emerging novelty (development); and

(c) identification of contradictions in accepted knowledge (conflict/discrepancy) as

cognitive motives for creativity. They gave examples from statements by Albert

Einstein that indicate he experienced all three of these motivating forces, but at

different times.


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The actors discussed above suggest that the motivation or creativity may arise

within the individual, rather than in the external world. Indeed, a widely accepted posi-

tion is that creativity is based on intrinsicmotivation (Amabile, 1996): the wish to carry

out an activity or the sake o the activity, regardless o external reward. This position

can be contrasted with working or external rewards such as praise, awards, pay raises,

promotion, and even avoidance o punishment (extrinsic motivation). More recently,

however, researchers, including Amabile hersel (e.g. Collins and Amabile, 1999), have

accepted that extrinsic motivation is not necessarily atal to creativity. Indeed, as Kaso

et al. (2007) put it, some researchers report negative eects o extrinsic motivation, to

be sure, but others claim positive eects, and still others report mixed eects.

Unsworth (2001) argued that there are our kinds o creativity, and her system can

be used to demonstrate the paradoxical relationship o motivation and creativity. She

distinguished between creativity where: (a) the person is driven by external pressure

to solve problems deined by other people (what she called responsive creativity

this is the most clearly externally motivated creativity); (b) the person is motivated by

external pressure to solve sel-discovered problems (expected creativity a mixed

kind o motivation); (c) the person is sel-motivated but the problem is deined exter-

nally (contributory creativity a second pattern o mixed motivation); and inally,

(d) the person is sel-motivated to solve sel-deined problems (proactive creativity

the most clearly internally-motivated creativity). The crucial point or our purposes

here is that all our o these constellations can lead to production and exploitation o

eective novelty. Thus, a urther paradox arises: orcing this into a bipolar dimension,

we distinguish between proactive motivation at one pole (internal motivation and

sel-discovered problems) to reactive motivation at the other (external motivation

and imposed problems), with various mixed constellations between the poles.

Turning to Product, it is more or less sel-evidently true that creative products must

be novel. However, as Cropley and Cropley (2005) emphasised, especially in practical

areas such as business, novelty alone is not enough: A product must also be relevant

and eective. A deviation rom the customary that results rom ignorance, blind non-

conormity, or unreasoning rebelliousness involves only pseudo-creativity (Cattell and

Butcher, 1968), while novelty that is in itsel sensible but impossible to put into practice

involves only quasi-creativity (Heinelt, 1974). Furthermore, not only must novelty work

(do what it is supposed to do), but in business it must also be understandable, usable,

and acceptable to other people (it must make sense). Christensen (1997) gave examples

o highly eective (and oten ultimately successul) novelty that led to disasters or oth-

erwise successul and well-run great irms, because it could not be itted into the existing


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ramework and customers rejected it. Thus, products need to be simultaneously novel,

original and even surprising, and yet routine (in the sense o reliable and eective).

In a research program stretching over more than 30 years and largely based on

daily logs or diaries kept by managers (i.e. involving what the managers actually did

and thought, not what they claimed in questionnaires), Amabile (e.g. 1996) showed

that there was a complex interaction between Press (management pressure) and inno-

vation. Where the task involved carrying out predeined steps, a high level o environ-

mental demand acilitated perormance. However, where the task involved exploring

possibilities, a low level o demand was acilitatory. Thus, high managerial pressure is

acilitatory under some circumstances, but destructive under others.

Table 1: Thesocial/psychologicalpaRadoxesoFcReaTiviTy

Social/psychological

dimensionPoles of the paradox Examples of characteristics

Process

convergent thinking

v

divergent thinking

Reapplying the known, being ast and accurate, being strictly

logical

Branching out, making unexpected links, seeing surprising

implications

Motivation

reactive

v

proactive

Problem accepting: ocusing on existing problems

Driven by external pressure

Problem fnding: ocusing on sel-identifed (unexpected) prob-

lems

Driven by internal pressure

Personal character-

istics

adaptive

v

innovative

Conorming, preerring the well-considered, relying on the tried

and trusted

Autonomous, open, high in sel-condence, non-conorming,

spontaneous

Feelings

conserving

vgenerative

Exposure to the unexpected triggers negative efect, departure

rom the usual arouses discomort

Exposure to the unexpected triggers positive efect, departure

rom the usual arouses excitement

Product

routine

v

creative

Efective, accurate, conventional

Surprising, seminal, germinal

Press

high demand

v

low demand

Problems and nature o desired solution closely dened by

management, high pressure or quick results, high demand or

accuracy, low tolerance o error or ailure, rewards or being right,

high status given to people who t in well

Problems and nature o solutions loosely dened, low pressureor quick results, tolerance o good errors, rewards or opening

up perspectives, high status given to people who are diferent


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Table 1 contains an illustrative overview o the paradoxes in the six social/psycho-

logical areas (process, personal properties, motivation, eelings, product, and press)

(see also Cropley and Cropley, 2008). For the sake o brevity each paradox is presented

as a single bipolar dimension (e.g. convergent v divergent thinking, reactive v proac-

tive motivation, etc.) and examples o the main characteristics o each pole listed or

illustrative purposes (e.g. convergent thinking involves, among other things, reapply-

ing the already known, being ast and accurate, and being strictly logical, whereas

divergent thinking involves processes like branching out, making unexpected links,

and seeing surprising implications). The central issue here is that research has shown

that both poles o these paradoxes are needed in creativity (and indeed, innovation),

despite the act that they seem to be mutually antagonistic. How is this possible?Koberg and Bagnall (1991) argued that the interaction o mutually antagonistic

poles involves luctuation backwards and orwards in alternating, psycho-behaviour-

al waves. They highlighted the need or alternative thinking (and behaving) mean-

ing a continual variation o style between convergent and divergent behaviour

and that, in one stage, you must allow yoursel to remain open to all kinds o input

whereas in another stage, oten just moments later, you must wear blinkers and nar-

row your attention to all but a ew items. The question that now arises is How this

fluctuation is organised?

The phases of creativity

Csikszentmihalyi (2006) argued that the creative process may include distinct phases

or dierent forms that draw on different psychological resources. A simple early em-

pirical investigation along these lines was that o Prindle (1906). He studied inventors,

and concluded that every invention is the result o a series o small, compounding

steps. The gain in one step creates a new jumping o point or the next step, and so

on. In another early study with inventors who had successully applied or patents,Rossman (1931) proposed a more ormal phase model o invention involving seven

phases: Observation o a need or diiculty;Analysis o the need; Surveyo all available

inormation; Formulation o all objectively possible solutions; Critical Analysis o these

solutions or their advantages and disadvantages; the Birth o new ideas; and Experi-

mentation to test out the most promising idea. The ather o brainstorming, Osborn

(1953), also argued or a seven-step creativity process involving: Orientation (identiy-

ing the problem); Preparation (gathering relevant data);Analysis (breaking it all down

into its constituent elements); Ideation (collecting a large number o alternative solu-tion possibilities); Incubation (letting it all churn); Synthesis (putting it all together);

and Evaluation (judging the value o the result).


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In the post-Sputnik era (after 1957), further psychological discussions of phase

models have taken place. Koberg and Bagnall (1991) proposed a universal traveller

phase model involving the by now familiar seven phases: Acceptthe situation as achallenge;Analyse the world of the problem; Define the main issues and goals; Ide-

ate in order to generate options; Selectamong these options; Implementthe idea in

a workable physical form; and Evaluate it, if necessary returning to an earlier phase

to improve it.

The classical phase model is that o Wallas (1926). The Wallas (1926) model is more

sophisticated than a small-step, incremental approach. O central importance or the

present discussion is that it sees the dierences between phases in the production

o a creative product as not simply quantitative (or instance, step-by-step increases

in amount o knowledge), but as qualitative (involving dierent kinds o operation).

Initially, Wallas (1926) too suggested that there were seven phases: Encounter(a prob-

lem or challenge is identiied); Preparation (inormation is gathered); Concentration

(an eort is made to solve the problem); Incubation (ideas churn in the persons head);

Illumination (what seems to be a solution becomes apparent); Verification (the indi-

vidual checks out the apparent solution); and Persuasion (the individual attempts to

convince others that the product really does solve the problem).

Nowadays, in modern discussions of creativity the Wallas model is usually re-

duced to four phases: Preparation, Incubation, Illumination, and Verification. This

may well be appropriate for the first part of the process, the production of effective

novelty (i.e. creativity). However, a phase model that goes beyond mere production

and encompasses introduction into a functioning system (i.e. a model ofinnovation)

requires a seven-phase model. At the very beginning Wallass phase of Preparation

must be subdivided into Preparation (familiarity with a field is developed it is im-

possible to generate effective novelty in a field about which you know nothing, ex-

cept perhaps through a blind guess and lucky fluke) and Activation (dissatisfaction

with the status quo: problem awareness emerges). After Illumination and Verification,

innovation requires making the result of the creative process to other people (often

customers), i.e. Communication, and acceptance by the customers (Validation).

Brown (1989) reviewed the extensive modern discussion of the importance

for creativity of becoming aware of problems (i.e. what we call Activation), start-

ing with Guilfords (1950) emphasis on sensitivity to problems. Einstein (see Miller,

1992) described how his recognition that existing theories of thermodynamics wereinadequate motivated him to develop the special theory of relativity and then the

general theory. He continued to be dissatisfied with his own theory, and worked


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on it for much of the rest of his life. Edison was never satisfied with his invention of

the incandescent light bulb, and over the course of time took out more than 100

patents on improvements to it. Mumford and Moertl (2003) described a case studyof innovation in management practice, and concluded that innovation was acti-

vated by intense dissatisfaction (p. 262) with the status quo. It is this recognition

that there is a problem and a resulting urge to do something about it that may be

called Activation.

However, problem inding/recognition/awareness does not come rom no-

where: you cannot see problems in, and be dissatisied with, something that you do

not know exists. In act, the Canadian Intellectual Property Oice reported (2007) that

90 % o new patents are improvements of existing knowledge. Cropley (2006) listed a

number o creativity researchers who all give a prominent place to existing knowl-

edge in creativity (e.g. Albert, Amabile, Campbell, Chi, Feldhusen, Gardner, Gruber,

Mednick, Simonton, Wallas, and Weisberg). As Louis Pasteur, one o the celebrated

athers o vaccination, put it in a requently cited aphorism he uttered in a lecture in

1854 (Peterson, 1954, p. 473): Chance avours only the prepared mind. Thus, the whole

process commences with Preparation.

Preparation involves, in the first instance, acquisition of general knowledge ofan area. This does not mean targeted and focused collection of information rele-

vant to an already defined task, but the general process of gaining the knowledge

and skills that form the basis of the potential for seeing problems. However, more

is required: a problem can only be refined and applied (exploited) in a focused,

goal-oriented way through the application of specific knowledge. The acquisition

of specific knowledge is the second element of Preparation. It is a prerequisite for

the later processes of problem finding, solution building, evaluation of candidate

solutions, etc.

Simonton (2003) draws attention to contrasting views on the role that prepara-

tion, in the form of education and training, plays in relation to creativity. He contrasts

Csikszentmihalyis (1990) findings that new ideas in creative individuals arise from

a large set of well-developed skills and a rich body of domain knowledge, in other

words, a high degree of preparation, with Weisbergs (2003) findings suggesting that

this relationship is moderated by factors such as motivation. Simonton (2003) further

highlights the fact that preparation and its role in creativity may be influenced by

the focus of the activity. There is evidence, for example Hudson (1966), Schaefer andAnastasi (1968) and Simonton (1984), that scientificcreativity may benefit more from

preparatory activities, such as education and training, compared to artisticcreativity.


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It can be argued that innovation in a business context, focused on the embodiment,

combination or synthesis of knowledge in original, relevant, valued new products,

processes or services (Luecke and Katz, 2003) is most closely aligned to scientificcreativity in its goals. Therefore preparation plays a critical role in enhancing creativ-

ity, which in turn leads to more effective innovation processes.

It should be borne in mind, however, that knowledge can be a two-edged

sword. Although this paper has just argued that it is necessary for innovation, as

Gardner (1993) pointed out, there may be tension between creativity and expertise:

the pre-existing knowledge of an expert can channel information processing into a

narrow range of approaches possibly without the person concerned being aware

of this and thus limit the novelty of what is produced via divergent thinking, or

even block generation of novelty altogether. Research (e.g. Ericsson and Smith, 1991,

Root-Bernstein, Bernstein, and Garnier, 1993) has looked at this interesting problem:

although working successfully in an area over a long period of time (i.e. becoming an

expert) can provide a knowledge base of both the subject matter and the organisa-

tion, it can also produce a kind of tunnel vision that narrows thinking and restricts it

to the conventional. Thus, despite possessing the knowledge base that is required

for generating effective novelty, knowledgeable people can actually inhibit it. To be

creativity-fostering, they must not only know the facts, but also be capable of break-

ing away from them and seeing them in a fresh light.

Preparation and Activation occur at the ront end o the process o innovation.

Turning to the other end o the process, Dasgupta (2004, p. 406) summarised the need

or Communication very aptly: to be judged innovative, novelty must reach a sui-

cient state o maturity or completeness to be maniested publicly. O course, com-

munication involves very dierent tools, skills, and products in dierent ields such

as physics and art, on the one hand, or business, on the other. In the case o business,

communication involves marketing novelty. As Csikszentmihalyi (e.g. 1999) has stated

strongly, novelty (in whatever orm it is maniested) only achieves the status o being

regarded as creative when it is judged by external authorities (such as customers)

to involve eective surprise. In other words, not only is Communication necessary,

but the approval o those to whom the novelty is communicated. To put it bluntly,

an innovation such as a new process or product needs to be accepted by customers,

regardless o any other virtues it has, beore it can be regarded as successul. We call

this inal step Validation.


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Wallass phase o Incubation is also problematic. It seems intuitively clear that

innovation requires processing o inormation. However, in reviewing a number o

relevant studies Howe, McWilliam and Cross (2005) showed that many researchers

deny that this involves ideas churning around with no apparent order or sequence

until something good suddenly pops up, as a label like Incubation implies. Howe,

McWilliam and Cross emphasised the importance o heuristic processes such as set-

breaking or construction o neural networks. Indeed, this objection was raised early

by Vinacke (1953). Simonton (2007, p. 329) contrasted Darwinian or non-monotonic

processes (blind variation and selective retention leading to sudden jumps) with mo-

notonic processes (step-by-step improvement based on, or instance, systematic and

sequential application o expertise to a series o intermediate products, each o whichis closer to the inal product than the previous one).

The purpose here, however, is not to deine the precise nature o generation o

eective novelty, but to emphasise that some kind o mental review o inormation

(however this occurs) is one element o the process. It is possible to label this phase

Generation, which can be used to reer to both non-monotonic and monotonic proc-

esses, i.e. it is more general than Incubation in Wallass sense. An Expanded Phase

Model o the process o generation o eective novelty, drawing together the ele-

ments discussed in this section, is shown in Figure 2. It would be possible to consider

only the phases up to but not including Communication. However, this would not

involve innovation, or which the inal two phases are essential, but only the novelty

production component o the total process (i.e. creativity only).

A social/psychological phase model of innovation

Drawing together the threads o business models o innovation with the

social/psychological dimensions o creativity leads us to propose a more highly di-erentiated, and thereore more diagnostically useul, social/psychological model o

innovation. Figure 2 started by linking the phases o invention/creativity with those

necessary or exploitation o the creativity, or instance by emphasising acceptance o

a novel product in the market place in the phase o Validation.


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Figure 2: The Expanded Phase Model of the Innovation Process


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The Social/Psychological Phase Model o Innovation can now be mapped against

a typical business model (Luecke and Katz, 2003). Figure 3 illustrates the seven phases

suggested by the Expanded Phase Model (Figure 2), the interaction o the our social/

psychological dimensions (the our Ps) with each phase, and a mapping to a typi-

cal business model. Unlike the business model, the social/psychological phase model

recognises the changing, and oten paradoxical psychological dimensions o innova-

tion that must be understood and ostered or successul innovation to take place.

Figure 3: The Social/Psychological Model mapped to a Business Model


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Using the social/psychological phase model of innovation

The value to an organisation o a model o the innovation process is not simply itsrole as a description o the process. Managers require a model that will enable them

to translate description into action. A successul model needs to provide guidance

on how the process o innovation can be optimised to yield the best possible out-

comes. The Social/Psychological Phase Model o Innovation achieves this by drawing

on the more detailed representation o innovation encapsulated in the seven phases

o the Expanded Phase Model o the Innovation Process (Figure 2). The paradoxical

social/psychological actors (Table 1) that operate in each phase o the process can be

mapped onto this ramework. This mapping highlights the dierent, and oten con-tradictory, social-psychological dimensions that inluence actors during the innova-

tion process. Together, these elements thereore describe the innovation process in

social/psychological terms, namely: (a) what the actors in the innovation process DO

(Process) in each phase; (b) what they THINK and FEEL (Person) in each phase; (c) what

they generate at each phase (Product); and (d) how the organisational environment

impacts on them (Press) in each phase.

Table 2 oers a summary overview o the social/psychological models mapping

o each phase (preparation, activation, etc.) o the innovation process onto the dimen-sions expressed in the our Ps (Process, Person, Product and Press). The dimension Per-

son is expanded into three sub-dimensions (Motivation, Personal Properties and Feel-

ings) to oer a more dierentiated analysis. Table 2 illustrates the ideal constellation o

social/psychological dimensions across the seven phases o the innovation process. It

is important to note that this paper is not arguing that, in practice, the various phases

are totally separate rom each other, or that every successul innovation commences

with a concrete and speciiable phase o Preparation, ollowed by Activation, and so

on. In practice, or instance, the process may be broken o in one phase and later re-commence part way through, let us say in the phase o generation. The output rom

one phase may lead not to an illumination but instead to, or instance, a restart o

generation; the process may thus run in loops.

Conclusions

At the theoretical level, the model presented here broadens and deepens the more

traditional business-oriented models o innovation. In addition, it looks at apparently

irrational elements o the process such as the act that the very qualities that are astrength in a company are sometimes simultaneously a weakness (as the systems ap-

proach has shown but or which it oers no explanation).


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273


Dimension

Phase

Paradox

Preparation

Activation

Genera

tion

Illumination

Verifcation

Communica-

tion

Validation

Process

Convergent

v

Divergent

Conv

ergent

Divergent

Diverg

ent

Convergent

Converge

nt

Mixed

Convergent

Motivation

Reactive

v

Proactive

Mixed

Proactive

Proactive

Proactive

Mixed

Reactive

Reactive

Personal

Properties

Adaptive

vInnovative

Ada

ptive

Innovative

Innova

tive

Innovative

Adaptiv

e

Adaptive

Adaptive

Feelings

Conservingv

Generative

Cons

erving

Generative

Generative

Generative

Conserving

Conserving

Conserving

Product

Routine

v

Creative

Routine

Creative

Creat

ive

Creative

Routine

Routine

Routine

Press

Highde-

mand

v

Lowdemand

H

igh

Low

Low

Low

High

High

High

Table2:Thesocial/psychologicalphasemodeloFinnovaTionidealconsTellaTionoFpaRadox

icaldimensions


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274

David H. Cropley

The approach presented here also broadens the strictly rational, mechanistic ap-

proach o linear models by taking account o the vagaries o the human actors in-

volved in innovation. The Social/Psychological Phase Model extends the useulness o

present analyses by recognising the role o hot, non-cognitive human actors such as

motivation and eelings.

At a less theoretical and more practical level, the ideal constellation depicted in

Table 2 offers differentiated suggestions for action. Above all, it shows that there is

no simple golden bullet: For instance, managers who wish to promote innovation

need to vary the amount and kind of pressure they exert according to the phase in

the process of innovation which is currently active and the motives, personal prop-

erties and feelings of the people involved. On its own this is a platitude, but theidealised table suggests howto take account of these factors. For instance, a high

level of pressure for rapid results is beneficial in early and late stages, but inhibitory

in the middle phases. Managers should activate and support proactive motivation

and generative feelings when they want to foster Activation and Generation, but

facilitate reactive motivation and conserving feelings when Communication and

Validation are of central importance.

The model also provides a more person-centred vocabulary or discussing what

is actually happening at any stage o the innovation process. The possibility o sayingmore precisely what is going on, what is needed, what should be changed, and so on,

would be a considerable help in improving actions during the innovation process. At

a more ormal level, such discussions could be extended to orm a more detailed and

more explicitly dierentiated diagnosis o creativity and innovation in organisations.

Drawing on the combination o models and concepts, the Social/Psychological Phase

Model o Innovation permits the ollowing:

(i) mapping o the current activities o an organisation onto the sequence o

phases required or innovation;

(ii) identiication o the social-psychological dimensions that are avourable to

innovation or any given phase;

(iii) diagnosis o an organisations strengths and weaknesses in the innovation

process;

(iv) analysis and optimisation o activities to maximise the outcomes o each

phase o innovation.

These thoughts raise the possibility of a diagnostic instrument based on theSocial/Psychological Phase Model which would offer a more formal and structured

analysis.


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275


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Dimensions of Creativty