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Creative organizational climate – testing Ekvall’s 10-dimension model

Author

  • Ingrid Dackert
  • Ingegerd Carlsson

Summary, in English

To measure organizational climate for creativity and innovation Ekvall’s 10-dimension model is widely used both in research and in practice. The model consists of the 10 dimensions; challenge, freedom, idea support, trust, dynamism, playfulness, debate, conflicts risk-taking, and idea time. Outgoing from these dimensions Ekvall (1996) developed the Creative Climate Questionnaire (CCQ), shown to distinguish between innovative and stagnated organizations. However, in a review of instruments measuring creativity and innovativeness within the work environment the 10-factor model version of CCQ was criticized for lacking psychometrically documentation (Mathisen & Einarsen, 2004). Furthermore, in a study using an English translation of the CCQ the factor structure showed support for only 9 dimensions (Isaksen, Lauer & Ekvall, 1999). The purpose of the current study was to test Ekvall’s 10-factor model of creative organizational climate on a large Swedish sample in order to gain knowledge on the psychometrical attributes of CCQ. Data collected from 3830 individuals representing both public and private organizations was used for the analyses.

The factor structure was confirmed to a large extent. In total the 10 components explained 66 per cent of the variance. However, the first and the second extracted component consisted of 11 items each and explained 46 per cent of the variance. The tenth component contained only 1 item with a loading over .40. The result suggests a model consisting of 9 dimensions rather than 10 as the two dimensions “dynamism” and “playfulness” seem to melt together in the second component. The components contained between 3 and 11 items each, which means that the structure of 5 items in each climate factor was not confirmed. The result points to that the 10-factor model needs to be revised. However, before changing the model more data from private as well as innovative organizations has to be included in the analyses as these kinds of organizations were not so well represented in the current study.

Publishing year

2007

Language

English

Document type

Conference paper

Topic

  • Psychology

Conference name

The XIIIth European Congress on Work and Organizational Psychology. Sustainable Work: Promoting Human and Organizational Vitality

Conference date

2007-05-09 - 2007-05-12

Conference place

Stockholm, Sweden

Status

Published