Title: Psychometrical testing of entrepreneurial creativity

Authors: Carolin Palmer; Beate Cesinger; Petra Gelléri; Daniela Putsch; Julia Winzen

Addresses: Justus Liebig University Giessen, Department of Psychological Diagnostics, D – 35394 Gießen, Germany ' Groupe Sup de Co Montpellier Business School, F – 34080 Montpellier, France ' University of Hagen, Industrial- and Organizational Psychology, D – 58084 Hagen, Germany ' Royal Appliance International GmbH, D – 41468 Neuss, Germany ' German Aerospace Center, Institute of Aerospace Medicine/Aviation and Space Psychology, D – 22335 Hamburg, Germany

Abstract: Up to present, little empirical research exists on the explicit relationship between creativity and entrepreneurship (e.g., Berglund and Wennberg, 2006; Yar Hamidi et al., 2008). These studies focus on capturing the personality of 'creative' entrepreneurs without regarding the core construct of actual creative performance: creativity as a cognitive ability. Our empirical study aimed at closing this gap. We used a newly developed psychometrical creativity test, which has proven to be reliable and valid in psychological research, and assessed the creativity of entrepreneurs. The results show that this approach is suitable for measuring creativity among entrepreneurs. In addition to confirming the psychometric quality of the test in this sample, this study reveals differences in creativity between entrepreneurs and other occupational groups. Entrepreneurs perform higher than two different comparison groups.

Keywords: psychometric testing; entrepreneurship; creativity tests; creative process; divergent thinking; entrepreneurial creativity; cognitive ability; creative entrepreneurs.

DOI: 10.1504/IJEV.2015.068573

International Journal of Entrepreneurial Venturing, 2015 Vol.7 No.2, pp.194 - 210

Received: 07 Aug 2013
Accepted: 10 Mar 2014
Published online: 06 Apr 2015 *

Full-text access for editors Full-text access for subscribers Purchase this article Comment on this article