Creative Response Evaluation - Work

J. C. Kaufman and R. Reiter-Palmon

Creativity has been described as the most important economic resource of the 21st century. Research shows that creativity is one of the characteristics most needed to cope with today’s complex business environment, and in response to this, companies are increasingly including a chief innovation officer (CIO) among their senior management.

The CRE-W supports organisations with selection and development by assessing the way candidates respond to situation-based, realistic work problems. It measures the test taker’s ability to innovate, and how likely they are to use their creative initiative in the workplace.

Scoring

The CRE-W presents a series of 12 scenarios and possible responses representing dilemmas typically encountered at work. Each possible response is rated according to how likely the respondent would be to choose it.

On completion, three scores are calculated:

• The Creative Initiative score measures the overall likelihood of the respondent choosing a creative response when faced with a critical decision.
• The New creative thinking style score reflects the tendency to think of radically new ideas, pursue multiple opportunities and take risks.
• The Different creative thinking style score reflects the tendency to adapt and improve existing ideas, processes, products and services, while taking account of constraints.

The Creative Initiative score is designed for use in selection for positions where creativity is a job requirement. The New and Different creative thinking style scores may also be used in selection but are specifically applicable to developing project teams. Research shows that teams are most successful when they encompass different styles of creative thinking, and combining individuals with high New and Different creative thinking style scores is an effective way to achieve this. All three scores have applications in individual development and coaching.

Norms

In 2018 data was collected matching the country census data for both the UK and US working populations. Final sample sizes were N = 855 from the UK and N = 825 from the US. The national census figures were used to match on gender, age, ethnicity, region and educational background.

Validity for personality

The validity of the final CRE-W scales was evaluated in association with the NEO-PI-3 personality questionnaire with a sample in the UK, in order to provide a clearer view of the construct linkages of the CRE-W scale scores to the personality constructs being measured.