Creative and innovative: an assay of workers

Abstract

A contemporary approach to creativity research emphasizes the fact that all people, in their work context, can contribute with creative ideas in some domain. In this sense, the organizational context has a determining influence (Amabile, 1996). The objective of this study is to analyse the impact of organization type (private- versus public-sector), education level, gender and age on creativity and perceived innovativeness with a sample of 611 Portuguese workers. These variables were operationalized by the Test for Creative Thinking- Drawing Production (TCT-DP) and the Innovativeness Inventory (II). Organization type and education level seem to be the best predictors for creativity and innovativeness, respectively.In the future, it intends to undertake a detailed characterization of the variables involved in the organizational climate as these may explain the lower creativity levels of public workersto some extent.