Workplace Creativity, Innovation, and Age

Creativity is the generation of ideas that are both novel and appropriate. Innovation is the subsequent intentional implementation of those ideas.While work performance is a complex and multifaceted construct (Viswevaran 2001), one of the most coveted and elusive dimensions of work performance is creative and innovative performance. Organizations look for ways to stimulate (or at least not hinder) their employees’ creative and innovative performance, because this will – it is believed – contribute to individual, team, and organizational success (Gilson 2008). Since the workforce is aging and will continue to do so over the next decades, organizations need to know what ramifications – if any – this demographic change will have for their innovative potential. The goal of this entry, therefore, is to examine relationships between employee age and workplace creativity and innovation