Preliminary PhD Dissertation Defense “Improving Creative Performance: An examination of the effects of training and problem realism on creative performance in idea generation”

Creativity is a hot topic in today’s society. A wide array of scientific researchers from various academic fields as well as business managers, creativity practitioners and educators, are all interested by the subject of human creativity and what stimulates or detract creative performance. Such interest is based on the belief that creativity is a motor of innovation, a key factor in future development of humanity. It is thus also believed that if we are able to understand the underlying factors that enhance human creativity we can design creativity training programs to train employees and school future generations to become more creative so they would be able to reach their full innovative potential to the benefit of the entire humanity.

Although it has been a topic of creativity research for over half of century, the knowledge regarding the factors that enhance or detract creative performance in individuals and groups is limited to several categories of factors such as personal characteristics and contextual factors. Even within these categories not all the possibilities have been examined yet by academic research.

Recently, Matilde Martínez presented her preliminary PhD dissertation at Innova Institute. The purpose of this research work is to examine two of such factors namely, the type of training and problem realism, and the effect they exert on creative performance.

In this research work nine hundred eighty one employees of forty five Spanish companies participated in the experiments conducted to verify if the aforementioned factors affect creative performance. Results of the data analysis revealed a positive effect of training on creative performance and also showed that training based on experience is better suited for creativity training. In addition the empirical results also revealed that working on real-life problems as opposed to fictitious ones, enhanced creative performance.

Matilde Martinez,

PhD Candidate at the Innova Institute

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