The Relationship between Novelty and Value in the Assessment of Organizational Creativity

The Relationship between Novelty and Value in the Assessment of Organizational Creativity

People use subjective interpretive processes reflecting their knowledge of existing practices in specific domains to assess novelty, value, and creativity. As a result, it is likely that novelty, value, and creativity assessments will differ from one domain to another, depending on domain and assessor characteristics. This study focused on understanding interpretive processes that might create systemic variance in subjective assessments of novelty, value, and creativity across different task domains. We present two studies from different organizational task domains (advertising, business strategy) to explore and illustrate differences in subjective assessments. The results suggest that novelty and value independently and differentially impact assessments of creativity in these two business settings. The multidimensional, variable character of creativity assessments suggest that previous findings on creativity should be interpreted with caution. We conclude by presenting methodological and practical issues raised by these findings.