Personality and innovation
Innovation and innovation processes has been in the spotlight for quite some time by now. Businesses and organizations are all aiming to be innovative and there is an (almost) abundance in public funding for innovation and innovative processes.
The question whether innovation is for everybody is however unresolved. In previous blogg I have touched the subject of entrepreneurs and managers, and wheteher they are he same kind of personalities. Studies shows that they are not and that a FFM profiling before the interview could take you a long way.
IF so also is the case with innovation it could provide us with useful information about how to construct our innovation environments, science parks and the academia in some sense. Even more so it would provide invaluable information to the world of business consulting.
In a study from 2014 Stock, Hippel and Gillert are probing the question whether consumer innovation success has anything to do with personality. Their findings was that personality traits are significantly associated with success differ at each stage.
1. Those who score higher on openness to experience are significantly more likely to have new product ideas.
2. Being introverted and conscientious is significantly associated with successful prototyping.
3. Those who possess high levels of conscientiousness are more likely to successfully commercially diffuse their innovations, whereas in contrast, conscientiousness lowers the likelihood of successful peer-to-peer diffusion.
Now the last bullet point even gives us a pointer about how to fund the projects depending on the personality inte the individual that we are dealing with! Take the profile and custom make the innovation process in order to increase the likelihood of success.
Also, depending on the needs in your organization....make sure you profile the individuals prior to hiring them. It will make a difference.
