Abstract
The purpose of this chapter is to empirically examine the impact of a manager's personal values on manager's innovativeness. Personal values are measured with the Schwartz value survey, and the innovativeness with a set of items referring to innovative working and behavior. Results are based on the answers of 259 Slovenian managers. Results reveal several significant associations between single values as well as dimensions of values with managers' innovativeness. Findings from this seminal study provide an important insight into values and their dimensions, which most significantly shape innovative working and behavior of managers in organizations. Findings may be critically used for reformation of the education system, in-service educational purposes in organizations as well as for consulting purposes. Consequently, the appropriate approach can be formulated to use advantage of values, which positively influences innovativeness and diminishes the impact of those, which negatively influences managers' innovativeness. Findings may also be critically used to improve innovativeness outside Slovenia.
TopResearch Design And Methodology
In this section we are outlining methodology for empirical researching of the impact of personal values on managers’ innovativeness in Slovenia. Based on the outlined cognitions about personal values and characteristics of innovativeness of management and the possible linkages between personal values and managers’ innovativeness we will examine:
Key Terms in this Chapter
Schwartz Value Survey (SVS): A tool with cross-cultural validity, which includes a list of 56 personal values, which respondents in the survey rate using a 9-point interval scale, ranging from “opposed to my values” (-1) to “of supreme importance” (7). Single values from the survey can further collapsed into various dimensions of values.
Slovenia: A former transitional economy from Central Europe, coping with relatively lower innovativeness, than most innovative societies.
Managers’ Innovativeness: Is managers’ perception and it expresses their attitudes toward typical innovative working and behavior, among which the forefront includes innovativeness and other factors closely related to the innovativeness.
Innovative Society: Most developed societies, which are based on innovations, innovative working and behavior and innovativeness.
Continuum of Manager’s Innovativeness: A scale with anchors referring to the low level of managers’ innovativeness (1) and the high level of managers’ innovativeness (7).