The development of an innovation leadership questionnaire

[摘要] ENGLISH ABSTRACT: The ability of organisations to be successful in the current global business environment will ultimately be dependent on their ability to be innovative. However, creativity and innovation will not take place spontaneously in any team setting and will be the result of meticulous planning and implementation efforts on the part of the team's members.The current global business environment is characterised by constant change and this makes leadership more important than ever before as leaders are considered the drivers of change and ultimately responsible for organisational success. Leaders within organisational team settings have an essential role to fulfil in stimulating and facilitating innovative behaviour in their subordinates. The fact that some leaders manage to successfully stimulate and facilitate innovative behaviour in their subordinates, while others fail to do so, might well be contributed by some to a number of simplistic variables– but this is not the case.The fact that some leaders manage to successfully stimulate and facilitate innovative behaviour in their subordinates can be attributed to the fact that these leaders possess specific competencies based on different sets of knowledge, skills and attitudes. The innovation process consists of four distinct phases (idea generation, idea screening, feasibility and commercialisation) and innovative outcomes for a team will only result if team members successfully progress through each of these four phases.The reality, however, is that the innovation process itself is filled with challenges that will need to be overcome by team members if innovation is to flourish. Accordingly leaders should apply specific sets of knowledge, skills and attitudes during each of the phases in the innovation process to help guide subordinates successfully through the innovation process. It should hence be clear that being aware of the specific leadership competencies that will stimulate and facilitate innovative behaviour in subordinates will be of immense value to any organisation who wishes to act more innovatively.The primary purpose of this study was consequently to design a psychological measurement instrument that would provide a measure of the specific competencies leaders should possess to stimulate and facilitate innovative behaviour in subordinates. This instrument would enable management to customise training and development programmes to meet the specific needs of leaders and hence develop the necessary knowledge, skills and attitudes on their part.A pilot study was conducted with the experimental version of the ILQ to obtain information regarding the psychometric properties of the instrument. Results obtained from the pilot study provided evidence that the ILQ instrument possesses high levels of internal reliability and satisfactory levels of concurrent validity. It can therefore be claimed that the ILQ instrument would serve as a valuable diagnostic tool for organisations who wish to improve their innovative capabilities.

[发布机构] Stellenbosch University