measurement and prediction for personnel decisions.
ndustrial and organizational psychologists consider innovation, more often than not, a variable of less importance and often a counter-productive one to include in conducting job performance appraisals when irrelevant to the major job functions for which a given job exists. Nonetheless, I/O psychologists see the value of that variable where its consideration would, were its reliability and validity questioned, achieve a statistically significant probability that its results are not due to chance, and that it can be replicated reliably with a statistically significant ratio of reliability, and that were a court to raise a question on its reliability and validity testing, the I/O psychologist behind its use would be able to defend it before a court of justice with the belief that it will stand before such a court as reliable, and valid[remove or clarification needed][citation needed].
Four qualities are generally linked to creative and innovative behaviour by individuals:[55]
- Task-relevant skills (general mental ability and job specific knowledge). Task specific and subject specific knowledge is most often gained through higher education; however, it may also be gained by mentoring and experience in a given field.[55]
- Creativity-relevant skills (ability to concentrate on a problem for long periods of time, to abandon unproductive searches, and to temporarily put aside stubborn problems). The ability to put aside stubborn problems is referred to by Jex & Britt as productive forgetting.[55] Creativity-relevant skills also require the individual contributor to evaluate a problem from multiple vantage points. One must be able to take on the perspective of various users. For example, an Operation Manager analyzing a reporting issue and developing an innovative solution would consider the perspective of a sales person, assistant, finance, compensation, and compliance officer.
- Task motivation (internal desire to perform task and level of enjoyment).[55]
At the organizational level, a study by Damanpour identified four specific characteristics that may predict innovation:[124]
- A population with high levels of technical knowledge
- The organization’s level of specialization
- The level an organization communicates externally
- Functional Differentiation.[55]