Innovation Inventory Research Articles

Construct validity and generalizability of the Kirton Adaption–Innovation Inventory

The factor structure of the Kirton (1976) Adaption–Innovation inventory was examined by use of confirmatory factor analysis. A three‐factor structure was found, characterized by distinct, yet positively associated, facets, thereby challenging the oft‐assumed unidimensional conceptualization of adaption–innovation. The measures were found to achieve satisfactory levels of reliability for the separate facets and to exhibit strong evidence for convergent and discriminant validity. This was demonstrated for the full 32‐item inventory, as well as 20‐item and 13‐item abridgments. Subjects were postgraduate students from the United Kingdom (N = 149), Australia (N = 142), and the United States (N = 131). The three‐factor solution was found to generalize across all three samples in the sense of yielding identical factor loadings, error variances, and correlations among facets. Differences in the means of factors were found across samples.

Cognitive Style and Personal Involvement as Explicators of Innovative Purchasing of ″Healthy″ Food Brands

In an earlier study, concerned with the innovative purchasing of “healthy” food products, the largest volume of innovations were purchased unexpectedly by adaptors. It was subsequently argued that adaptors who were highly involved personally with the product field would exhibit such behaviour. The empirical investigation of female consumers′ (n = 151) self‐reported innovative purchasing described here tests that hypothesis, examining the interactive relationship between two independent variables, scores on the Kirton Adaption Innovation Inventory and on Zaichkowsky′s Personal Involvement Inventory, and the volume of purchases of innovative brands of “healthy” food brands. Results indicate that the market for new food brands comprises three psychographically‐defined segments, and have far‐reaching implications for adoption decision models and for marketing strategies for innovations.

The Career Exploration Inventory: Expanding Options for the Unemployed

The Career Exploration Inventory, an innovative interest inventory that measures work and leisure interests throughout the life span, can be used by employment counselors to assist their clients in the exploration of the interaction of work and leisure interests.

Adaptors and Innovators: Preference for Educational Procedures

ABSTRACT We tested the hypothesis that differences in attitudes toward conflicting procedures would depend on the context of the presentation and an individual's cognitive style. Data from 182 British school teachers who completed the Kirton (1976) Adaption–Innovation Inventory and two questionnaires concerned with aspects of educational procedures provided results broadly in line with expected adaption–innovation theory. Innovators were found to have a preference for procedures loose in structure, with aims not easily defined, and without easy methods of assessment. The adaptors showed a preference for procedures containing a tighter structure, more definable aims and more precise methods of assessment. The data also provide useful additional norms and information on teachers' cognitive style differences with regard to subject taught, gender, and length of service.

Varying Relationships between Adaption-Innovation and Social Desirability

This study examined the relationship between the Kirton Adaption Innovation Inventory (KAI) and two measures of social desirability. The social desirability measures were chosen because the first, the Defensiveness Scale ( K scale) on the Minnesota Multiphasic Personality Inventory (MMPI), measures the conscious presentation of oneself in socially desirable terms while the second measure, the Edwards Social Desirability Scale, examines the unconscious presentation of oneself as being socially desirable. 104 undergraduates enrolled in general psychology classes at a middle-sized midwestern university participated. A significant positive correlation between scores on the Kirton and Edwards inventories and a nonsignificant positive correlation with the K scale were obtained. The former indicates that innovators unconsciously present themselves as being more socially desirable than adaptors while adaptors and innovators consciously present themselves as being socially desirable almost equally. These findings for the Edwards Social Desirability Scale are inconsistent with the past research on the relationship between Kirton's inventory and social desirability.

The Kirton Adaption ‐ Innovation Inventory: A re‐examination of the factor structure

AbstractAlthough the Kirton Adaption ‐ Innovation Inventory (KAI) has almost always been used as a single scale purporting to measure a dimension of cognitive style, the KAI Manual characterizes three factors. This paper provides further confirmatory evidence of the structure of the three‐factor model and of the high reliability coefficients of the three subscales. However, it questions whether three factors are sufficient and examines four‐ and five‐factor models. Evidence is provided that the ‘O’ subscale in the orthodox three‐factor model contains two conceptual elements, a major component concerned with idea generation and a minor component concerned with preference for stability/change. A four‐factor model of KAI is proposed and an argument is advanced which leads to concern about the idea generation element of the ‘O’ subscale as a measure purely of cognitive style. Some implications for the development of the KAI are outlined.

Creative level and creative style

The present paper blends theories and insights from the study of organizational decision making and problem solving into the more general topic of creativity. Psychologists have long used self‐report personality scales to measure creativity. Such scales, however, tend to yield contradictory and inconsistent findings. Kirton has proposed that a distinction needs to be made between level of creative ability and style of creative action. Failure to distinguish these two aspects of creativity may underlie the contradictions and inconsistencies associated with many creativity measures which confound level with style. Data from 96 college students were used to evaluate correlations between the Kirton Adaption—Innovation Inventory, a measure of creative style, and four other scales: What Kind of Person Are You, Something About Myself, and the Jackson Personality Inventory Innovation and Risk Taking subscales. As expected, most of the intercorrelations were positive and moderate in size indicating that the three creativity scales mix level with style to different degrees where they should provide measures of a clear, precise concept.

The Kirton Adaption Innovation Inventory, Faking, and Social Desirability: A Replication and Extension

Data from 138 college students showed that responses to the Kirton Adaption Innovation Inventory are unaffected by social desirability ( r = .03). A subsample of 47 students also completed the Eysenck Personality Inventory Lie scale. The low correlation reported by Kirton for these two instruments was successfully replicated.

School Innovativeness as Process and Product

Summary The paper describes an approach to the definition and measurement of school innovativeness. Multiple criterion measures were developed to examine the complex interrelatedness of process and product dimensions of innovativeness. Process, defined as schools’ continuous capacity for growth and self‐renewal, was operationalised by means of measures of school organisational climate for change and of principals’ decision‐making behaviour in the management of innovation. Multiple product measures based on an inventory of specific innovations were used to define school level adoption, implementation and internalisation of innovations. Schools were found to differ significantly on each of the process and product measures. School mean scores for process and product were significantly related to each other and to measures of school openness to influence, of school supportiveness of change and of general motivational climate. School structure, process and norms appear to exert a significant influence on teach...

A Cross-Validation Study of the Kirton Adaption-Innovation Inventory in Three Research and Development Organizations

A cross-validation study of the Kirton Adaption- Innovation Inventory (KAI) was conducted with 256 professional employees from three applied research and development organizations. The KAI was found to correlate well with direct measures of in novativeness (peer-nomination and management- rated measures of innovativeness) as well as with in direct indicators of innovativeness (number of pub lications, education, performance as rated by man agement, organizational level, self-esteem, intoler ance of ambiguity, and need for clarity). These re sults, moreover, held up well in each of the three research and development organizations. The orig inality subscale was found to be a potentially useful short version of the KAI. Implications for the use of the KAI are discussed.