Methodology
Sample characteristics
Study participants were graduate and undergraduate students taking management
courses in a medium sized university located in the southwestern United States. The
university’s business students are mostly composed of non-traditional students with
substantial work experience; either from existing part- or full-time positions, or
through former full-time jobs. The average respondents’ age was 25.43. Subjects had a
mean 7.37 years work experience and 5.10 years full-time work experience. The
subjects were grouped into a variety of job categories that were distributed as follows:
skilled workers – 52 per cent, professional or managerial workers – 33 per cent, nonskilled
workers – 14 per cent. A slight majority (58 per cent) of subjects were female.
Most of the respondents were US citizens (80 per cent), with the remainder being from
Mexico (8 per cent), India (6 per cent), and Canada (6 per cent). A salient respondent
characteristic for this study is that participants all held ‘‘garden variety’’ creativity jobs
as opposed to creativity specialists positions, such as research scientists or
professional artists. While these study characteristics (mostly younger workers who
are relatively new in their careers) may limit findings’ generalizability, the sample is
also one of this study’s positive attributes. This strength comes from the inclusion of
respondents drawn from a diverse set of organizations, thus enhancing expected
generalizability across organizational types.
Study participation was voluntary, and survey completion had no effect on the
subjects’ grades. Incentives for completion consisted of questionnaire feedback, and
helpful information on how results applied to participants’ workplace situations. Most
canvassed respondents chose to participate, with 134 of 162 people completing the
surveys. A further 7 respondents had to be removed from the sample because they
lacked work experience. Additionally, 2 more questionnaires were removed due to
incomplete responses. The final usable response rate was 77 per cent.