Factors Influencing Creativity in the Domain of Managerial Decision Making

Abstract

This study examines factors that influence the creativity of managers’ decisions. A domain-based, evolutionary model that describes the influence of context on creative action is combined with a teleological model of creative managerial decision making derived from the strategy formulation and organizational decision process literatures. Results show that two key dimensions of managerial creativity, the novelty and the value of choices, were affected by markedly different factors. Surprisingly, influences on the novelty of managers’ choices were essentially independent of influences on the value of those choices. Overall, this study represents an initial attempt to describe and empirically examine processes that affect the creativity of executives’ choices.