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ontext rganisational c o nts creativity in an r&d departme ability in innovation cap the eth zurich ion submitted to a dissertat ences of doctor of sci for the degree presented by ina margitte go ller

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diss eth no 20034 creativity in an organisational context innovation capability in r&d departments a dissertation submitted to eth zurich for the degree of doctor of sciences presented by ina margitte goller dipl psych rheinische friedrich-wilhelms-universität bonn born on october 1st 1970 citizen of germany accepted on the recommendation of prof dr roland siegwart supervisor prof dr joachim funke co-supervisor dr carmen kobe co-supervisor 2011

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dem ingeniör ist nichts zu schwör daniel düsentrieb in walt disneys dipl ing erfindet alles juni 1956 translation by dr erika fuchs

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acknowledgements this thesis is a result of my research at the department of mechanical and process engineering d-mavt in the autonomous systems lab asl chaired by prof dr roland siegwart at the eth zurich there are a number of people i want to thank first of all i want to thank my supervisor professor roland siegwart for taking such an interest in my research question and for the open-minded dialogues to my co-supervisor professor joachim funke i am grateful for his trust and helpful guidance last but not least this research would have not been possible without dr carmen kobe co-supervisor furthermore many thanks go to all my co-trainers participants and discussion partners in academia and industry over the years i also want to express my gratitude to my colleagues in the pta for their acceptance and understanding of this undertaking special thanks to nina zumstein for her assistance finally a huge thanks to the special people around me my parents and jeanette gollerschießl martina steer and especially christoph lindinger without their support friendship and love as well as their belief in me i would have never started never mind actually finishing schaffhausen july 2011 ina goller

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table of contents table of contents abstract viii zusammenfassung ix 1 1.1 1.2 1.3 1.4 introduction 1 initial situation and problem derivation 1 what is the right term innovation or creativity 3 research questions and research methodology 3 structure of the thesis 7 2 2.1 2.2 2.3 2.4 definition of creativity 10 creativity and its development in scientific research 10 definitions and concepts of creativity 10 working definition of creativity 18 summary 19 3 3.1 3.2 3.3 3.4 3.5 domain-specificity ­ literature review and theoretical framework 20 definition of domain-specificity 20 evidence for domain-specificity 21 qualitative description of domains 23 theories including domain-specificity 24 summary and conclusion 25 4 4.1 study domain-specificity 26 study participants and methodology 26 4.1.1 participants 26 4.1.2 questionnaire 30 4.2 results 31 4.2.1 definition of creativity by npd engineers artists and art teachers 31 4.2.2 critical incidents in creativity for npd engineers artists and art teachers 33 4.2.3 descriptions of successful versus creative npd engineers 36 4.3 summary and discussion 37 i

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table of contents 4.4 implications for creativity training 38 5 5.1 5.2 5.3 5.4 5.5 creativity training 40 definition of training 40 existing training concepts for fostering creativity 41 effectiveness of creativity trainings 43 flaws of existing trainings 46 summary and conclusions 47 6 6.1 6.2 training concept for r&d teams 49 learning targets 50 defining the contents ­ theoretical and experimental foundations 52 6.2.1 target group and special requirements 52 6.2.2 theoretical foundations for creativity in team settings 53 6.2.3 creativity in a social context 55 6.2.4 creative problem solving 57 6.3 6.4 6.5 6.6 competency model for our training 59 operationalisation of the training or choosing the methods 61 evaluating the learning process 63 summary 65 7 7.1 training study 1 66 methods 66 7.1.1 experimental setting eth innovation project 66 7.1.2 training modules 68 7.1.3 measurement of creativity training effects 72 7.2 results 74 7.2.1 comparison of different trainings 74 7.2.2 effects of trainings on the self-assessment of creativity 75 7.2.3 effects of training on external ratings of creative achievements 78 7.3 discussion 78 ii

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table of contents 8 8.1 training study 2 82 methods 82 8.1.1 experimental setting 82 8.1.2 team-building training module 84 8.1.3 measurement of creativity training effects 85 8.2 results 89 8.2.1 results of the self-assessed questionnaires 89 8.2.2 results of the external measurement alternate uses task 90 8.3 discussion 92 9 9.1 9.2 9.3 9.4 derivation analysis and validation of the cbit questionnaire 96 development of the questionnaire 96 exploratory factor analysis 100 confirmatory factor analysis 103 summary and discussion 106 10 summary and implications 108 10.1 summary of most important findings 108 10.2 limitations 109 10.3 implications for future research 109 10.4 implications for training and teaching 112 bibliography 115 appendices 135 iii

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list of tables list of tables table 1.1 list of success factors in new product development based on ernst 2002 2 table 1.2 overview of research methodology 7 table 1.3 structure of the thesis 9 table 2.1 approaches to creativity 12 table 2.2 five-stage process of creative cognition 13 table 3.1 overview of found domains in the sense of micro-domains 21 table 3.2 overview of found domains in the sense of classes of behaviour/vocational domains 22 table 4.1 t-tests for age gender and expertise between engineers and art teachers 28 table 4.2 intercorrelations among the study variables 29 table 4.3 hierarchical regression analysis of gender on the importance of creativity in own domain while controlling for domain 29 table 4.4 categories of creativity in different domains 31 table 4.5 categories of creativity with critical incident technique 34 table 4.6 characteristics of a creative vs a successful npd engineer 36 table 4.7 pilot inventory list of creative behaviour for npd engineers 39 table 5.1 overview of trainings and techniques 42 table 5.2 overview of meta-analyses for creativity trainings 43 table 6.1 pilot inventory list of creative behaviour for npd engineers as found in the domain-specificity study chapter 4 53 table 6.2 competency model of the training 59 table 7.1 social competencies for team settings 68 table 7.2 methodological competencies for team settings 70 table 7.3 means standard deviation sd and n by type of training trainers 75 table 7.4 overall differences for the three training types wilcoxon-test 76 table 7.5 differences depending on factor and type of training wilcoxon-test 77 table 7.6 overall differences for individual coded data concerning types of training 77 iv

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list of tables table 8.1 overview of training topics and corresponding competencies 85 table 8.2 comparison of pre post-measurement wilcoxon-test 89 table 8.3 t-tests for paired samples for all scales 90 table 8.4 t-test for dependent samples the three factors of the alternate uses task 91 v

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list of figures list of figures figure 1.1 st gallen s management-model 1 figure 1.2 inductive vs deductive approach 5 figure 1.3 steps in developing the creativity training 5 figure 6.1 four-step process for the development of trainings 50 figure 6.2 four-factor model based on west 1990 54 figure 6.3 model of creativity creativity intersection based on amabile 1988 56 figure 6.4 creative problem solving process 58 figure 7.1 task a b and c 67 figure 7.2 nail task 69 figure 7.3 the three dimensions and sub-dimensions of cpss 73 figure 7.4 exemplary prototypes resulting from the innovation project 74 figure 8.1 designed and produced prototype of one innovation team 83 vi

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list of abbreviations list of abbreviations cbit cps cpss npd r&d tci ttct creative behaviours in teams creative problem solving creative products semantic scale new product development research development team climate inventory torrance test of creative thinking vii

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