Skip to main content
Have a personal or library account? Click to login
The role of stimulating employees’ creativity and idea generation in encouraging innovation behaviour in Irish firms Cover

The role of stimulating employees’ creativity and idea generation in encouraging innovation behaviour in Irish firms

By:  and    
Open Access
|Jun 2017

Figures & Tables

Table 1

Descriptive statistics of variables

VariableStatisticssd
Innovation
 Product (%)31.37na
 Process (%)35.75na
 Organisational (%)39.48na
 Marketing (%)32.2na
Firm specific factors
 Irish owned (%)73.37na
 Employment (mean)96.22381.54
Networking
 Backwards (%)12na
 Forwards (%)9na
 Horizontal (%)3na
 Public (%)8na
R&D
 Intramural R&D (mean)€2236.1311307.95
 Extramural R&D (mean)€530.435419.8

Source: Irish Community Innovation Survey

Table 2

Descriptive statistics of idea generation and creativity stimuli variables

Variable%
Number of stimuli introduced
    No stimuli47.38
    One stimuli16.31
    Two stimuli16.12
    Three stimuli9.99
    Four stimuli5.83
    Five stimuli2.90
    Six stimuli1.48
Type of stimuli introduced
    Work teams30.52
    Job rotation19.67
    Brainstorming40.29
    Training15.84
    Financial incentives8.6
    Non-financial incentives10.27

Source: Irish Community Innovation Survey

Table 3

Correlation matrix of encouragement variables (full sample)

Work teamsJob rotationBrainstormingTrainingFinancial incentivesNon-financial incentives
Work teams1
Job rotation0.33571
Brainstorming0.53380.30351
Training0.30460.31200.35271
Financial incentives0.22650.19670.24790.28241
Non-financial incentives0.32730.27730.30410.35670.33101
Table 4

Results of multivariate probit estimation of equation (1)

Product innovatorProcess innovatorOrganisational innovatorMarketing innovator
Constant-2.2215***-1.5317***-1.5105***-1.8570***
(0.3806)(0.2868)(0.2878)(0.3065)
R&D
Intramural R&D0.1448***0.0777***0.0481***0.0565***
(0.0094)(0.0088)(0.0090)(0.0086)
Extramural R&D0.0732***0.0360***0.0367***0.0313***
(0.0143)(0.0128)(0.0134)(0.0121)
Networking
Backwards0.2478***0.2047***0.1767***0.1195***
(0.0543)(0.0465)(0.0486)(0.0394)
Forwards0.1701***0.1398***0.06360.0599
(0.0633)(0.0600)(0.0617)(0.0511)
Horizontal0.10120.09160.01680.0329
(0.1141)(0.1100)(0.1080)(0.0900)
Public-0.0428-0.09720.0735-0.0220
(0.0733)(0.0622)(0.0695)(0.0558)
Firm specific factors
Employment0.0815***0.1169***0.0961***0.0662***
(0.0270)(0.0249)(0.0253)(0.0243)
Irish owned0.02430.08170.00190.2431***
(0.0659)(0.0608)(0.0602)(0.0607)
Stimulating factors
Work teams0.3666***0.2529***0.4375***0.3324***
(0.0713)(0.0659)(0.0645)(0.0644)
Job rotation-0.08710.05490.2874***0.0458
(0.0733)(0.0667)(0.0656)(0.0642)
Brainstorming sessions0.2363***0.2416***0.4269***0.4050***
(0.0653)(0.0598)(0.0582)(0.0584)
Training0.09550.2559***0.2929***0.0472
(0.0803)(0.0742)(0.0746)(0.0710)
Financial incentives-0.03460.04660.05540.1017
(0.1001)(0.0933)(0.0948)(0.0889)
Non-financial incentives0.10220.12720.14220.1212
(0.0970)(0.0903)(0.0916)(0.0857)
No. Obs3,244
χ21998.07
P>χ20.0000
Log-likelihood-6218.90

Note

a: ***, ** and * indicate significance at the 99, 95 and 90 percent level, respectively.

b: Base category is Sector B.

c: We control for NACE2 digit sectors in our estimation but to save space we do not present them in our table.

Table 5

Results of multivariate probit estimation of equation (2)

ProductProcessOrganisationalMarketing
Constant–2.2772–1.5681–1.5864–1.9235
(0.3791)(0.2889)(0.2888)(0.3104)
R&D
Intramural R&D0.1430***0.0781***0.0478***0.558***
(0.0094)(0.0088)(0.0090)(0.0087)
Extramural R&D0.0648***0.0292**0.0302**0.0241**
(0.0143)(0.0128)(0.0133)(0.0122)
Networking
Backwards0.6085***0.6306***0.4876***0.4861***
(0.1146)(0.1086)(0.1118)(0.1024)
Forwards0.3971***0.2749**0.2756**0.0441
(0.1329)(0.1230)(0.1280)(0.1141)
Horizontal0.29010.28660.11810.1674
(0.1936)(0.1784)(0.1869)(0.1572)
Public0.0818-0.18680.07240.0224
(0.1273)(0.1151)(0.1207)(0.1075)
Firm specific factors
Employment0.0899***0.1158***0.1021***0.0687***
(0.0269)(0.0249)(0.0252)(0.0243)
Irish owned-0.00860.0533-0.00830.2131***
(0.0657)(0.0605)(0.0599)(0.0602)
Stimulating factors - number
  Any 1 stimulating factor0.3978***0.4817***0.6585***0.4953***
(0.0762)(0.0690)(0.0678)(0.0690)
  Any 2 stimulating factors0.5145***0.4349***0.8535***0.7628***
(0.0787)(0.0721)(0.0703)(0.0706)
  Any 3 stimulating factors0.5235***0.6051***1.103***0.812***
(0.0949)(0.0869)(0.0866)(0.0846)
  Any 4 stimulating factors0.4225***0.7173***1.0493***0.6259***
(0.1215)(0.1119)(0.1109)(0.1052)
  Any 5 stimulating factors0.7588***1.0835***1.6757***0.9495***
(0.1627)(0.1600)(0.1820)(0.1440)
  Any 6 stimulating factors0.6495***0.6439***1.5143***0.9496***
(0.2238)(0.2136)(0.2346)(0.1981)
No. Obs3,244
χ22131.50
P>χ20.0000
log-likelihood-6166.30

Note

a: ***, ** and * indicate significance at the 99, 95 and 90 percent level, respectively.

b: Base category is no encouragement variables.

c: We control for NACE2 digit sectors in our estimation but to save on space we do not present them in our table.

VariablesCIS questionIndicator type
Product
innovation
During the three years 2008 to 2010, did your enterprise introduce: (i) new or significantly improved
goods. (Exclude the simple resale of new goods purchased from other enterprises and changes of
a solely aesthetic nature); (ii) new or significantly improved services.
1/0
Process
innovation
During the three years 2008 to 2010, did your enterprise introduce: (i) new or significantly improved
methods of manufacturing or producing goods or services; (ii) new or significantly improved
logistics, delivery or distribution methods for your inputs, goods or services; (iii) new or significantly
improved supporting activities for your processes, such as maintenance systems or operations for
purchasing, accounting or computing.
1/0
Organisational
innovation
During the three years 2008 to 2010, did your enterprise introduce: (i) new business practices for
organising procedures; (ii) new methods of organising work responsibilities and decision-making;
(iii) new methods of organising external relations with other firms or public institutions.
1/0
Marketing
innovation
During the three years 2008 to 2010, did your enterprise introduce: (i) new methods for product
placement or sales channels; (ii) new media or techniques for product promotion; (iii) significant
changes to the aesthetic design or packaging of a good or service (exclude changes that alter the
product’s functional or user characteristics - these are product innovations); (iv) new methods of
pricing goods or services.
1/0
CreativityDuring the three years 2008 to 2010, did your enterprise use any of the following methods to
stimulate new ideas or creativity among your staff? If yes, was the method successful in producing
new ideas or increasing creativity? (i) Brainstorming sessions; (ii) multidisciplinary or cross-
functional work teams; (iii) job rotation of staff to different departments or other parts of your
enterprise group; (iv) financial incentives for employees to develop new ideas; (v) non-financial
incentives for employees to develop new ideas, such as free time, public recognition, more
interesting work, etc.; (vi) training employees on how to develop new ideas or creativity.
Series of six variables
with outcome 1/0
Intramural R&DCreative work undertaken within your enterprise to increase the stock of knowledge for developing
new and improved products and processes (include software development in-house that meets
this requirement).
€ per worker
Extramural R&DSame activities as above, but performed by other enterprises (including other enterprises or
subsidiaries within your group) or by public or private research organisations and purchased by
your enterprise.
€ per worker
NetworkingDuring the three years 2008 to 2010, did your enterprise co-operate on any of your innovation
activities with other enterprises or institutions? Innovation co-operation is active participation with
other enterprises or non-commercial institutions on innovation activities. Both partners do not
need to commercially benefit. Exclude pure contracting out of work with no active co-operation.
Series of four variables
with outcome
1/0 indicating if
a firm engaged
with (i) customers,
(ii) suppliers, (iii)
competitors and
consultants, (iv) public
research institutions
and universities.

Source: CSO (2012)

DOI: https://doi.org/10.1515/ijm-2017-0005 | Journal eISSN: 2451-2834 (formerly 1649-248X) | Journal ISSN: 1649-248X
Language: English
Page range: 32 - 48
Published on: Jun 30, 2017
Published by: Irish Academy of Management
In partnership with: Paradigm Publishing Services
Publication frequency: 3 issues per year

© 2017 Justin Doran, Geraldine Ryan, published by Irish Academy of Management
This work is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 3.0 License.