Creativity versus Innovativeness: Exploring the Differences between the Two Constructs May Lead to Greater Innovation in Large Firms

Several individuals from top management seem to be confused about the difference between
creativity and innovativeness. [1] suggests that while innovation begins with creative ideas, creativity
by individuals and teams is only a starting point for innovation. Individual creativity is necessary but
not sufficient to yield breakthrough innovation in organizations. This can sometimes cause confusion
in employee development efforts and actions taken by management. Companies often look for ways
to hire and retain creative employees and at the same time they are also interested in establishing a
creative environment for knowledge workers… but should creativity be the primary focus? These firms
hope that creativity enhancing steps will eventually lead to greater innovation and therefore help it to
achieve sustained competitive advantage. This paper attempts to demonstrate that there are
potentially other dimensions beyond creativity related to innovativeness, which should be considered
at the individual level in order to foster innovation in firms. Empirical results in this study support the
idea that intrinsic motivational orientation, sociability and political astuteness are enhancers to
employee innovativeness while perfection seeking behavior detracts employee innovativeness. These
findings may serve to extend Amabile’s [1] componential framework to center on the “innovativeness”
construct versus creativity to help explain how firms need to hire, cultivate and retain the right talent.