Creativity can be defined as the ability to produce original ideas or work that fits within a specified context and responds to task constraints (Sternberg & Lubart, 1995). Creative ability is best manifested in unique accomplishments that are recognized as valuable. Creativity is increasingly cited as a twenty-first-century skill that is valued in education and the workplace (Adobe, 2012a, 2012b, 2016). For example, the World Economic Forum placed it in the top characteristics for employability in the coming decade (WEF, 2016), and a survey of 1541 CEOs of major international companies indicated that creativity was the most important ability that a good leader must show in order to address the complexity of the new economic environment (IBM, 2010a, 2012). Since the 1980s, the multivariate approach to creativity has contributed to help conceptualize and measure creativity. In this approach, creativity requires a particular combination of factors within the individual (cognitive, conative, and affective factors), and outside the individual, in the environmental context (see Lubart, 1999).
Specific aspects of cognition (such as mental flexibility), personality (such as risk taking), motivation, and affect (such as emotional idiosyncrasy) combine with physical or social stimulation from the environment and provide the āingredientsā that come into play in the production of creative work. The extent to which the various person-centered and environment-centered āingredientsā are qualitatively and quantitatively optimal, given the nature of the problem to be solved, determines the degree to which highly creative productions can be achieved. Of course, it is important to note that these ingredients, or factors, combine in interactive and maybe non-linear ways. Thus, there may be some partial compensation between strong and weak factors but also some multiplicative effects in which the co-presence of two or more factors leads to an extra boost in creative output. In addition, it must not be forgotten that the āingredientsā that favor creative work must be brought into the productive process of thinking. The manner in which these psychological or environmental factors enter the work progress will also determine the effect on the creative work produced.
Therefore, according to the multivariate approach, which is developed in this chapter, creativity depends on cognitive, conative, affective, and environmental factors. Each person has a particular profile on these different factors. This profile may be more relevant to the requirements of a given task or job. In order to conceptualize creativity and measure it, we distinguish (1) creative potential, which is a latent capacity of a person to produce novel, valuable work, from (2) creative accomplishment, which refers to the effective production of work that is appreciated as novel and valuable in a given social context.
Walberg (1988) considers creative potential as part of human capital, at the individual level, but also at the organizational or societal levels. This capital may be put to use if the opportunity exists. An individual, and his/her organization, may be aware of this potential, although this is not always the case. Each person can be described as having a certain level of creative potential in a given domain of work, and more specifically, in a given task. As the specific nature of creativity varies to some extent across domains, it is expected that individuals will have heterogeneous levels of creative potential and creative accomplishment across diverse domains of activity.
In terms of the measurement of creative potential, it is useful to distinguish three main approaches.
- 1.Assess the resources that form the basis of creative potential
To assess creative potential in a multivariate approach, an individual may be presented with a series of measures designed to assess the ingredients or resources underlying creative work. This assessment situation covers, ideally, cognitive, conative, affective, and environmental factors. The set of assessed resources can be summarized in a personās profile.
- 2.Assess creative potential manifested in a sample task
Another way to assess creative potential is to have a person complete a sample task, which simulates a real-world situation. In this case, it is typical to compare individualsā performances on the simulated task, as through indices such as the number of ideas generated or judgments of the creative nature of the ideas by appropriate evaluators. In this measurement approach, all the relevant resources can be brought into play during engagement in task completion. Here the simulated task should be as close to the real task as possible. It is also important to assure that individuals engage as fully as possible in the simulated task.
- 3.Assess creative potential through previous creative achievements
In this line of measurement, which focuses on creative achievement, real-world accomplishments are evaluated for their creativity. This may take the form of self-reported judgments of work, peer judgments, or expert (supervisor or external panel) judgments. Although these measures concern creative achievement, they can also be used as a proxy for future expressions of creative potential. In this view, the person-centered and environment-centered resources that were brought into play in the past have a good chance to be brought again into play in the future. Again, estimates of creative potential based on past achievements depend partly on the similarity of future tasks to past ones.
This presentation of the three main ways to assess creative potential can be extended to measures of innovation. Creativity and innovation are closely related topics, and creativity may be considered as part of innovation (Tang, 2017). To simplify, creativity is often seen as the ability to āget ideasā, which is considered as the first part of an innovation cycle (Amabile, 1988; Anderson, Potocnik, & Zhou, 2014; Cropley, 2006). Then these ideas need to be developed and brought to market, which tends to be the focus of work specifically on āinnovationā. In fact developing ideas and bringing them to fruition itself often involves the generation of new ideas, so the distinction is quite blurred in most cases (Paulus, 2002; Scott & Bruce, 1994). We can note, however, that the three types of assessment of creative potential, mentioned earlier, can be adapted to measure the potential for innovation.
In the next sections of this chapter, we look into contemporary issues concerning each of these measurement topics. First, the measurement of creative potential through assessment of the multivariate resources is described. Second, the peer-assessed evaluation of productions generated though sample tasks or achievement measures is examined. Third, measures that concern creative achievements within the broader innovation cycle are presented.
Part I: Assessment of Multivariate Resources
Given the importance of creativity for work and organizational psychology, some authors have addressed research questions related to professional selection (e.g., Althuizen, 2012; Hunter, Cushenbery, & Friedrich, 2012; Malakate, Andriopoulos, & Gotsi, 2007) or creative personnel management (e.g., Mumford, 2000). Creativity is becoming a major issue for companies, and it is therefore important to know how to detect the creative potential of people.
There is, however, relatively little research on the selection and recruitment of creative staff. In one study, Scratchley and Hakstian (2001) examined the possibility of detecting the creative potential of managers in a real recruitment situation for Canadian firms. They defined managerial creativity as the ability of a manager to produce new concepts, new ideas, new directions, new procedures, and new methods that will be useful to the company. In order to detect candidatesā creative potential, they developed a battery measuring openness (composed of openness to change, risk taking, and tolerance to ambiguity), general intelligence (Wonderlic Personnel Test), and three divergent thinking tasks. This battery was administered to 223 candidates, managers from the public and private sectors. To validate their measures of creative potential, Scratchley and Hakstian (2001) assessed also the candidatesā creative performance. To do so, ...