The Role of Flexibility in Innovation

Abstract: Flexibility is the ability to change. Innovation involves different types of change. In this chapter we will examine the importance of flexibility for different aspects of innovation. Different types of flexibility will be considered throughout the chapter, such as adaptive flexibility (the ability to change as a function of task requirements) and spontaneous flexibility (the tendency to change for intrinsic reasons, to try out a variety of methods). Finally, we will discuss how different types of flexibility can be important at different stages in the innovation process.

[1]  F. Damanpour.  Organizational Innovation: A Meta-Analysis Of Effects Of Determinants and Moderators , 1991 .

[2]  Bruce M. Shore,et al.  Strategy Flexibility in More and Less Competent Students on Mathematical Word Problems , 1995 .

[3]  Charles F. Hofacker,et al.  Measuring Consumer Innovativeness , 1991 .

[4]  G. Wallas.  The art of thought , 1926 .

[5]  E. Schein.  Organizational Culture and Leadership , 1991 .

[6]  M. Chi.  Creativity: Shifting across ontological categories flexibly. , 1997 .

[7]  D. Simonton,et al.  Creativity in the Workplace: People, Problems, and Structures. , 1997 .

[8]  M. Mumford,et al.  Creativity syndrome: Integration, application, and innovation. , 1988 .

[9]  T. Lubart.  Handbook of Creativity: Creativity Across Cultures , 1998 .

[10]  T. Lubart,et al.  Emotion, Metaphor, and the Creative Process , 1997 .

[11]  Teresa M. Amabile,et al.  A Model of Creativity and Innovation in Organizations , 1988 .

[12]  K. Duncker,et al.  On problem-solving , 1945 .

[13]  Rosabeth Moss Kanter,et al.  The Change Masters: Innovations for Productivity in the American Corporation , 1983 .

[14]  T. J. Peters,et al.  The Circle of Innovation , 1997 .

[15]  R. McCrae.  Creativity, divergent thinking, and openness to experience. , 1987 .

[16]  F. Barron,et al.  Creativity, Intelligence, and Personality , 1981 .

[17]  Todd Lubart,et al.  The Psychology of Problem Solving: Creativity: A Source of Difficulty in Problem Solving , 2003 .

[18]  Todd Lubart,et al.  An investment approach to creativity: theory and data , 1995 .

[19]  Gregory J. Feist.  Handbook of Creativity: The Influence of Personality on Artistic and Scientific Creativity , 1998 .

[20]  E. L. Gaier,et al.  Identification of creativity: the individual. , 1970, Psychological bulletin.

[21]  D. W. Mackinnon,et al.  The nature and nurture of creative talent. , 1962 .

[22]  Michael D. Mumford,et al.  Process-based measures of creative problem-solving skills: IV. Category combination. Creativity Research Rips, LJ (1995). The current status of research on concept combination , 1997 .

[23]  F. Barron.  Putting creativity to work. , 1988 .

[24]  T. Lubart,et al.  An emotional-experiential perspective on creative symbolic-metaphorical processes , 2000 .

[25]  Ronald E. Goldsmith,et al.  Theory and measurement of consumer innovativeness: A transnational evaluation , 1998 .

[26]  Lloyd W. Fernald,et al.  A New Trend: Creative and Innovative Corporate Environments. , 1989 .

[27]  Mark A. Runco,et al.  The instructional enhancement of the flexibility and originality scores of divergent thinking tests , 1991 .

[28]  T. Lubart.  Models of the Creative Process: Past, Present and Future , 2001 .

[29]  S. Mednick.  The associative basis of the creative process. , 1962, Psychological review.

[30]  Mark A. Runco,et al.  Problem finding, evaluative thinking, and creativity. , 1994 .

[31]  G. Foxall,et al.  The Measurement of Innovativeness , 2003 .

[32]  Raanan Lipshitz,et al.  Getting out of Ruts: A Laboratory Study of a Cognitive Model of Reframing. , 1995 .

[33]  Norbert Jaušovec,et al.  Flexible strategy use: A characteristic of gifted problem solving , 1991 .

[34]  G. Hamel.  Leading the Revolution , 2000 .

[35]  Min Basadur,et al.  Measuring Divergent Thinking Attitudes Related to Creative Problem Solving and Innovation Management , 1996 .

[36]  Øyvind Lund Martinsen,et al.  The Construct of Cognitive Style and its Implications for Creativity , 1997 .

[37]  Gregory J. Feist.  A Meta-Analysis of Personality in Scientific and Artistic Creativity , 1998, Personality and social psychology review : an official journal of the Society for Personality and Social Psychology, Inc.

[38]  Jane M. Howell.  Individual differences, environmental scanning, innovation framing, and champion behavior: key predictors of project performance , 2001 .

[39]  M. Hammer.  The Agenda: What Every Business Must Do to Dominate the Decade , 2001 .