Fostering and measuring creativity and innovation

17. Fostering and measuring creativity and innovation: individuals, organisations and products

David H. Cropley (Defence and Systems Institute, University of South Australia)

Abstract
There is no doubt that creativity, and innovation, can be measured. It is not necessary to go into the detail of the range of tests and instruments that have been developed over many years. What is far more significant is the fact that these measures have been developed across a range of disciplines from psychology to business and must be integrated in order to realise their potential to foster change. It is highly significant that this discussion takes place against a backdrop of global economic turmoil. Now, more than ever, individuals and organisations must be able to harness creativity and innovation in order to rebuild the strength of our economies. This paper will outline ways that creativity of individuals, of products and of organisations can be measured, and how these measures must interact in order to fully realise the potential of creativity and innovation to drive sustainable economic growth. The role of education in driving the development and application of measures of creativity will be discussed.

Business models of innovation

Innovation involves the introduction of something new and valuable an artefact or a method into a functioning production, marketing, or management system. There are a number of what might be called traditional business models of this process, largely based on Schumpeters (1942) Theory of Economic Development. These are char257

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acterised by their primary focus on the commercial and organisational aspects of innovation. Leifer et al (2000), for example, describe radical and incremental innovation in terms of their relative timelines: the trajectory they follow, where in the process the idea generation and opportunity recognition occur, the degree of formality and linearity of the process, the nature of the players in the process, the organisational structures that support the process, and the resources and competencies required. Afuah (1998) links new technological knowledge and new market knowledge to processes and people, leading to innovation. Christensen et al (2004) reiterate the importance of resources (what a firm has), processes (how a firm does its work), and values (what a firm wants to do) in his RPV theory, and stresses that these define an organisations strengths and weaknesses in relation to the innovation process. It may be said that these models view the introduction of a new thing or method and the embodiment, combination, or synthesis of knowledge in original, relevant, valued new products, processes, or services (Luecke and Katz, 2003) through the lens of the business functions and processes needed to turn an idea into a commercial product. A typical example is that in Luecke and Katz (2003) and shown in Figure1, highlighting two stages in the process of 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 Development and Commercialisation are concerned with the exploitation of 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 innovation; 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 Workplace Assessment Checklist that allows managers to examine, inter alia, their leadership style; the diversity of thinking and learning styles among their staff; characteristics 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; Structure; 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: yy they do not adequately address the psychological factors that foster or inhibit the creativity and innovation of the actors in the process; yy they do not adequately address the social/environmental factors that impact on the innovation process; yy they do not adequately explain the detailed steps involved in the innovation process in particular the early stages of invention or creativity; yy they do not adequately address the manner in which the importance of certain social and psychological factors 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 systematic 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. Creativity 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 functioning 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 innovation 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, Product and Process, to which Rhodes (1961, p.305) added the fourth P (Press; i.e. the pressure exerted 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 psychologically oriented authors have discussed the Process, usually from the point of view 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) motivation 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 creativity is the Products it yields and the environmental circumstances (such as management 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, possibly 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 the process, namely the Product, and then to the conditions that encourage (or discourage) appropriate products (i.e. Press).
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The idea of using psychological concepts from creativity research to expand understanding of innovation is, in fact, not new. A number of approaches of this kind exist and, regardless of their theoretical quality, several are highly developed and widely applied. Kirton (1989), for instance, distinguished between people who seek to solve problems by making use of what they already know and can do (adaptors), and people who try to reorganise and restructure the problem (innovators). Kirton regarded three psychological characteristics as central in innovation: originality (cognition), conformity (social), and efficiency (cognition), although he also recognised the role of risk-taking (motivation), and self-confidence (personality), which he believed are higher in innovators than in adaptors. Lipman-Blumen (1991) introduced a more social-psychological approach focused not on problem-solving but on achieving style. She identified three broad styles (Relational, Direct and Instrumental). Each of these has three forms of expression: vicarious, contributory, and collaborative (Relational style); intrinsic, competitive, and power-oriented (Direct style); and entrusting, social, and personal (Instrumental style). Most of these (e.g. collaborative, competitive, power-oriented, entrusting, social) are concerned with social interactions. Individual people, as well as the organisation itself, can be rated on their achieving style, and the degree of goodness of fit between people and organisation.

The paradoxes of creativity

It is implicit in many of these models, both psychological and business-oriented, that characteristics favourable to creativity are universally favourable throughout the innovation process. For example, in Luecke and Katzs (2003) Assessing the Psychological Environment checklist the question is posed: Do you, as the manager, encourage risktaking? 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 factor that is favourable to risk-taking is universally favourable in the innovation process. However, almost from the beginning of the modern era, research on creativity has yielded surprising findings that have led various writers to refer to it as involving a bundle of paradoxes (e.g., Cropley, 1997, p.8). A complete discussion of the paradoxes of creativity would go far beyond the limits of this article, but they can be illustrated with some examples. In the area of Process, for instance, creativity came to be equated with divergent thinking almost immediately after Guilfords (1950) seminal paper. However, the early research of Hudson (1968) showed that people identified by psychological tests as having a marked preference for convergent thinking none-the-less showed high creativity on some tasks. Numerous modern writers (for a summary, see
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Cropley, 2006) have also emphasised the importance of convergent thinking, whereas intuitively divergent thinking would be expected to be of paramount importance. In the case of the Person, Csikszentmihalyi (1996) referred to the importance of 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 flexibility that intuitively seem favourable to creativity can hinder it under certain circumstances. As Kirton (1989) pointed out, both adaptation of what exists and production of something new (which he called innovation) can lead to useful novel products, so that both adaptive personal characteristics (such as a preference for dealing with the new by extending the already known) and also innovative characteristics (e.g. a preference for 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, despite the widespread belief that positive mood is necessary for creativity and negative 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 generating novelty, 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 creativity. To take a single example, Park and Jang (2005) investigated motivation for scientific creativity by interviewing both theoretical and applied physicists. They concluded that, in addition to feelings such as interest or curiosity, these scientists were also 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) i dentification 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 factors discussed above suggest that the motivation for creativity may arise within the individual, rather than in the external world. Indeed, a widely accepted position is that creativity is based on intrinsic motivation (Amabile, 1996): the wish to carry out an activity for the sake of the activity, regardless of external reward. This position can be contrasted with working for external rewards such as praise, awards, pay raises, promotion, and even avoidance of punishment (extrinsic motivation). More recently, however, researchers, including Amabile herself (e.g. Collins and Amabile, 1999), have accepted that extrinsic motivation is not necessarily fatal to creativity. Indeed, as Kasof et al. (2007) put it, some researchers report negative effects of extrinsic motivation, to be sure, but others claim positive effects, and still others report mixed effects. Unsworth (2001) argued that there are four kinds of creativity, and her system can be used to demonstrate the paradoxical relationship of motivation and creativity. She distinguished between creativity where: (a) the person is driven by external pressure to solve problems defined 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 self-discovered problems (expected creativity a mixed kind of motivation); (c) the person is self-motivated but the problem is defined externally (contributory creativity a second pattern of mixed motivation); and finally, (d) the person is self-motivated to solve self-defined problems (proactive creativity the most clearly internally-motivated creativity). The crucial point for our purposes here is that all four of these constellations can lead to production and exploitation of effective novelty. Thus, a further paradox arises: forcing this into a bipolar dimension, we distinguish between proactive motivation at one pole (internal motivation and self-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 self-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 effective. A deviation from the customary that results from ignorance, blind nonconformity, or unreasoning rebelliousness involves only pseudo-creativity (Cattell and Butcher, 1968), while novelty that is in itself 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 of highly effective (and often ultimately successful) novelty that led to disasters for otherwise successful and well-run great firms, because it could not be fitted into the existing
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framework and customers rejected it. Thus, products need to be simultaneously novel, original and even surprising, and yet routine (in the sense of reliable and effective). 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 innovation. Where the task involved carrying out predefined steps, a high level of environmental demand facilitated performance. However, where the task involved exploring possibilities, a low level of demand was facilitatory. Thus, high managerial pressure is facilitatory under some circumstances, but destructive under others.
Table1: The social/psychological paradoxes of creativity
Social/psychological dimension Poles of the paradox Examples of characteristics Reapplying the known, being fast and accurate, being strictly logical Branching out, making unexpected links, seeing surprising implications Problem accepting: focusing on existing problems Driven by external pressure Problem finding: focusing on self-identified (unexpected) problems Driven by internal pressure Conforming, preferring the well-considered, relying on the tried and trusted Autonomous, open, high in self-confidence, non-conforming, spontaneous Exposure to the unexpected triggers negative effect, departure from the usual arouses discomfort Exposure to the unexpected triggers positive effect, departure from the usual arouses excitement Effective, accurate, conventional Surprising, seminal, germinal Problems and nature of desired solution closely defined by management, high pressure for quick results, high demand for accuracy, low tolerance of error or failure, rewards for being right, high status given to people who fit in well Problems and nature of solutions loosely defined, low pressure for quick results, tolerance of good errors, rewards for opening up perspectives, high status given to people who are different

Process

convergent thinking v divergent thinking

Motivation

reactive v proactive

Personal characteristics

adaptive v innovative conserving v generative routine v creative

Feelings

Product

Press

high demand v low demand

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Table1 contains an illustrative overview of the paradoxes in the six social/psychological areas (process, personal properties, motivation, feelings, product, and press) (see also Cropley and Cropley, 2008). For the sake of brevity each paradox is presented as a single bipolar dimension (e.g. convergent v divergent thinking, reactive v proactive motivation, etc.) and examples of the main characteristics of each pole listed for illustrative purposes (e.g. convergent thinking involves, among other things, reapplying the already known, being fast 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 of these paradoxes are needed in creativity (and indeed, innovation), despite the fact that they seem to be mutually antagonistic. How is this possible? Koberg and Bagnall (1991) argued that the interaction of mutually antagonistic poles involves fluctuation backwards and forwards in alternating, psycho-behavioural waves. They highlighted the need for alternative thinking (and behaving) meaning a continual variation of style between convergent and divergent behaviour and that, in one stage, you must allow yourself to remain open to all kinds of input whereas in another stage, often just moments later, you must wear blinkers and narrow your attention to all but a few 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 different forms that draw on different psychological resources. A simple early empirical investigation along these lines was that of Prindle (1906). He studied inventors, and concluded that every invention is the result of a series of small, compounding steps. The gain in one step creates a new jumping off point for the next step, and so on. In another early study with inventors who had successfully applied for patents, Rossman (1931) proposed a more formal phase model of invention involving seven phases: Observation of a need or difficulty; Analysis of the need; Survey of all available information; Formulation of all objectively possible solutions; Critical Analysis of these solutions for their advantages and disadvantages; the Birth of new ideas; and Experimentation to test out the most promising idea. The father of brainstorming, Osborn (1953), also argued for a seven-step creativity process involving: Orientation (identifying the problem); Preparation (gathering relevant data); Analysis (breaking it all down into its constituent elements); Ideation (collecting a large number of alternative solution possibilities); Incubation (letting it all churn); Synthesis (putting it all together); and Evaluation (judging the value of 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: Accept the situation as a challenge; Analyse the world of the problem; Define the main issues and goals; Ideate in order to generate options; Select among these options; Implement the 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 of Wallas (1926). The Wallas (1926) model is more sophisticated than a small-step, incremental approach. Of central importance for the present discussion is that it sees the differences between phases in the production of a creative product as not simply quantitative (for instance, step-by-step increases in amount of knowledge), but as qualitative (involving different kinds of operation). Initially, Wallas (1926) too suggested that there were seven phases: Encounter (a problem or challenge is identified); Preparation (information is gathered); Concentration (an effort is made to solve the problem); Incubation (ideas churn in the persons head); Illumination (what seems to be a solution becomes apparent); Verification (the individual 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 reduced 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 of innovation) 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 impossible to generate effective novelty in a field about which you know nothing, except 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), starting with Guilfords (1950) emphasis on sensitivity to problems. Einstein (see Miller, 1992) described how his recognition that existing theories of thermodynamics were inadequate 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 study of innovation in management practice, and concluded that innovation was activated 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 finding/recognition/awareness does not come from nowhere: you cannot see problems in, and be dissatisfied with, something that you do not know exists. In fact, the Canadian Intellectual Property Office reported (2007) that 90% of new patents are improvements of existing knowledge. Cropley (2006) listed a number of creativity researchers who all give a prominent place to existing knowledge in creativity (e.g. Albert, Amabile, Campbell, Chi, Feldhusen, Gardner, Gruber, Mednick, Simonton, Wallas, and Weisberg). As Louis Pasteur, one of the celebrated fathers of vaccination, put it in a frequently cited aphorism he uttered in a lecture in 1854 (Peterson, 1954, p.473): Chance favours only the prepared mind. Thus, the whole process commences with Preparation. Preparation involves, in the first instance, acquisition of general knowledge of an area. This does not mean targeted and focused collection of information relevant 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 preparation, 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 and Anastasi (1968) and Simonton (1984), that scientific creativity may benefit more from preparatory activities, such as education and training, compared to artistic creativity.
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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 scientific creativity in its goals. Therefore preparation plays a critical role in enhancing creativity, 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 organisation, 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 breaking away from them and seeing them in a fresh light. Preparation and Activation occur at the front end of the process of innovation. Turning to the other end of the process, Dasgupta (2004, p.406) summarised the need for Communication very aptly: to be judged innovative, novelty must reach a sufficient state of maturity or completeness to be manifested publicly. Of course, communication involves very different tools, skills, and products in different fields such as physics and art, on the one hand, or business, on the other. In the case of business, communication involves marketing novelty. As Csikszentmihalyi (e.g. 1999) has stated strongly, novelty (in whatever form it is manifested) only achieves the status of being regarded as creative when it is judged by external authorities (such as customers) to involve effective surprise. In other words, not only is Communication necessary, but the approval of 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 of any other virtues it has, before it can be regarded as successful. We call this final step Validation.

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Wallass phase of Incubation is also problematic. It seems intuitively clear that innovation requires processing of information. However, in reviewing a number of 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 of heuristic processes such as setbreaking or construction of 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 monotonic processes (step-by-step improvement based on, for instance, systematic and sequential application of expertise to a series of intermediate products, each of which is closer to the final product than the previous one). The purpose here, however, is not to define the precise nature of generation of effective novelty, but to emphasise that some kind of mental review of information (however this occurs) is one element of the process. It is possible to label this phase Generation, which can be used to refer to both non-monotonic and monotonic processes, i.e. it is more general than Incubation in Wallass sense. An Expanded Phase Model of the process of generation of effective novelty, drawing together the elements discussed in this section, is shown in Figure2. It would be possible to consider only the phases up to but not including Communication. However, this would not involve innovation, for which the final two phases are essential, but only the novelty production component of the total process (i.e. creativity only).

A social/psychological phase model of innovation

Drawing together the threads of business models of innovation with the social/psychological dimensions of creativity leads us to propose a more highly differentiated, and therefore more diagnostically useful, social/psychological model of innovation. Figure2 started by linking the phases of invention/creativity with those necessary for exploitation of the creativity, for instance by emphasising acceptance of a novel product in the market place in the phase of Validation.

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Figure 2: The Expanded Phase Model of the Innovation Process

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The Social/Psychological Phase Model of Innovation can now be mapped against a typical business model (Luecke and Katz, 2003). Figure3 illustrates the seven phases suggested by the Expanded Phase Model (Figure2), the interaction of the four social/ psychological dimensions (the four Ps) with each phase, and a mapping to a typical business model. Unlike the business model, the social/psychological phase model recognises the changing, and often paradoxical psychological dimensions of innovation that must be understood and fostered for successful innovation to take place.

Figure3: 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 of a model of the innovation process is not simply its role as a description of the process. Managers require a model that will enable them to translate description into action. A successful model needs to provide guidance on how the process of innovation can be optimised to yield the best possible outcomes. The Social/Psychological Phase Model of Innovation achieves this by drawing on the more detailed representation of innovation encapsulated in the seven phases of the Expanded Phase Model of the Innovation Process (Figure2). The paradoxical social/psychological factors (Table1) that operate in each phase of the process can be mapped onto this framework. This mapping highlights the different, and often contradictory, social-psychological dimensions that influence actors during the innovation process. Together, these elements therefore 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. Table2 offers a summary overview of the social/psychological models mapping of each phase (preparation, activation, etc.) of the innovation process onto the dimensions expressed in the four Ps (Process, Person, Product and Press). The dimension Person is expanded into three sub-dimensions (Motivation, Personal Properties and Feelings) to offer a more differentiated analysis. Table2 illustrates the ideal constellation of social/psychological dimensions across the seven phases of the innovation process. It is important to note that this paper is not arguing that, in practice, the various phases are totally separate from each other, or that every successful innovation commences with a concrete and specifiable phase of Preparation, followed by Activation, and so on. In practice, for instance, the process may be broken off in one phase and later recommence part way through, let us say in the phase of generation. The output from one phase may lead not to an illumination but instead to, for instance, a restart of 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 of innovation. In addition, it looks at apparently irrational elements of the process such as the fact that the very qualities that are a strength in a company are sometimes simultaneously a weakness (as the systems approach has shown but for which it offers no explanation).
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Table2: The social/psychological phase model of innovation ideal constellation of paradoxical dimensions

Dimension

Phase Paradox Activation Generation Illumination Verification Validation

Preparation

Communication

Process

Convergent v Divergent Divergent Divergent Convergent Convergent Mixed

Convergent

Convergent

Motivation

Reactive v Proactive Proactive Proactive Proactive Mixed Reactive

Mixed

Reactive

273
Innovative Innovative Innovative Adaptive Generative Generative Generative Creative Creative Creative Routine Low Low Low High

Personal Properties

Adaptive v Innovative

Adaptive

Adaptive

Adaptive

Feelings

Conserving v Generative

Conserving

Conserving

Conserving

Conserving

Product

Routine v Creative

Routine

Routine

Routine

Fostering and measuring creativity and innovation

Press

High demand v Low demand

High

High

High

David H. Cropley

The approach presented here also broadens the strictly rational, mechanistic approach of linear models by taking account of the vagaries of the human actors involved in innovation. The Social/Psychological Phase Model extends the usefulness of present analyses by recognising the role of hot, non-cognitive human factors such as motivation and feelings. At a less theoretical and more practical level, the ideal constellation depicted in Table2 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 properties and feelings of the people involved. On its own this is a platitude, but the idealised table suggests how to 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 for discussing what is actually happening at any stage of the innovation process. The possibility of saying more 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 formal level, such discussions could be extended to form a more detailed and more explicitly differentiated diagnosis of creativity and innovation in organisations. Drawing on the combination of models and concepts, the Social/Psychological Phase Model of Innovation permits the following: (i)  mapping of the current activities of an organisation onto the sequence of phases required for innovation; (ii)  identification of the social-psychological dimensions that are favourable to innovation for any given phase; (iii)  diagnosis of an organisations strengths and weaknesses in the innovation process; (iv)  analysis and optimisation of activities to maximise the outcomes of each phase of innovation. These thoughts raise the possibility of a diagnostic instrument based on the Social/Psychological Phase Model which would offer a more formal and structured analysis.
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