a review of instruments assessing creative and innovative environments within organizations

This article was downloaded by: [Marshall University]On: 02 August 2013, At: 01:34Publisher: RoutledgeInforma Ltd Registered in England and Wales Registered Number: 1072954 Registered office: Mortimer House,37-41 Mortimer Street, London W1T 3JH, UK

Creativity Research JournalPublication details, including instructions for authors and subscription information:http://www.tandfonline.com/loi/hcrj20

A Review of Instruments Assessing Creative andInnovative Environments Within OrganizationsGro Ellen Mathisen & Stale EinarsenPublished online: 08 Jun 2010.

To cite this article: Gro Ellen Mathisen & Stale Einarsen (2004) A Review of Instruments Assessing Creative and InnovativeEnvironments Within Organizations, Creativity Research Journal, 16:1, 119-140, DOI: 10.1207/s15326934crj1601_12

To link to this article: http://dx.doi.org/10.1207/s15326934crj1601_12

PLEASE SCROLL DOWN FOR ARTICLE

Taylor & Francis makes every effort to ensure the accuracy of all the information (the “Content”) containedin the publications on our platform. However, Taylor & Francis, our agents, and our licensors make norepresentations or warranties whatsoever as to the accuracy, completeness, or suitability for any purpose of theContent. Any opinions and views expressed in this publication are the opinions and views of the authors, andare not the views of or endorsed by Taylor & Francis. The accuracy of the Content should not be relied upon andshould be independently verified with primary sources of information. Taylor and Francis shall not be liable forany losses, actions, claims, proceedings, demands, costs, expenses, damages, and other liabilities whatsoeveror howsoever caused arising directly or indirectly in connection with, in relation to or arising out of the use ofthe Content.

This article may be used for research, teaching, and private study purposes. Any substantial or systematicreproduction, redistribution, reselling, loan, sub-licensing, systematic supply, or distribution in anyform to anyone is expressly forbidden. Terms & Conditions of access and use can be found at http://www.tandfonline.com/page/terms-and-conditions

http://www.tandfonline.com/loi/hcrj20

http://www.tandfonline.com/action/showCitFormats?doi=10.1207/s15326934crj1601_12

http://dx.doi.org/10.1207/s15326934crj1601_12

http://www.tandfonline.com/page/terms-and-conditions

http://www.tandfonline.com/page/terms-and-conditions

A Review of Instruments Assessing Creative and InnovativeEnvironments Within Organizations G. E. Mathisen and S. EinarsenCreative and Innovative Environments

Gro Ellen MathisenNorwegian School of Hotel Management

Ståle EinarsenNorwegian School of Hotel Management and University of Bergen

ABSTRACT: This article provides a review of theavailable instruments for measuring work environ-ments conducive to creativity and innovation. The fol-lowing instruments were assessed: KEYS: Assessingthe Climate for Creativity, Creative Climate Question-naire, Situational Outlook Questionnaire, Team Cli-mate Inventory, and Siegel Scale of Support forInnovation. Each instrument was described, includingdetails about the research on the measure’s norms, fac-tor structure, reliability, and validity. It was concludedthat two of the instruments are of acceptable scientificquality and are well documented in peer-reviewed lit-erature. Too little documentation exists for the otherthree instruments.

Contemporary organizations are facing increased so-cial and economic change, and increased competition.Technological developments are also occurring veryrapidly. Continuous renewal and adaptation is requiredto stay in business. Hence, the quest for increased orga-nizational creativity and innovation in products, ser-vices, systems, and work processes has increasinglybeen recognized as a key factor to long-term organiza-tional survival and success (Ekvall, 1999; Soriano deAlencar & Bruno-Faria, 1997). To promote creativityand innovation within and amongst employees is there-fore a major requirement for most organizations in theyears to come.

Whether or not successful innovation in fact occurswithin an organization is related to a wide range of ex-ternal and internal factors. However, creative and in-novative behaviors at work seem to be promoted by acognitive flexibility created by a combination of both

personal qualities and work environment factors (West& Richards, 1999). Psychological research has identi-fied several types of individual differences related tothe creativity of employees, such as cognitive style(Martinsen & Kaufmann, 1999), openness to experi-ence (Helson, 1999), and intrinsic motivation(Amabile, 1996). However, it is also clearly the casethat organizations may create an atmosphere in whichcreativity and innovation are either fostered or stifled.The combination of a supportive and challenging envi-ronment has particularly been found to sustain highlevels of creativity in individuals and teams (West &Richards, 1999).

The social environment of creative and innovativeorganizations seems, further, to be characterized by acommitment to ambitious goals, freedom and auton-omy regarding the choice of tasks and how they areperformed, encouragement of ideas, and sufficienttime for creating ideas, as well as appropriate feed-back, recognition, and rewards for creative work(Amabile, Conti, Coon, Lazenby, & Herron, 1996).Furthermore, West (1990) stressed the importance of anonthreatening environment in which participation isencouraged, a shared concern with excellence and highquality of performance, as well as the expectation, ap-

Creativity Research Journal 119

Creativity Research Journal Copyright 2004 by2004, Vol. 16, No. 1, 119–140 Lawrence Erlbaum Associates, Inc.

We thank the anonymous Creativity Research Journal reviewers fortheir help.

Correspondence and requests for reprints should be sent to GroEllen Mathisen, Norwegian School of Hotel Management, StavangerUniversity College, Postboks 8002 Ullandhaug, 4068 Stavanger,Norway. E-mail: [email protected]

Dow

nloa

ded

by [

Mar

shal

l Uni

vers

ity]

at 0

1:34

02

Aug

ust 2

013

proval, and support of attempts to introduce new andimproved ways of doing things.

Tesluk, Farr, and Klein (1997) pointed to the im-portance of clearly specified objectives or missionsthat are widely shared by the members of the organi-zation, the permission of risk taking, and the opportu-nity to make errors. West (1990) has also pinpointedshared, clear, and attainable visions as core character-istics of creative and innovative work environments.On the other hand, highly specified objectives maylimit a free flow of ideas and a departure from con-ventional thinking, and hence hamper creativity andinnovation. Although creativity is seen as systematic,organized, and based on highly structured processes(Ward, 1994; Weisberg, 1986), randomness alsoseems to play an important role in creativity, leadingto novel variations in thinking (Findlay & Lumsden,1988). When collaborating with others, there isclearly a need for common references (common men-tal model) to prevent misunderstandings, facilitatecommunication, and channel the idea generationalong avenues likely to be relevant to the problem(Mumford, Feldman, Hein, & Nagao, 2001). On theother hand, if objectives are never questioned orchanged, objectives may become obsolete. Thus, topromote creativity and innovation, there should prob-ably be shared, clearly-specified objectives, as wellas a possibility to challenge them.

The aim of this study was to review instruments de-signed to assess the organizations’ internal environ-ments and social climates in relation to creativity andinnovation. The measurement of creative and innova-tive environments may be useful in diagnosing the rel-ative degree to which an organization’s workenvironment is conducive to creativity and innovation.This may also be helpful in the evaluation of improve-ment efforts, and in the identification of relativestrengths and weaknesses within and between depart-ments and work groups (Amabile et al., 1996). Al-though a vast body of research on organizationalfactors and work environment relating to creativity andinnovation already exists (see Tesluk et al., 1997, for areview), no review of the instruments created to assessthese factors has yet been published.

Both instruments designed to measure creative en-vironments and innovative environments will be re-viewed in this article. The concepts of creativity andinnovation are highly related, and some of the litera-

ture has claimed that they seem to depart more in em-phasis than in substance (Scott & Bruce, 1994). Bothconcepts deal with the production and implementationof new and appropriate ideas—in this case, within anorganizational context. However, although the produc-tion of ideas is often stressed in definitions of creativ-ity, there is usually a stronger emphasis on thesuccessful implementation of these ideas in definitionsof innovation (Amabile et al., 1996). Further, althoughboth concepts have been studied on a group and an or-ganizational level, the concept of creativity has alsobeen studied on an individual level. Within an organi-zational context, creativity and innovation are highlyrelevant on individual, group, and organizational lev-els. It also seems to be likely that a high level of cre-ativity is a necessary, though not necessarily sufficient,requirement for innovations (Amabile et al., 1996). Onthe other hand, a creative idea must actually be imple-mented—that is, lead to an actual innovation—in orderto be of any real organizational use.

Actual innovation may also in itself be a motivatorof creativity. Tomorrow’s organizations face the chal-lenge of being both creative, in the sense that they pro-duce their own novel and useful ideas, as well asinnovative, in the sense that creative ideas are actuallyimplemented. Hence, the concepts of innovation andcreativity, and the behaviors that characterize them,are so strongly related that we found it worthwhile toreview both instruments designed to measure creativeenvironments and innovative environments.

A main aim of this review was to assess which as-pects of the work environment different instrumentsintend to measure and, in particular, to what extent theinstruments measure aspects of work environments re-lated to innovation and creativity, as specified in the re-search literature. Also of interest is at what level or unitof the organization the instrument is intended to pro-vide information—the individual, team, or organiza-tional level—and how explicitly this is expressed tothe respondents and the users of the instrument. Ac-cording to Rousseau (1988), instruments often poorlydefine at what level subjects are to provide informa-tion. Such ambiguity can lead the respondents to reportperceptions of different units and levels of theorganization.

The literature on the work climate concept has beencharacterized by a debate about whether work climateshould be conceptualized as an objective property of

120 Creativity Research Journal

G. E. Mathisen and S. Einarsen

Dow

nloa

ded

by [

Mar

shal

l Uni

vers

ity]

at 0

1:34

02

Aug

ust 2

013

the organization, or as an individual, subjective per-ception (see Rousseau, 1988). Because the chosen the-oretical perspective will direct development of aparticular instrument, it will be reported in this review.

Another issue that will be considered is the potentialusefulness of the instrument in organizational develop-ment projects. In this regard, both number of items andcomprehensiveness of the potential subscales are ofimportance. Further, to be of practical value, informa-tion about norms is needed and will be assessed, in-cluding information about the kinds of organizationalsettings in which the instruments have been used sofar.

To review the quality of the instruments, publishedresearch on factor structure, reliability, and validitywill be discussed. The extent of correspondence be-tween empirical factors and theoretical factors will beassessed. Concerning reliability, both test-retest andinternal consistency will be examined. Because workenvironments tend to change over time, long-term test-retest reliability was expected to be moderate, butshort-term test-retest reliability was expected to behigh. Regarding validity, information on predictive,criterion, convergent, and discriminant validity will beassessed.

A search in Psychinfo, ERIC, Social Citation Index,and First Search revealed both descriptions of instru-ments construed solely for research purposes (Scott &Bruce, 1994), and presentations of instruments devel-oped for practical and commercial use in addition to re-search purposes. The following criteria had to be metby each of the instruments included in our review: (a)The aim of the instrument must be to assess the qualityof the social environment of organizations in relationto innovation or creativity; (b) Information onpsychometric characteristics must be available; (c) Theinstrument must be available for research as well ascommercial use; and (d) The instrument must havebeen described in an international journal.

Only five instruments meet all four criteria: theSiegel Scale of Support for Innovation (SSSI; Siegel &Kaemmerer, 1978), KEYS (Amabile et al., 1996), theCreative Climate Questionnaire (CCQ; Ekvall, 1996),the Team Climate Inventory (TCI; Anderson & West,1994, 1998), and the Situational Outlook Question-naire (SOQ; Isaksen, Lauer, & Ekvall, 1999). Each in-strument was reviewed by obtaining the instrument,the manual (if one existed), and the published research

on the instrument. In addition, the developer of the testwas contacted to ensure no significant research hadbeen overlooked. The latter was possible for all instru-ments except the Siegel Scale of Support for Innova-tion. A closer look at the description of the SituationalOutlook Questionnaire revealed it to be an English ver-sion of the CCQ. Thus, these two instruments are re-viewed together.

CCQ

The CCQ (Ekvall, 1996; Ekvall, Arvonen, &Waldenström-Lindblad, 1983) was designed to mea-sure organizational conditions that may stimulate orhamper creativity and innovation. More specifically, itis a questionnaire measuring the climate for creativitywithin organizations. Ekvall (1983, 1996) defined or-ganizational climate as “a conglomerate of attitudes,feelings, and behaviors that characterizes life in the or-ganization” (1996, p. 105). There has been much con-troversy about the concept of climate. One centraldebate concerns whether or not the concept should beconceived as a common perception amongst the mem-bers about the conditions in the organization, or as anobjective property of the organization. Ekvall (1996)regards climate as an organizational reality, rather thanindividual perceptions. Organizational climate wasconceptualized as an intervening variable, which influ-ences organizational processes such as problem solv-ing, decision-making, communication, coordination,control, learning, creation, motivation, and commit-ment. The climate and the processes mentioned werehypothesized to have effects on quality, productivity,innovation, job satisfaction, well being, and profit inthe organization (Ekvall, 1996, 1999). Climate was, onthe other hand, seen to be influenced by the resourcesof the organization (people, buildings, machinery,“know how,” patents, funds, materials, products, andconcepts) that were used in the processes and opera-tions of the organization (Ekvall, 1996). Ekvall (1983,1996) is primarily interested in climates that foster theorganizational members’ creativity and thus promoteinnovation in the organization. He has not, however,presented definitions of the concepts of creativity andinnovation.

The development of the CCQ started with a litera-ture review, which suggested that organizational inno-


Creative and Innovative Environments

Dow

nloa

ded

by [

Mar

shal

l Uni

vers

ity]

at 0

1:34

02

Aug

ust 2

013

vation was related to four broad areas (Ekvall et al.,1983 pp. 2–3):

• “Mutual trust and confidence. Support for ideas.Open relationships.”

• “Challenge and motivation. Commitment to theorganization’s goals and operations.”

• “Freedom to seek information and showinitiative.”

• “Pluralism in views, knowledge and experience.Exchange of opinions and ideas.”

Fifty questions were constructed to fit these four do-mains. The items consisted of statements about thesociopsychological situation in the organization andprovided four response categories (0 = strongly dis-agree, 1 = agree up to a point, 2 = agree, and 3 = stronglyagree). The original questionnaire was administered to190 engineers, and a factor analysis was conducted.Based on these data, 12 items were removed and 6 newones were added. A new factor analysis was run on thismodified version, using the responses from 237 re-searchers and engineers, resulting in 6 new items to beadded. The final version of the questionnaire thus con-sisted of 50 items.

More recent publications have presented a theoreti-cal model, including 10 climate dimensions that theCCQ is supposed to measure with 5 items in each di-mension. Nine of the dimensions include items hy-pothesized to promote creativity (see Table 1). Thetenth dimension, “conflicts”, is supposed to be nega-tively related to creativity (Ekvall, 1996).

A high value on a dimension was hypothesized toindicate that creativity and innovation are promoted inorganizations, except in the case of the conflict dimen-sion, where the reverse applied. It is somewhat unclearwhat response categories apply to the 10-factorversion.

The CCQ has also been translated into English. Thisversion is called SOQ (Isaksen et al., 1999). In theSOQ, the scale dynamism/liveliness has been re-moved. Hence, the SOQ consists of nine subscales.Some of the items from the dynamism/liveliness scalehave been removed and some new items have beenadded into a subscale called “challenge.” The SOQconsists of 50 items, but unlike the CCQ, the scalesconsist of unequal numbers of items. The SOQ providefour alternative responses (0 = not at all applicable, 1 =applicable to some extent, 2 = fairly applicable, and 3= applicable to a high extent).



Table 1. The Theoretical Dimensions of the Creative Climate Questionnaire

Dimension Description

Challenge The degree to which the people of the organization are emotionally involved in its operations and goals and findpleasure and meaningfulness in their job.

Freedom The independence of behavior exerted by the members of the organization. In climates with a great deal offreedom people are given autonomy to define much of their own work.

Idea support The ways new ideas are treated. In the supportive climate managers and colleagues receive ideas andsuggestions in an attentive and receptive way and there are possibilities for trying out new ideas.

Trust/openness The degree of perceived emotional safety in relationships. When there is a strong level of trust, everyone daresto present ideas and opinions since initiatives can be taken without fear of reprisals or ridicule in case offailures.

Dynamism/liveliness In a dynamic climate, new things happen all the time and there are frequent changes in ways of thinking aboutand handling issues.

Playfulness/humor The perceived ease and spontaneity, a relaxed atmosphere with laughter and jokes.Debates Encounters, exchanges, or clashes among ideas, viewpoints, and differing experiences and knowledge. Many

voices are heard and people are keen on putting forward their ideas.Conflicts The degree of emotional and personal tensions in the organization. In climates with high levels of conflict,

groups and individuals dislike each other and there is considerable gossip and slander.Risk taking The tolerance of uncertainty in the organization. In the high risk-taking climate, decisions and actions are rapid,

arising opportunities are seized upon, and concrete experimentation is preferred to detailed investigation andanalysis.

Idea time The amount of time one can use for developing new ideas. Organizations characterized with much idea time aregiving possibilities to discuss and test impulses and suggestions that are not planned or included in the taskassignment.

Note. Based on Ekvall (1996).

Dow

nloa

ded

by [

Mar

shal

l Uni

vers

ity]

at 0

1:34

02

Aug

ust 2

013

Psychometric Characteristics

Norms. Several studies have been conducted toassess the psychometric attributes of the CCQ, but nonorms or manual seem to exist. However, Ekvall(1991) presented a review of mean scores from 27 orga-nizations on nine climate dimensions (the dimension“idea time” was not included), divided into so-calledinnovative, stagnated, and average organizations. Re-garding the SOQ, a manual exists, but is only availablefor certified users of the SOQ (Isaksen, Lauer,Murdock, Dorval, & Puccio, 1995).

Factor structure. The factor structure of theCCQ was explored using two samples: (a) 192 re-searchers, engineers, and marketing personnel fromR&D or marketing departments from several differentcompanies, and (b) 234 employees from 9 departmentsof a large engineering company (Ekvall et al., 1983).Principal factor analyses isolated seven factors, whichtogether explained between 50% and 60% of the vari-ance (different analyses gave slightly different results).No information was presented about the principal fac-tors’ explained variance. The six factors were labeled“challenge,” “support of ideas,” “trust,” “freedom inthe organization,” “freedom in the job,” “dynamism,”and “tension.” According to Ekvall et al. (1983), thesefactors were a representation of the four hypotheticalareas previously described. A factor labeled “global”was also constructed. This factor consisted of 12 items,which loaded heavily upon the factor they were drawnfrom, and which had a low correlation with other fac-tors. These items were taken from all the factors men-tioned, except the factor “tension.”

No documentation exists in the scholarly literatureon the psychometric attributes of the 10-factor modelof the CCQ. The factor structure of the English (SOQ)version has been explored, although not in a peer-re-viewed journal (Isaksen et al., 1999). A principal axisfactor analysis revealed 9 factors. The majority of theitems loaded on their theoretical factor (N = 1111). To-gether, the nine factors extracted accounted for 62.3%of the variance. The principal factor, idea support, ac-counted for 33.4% of the variance.

Reliability. Internal consistency analyses of theseven-factor version of the CCQ were conducted with

the same two samples as for the factor analyses, with re-sults between .70 and .92 (median .82) in the firstsample and between .67 and .91 (median .84) in the sec-ond sample. The factor “global” had an internal consis-tency of .90 in the first and .83 in the second sample(Ekvall et al., 1983). No information has been reportedon intercorrelations between the scales.

Analyses of the ten-factor model of the CCQ havebeen conducted in six different studies (see Ekvall,1996). The reliabilities vary from .66 to .91, with medi-ans for each study of .83, .76, .79, .84, .80, .78, and .79.Isaksen and Kaufmann (1990) reported reliabilitiesvarying from .72 to .87 (median .78). As with theseven-factor model, there is no available informationabout intercorrelations between the scales in the ten-factor model. Consistency analyses conducted on theEnglish (SOQ) version revealed alphas varying from.62 to .90 (median .86; Isaksen et al., 1999).

No test-retest reliability analyses were undertakenwith the seven-factor model of the CCQ, or with theEnglish version SOQ. The test-retest reliability of theten-factor model was assessed in a three-year longitu-dinal study of a project work in an electronics companywhere the CCQ was administered every third month (N= 30; Ekvall, 1993). The climate was reported as beingfairly stable, indicating that the CCQ has acceptabletest-retest reliability. A few alterations in climatescores were interpreted as normal response differencesin accordance with different phases in a project. How-ever, no correlation coefficients or significance levelswere reported.

Validity. The seven-factor model of the CCQwas administered to employees in two departments ofan engineering company (ns reported as respectivelyabout 40 and 50). One of the departments had appar-ently adapted successfully to the demands of a chang-ing environment and was more financially successful,but the other was regarded as a “problem child in thecompany” (Ekvall et al., 1983, p. 10). Nothing wasmentioned, however, about the reasons why the depart-ment was seen as problematic. Responses on three ofthe seven factors showed significant differences in thepredicted direction (challenge, support for ideas, anddynamism). The “global” factor also showed signifi-cant differences between the two departments.

In another study reported by Ekvall et al. (1983),managers of three small industrial companies com-



Dow

nloa

ded

by [

Mar

shal

l Uni

vers

ity]

at 0

1:34

02

Aug

ust 2

013

pleted the CCQ (each with about 100 employees, butexact ns were not reported). The results were inter-preted according to the seven-factor model. Ekvall etal. (1983) described company A as financially success-ful and with a positional, rather than innovative, focus.The company was described as sticking to one productgroup and carrying out no R&D to discover new prod-ucts or use of new materials. Company B was de-scribed as having economic problems. It had nodevelopment operations aimed at new products, but themanagement was described as “currently nursing someinnovative ideas” (Ekvall et al, 1983, p. 11). Ekvall etal. (1983) regarded company C as commercially suc-cessful and highly innovative. As expected, companyC had a higher score on “dynamism” than the othercompanies (p < .01). Company B received lowerscores on “support of ideas” (p < .05) compared to theothers, which might be as expected. However, it issomewhat unclear from the descriptions of the compa-nies as to whether company A or B is to be regarded asthe least innovative. Company A scored higher on“freedom in the job” than company C (p < .01), al-though company C displayed higher scores in terms of“tension” (p < .05), findings which run contrary towhat might be expected. Furthermore, for two of thefactors (“trust” and “freedom in the organization”) nosignificant differences were found (Ekvall, 1983).Thus, the findings from this study only marginally con-firm the criterion validity of the CCQ.

Several studies have been conducted using the ten-factor model of the CCQ. Ekvall (1991), for instance,reported climate scores from 27 organizations (ns un-known). The organizations were categorized as inno-vative, stagnated, or average by a researcher, from abusiness school, who had developed a method for rat-ing the innovativeness of a company’s strategies andproducts. Unfortunately, this method was not ex-plained, and it is therefore somewhat unclear as to thecriteria used to evaluate the organizations. The find-ings were as expected: Organizations categorized asinnovative received the highest scores on the CCQ; theones rated as stagnated scored lowest. A considerableweakness of this study is that only average scores werereported, and no statistical analyzes were presentedcomparing the specific CCQ scores.

In a comparison between 10 innovative and 5 stag-nated organizations (no information about ns), Ekvall(1989) reported that the innovative organizationsscored higher on all 10 dimensions of the CCQ, with

the exception of the conflict dimension, where theyscored lower (as expected, because this dimension isthe only one that is hypothesized to have a restrainingeffect on creativity). However, the criteria for the rat-ings of the organizations were not explained, andagain, no statistical analyses were presented. Thus, wedo not know if the CCQ score differences between theorganizations were statistically significant.

In a study of a large multinational corporation in themechanical industry, three subdivisions (one Swedish,one German, and one Spanish; ns not reported) werefound to be at three different levels regarding innova-tive achievements. The German division was ranked asnumber one, the Swedish as number two, and the Span-ish as number three, according to the R&D top man-agement group (Ekvall, 1996). The German divisionreceived the highest scores on all dimensions of theCCQ, except on “conflicts;” the Spanish divisionscored lowest on all the CCQ dimensions, with the ex-ception of “conflict” and “debate”. No statistics fromthis study were presented.

In another study of the 10-factor version of theCCQ, four divisions of a chemical company were com-pared according to innovativeness (Ekvall, Arvonen,& Nyström, 1987). Two of these divisions were ratedby Ekvall (1987) as innovative, and two divisions wererated as positional (ns unclear because only the numberof employees were reported and not the number of ac-tual participants). The latter defended and strength-ened the marked position of their established products,and were not involved in the development of new prod-ucts. Four staff members of the company’s central per-sonnel department (and who had intimate knowledgeof all of the four divisions) responded to the CCQ. Thedivisions rated as innovative scored higher on the CCQdimensions “freedom,” “dynamism,” “playfulness,”“debates,” and “risk taking” (at this time, the dimen-sion “idea time” was not yet included in the CCQ). Un-fortunately, again, no statistics were presentedshowing to what extent the divisions’ CCQ scoreswere statistically different.

Mohamed and Richards (1996) studied eight Ma-laysian manufacturing companies, four of which wereassessed as innovative and four as less innovative, thecriterion being whether or not the company had imple-mented computerized manufacturing systems (N =145). Three independent experts rated the companieson four factors such as changes/continuous improve-ments carried out, introduction and implementation of



Dow

nloa

ded

by [

Mar

shal

l Uni

vers

ity]

at 0

1:34

02

Aug

ust 2

013

technologies, interaction of the companies with theirexternal environments, and number of training pro-grams organized by the companies to stimulate cre-ativity and innovation among its employees. Theinnovative organizations obtained significantly highermean scores on the CCQ than the less innovative ones.The 10 sub scales of CCQ were, however, not exam-ined separately due to the small sample size.

In the most recent published study regarding the 10-factor version of the CCQ, 130 teachers at a Swedishuniversity completed the CCQ as well as an index con-sisting of six items assessing the level of creativity intheir department (the creativity index named “creativ-ity” in the Work Environment Inventory (Amabile &Gryskiewicz, 1989; Ekvall & Ryhammar, 1999). Allcorrelations between the CCQ dimensions and the cre-ativity index, except for “conflicts” and “trust/open-ness,” were statistically significant (ps < .01). Thecorrelation between “trust/openness” and creativitywas significant at the .05 level, but creativity was notrelated to “conflict.” A possible flaw in this study wasthat the employees evaluated both the climate and theoutcome variable, and thus the data could suffer fromcommon method variance.

Information is not available about convergent valid-ity and discriminant validity for any of the versions ofthe CCQ. In three studies of the concurrent criterionvalidity of the SOQ, subjects were asked to describe asituation where one’s creativity had been nurtured, en-couraged, or supported, and a situation where one’screativity had been discouraged, hindered, or stifled(Isaksen, Lauer, Ekvall, & Britz, 2001). The SOQ wascompleted for both situations. Two of the studies in-cluded a previous 10-factor version of the SOQ (ns =22 & 24), but the third study used the updated 9-factorversion (n = 71). The SOQ showed significant differ-ences in the predicted direction between the twosituations.

Critique

The CCQ is an appealing questionnaire, particu-larly for practitioners, owing to the fact that it has awell-arranged structure of 10 relevant climate factors,each consisting of five items. This structure promotesan immediate understanding of the contents of the in-strument and makes it a useful tool for survey-feed-back procedures. Furthermore, most of the ten

dimensions are described in both academic and appliedliterature as relevant to creativity and innovation. TheCCQ is developed on the basis of a comprehensivemodel where the concept of climate plays an importantrole in the productivity of organizations. However, al-though Ekvall (1983, 1996) defined climate as an orga-nizational attribute, the CCQ measures individualperceptions of the organizational environment. Fur-thermore, some of the studies have not been conductedat the organizational level, but rather at the departmen-tal or division level. Thus, there are inconsistencies be-tween the theoretical basis of the CCQ and the actualuse of the instrument.

There is some uncertainty about the psychometricquality of the CCQ. Although Ekvall (1983, 1996)claimed that the CCQ has adequate psychometricquality, he often did not present adequate informationto support this claim. Several of the reported studieslack information about sample sizes and statisticalanalysis. It is also somewhat unclear as to which as-pects of the questionnaire are based on prior researchfindings and which aspects are derived from theory.As an example, the theoretical 10-factor model ver-sion of the CCQ has not yet been psychometricallydocumented, with the exception of a study of theEnglish version (SOQ) as previously reported. Re-sults from validity studies indicate that the seven-fac-tor model of the CCQ has moderate predictivevalidity; the 10-factor model, although insufficientlyreported, has acceptable predictive validity. Anotherweakness of several validity studies is that the crite-rion variables are poorly described.

Thus, seen from a theoretical standpoint, the CCQ isan interesting instrument, but better documentation ofits psychometric properties is required before it can berecommended as a reliable and valid instrument.

KEYS: Assessing the WorkEnvironment for Creativity

The KEYS (Amabile et al., 1996) is aimed at as-sessing the work environment for creativity, but it isalso relevant for assessing innovation because creativ-ity is argued to be the seed of all innovation. Amabileet al. (1996) defined creativity as “the production ofnovel and useful ideas in any domain” and innovationas “the successful implementation of creative ideaswithin an organization” (p. 1155). The KEYS focuses



Dow

nloa

ded

by [

Mar

shal

l Uni

vers

ity]

at 0

1:34

02

Aug

ust 2

013

on individual work environment perceptions that influ-ence the creativity of organizations. For commercialuse, the KEYS is administered by the Center for Cre-ative Leadership, Greensboro, North Carolina.

The theoretical basis of the instrument is a com-ponential model of creativity and innovation in organi-zations that contains five environmental (contextual)components contributing to creativity: encouragementof creativity, autonomy or freedom, resources, pres-sures, and organizational impediments to creativity(Amabile, 1988). The instrument was based on areview of previous research and a study in which R&Dscientists and technicians described high-creativityand low-creativity situations based on their own workexperience (Amabile, 1988; Amabile & Gryskiewicz,1987). A former version of the instrument was namedthe Work Environment Scale (Amabile &Gryskiewicz, 1989). This instrument has gone throughseveral revisions and the current version has subse-quently been named KEYS.

KEYS measures employees’ perceptions of theirwork environment on several levels within the organi-zation, including organizational, group level, and su-pervisory levels. The instrument consists of 78 itemsand four-point response scales (never or almost never,sometimes, often, always or almost always).

KEYS consists of ten scales. The first six scales (seeTable 2) are hypothesized to encourage creativity. Twoscales, named “organizational impediments” and“workload pressure”, are hypothesized to relate nega-tively to creativity, and two criterion scales assess per-ception of the organizations’ actual creativity andproductivity.

Norms

A manual has been developed with norms and in-structions (Amabile, Burnside, & Gryskiewicz, 1999).The norms are based on 78 groups from 50 different or-ganizations (N = 12,525). A number of industries arerepresented, including electronics, high technology,biotechnology, chemicals, pharmaceuticals, healthproducts, R&D, manufacturing, banking, and con-sumer products.


Factor structure. Confirmatory factor analysiswas run on a sample consisting of 3,708 subjects from26 companies (Amabile et al., 1996). Overall fit mea-sures showed a moderate fit to the data (goodness of fitindex = .85; adjusted goodness of fit index = .84; chi



Table 2. The Theoretical Dimensions of the KEYS


Stimulant scalesOrganizational encouragement Encouragement of risk taking and idea generation, fair, and affirmative evaluation of new ideas, valuing

of innovation from all levels of management, reward and recognition of creativity, and a cross-fertilization of ideas that results from participative management and decision making.

Supervisory encouragement Supervisors who provide goal clarity, give support of the team’s work and ideas, and engage in openinteractions with subordinated and supervisory

Work group supports Stimulation of creativity through qualities found within the group such as team member diversity,constructive challenge of ideas, mutual openness to ideas, and shared commitment to the project.

Sufficient resources Access to appropriate resources, including funds, facilities, materials, and information.Challenging work A belief that tasks is important and therefore provides a source of motivation, work that is intellectually

challenging.Freedom Freedom to decide what work to do or how to do it, to have a sense of control over one’s work.

Obstacle scalesOrganizational impediments Internal strife, conservatism and rigid, formal management structures.Workload pressure Extreme time pressures, unrealistic expectations for productivity and distractions from creative work.

Criterion scalesCreativity A creative organization or unit, where a great deal of creativity is called for and where people believes

they actually produce creative work.Productivity An efficient, effective, and productive organization or unit.

Note. Based on Amabile et al. (1996).

Dow

nloa

ded

by [

Mar

shal

l Uni

vers

ity]

at 0

1:34

02

Aug

ust 2

013

squared (2051) = 17305.48; p < .001; root mean squareresidual = .056). Component fit measures showed thatall items loaded significantly on their predicted factor(ps < .001). However, many items loaded on more thanone factor. No results from exploratory factor analyseswere reported.

Reliability. Internal consistency (usingCronbach’s alpha) varied from .66 to .91, with a medianof .84. There were generally moderate intercorrelationsbetween the scales ranging from .24 to .49, with a me-dian of .38 (Amabile et al., 1996). Short time test-retestreliability across a period of three months varied from.71 to .94, with a median of .86 (Amabile et al., 1996).

Validity. A study consisting of three phases wasconducted in an electronics company with more than30,000 employees (Amabile et al., 1996). In phase one,participants were asked to nominate the highest-cre-ativity and the lowest-creativity projects with whichthey had been involved during the three previous years,and respond to the KEYS with these projects in mind.The participants were instructed to choose projects thatfitted to the definition of creativity as “the productionof novel and useful ideas by individuals or teams of in-dividuals.” The high- and low-creativity projects weresignificantly different on all scales in the KEYS with psat the .001 level, except from workload pressure; thatwas significant at the .01 level. In phase two, independ-ent experts assessed the creativity of the projects nomi-nated in phase 1. Experts also rated the projects nomi-nated by the employees as highly creative in phase 1 assignificantly more creative. However, the inter-raterreliability was relatively low between the experts. Inphase 3, a subsample of the projects nominated in phase1 was selected, and team members from these pro-jects—who had not participated in phase 1 and wereunaware of the fact that the study concerned creativ-ity—were asked to complete the KEYS (n = 170). Thehigh- and low-creativity projects were significantlydifferent in four of the KEYS scales (“work group sup-port,” “challenging work,” “organizational encourage-ment,” and “supervisory encouragement”), and in thepredicted direction. Although the results from phase 3were less powerful than results form phase 1, they mir-rored those of phase 1 in nearly all respects. However,some cautions apply to the interpretations of the results

of this study. Because the KEYS was responded to ret-rospectively, memory biases could compromise theaccuracy of the reports. Another possible bias is that thesubjects were asked to nominate creative projects, aswell as to respond to the KEYS in relation to the sameproject. A halo effect might therefore exist in the data.This bias combined with the memory bias could leademployees to nominate projects on basis of satisfactionwith the work environment, and not the actual attrib-utes of the project. These biases were partly counter-acted by the independent creativity assessments inphase 2.

Ina recent study(Amabile&Conti,1999), theKEYSwas administered during four phases of a major down-sizing process within a high-technology firm: beforedownsizing (baseline), mid-downsizing (wave 1), at theofficial end of the downsizing (wave 2), and five monthsafter theendof thedownsizing(wave3).Therewere754participants in the study. The results showed that thecreativity of the firm declined significantly below thebaseline in all three waves; but productivity was signifi-cantly below the baseline in waves 1 and 2, based on thecriterion scales of the KEYS. The number of inventiondisclosures submitted during the downsizing periodwas also measured and found to decline by 24 % duringthe downsizing period. All six KEYS environmentalstimulants to creativity, with the exception of “supervi-sory encouragement,” declined significantly from base-line to wave 1. In contrast, scores on the KEYScreativity obstacle scales increased significantly. Thistrend was slowly reversed from wave 1 to waves 2 and 3.Results from regression analyses indicated that the ef-fects of downsizing on creativity appeared to be fullymediated by the KEYS stimulant and obstacle scales. Apossible limitation to this study, however, is that differ-ent random samples of employees were used in the dif-ferent phases of the downsizing. The respondents maytherefore have had different frames of reference whenanswering the questionnaire.

The Work Environmental Scale (Insel & Moos,1975), a general measure of work environments in or-ganizations, was used to establish the convergent va-lidity of the KEYS (Amabile et al., 1996). The KEYSscales correlated moderately with the Work Environ-ment Scale (between –.06 and .58), indicating that thetwo instruments measure related, but nonetheless dif-ferent, phenomena.

Two scales were used to establish the discriminantvalidity of the KEYS: The Kirton Adaption-Innova-



Dow

nloa

ded

by [

Mar

shal

l Uni

vers

ity]

at 0

1:34

02

Aug

ust 2

013

tion Inventory (KAI), which is a measure of cognitivestyle related to problem solving (Kirton, 1976), and theWork Preference Inventory (WPI), which assessesstable individual differences in intrinsic–extrinsic mo-tivational orientation (Amabile, Hill, Hennessey, &Tighe, 1994). KEYS showed low correlations withboth the KAI (between –.02 and –.27) and the WPI(between .00 and .09), indicating that responses on theKEYS are not merely reflections of personal character-istics (Amabile et al., 1996).

Critique

The KEYS includes a large number of factors de-scribed in the research literature as either promoting orhindering creativity at several levels of the organiza-tion, as well as criterion questions for assessing per-ceptions of actual creativity and productivity in theorganization. Using the KEYS will thus enable a thor-ough evaluation of employees’ perceptions of the workenvironment, and the relationship between those per-ceptions and judgments of actual creativity and pro-ductivity. The manual is comprehensive and advice isgiven on how to use KEYS in training and organiza-tional development. The norms are based on large sam-ples, including many organizational settings. Hence,the KEYS seems to be a highly useful instrument.

Results from factor analysis of the KEYS indicatethat there is room for improvement in the scales, be-cause many items loaded onto more than one factor.Because no results from exploratory factor analysishave been reported, it is difficult to evaluate the differ-ent factors in relation to the underlying theory.

As has been shown, studies of the KEYS have dem-onstrated acceptable reliability and validity. However,the validity studies have several weaknesses, as men-tioned. Also, only two studies have been conducted.More validity studies should therefore be conducted,involving external ratings of creative outputs. A studyof predictive validity should be conducted in whichKEYS assessed at one point in time could be used topredict external ratings of creativity of work outcomesat some later point of time.

To conclude, studies to date indicate that the KEYSis a promising instrument for assessing the work envi-ronment for creativity. However, a revision of the in-strument may be needed to improve the factor

structure, and more studies are recommended to assessthe validity of the KEYS.

SSSI

The SSSI (Siegel & Kaemmerer, 1978) was devel-oped to assess organizational climate factors assumedto be present in innovative organizations. The defini-tion of organizational climate was based on Litwin andStringer’s (1968) understanding of the concept as “aset of measurable properties of the work environmentthat are perceived by those working in the environmentand influence their motivation and behavior” (as citedin Siegel & Kaemmerer, 1978, p. 554). Thus, mem-bers’ perception of the climate within the organizationwas used as the basis for the measurement, as opposedto objective variables. An innovative organization wasdefined as one that “fosters the creative functioning ofits members,” and a traditional organization was de-fined as “one that is not specifically oriented towardfostering the creative functioning of its members”(Siegel & Kaemmerer, 1978, p.554). The SSSI wasbased on retrospective analyses of two projects, whichattempted to create organizations that would foster thecreative function of their members, and the analysesrevealed five climate dimensions assumed to promotecreativity (see Table 3).

The initial SSSI was based on 225 statements, rep-resenting the dimensions previously described, givenby 10 graduate students. A requirement that 7 of the 10students had to agree about the items’ connection to adimension reduced the pool to 142 items. This initialversion was administered to students and teachers at ahigh school judged as alternative (n = 17) and at an-other high school judged as traditional (n = 93). Theschools were selected mainly on the basis of the goalsdeclared by the school administration. Among thewritten goals of the alternative school were the promo-tion of creativity and the showing of openness to in-quisitiveness and adaptability. Because of these goals,and a program implementing them, the alternativeschool was judged as innovative. The primary goalstated by the administration of the traditional schoolwas to prepare the students for college. In this process,20 items correlating less than .30 with their scale and 5ambiguous items were eliminated, and some new itemswere generated to balance the number of items repre-senting each dimension. The resulting pool consisted



Dow

nloa

ded

by [

Mar

shal

l Uni

vers

ity]

at 0

1:34

02

Aug

ust 2

013

of 149 items. New item analyses were conducted anditems correlating less than .50 with their dimension,with only a few exceptions, were eliminated. The re-maining 100 items were factor analyzed reducing themto a final version consisting of 61 items. In Siegel andKaemmerer (1978), all of the 61 items of the finalquestionnaire were presented. The items of the SSSIare responded to with a Likert scale response formatwith six response alternatives (ranging from stronglyagree to strongly disagree).

Norms

Studies with the SSSI have been conducted in highschools (N = 2153; Siegel & Kaemmerer, 1978), engi-neering companies (N = 60; Orpen, 1990), and a uni-versity based school of nursing (N = 66; Henkin, Davis& Singleton, 1993). However, there are no availablenorms or manual.

Factor structure. In the sample just mentioned,2153 students and teachers at six traditional schools re-ceived the SSSI (Siegel & Kaemmerer, 1978). Explor-atory factor analysis revealed three factors accountingfor 78% of the variance, with the first factor accountingfor 66%. The principal factor was named “support ofcreativity,” and included items describing to what ex-tent the organization is perceived as supporting the in-

dependent functioning of its members, the pursuit ofnew ideas, and as being open to change. The secondfactor was named “tolerance of differences,” and in-cluded items describing to what degree the organiza-tion is perceived as being supportive and tolerant of di-versity among its members. The third factor, named“personal commitment,” included items relating to loy-alty to and concern for the organization, as well as thecommonality between individual and organizationalgoals. Thus, the factor analysis reflected only to acertain extent the five theoretical factors. Orpen(1990) used the SSSI in two engineering companies;one of them was judged independently by localbusinesspersons as innovative, and the other asnoninnovative. Thirty employees from each companycompleted a 30-item version of the SSSI. Nothing wasmentioned, however, about how this version was estab-lished. Principal component analyses of the responsesfrom the two groups revealed a main factor accountingfor 56.2% of the variance in the innovative companyand 68.7% of the variance in the noninnovative com-pany. For both groups, other factors explained very lit-tle of the variance.

Reliability. Split half reliability coefficients forthe three factor indexes were calculated using theSpearman-Brown prediction formula, and revealedreliabilities of .94, .94, and .86 (Siegel & Kaemmerer,1978). However, no information about internal consis-



Table 3. The Theoretical Dimensions in the Siegel Scale of Support for Innovation


Leadership The leadership role in innovative organizations is operationally linked to support, initiation anddevelopment of new ideas throughout the system, diffusion of power, and support of the personaldevelopment of each member of the organization.

Ownership Ownership is linked to feeling among group members that they originate and develop the ideas,processes and procedures with which they work, as opposed to simply using previously determinedsolutions. Ownership is assumed to promote commitment to the work and the organization.

Norms for diversity Norms for diversity is related to a positive attitude toward diversity where few behaviors are judged asbeing deviant. Individual autonomy prevails so that the members are free to choose different ways todeal with problems or tasks. Further, positive responses are given for creativity.

Continuous development Continuous development is conceptually associated with continuous changes where fundamentalassumptions of the system are continuously questioned. Consequently, organizations’ goals can oftenchange. Different approaches to problems and tasks as well as the searches for alternative solutions toproblems are tried out.

Consistency There is a consistency between the processes and desired products so that the members do not chooselines of action, which might conflict with the object of the activity.

Note. Based on Siegel & Kaemmerer (1978).

Dow

nloa

ded

by [

Mar

shal

l Uni

vers

ity]

at 0

1:34

02

Aug

ust 2

013

tencies for the theoretical five-factor model has beenpresented. The factor score intercorrelations were r1, 2 =–.80, r1, 3 = .72 and r2, 3 = .67. No information about in-ternal consistencies of the 30-item version was pre-sented. Information is also not available on test-retestreliability.

Validity. Siegel and Kaemmerer (1978) adminis-tered the SSSI to teachers and students at six traditionalschools and two alternative/innovative schools (as pre-viously described). Results from analyses of variancerevealed significant differences between the innovativeand the traditional schools on the “support of creativ-ity” (p < .001) and “tolerance of differences” factors (p< .001). The third factor, “personal commitment,”failed to distinguish between innovative and traditionalorganizations. Significant differences were, however,also reported between the two alternative schools on allthree factors. Furthermore, two of the traditionalschools scored substantially higher on the first factorcompared to the other traditional schools, revealingthat the schools also differed within the categories.However, the results indicated that two of the factors ofthe SSSI were sensitive to differences between innova-tive and traditional organizations.

In Orpen’s (1990) study of the 30-item version ofthe SSSI, the innovative company obtained significant(p < .01) higher mean scores than the noninnovativecompany on leadership, ownership, norms of diversity,and continuous development (ps < . 05). The fifth theo-retical factor of the SSSI (consistency) was not men-tioned. Information is not available about convergentand discriminant validity of the SSSI.

Critique

The results from the validity study indicated that theSSSI might be a useful instrument for measuringwhether the climate within an organization is perceivedas supportive of creativity and innovation. However, itis difficult to draw conclusions about the instrument’svalue, because only one study of validity has been con-ducted using the original version of the SSSI. Somesubscales have been used elsewhere (Howell & Avolio,1993;Scott&Bruce,1994).Littledocumentation,how-ever, is reported on the psychometric characteristics ofthese scales.

Further, the development of the SSSI was con-ducted at schools, and students generated the items.In the main validity study, the sample mainly con-sisted of students and only a few teachers, which maybe problematic if the intention is to use the instru-ment in work organizations. Students may be con-cerned with elements of climate that differ from thoseof employees. A serious weakness of the two otherstudies of the SSSI is that of sample sizes, whichwere rather low. Thus, at the present it would bemore accurate to categorize the SSSI as a studentschool climate instrument than a measure of organi-zational climate.

Another serious flaw of the SSSI is that the a priorivariables were not corroborated by the factor analysis.Rather, one main factor was revealed, accounting for66% of the variance and named support of creativity(Siegel & Kaemmerer, 1978). The results also indi-cated that this factor was the one that showed the bestpredictive validity. Orpen (1990) later found that a sin-gle factor accounted for 56.2% of the variance with noother factors accounting for more than 12.6% of thevariance. Hence, the questionnaire could probably beimproved if reduced to only one factor.

In spite of the fact that SSSI has existed for morethan 20 years, little documentation exists about itspsychometric properties. The existing documentationshows that there are serious problems concerning thefactor structure, and we know very little about the va-lidity of the SSSI used in work settings.

TCI

The TCI (Anderson & West, 1998) was designedfor assessing proximal work group climate for innova-tion. A proximal work group was defined as “either thepermanent or semipermanent team to which individu-als are assigned, whom they interact with regularly inorder to perform work-related tasks” (Anderson &West, 1998, p.236). Climate was defined as shared per-ceptions at the work group level or “the manner ofworking together that the team has evolved” (Ander-son & West, 1994, p.3). The primary aim of the TCIwas to create an instrument to serve as a team develop-ment tool capable of facilitating interventions in workgroups related to innovation (Anderson & West,1994). Innovation was defined as:



Dow

nloa

ded

by [

Mar

shal

l Uni

vers

ity]

at 0

1:34

02

Aug

ust 2

013

The intentional introduction and application within a role,group, or organization of ideas, processes, products or proce-dures, new to the relevant unit of adoption, designed to signif-icantly benefit role performance, the group, the organization,or the wider society. The element need not be entirely novel orunfamiliar to members of the unit, but it must involve somediscernable change or challenge to the status quo (West &Farr, 1989, p. 16).

The definition included introduction of ideas and thusparallels definitions of creativity.

The development of the TCI was based on West’sfour factormodelofworkgroupinnovation(1990).Thismodel hypothesizes four major climate factors (see Ta-ble 4) to be predictive of the innovativeness of a workteam. For each factor, various subscales have been con-structed (Anderson & West, 1996).

Items were selected from other questionnaires re-lated to the four-factor model (e.g., four items from theSSSI; Siegel & Kaemmerer, 1978; and 15 items fromthe Tjosvold, Wedley, & Field, 1986, scale of con-structive controversy). The remaining items were gen-erated specifically for the TCI. The original version ofthe TCI consisted of 61 items. A short form consistingof 38 items is also available (Anderson & West, 1994).The latter version was developed by extracting itemsfrom the original version, which correlated highly withtheir own scale and yet correlated little with the otherscales (see Anderson & West, 1998).

Different response categories are used in the TCI,and even within two of the dimensions. For example,

in the dimension called “vision,” a 7-point scale rang-ing from 1 (not at all) to 7 (completely) is used, and“task orientation” is divided into one part named cli-mate for excellence with a 7-point response scale rang-ing from 1 (to a very little extent) to 7 (to a very greatextent) and another part named constructive contro-versy with a 5-point response scale from 1 (stronglydisagree) to 5 (strongly agree). The 38-item version ofthe TCI is available in several languages, includingSwedish (Agrell & Gustafson, 1994) and Finnish(Kivimäki et al., 1997). A new short version of theFinnish TCI was recently introduced, consisting ofonly 14 items (Kivimäki & Elovainio, 1999). The latterversion was constructed by running a confirmatoryfactor analysis on the original Finnish TCI and select-ing items that loaded only upon the corresponding la-tent variable derived from the four factor model andallowing no correlation errors either across or withinsets of items.

Norms

A manual and user’s guide with norms is availablefor the 38-item version, including information aboutthe development of the TCI, its psychometric proper-ties, and instructions on the administration and practi-cal use of the TCI (Anderson & West, 1994). Much ofthe available data were collected in health service



Table 4. The Theoretical Dimensions in the Team Climate Inventory


Vision To what extent are the team’s objectives and visions clearly defined, shared, valued, and attainable?The dimension is divided into the subscales clarity, visionary nature, attainability, and sharedness.

Participative safety How participative is the team in decision-making procedures and to what extent is the environmentperceived as interpersonally nonthreatening so that it is safe to present new ideas and improved waysof doing things? This dimension is divided into the subscales information sharing, safety, influence,and interaction frequency.

Task orientation To what extent does the team have a shared concern with excellence of quality of task performance inrelation to shared vision or outcomes characterized by evaluations, modifications, control systems,and critical appraisals? This dimension is divided into the subscales excellence, appraisal, andideation.

Support for innovation To what degree are there expectation, approval, and practical support of attempts to introduce new andimproved ways of doing things in the work environment? The dimension consists of the twosubscales articulated support and enacted support.

Note. Based on Anderson & West (1996).

Dow

nloa

ded

by [

Mar

shal

l Uni

vers

ity]

at 0

1:34

02

Aug

ust 2

013

teams, with N = 247 in one study (Anderson & West,1998; West & Anderson, 1996) and ns of 435 and 281at two testing intervals in another (Bunce & West,1995). However, studies have also been conducted onsamples from academic staff of universities (ns of 522and 573; West, Smith, Feng & Lawthom, 1998), socialservices organizations and community mental healthorganizations (N = 720; West & Poulton, 1997), oilcompanies (N = 59; Burningham & West, 1995), andTV production teams (N = 119; Carter & West, 1998).Separate norms are described for some of these typesof organizations.


Factor structure. An exploratory factor analysisof the 61-item version of the TCI was conducted on 27(N = 155) hospital management teams (Anderson &West, 1998). The analyses were computed using indi-vidual (not aggregate) responses. The scree-test indi-cated a five-factor solution accounting for 57.4 % of thevariance, with the principal factor (vision) accountingfor 37.8% of the variance. The four theoretical factorswere reflected in this factor analysis, along with a fifthfactor, which was labeled “interaction frequency.” Aconfirmatory factor analysis using aggregated teamscores in a sample of 971 subjects from different typesof organizations indicated that the five-factor modelhad the most parsimonious fit. However, the four-fac-tor model was only marginally less parsimonious thanthe five-factor model (Anderson & West, 1998).

An assessment of the Finnish translation of the 38-item version of the TCI was conducted on a samplefrom local health care and social service departments(N = 2265). Exploratory factor analysis revealed thatboth four and five factor solutions were possible withgood internal consistencies (alphas ranging from .83 to.94; Kivimäki et al., 1997). Confirmatory analyses(LISREL) suggested that the five-factor solution pro-vided a better fit to the data than the four-factorstructure.

An exploratory factor analysis was conducted withdata from the Swedish translation of the 38 item ver-sion of the TCI, using a sample consisting of 17 teamsfrom different kinds of organizations, including bothmanagement teams and production teams (N = 124).The results, using individual responses, suggested a

four-factor structure. Item loadings fit well with theoriginal factor structure (Agrell & Gustafson, 1994).

Reliability. In their review article on the 61-itemversion of the TCI, Andersen and West (1998) reportedthat alpha coefficients ranged between .84 and .94.However, all scales were also positively correlated,with inter-correlations ranging from .35 to .62 (p <0.01), suggesting a possible halo effect. In the manual,alpha coefficients of the 38 item short version of theTCI are reviewed based on results from studies of di-verse organizational settings. The coefficients rangedfrom .88 to .95. Anderson and West (1996) also re-ported reliabilities for the subscales of each factor ofthe 38-item version of the TCI as being acceptable andranging between .64 and .91.

Alpha coefficients of the Swedish version rangedfrom .86 to .91, and the full scale Cronbachs alpha was.95 (Agrell & Gustafson, 1994). In the Finnish versionof the TCI, alpha coefficients ranged from .83 to .94.Intercorrelations between the scales ranged from .44 to.85 (Kivimäki et al., 1997). The alpha coefficients inthe short, 14-item Finnish version ranged between .79and .86 (Kivimäki & Elovainio, 1999).

Information is not available about test retestreliability for any of the TCI versions. However, in astudy conducted in two phases, with a time lag of ap-proximately seven months, Bunce and West (1995)administered questionnaires that included items corre-sponding with the TCI factors to health-care profes-sionals (n = 435 at time 1 and 281 at time 2). The test-retest correlations for the four dimensions were .34,.61, .51, and .52 (all p < .01). However, this informa-tion is not based on current version of the TCI.

Validity. In a study reported by West and Ander-son (1996), senior management teams (N = 243) com-pleted questionnaires, which included the TCI, as wellas perceptions of team innovativeness. In addition, hos-pital general managers described the level of innova-tions newly implemented or rejected by the differentteams. Such registrations of innovations were con-ducted monthly over a six-month period. The final listconsisted of 205 innovations. Each of the innovationswere then rated by both (a) domain-relevant expertswho were senior employees in the national health ser-vice, associated professionals, and trainee postgraduate



Dow

nloa

ded

by [

Mar

shal

l Uni

vers

ity]

at 0

1:34

02

Aug

ust 2

013

industrial/organizational psychologists (n = 14), and(b) naive raters who were postgraduate masters levelorganizational psychology students (n = 16). Thejudges were asked to rate the innovation using a 1–5scale for each of the following six dimensions:

1. magnitude, i.e. how great the consequences ofthe change would be,

2. radicalness, i.e. how radical a change would beto the status quo,

3. novelty, describing how new in general thechange would be,

4. benefit to administrative efficiency,5. benefit to patient care, and6. benefit to staff well being.

Each dimension was rated by 5 experts. In addition, 19of the experts rated the hospitals in terms of overallinnovativeness on a scale from 1 to 100. All TCI factorsshowed positive correlations (p < .01) with overall in-novation (rs < .53 to < .68) and teams self-reports of in-novation (rs <.62 to <.89). Further, “support for inno-vation” correlated positively (p < .05) with number ofinnovations (r = .33), innovation novelty (r = .42) andadministrative effectiveness (r = .41). “Task-orienta-tion” correlated positively (p < .05) with innovationradicalness (r = 46) and administrative effectiveness (r= .45), and “participation” correlated positively (p <.05) with number of innovations (r = .40). Results fromstepwise multiple regression analysis showed that“support for innovation” emerged as the principal pre-dictor of innovation, accounting for 46% of the vari-ance in overall innovation.

West et al. (1998) explored relationships betweenclimate and research quality of academic staff in Brit-ish universities on two occasions. Climate was as-sessed in 1992 (n = 522) and 1994 (n = 573), andcorrelated with external research excellence ratings in1989 and 1992. The British Higher Education FundingCouncil conducted these external ratings. All TCI fac-tors were included, together with several other climatefactors. It was, however, explained that the TCI scaleswere somewhat adapted without describing any detailsabout how this was done. Positive significant correla-tions were found between “support of innovation” andexternal ratings of research quality at all time periods(rs = .38, p < .05; .46, p < .01; and .37, p < .05), exceptfor research ratings in 1992 and the climate measuresof that particular year. Positive correlations existed be-

tween “task orientation” measured in 1992 and exter-nal quality ratings measured in 1989 (r = .43, p < .01)and in 1992 (r = .33, p < .05). As far as the factor “ob-jectives” is concerned, the only significant correlationwas between objectives measured in 1992 and externalratings in 1989 (r = .30, p < .05). No significant corre-lations were found between the factor “participation”and external ratings. Regression analyses, however,generally indicated that research excellence was astronger predictor of climate than climate of researchexcellence. For example, when the 1992 climate fac-tors were regressed onto the 1989 research excellenceratings, the research ratings predicted all climate fac-tors except “participation.” Research ratings explained19%, 14%, and 9%, respectively, of the variance in“task orientation”, “support”, and “objectives.” Thus,the results indicated that climate appeared more as aconsequence than a cause of performance ratings.

Burningham and West (1995) studied 13workgroups from an oil company (N = 59). The mem-bers responded to a questionnaire measuring the fourfactors of the TCI, but the name of the questionnairewas not reported. In the TCI manual, however, thisstudy is mentioned as one of the validation studies ofthe TCI. In addition to the questionnaire, group pro-cesses were observed and classified into six categories:task support, personal support and safety, partici-pation, innovating, appraising, and resistance.Innovativeness of the groups was evaluated by askingindividuals who were external to—though knowledge-able about—the group to rate it on four dimensions ofinnovativeness: newness of ideas, number of newideas, significance of ideas, and effectiveness of ideas.Significant differences existed between groups withhigh ratings and groups with low ratings ininnovativeness, across all climate dimensions. How-ever, when a stepwise regression analysis was per-formed, only “support for innovation” significantlypredicted innovativeness, accounting for 13% of thevariance. When the relationship between the groupprocess observation data and climate was examined,all four TCI dimensions correlated significantly withthe observation category “innovating”.

A recent study, including research teams (n = 98)and development teams (n = 95) in Australian organi-zations, investigated the relationship between team cli-mate (TCI) and innovation (Bain, Mann & Pirola-Merlo, 2001). Innovation was assessed by a question-naire administered to the team members, as well as in-



Dow

nloa

ded

by [

Mar

shal

l Uni

vers

ity]

at 0

1:34

02

Aug

ust 2

013

terviewing the team leaders. For the research teams,significant relationships were found between most in-novation indicators and the TCI dimensions. For thedevelopment teams, however, there were almost nosignificant correlations between TCI dimensions andinnovation indicators. This finding illustrates the needto conduct repetitive validity studies in different typesof samples.

In a test of the validity of the Swedish TCI, a ques-tionnaire named “team production questionnaire” wasdeveloped, consisting of 20 items of a semantic differ-ential form using seven point scales (Agrell &Gustafson, 1994). Five items measured quantitative as-pects of team production, five qualitative aspects ofteam production, and ten items were related to innova-tive aspects such as conventional–original, creative–noncreative, and conservative–progressive. An inde-pendentexpertwitha formal role in theorganizationandintimate knowledge of the teams then rated each teamand its productions. Significant correlations existed be-tween “participative safety” and “vision” and the ob-servers’ ratings of “innovation.” Also, a positive overallcorrelation existed between TCI and “innovation.” Nosignificant correlations were found between the TCIand aspects of “quantity” and “quality.”

No studies have yet been reported on the predictivevalidity of the Finnish versions of the TCI.

Critique

The 38-item version of the TCI is easy to administerand seems to be the most often used version. Further-more, available literature exists describing the use ofthe TCI in team development (Anderson, Bradley, &West, 1997). Hence, the TCI is well fitted for practicaland commercial use. Empirical data further indicate anacceptable factor structure and reliability. However,the question remains as to whether a fifth factor (inter-action frequency) should be added to the instrument.Furthermore, as has been mentioned, the use of differ-ent kinds of response alternatives may confuse respon-dents. Hence, some streamlining of the responsealternatives could improve the instrument.

The TCI is the only instrument reviewed that is anexplicit measure of climate within teams. In otherwords, the individual responses on the TCI should beaggregated to team level. However, the analyses con-

ducted when exploring psychometric properties of theinstrument have mainly been conducted on an individ-ual level, with the exception of the confirmatory factoranalyses. Statistical analyses on a group level requirelarge samples. However, it would be interesting to seeexploratory factor analyses conducted on both an indi-vidual and a group level. This would give a clearer im-pression of the TCI as a team level measure.

On the other hand, it may not be suitable to measureclimate on a team level. People who work together on adaily basis will probably develop a common under-standing of the work environment, but it is likely thatother factors also influence individual perceptions. Ex-amples of such factors include personality; cognitivestyle; personal values; informal group membership;and demographic factors such as education, gender andage; as well as specific work tasks. Proponents of theterm “collective climate” suggest that the most appro-priate approach when measuring climate is to statisti-cally identify those individuals who share climateperceptions independently of group or team member-ship (Joyce & Slocum, 1984). In a recent study, Youngand Parker (1999) assessed several factors hypothe-sized to predict collective climates such as shared workvalues, need strength (divided into the categoriesachievement, autonomy, and dominance), employeeinteraction, and work department membership. No re-lationship existed between climate and work values orwork department membership, but there was a signifi-cant relationship between the need strength category“achievement” and climate scores. “Employee interac-tion” significantly predicted climate responses.

A conclusion from these findings could be thatgroup membership is not an adequate condition for ag-gregating climate scores. The climate within a workgroup may be perceived very differently, depending ofthe role of the particular group member. However, inthis particular study, department membership wasmeasured and proximal work teams were not. Proba-bly, the relationships between the members is muchcloser in a proximal work group than a whole depart-ment, where one must assume that some of the mem-bers do not actually work together or even interact.

Anderson and West (1998) reported acceptable in-ternal consistencies within teams on all the TCI fac-tors, indicating that aggregating responses to proximalteam level is acceptable. Further, results from otherstudies call into question the meaningfulness of the



Dow

nloa

ded

by [

Mar

shal

l Uni

vers

ity]

at 0

1:34

02

Aug

ust 2

013

concept of collective climate. Patterson, Payne, andWest (1996) concluded that collective climates had nobasis in formal work groups and that no relationshipsexist between collective climates and factors such asgender, age, tenure, or even memberships in groups re-flecting the social structure of the organization. Hence,collective climates appear to have no obvioussociopsychological meaning, because many individu-als who constituted the collectives did not interact.However, ANOVA was computed revealing signifi-cant differences between the work groups on five ofeight scales. Gonzáles-Romá, Peiró, Lloret, andZornoza (1999) investigated the role of departmentalmembership, hierarchical level, shift, job location, andorganization tenure, in connection with collective cli-mates. The results showed that only hierarchical levelhad a relationship with collective climate. More re-search should, therefore, be conducted comparing therelevance of aggregating TCI scores in teams withother possible collective factors that may predict cli-mate scores.

Validity studies of the TCI have been conducted in-cluding teams in many organizational settings. Mostindicate that the TCI is a valid instrument. However,results from one study—that compared the predictivevalue of several other factors together with the factorsof the TCI—indicated that personality was more im-portant than the TCI factors in predicting innovation(Bunce & West, 1995). However an adapted version ofthe TCI, which also included other factors, was used inthis particular study. Furthermore, one study con-cluded that departmental effectiveness predicted cli-mate rather than vice versa (West et al., 1998). Theseresults indicate that there is a need for studies explor-ing causalities between climate scores, effectiveness,and innovativeness. Furthermore, there is need formore research concerning the relative influence of cli-mate scores, compared with other variables in predict-ing innovation. In particular, more studies should beconducted exploring the predictive validity of the TCIfactor “vision.” This is a matter of particular interest,because “vision” was the principal factor that ex-plained most of the variance (37.8 %) in the TCI (An-derson & West, 1998).

To conclude, several studies indicate that thepsychometric quality of the TCI is acceptable. Becausevalidity studies of the instrument have been conductedin different types of organizations, the TCI may be

used on teams within many settings, making it a highlyuseful instrument.

Discussion

In rapidly changing societies, where most organiza-tions experience a need for renewal and rethinking,there is a clear need for instruments that can assess towhat extent a particular work environment promotecreativity and innovation. The instruments describedin this article represent responses to this need. Four in-struments were reviewed, two measuring work envi-ronments related to creativity, and two measuringwork environments related to innovation.

All four instruments place stronger emphasis onpromoting factors than on impeding factors. Only twoof the instruments include separate impediment factors(CCQ: “conflicts,” and KEYS: “organizational imped-iments” and “workload pressure”). However, both im-peding and promoting factors have been studied in thecreativity and innovation research literature. Thus, astronger emphasis on impeding factors could improvethe quality of the instruments.

The concept of “support” is reflected in all instru-ments, and most of the studies reviewed demonstratedthat it accurately predicts creativity or innovation inteams or organizations (Amabile et al., 1996;Burningham & West, 1995; Ekvall, 1983, 1989, 1996;Ekvall et al., 1987; Siegel & Kaemmerer, 1978; West& Anderson, 1996; West et al., 1998). Another issuereflected in most of the instruments is the feeling ofsharedness of goals or visions, and ownership of ideasand commitment to projects, which also predicts inno-vation or creativity (Agrell & Gustafsen, 1994;Burningham & West, 1995; Orpen, 1990; Siegel &Kaemmerer, 1978). Other issues that have repeatedlyappeared are: exchange of opinions or ideas; construc-tive controversies; freedom; challenges at work; trustand safety; team participation and collaborative ideaflow; and open relationships between colleagues, aswell as between supervisor and subordinates. Most ofthese factors have demonstrated predictive value in re-lation to creativity and innovation (Agrell &Gustafsen, 1994; Amabile et al., 1996; Burningham &West, 1995; Ekvall, 1983, 1989, 1996; Ekvall et al.,1983; Ekvall et al., 1987).



Dow

nloa

ded

by [

Mar

shal

l Uni

vers

ity]

at 0

1:34

02

Aug

ust 2

013

All instruments, except for the TCI, were made withan even number of response alternatives (4 or 6 alter-natives). Generally, it is preferable to have an oddnumber of alternatives, because it allows an uncertainor neutral category (Kline, 1993). On the other hand, itshould be recognized that, when offered, the middleposition might be chosen for a variety of reasons.Some may chose it as an easy way out. For others, themiddle position is chosen because they do not under-stand the question. Still others may choose this alterna-tive as a way to cope with uncertainty engendered bybeing expected to respond to a question about whichthey happen to have little knowledge, or to one theyhave devoted little thought (see also Schuman &Presser, 1981). In the KEYS, a four–point responsescale is used just to force the respondents away from aneutral option. It was argued, “If respondents are al-lowed to choose a middle-of-the-road ‘average’ re-sponse, they may sometimes avoid thinking carefullyand accurately about their answers” (Amabile et al.,1999, p. 14). Thus, it is still not clear whether odd oreven number of response alternatives is preferable. Fu-ture studies should explore both alternatives to investi-gate if a middle position increases the central tendencyin the responses.

Investigations have been conducted on all the in-struments, to explore their psychometric properties.However, when considering investigations publishedin the peer-reviewed literature, more research has beenconducted on the TCI and the KEYS. Norms and man-uals have also been produced for the latter instruments,and they have been explored in different kinds of orga-nizations. Both the KEYS and the TCI appear to haveacceptable scientific quality, as well as high utilitarianvalue, although there is room for improvement, espe-cially of the KEYS. Although the emphasis of theKEYS is focused upon the environment for creativity,the TCI covers environments promoting both creativ-ity and innovation, but with particular focus on innova-tion. Although the KEYS is aimed at measuringindividual perceptions of the organizational environ-ment, the TCI is developed for use in teams by aggre-gating individual responses to a team level.

Not much research has been published in peer-re-viewed literature regarding the SSSI and CCQ. Fur-ther, results from factor analysis on the SSSI revealedthat the questionnaire reflected the theoretical modelonly to a certain extent. Studies on the SSSI havemainly been conducted in schools. Thus, we know lit-

tle about the quality of the instrument when used inother work settings. The literature on the CCQ is some-what confusing, with several diverging explanations offactor structures. Furthermore, the descriptions of thestudies are often insufficient and without proper statis-tical details. The conclusion concerning the SSSI andCCQ is that there is a need for more information abouttheir psychometric quality before they can be recom-mended for further use.

Few differences seem to exist between those instru-ments measuring work environments for innovationand those measuring work environments for creativity.However, with regard to innovation instruments thereis a somewhat stronger emphasis upon quality of prod-ucts (“task orientation” in the TCI and “continuos de-velopment” in the SSSI). In the instruments measuringwork environments in terms of creativity, the emphasisis placed upon factors hypothesized as promoting idea-generation and presentation of ideas. Such factors are,however, also included in the work environment inno-vation instruments. In relation to the most commondefinitions of creativity and innovation, these differ-ences in emphasis seem to be natural. In creativity defi-nitions, the central concern is generation of new anduseful ideas, but the testing and implementation of newand useful ideas is emphasized in definitions of inno-vation (Amabile et al. 1996; Anderson & West, 1998;Scott & Bruce, 1994). However, because innovationdefinitions also often include elements of creativity, itis not surprising that there are more overlaps betweenthe two types of instruments than differences.

Factor analyses revealed that one factor, in particu-lar, accounted for the bulk of the explained variance inthe TCI, the SSSI, and the SOQ. No information isgiven about explained variance of separate factors inthe CCQ and the KEYS. Furthermore, for the KEYSand the SSSI there were high intercorrelations betweenthe factors. No information about intercorrelations wasgiven concerning the CCQ. However, in an early ver-sion of the CCQ, a factor called “global” existed, con-taining items from the other theoretical factors. Theseresults indicate that it may be artificial to deal with nu-merous factors. It might be more suitable to use onlyone or a few factors. However, it should be noted thatthese analyses were conducted using principal compo-nent analysis, which in fact searches for one principalfactor. Thus, other types of factor analyses might alsobe run to attain a complete picture of the factor struc-ture of the instruments. Furthermore, one reason for



Dow

nloa

ded

by [

Mar

shal

l Uni

vers

ity]

at 0

1:34

02

Aug

ust 2

013

keeping a large number of factors might be face valid-ity and practical utilitarian value.

In general, the instruments reviewed demonstratedacceptable criterion validity, indicating that it is in factmeaningful to assess the work environment to predictthe potential for creativity or innovation in organiza-tions or groups. However, a possible problem concern-ing many of the studies reported in this review is thatno factors, apart from work environment, have been in-vestigated to predict creativity and innovation. Thus,we do not know how much of the variance in actualcreativity and innovation that actually may be ex-plained in terms of work environmental variables.Bunce and West (1995) studied the relative power ofpersonality, motivational, and perceived group climatefactors in predicting individual innovation in the UKNational Health Service, and concluded that personal-ity factors were more consistent in predicting innova-tion than were climate factors. Furthermore, a study ofresearch excellence and climate in British universitiesindicated that research ratings predicted climate ratherthan vice versa (West et al., 1998). On the other hand,in a study of environmental factors in connection withdownsizing, Amabile and Conti (1999) used KEYS to-gether with several other variables, including per-ceived uncertainty and chaos, job satisfaction, morale,and feelings. The results indicated that the effect ofdownsizing on creativity was fully mediated by theKEYS scale. Thus, this finding indicated that the workenvironment is of major importance to creativity in or-ganizations. However, more studies are needed to in-vestigate the relative importance of work environmentfactors.

Creativity researchers should also take greater careto recognize other contextual effects on creativity thanthe group or department in which the individual has aformal membership (Drazin, Glynn, & Kazanjian,1999). Individuals may occupy and be influenced bymultiple organizational roles. Thus, it might be artifi-cial to measure work environment for creativity or in-novation and aggregate the results to one formal workunit. This critique is in accordance with the study byYoung and Parker (1999), where they found a signifi-cant correlation between employee interaction and re-sponses to a work climate survey, but no significantcorrelations between work department membershipand responses to the same instrument. All of the instru-ments reviewed in this article were developed for andused in formal work units. However, if required, the in-

struments could probably be adjusted for use in otherthan formal units.

Several of the studies reviewed have limitations re-garding samples. In sampling there are two importantvariables: size and representativeness (Kline, 1993).The normative sample should be a good reflection ofthe population that it represents. However, several ofthe studies reviewed chose samples for their availabil-ity and not for their representativeness. For example,the psychometric assessment of the SSSI was basedonly on samples from high schools (Siegel &Kaemmerer, 1978). Further, many of the samples inthe studies reported are probably too small to be repre-sentative (Burningham & West, 1995; Ekvall et al.,1983; Orpen, 1990).

Three of the instruments reviewed in this articlewere developed for assessing the climate for creativityor innovation (TCI, CCQ and SSSI). There has beenmuch controversy, however, about the concept of cli-mate. There are two especially intractable and relateddifficulties: how to define the concept of climate, andhow to measure it accurately on different levels ofanalysis. As far as defining climate is concerned, twotraditions in particular have received attention: thecognitive schema approach and the shared perceptionapproach. The first approach regards climate as an in-dividual perception and cognitive representation of thework environment. From this perspective, climate as-sessments should be conducted on an individual level.Although the KEYS is not an explicit measure of cli-mate, this instrument was based on the cognitive sche-mata approach. Thus, the instrument measuresindividual perceptions of environmental factors on dif-ferent levels: group, organization, individual, and su-pervisory level. The authors of the SSSI also regardedclimate as a psychological process.

Both the TCI and the CCQ were based on a view ofclimate as shared perceptions, although they operateon different levels of aggregation. Although the CCQwas developed to assess climate at the organizationlevel, the TCI assesses team climate. However, boththe CCQ and the TCI are responded to by the individ-ual before the individual responses are subsequentlyaggregated to the appropriate level. The suitability ofaggregating individual TCI responses to the team levelhas been studied by testing the inter-rater agreeable-ness, and the results proved to be acceptable (Anderson& West, 1998). No such studies of the CCQ have beenreported.



Dow

nloa

ded

by [

Mar

shal

l Uni

vers

ity]

at 0

1:34

02

Aug

ust 2

013

There is also a divergence of opinion as to whatlevel of the organization climate should be assessed; isit possible to measure an overall organizational cli-mate, or is it more appropriate to measure climate atdepartment or team level? Although the TCI measuresclimate at the proximal team level, the CCQ and SSSImeasure climate at the organizational or departmentallevel. The KEYS includes items about the work envi-ronment at several levels, such as organizational,group, and individual. A necessary condition for eval-uation of a climate is that the respondent actually hasexperience and knowledge of that climate. Therefore,particularly when organizations are large, it will proba-bly be most appropriate to measure climate at depart-ment or group level. The theoretical understanding ofthe concept of climate will influence one’s judgmentsconcerning the different instruments reviewed andmust therefore be taken into account when selecting in-struments for use.

Conclusion

An important finding from studies described in thisreview is that work environment quality does seem toaffect the level of creativity and innovation in groupsand organizations. Furthermore, this review has shownthat there are usable instruments for assessing these en-vironmental factors, especially the TCI and the KEYS.The instruments may be used to serve several pur-poses, not only to assess the degree to which a work en-vironment promotes creativity and innovation, but alsoto measure the effects of environmental improvementefforts. With the inclusion of several dimensions, theinstruments can further help to specify which areaswithin a group or organization are working well andwhich ones require improvement, thus helping consul-tants and managers to identify directions for action.Hopefully, the future research will deepen the under-standing of how the work environment interacts withother factors in influencing creativity and innovationwithin workgroups and organizations so that interven-tions can be directed to the most appropriate areas.

References

Agrell, A., & Gustafson, R. (1994). The Team Climate Inventory(TCI) and group innovation: A psychometric test on a Swedish

sample of work groups. Journal of Occupational and Organi-zational Psychology, 67, 143–151.

Amabile, T. M. (1988). A model of creativity and innovation in orga-nizations. In B. M. Staw & L. L. Cummings, (Eds.), Research inorganizational behavior, Vol. 10 (pp. 123–167). Greewich, CT:JAI Press.

Amabile, T. M. (1996). Creativity in context. Boulder,CO:Westview Press

Amabile, T. M., Burnside, R. M., & Gryskiewicz, S. S. (1999).User’s manual for assessing the climate for creativity: A surveyfrom the center for creative leadership. Greensboro, NC: Cen-ter for Creative Leadership.

Amabile, T. M., & Conti, R. (1999). Changes in the work environ-ment for creativity during downsizing. Academy of Manage-ment Journal, 42, 630–640.

Amabile, T. M., Conti, R., Coon, H., Lazenby, J., & Herron, M.(1996). Assessing the work environment for creativity. Acad-emy of Management Journal, 39 (5), 1154–1184.

Amabile, T. M., & Gryskiewicz, S. S. (1987). Creativity in the R&Dlaboratory. Technical report no. 30, Center for CreativeLeadership, Greensboro, NC.

Amabile, T. M., & Gryskiewicz, N. (1989). The creative environ-ment scales: The Work Environment Inventory. Creativity Re-search Journal, 2, 231–254.

Amabile, T. M., Hill, K. G., Hennessey, B. A., & Tighe, E. (1994).The work preference inventory: Assessing intrinsic and extrin-sic motivational orientations. Journal of Personality and SocialPsychology, 66, 950–967.

Anderson, N. R., Bradley, H., & West, M. A. (1997). Team climateinventory development exercises. Windsor, Berkshire, Eng-land: Nfer Nelson.

Anderson, N. R., & West, M. A. (1994). Team climate inventory:manual and user’s guide. Windsor, Berkshire, England: NferNelson.

Anderson, N. R., & West, M. A. (1996). The team climate inventory:Development of the TCI and its applications in teambuildingfor innovativeness. European Journal of Work and Organiza-tional Psychology, 5, 53–66.

Anderson, N. R., & West, M. A. (1998). Measuring climate for workgroup innovation: Development and validation of the team cli-mate inventory. Journal of Organizational Behavior, 19, 235–258.

Bain, P. G., Mann, L., & Pirola-Merlo, A. (2001). The innovationimperative: The relationships between team climate, innova-tion, and performance in research and development teams.Small Group Research, 32, 55–73.

Bunce, D., & West, M. A. (1995). Self perceptions of group climateas predictors of individual innovation at work. Applied Psy-chology: An International Review, 44, 199–215.

Burningham, C., & West, M. A. (1995). Individual, climate, andgroup interaction processes as predictors of work team innova-tion. Small Group Research, 36, 106–117.

Carter, S. M., & West, M. A. (1998). Reflexivity, effectiveness, andmental health in BBC-TV production teams. Small Group Re-search, 29, 583–601.

Drazin, R., Glynn, M. A., & Kazanjian, R. K. (1999). Multilevel the-orizing about creativity in organizations: A sensemaking per-spective. Academy of Management Review, 24, 286–307.



Dow

nloa

ded

by [

Mar

shal

l Uni

vers

ity]

at 0

1:34

02

Aug

ust 2

013

Ekvall, G. (1983). Climate, structure and innovativeness of organi-zations: a theoretical framework and an experiment (Report 1).Stockholm, Sweden: FA rådet, The Swedish council for man-agement and organizational behavior.

Ekvall, G. (1989). Organisationsklimat och ledarskap för kreativitet[The organizational climate and leadership for creativity]. In G.Ekvall (Ed.), Kreativa arbetsmiljöer: perspektiv på 90-taletsarbetsliv (pp. 5–19). Lund, Sweden: TCO.

Ekvall, G. (1991). The organizational culture of idea management: Acreative climate for the management of ideas. In J. Henry & D.Walker (eds.) Managing Innovation (pp. 73–79). London,England: Sage.

Ekvall, G. (1993). Creativity in project work: A longitudinal study ofa product development project. Creativity and Innovation Man-agement, 2, 17–26.

Ekvall, G. (1996). Organizational climate for creativity and innova-tion. European Journal of Work and Organizational Psychol-ogy, 5(1), 105–123.

Ekvall, G. (1999). Creative climate. In M. A. Runco & S. Pritzker(Eds.), Encyclopedia of Creativity, Vol. 1 (pp. 403–412). SanDiego, CA: Academic.

Ekvall, G., Arvonen, J., & Nyström, H. (1987). Organisation och in-novation [Organization and innovation]. Lund, Sweden:Studentlitteratur.

Ekvall, G., Arvonen, J., & Waldenström-Lindblad, I. (1983). Cre-ative organizational climate: construction and validation of ameasuring instrument (Report 2). Stockholm, Sweden: FArådet, The Swedish council for management and organizationalbehavior.

Ekvall, G., & Ryhammar, L. (1999). The creative climate: Its deter-minants and effects at a Swedish university. Creativity Re-search Journal, 12, 303–310.

Findlay, C. D., & Lumsden, C. J. (1988). The creative mind: Towardan evolutionary theory of discovery and invention. Journal ofSocial and Biological Structures, 11, 3–55.

Gonzáles-Romá, V., Peiró, J. M., Lloret, S., & Zornoza, A. (1999).The validity of collective climates. Journal of Occupationaland Organizational Psychology, 72, 25–40.

Helson, R. (1999). Personality. In M. A. Runco & S. Pritzker (Eds.),Encyclopedia of Creativity, Vol. 2 (pp. 361–371). San Diego,CA: Academic.

Henkin, A. B., Davis, J. H., & Singleton, C. A. (1993). Organiza-tional support for innovation: Perceptions and perspectives.The Journal of Applied Social Sciences, 17, 221–236.

Howell, J., M., & Avolio, B. J. (1993). Transformational leadership,transactional leadership, locus of control, and support for inno-vation: Key predictors of consolidated-business-unit perfor-mance. Journal of Applied Psychology, 78, 891–902.

Insel, P. M., & Moos, R. H. (1975). Work environment scale. PaloAlto, CA: Consulting Psychologist Press.

Isaksen, S. G., & Kaufmann, G. (1990). Adaptors and innovators:Different perceptions of the psychological climate for creativ-ity. Studia Psychologica, 32, 129–141.

Isaksen, S. G., Lauer, K. J., & Ekvall, G. (1999). Situational outlookquestionnaire: A measure of the climate for creativity andchange. Psychological Reports, 85, 665–674.

Isaksen, S. G., Lauer, K. J., Ekvall, G., & Britz, A. (2001). Percep-tions of the best and worst climates for creativity: Preliminary

validation evidence for the situational outlook questionnaire.Creativity Research Journal, 13, 171–184.

Isaksen, S. G., Lauer, K. J., Murdock, M. C., Dorval, K. B., &Puccio, G. J. (1995). Situational outlook questionnaire: Under-standing the climate for creativity and change (SOQ ™)—Atechnical manual. Buffalo, NY: Creative Problem SolvingGroup.

Joyce, W. F., & Slocum, J. W. (1984). Collective climate: Agree-ment as a basis for defining aggregate climates in organizations.Academy of Management Journal, 27, 721–742.

Kirton, M. J. (1976). Adaptors and innovators: A description andmeasure. Journal of Applied Psychology, 61, 622–629.

Kivimäki, M., Kuk, G., Elovainio, M., Thomson, L., Kalliomäki-Levanto, T., & Heikkilä, A. (1997). The team climate inventory(TCI)—Four or five facors? Testing the structure of TCI insamples of low and high complexity jobs. Journal of Occupa-tional and Organizational Psychology, 70, 375–389.

Kivimäki, M., & Elovainio, M. (1999). A short version of the teamclimate inventory: Development and psychometric properties.Journal of Occupational and Organizational Psychology, 72,241–246.

Kline, P. (1993). Handbook of psychological testing. London:Routledge.

Litwin, G. H., & Stringer, R. A. (1968). Motivation and organiza-tional climate. Boston: Harvard University, Graduate School ofBusiness Administration.

Martinsen, Ø., & Kaufmann, G. (1999). Cognitive style and creativ-ity. In M. A. Runco & S. Pritzker (Eds.), Encyclopedia of Cre-ativity, Vol. 1. (pp. 273–282). San Diego, CA: Academic.

Mohamed, M. Z., & Richards, T. (1996). Assessing and comparingthe innovativeness and creative climate of firms. ScandinavianJournal of Management, 12, 109–121.

Mumford, M. D., Feldman, J. M., Hein, M. B., & Nagao, D. J.(2001). Tradeoffs between ideas and structure: Individuals ver-sus group performance in creative problem solving. Journal ofCreative Behavior, 35, 1–23.

Orpen, C. (1990). Measuring support for organizational innovation:a validity study. Psychological Reports, 67, 417–418.

Patterson, M., Payne, R., & West, M. (1996). Collective climates: Atest of their sociopsychological significance. Academy of Man-agement Journal, 39, 1675–1691.

Rousseau, D. M. (1988). The construction of climate in organiza-tional research. In C. L. Cooper & I. T. Robertson (Eds.), Inter-national review of industrial and organizational psychology,Vol. 3 (pp. 139–159). Chichester, England: Wiley.

Schuman, H., & Presser, S. (1981). Questions and answers in atti-tude surveys: Experiments on question form, wording, and con-text. New York: Academic.

Scott, S. G., & Bruce, R. A. (1994). Determinants of innovative be-havior: A path model of individual innovation in the workplace.Academy of Management Journal, 37, 580–607.

Siegel, S. M., & Kaemmerer, W. F. (1978). Measuring the perceivedsupport for innovation in organizations. Journal of AppliedPsychology, 63, 553–562.

Soriano de Alencar, E. M. L., & Bruno-Faria, M. D. F. (1997). Char-acteristics of an organizational environment which stimulateand inhibit creativity. Journal of Creative Behavior, 31, 271–281.



Dow

nloa

ded

by [

Mar

shal

l Uni

vers

ity]

at 0

1:34

02

Aug

ust 2

013

Tesluk, P. E., Farr, J. L., & Klein, S. R. (1997). Influences of organi-zational culture and climate on individual creativity. Journal ofCreative Behavior, 31, 27–41.

Tjosvold, D., Wedley, W. C., & Field, R. H. G. (1986). Constructivecontroversy, the Vroom-Yetton model, and managerial deci-sion making. Journal of Occupational Behaviour, 7, 125–138.

Ward, T. B. (1994). Structured imagination: The role of conceptualstructure in exemplar generation. Cognitive Psychology, 27, 1–40.

Weisberg, R. W. (1986). Creativity, genius and other myths. NewYork: Freeman.

West, M. A. (1990). The social psychology of innovation in groups.In M. A. West & J. L. Farr (Eds.) Innovation and creativity atwork: Psychological and organizational strategies (pp. 309–333). Chichester, England: Wiley.

West, M. A., & Anderson, N. R. (1996). Innovation in top manage-ment teams. Journal of Applied Psychology, 81, 680–693.

West, M. A., & Farr, J. L. (1989). Innovation at work: Psychologicalperspectives. Social Behaviour, 4, 15–30.

West, M. A., & Poulton, B. C. (1997). A failure of function: Team-work in primary health care. Journal of Interprofessional Care,11, 205–216.

West, M. A., & Richards, T. (1999). Innovation. In M. A. Runco &S. Pritzker (Eds.), Encyclopedia of Creativity, Vol. 2 (pp. 45–55). San Diego, CA: Academic.

West, M. A., Smith, H., Feng, W. L., & Lawthom, R. (1998). Re-search excellence and departmental climate in British universi-ties. Journal of Occupational and Organizational Psychology,71, 261–281.

Young, S. A., & Parker, C. P. (1999). Predicting collective climates:Assessing the role of shared work values, needs, employee in-teraction and work group membership. Journal of Organiza-tional Behavior, 20, 1199–1218.



Dow

nloa

ded

by [

Mar

shal

l Uni

vers

ity]

at 0

1:34

02

Aug

ust 2

013

a review of instruments assessing creative and innovative environments within organizations

Documents