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- Title
Thematic Thinking and Individual Performance in Research and Development.
- Authors
Froehlich, Julia K.; Hoegl, Martin; Weiss, Matthias
- Abstract
Individuals differ in their preference for processing information on the basis of taxonomic, feature-based similarity, or thematic, relation-based similarity. These differences, which have been investigated in a recently emerging research stream in cognitive psychology, affect innovative behavior and thus constitute an important antecedent of individual performance in research and development ( R& D) that has been overlooked so far in the literature on innovation management. To fill this research gap, survey and test data from the employees of a multinational information technology services firm are used to examine the relationship between thematic thinking and R& D professionals' individual performance. A moderated mediation model is applied to investigate the proposed relationships of thematic thinking and individual-level performance indicators. Results show a positive relationship between thematic thinking and innovativeness, as well as individual job performance. While the results do not support the postulated moderation of the innovativeness-job performance relationship by employees' political skill, they show that the relationship between thematic thinking and job performance is fully mediated by R& D professionals' innovativeness. The present study is thus the first to reveal a positive relationship between thematic thinking and innovative performance.
- Subjects
RESEARCH &; development; JOB performance; INNOVATION management; INFORMATION technology industry; TECHNOLOGICAL innovations
- Publication
Journal of Product Innovation Management, 2015, Vol 32, Issue 6, p939
- ISSN
0737-6782
- Publication type
Article
- DOI
10.1111/jpim.12210