Exploring demographic variables as mediators in the relationship between open innovation and creativity

Abstract

Increased competitiveness and dire economic conditions are forcing companies to remain in the game by increasing profits, while margins are dropping, in the form of more novel ideas. In order to stimulate the creation fresh ideas managers require creative and innovative employees to foster idea generation. To prevent companies from missing incredible opportunities when they remain too internally focused, the relatively new concept of open innovation was included in the study. The purpose of this study was to identify the type of employee in terms of demographics that are considered more creative and open innovative which will assist management in deciding whom to employ. At first an investigation was launched to gain a deeper understanding of the relationship between creativity and open innovation as well as including creative cognitive theory to gain an understanding of the influence of demographics on this relationship. Although there were some contradicting findings in the literature on the effect of demographics on the relationship between open innovation and creativity, the hypotheses were constructed based on the most supported views from literature. Current individuals studying towards an MBA degree was sampled in order to find a representative sample of the decision makers in business situations. The results showed that only one construct of open innovation (clients and competitors as source) had a significant, positive relationship with creativity. It was also found that from the four demographics tested, only gender was found to have a mediating effect on this relationship. The results showed that management should encourage collaboration between employees and customers or competitors for improved idea generation. Also that women should be encouraged to collaborate more than men to achieve greater idea generation sessions.