Personal values as predictors of managers’ innovativeness – From theory to practice

Abstract

This paper reports on examination of associations between personal values and personal innovativeness among managers in organizations. Study draws upon the innovations and behavior theories and analyzes answers of 405 managers from Slovenia and Austria. The results of this study revealed strong and positive impact of openness to change and weak positive impact of self-transcendence values on manager’s innovativeness, what is in accordance with theoretical presumptions. Surprisingly, conservation values also support manager’s innovativeness, although these values are not recognized as supportive for innovativeness in previous studies. Oppositely, self-enhancing values strongly and negatively impact on manager’s innovativeness. In terms of control variables, results disclose significant associations between manager’s positions, organizational size and country of origins and attained manager’s innovativeness. Conceptual implications indicate a need for additional study of cause-and-effects relationships between changing of personal values and personal innovativeness of individual managers. Practical implications outline complementary actions for development of personal values, awareness about importance of personal values among managers, and attention to personal values’ in decisions of managers.