The development of an instrument to assess the characteristics of the creative manager

This research represents the third phase of a study to identify and measure the attributes of the ‘creative manager’. The first phase consisted of a literature review (Hender and Higgs 2003), and the second phase a series of interviews with practising managers (Higgs and Hender 2004). From these, a number of constructs were identified which were used as the basis for the development of a questionnaire. Eleven scales, plus that for the dependent variable, creativity, showed sufficient reliability. Nine of the eleven scales showed significant correlations with the creativity scale, indicating good construct validity. The questionnaire was also compared with existing personality instruments, the Sixteen Personality Factors (16PF) and the Five Factor Model (FFM). It appears that the type of creativity that is characteristic of a ‘creative manager’ cannot be represented by either Creative Disposition, Factor B or the Belbin Team Role ‘Plant’ derived from the 16PF, but one of the five factors of the Five Factor Model, ‘Openness to experience’, and the Belbin Team Role ‘Resource Investigator’ do seem to be features of the ‘creative manager’.