Past Success and Creativity over Time: A Study of Inventors in the Hard Disk Drive Industry by Pino G. Audia, Jack A. Goncalo
R&D managers interested in increasing the creative output of their departments should be aware that successful inventors could become less creative over time. In this study, we find that inventors who have experienced success in their efforts to patent their inventions continue to generate new patents, but over time these patents tend to be less divergent from their previous work. This implies that allocating more resources to the most prolific inventors may increase the productivity of their department, but it may diminish the extent to which their creative output reflects the exploration of new areas of research. The negative effects of success on creativity can be managed by encouraging inventors to collaborate with one another and by making "exploration" an explicit and desirable organizational goal.
Source: MANAGEMENT SCIENCE Vol. 53, No. 1, January 2007, pp. Iv-vii issn 0025-1909 eissn 1526-5501 07 5301 00iv
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