Managerial creative problem solving and the Big Five personality traits

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to provide new elements to understand, measure and predict managerial creativity. More specifically, based on new approaches to creative potential (Lubart et al., 2011), this study proposes to distinguish two aspects of managerial creative problem solving: divergent-exploratory thinking, in which managers try to generate several new solutions to a problem; and convergent-integrative thinking, in which managers select and elaborate one creative solution. Design/methodology/approach – In this study, personality is examined as a predictor of managerial creative problem solving: On one hand, based on previous research on general divergent thinking (e.g. Ma, 2009), it is hypothesized that managerial divergent thinking is predicted by high openness to experience and low agreeableness. On the other hand, because efficient people management involves generating satisfying and trustful social interactions, it is hypothesized that convergent-integrative thinking ability is pred...

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