Thematic thinking and individual performance in research and development

Fröhlich, Julia Katharina; Hoegl, Martin; Weiss, Matthias (2014). Thematic thinking and individual performance in research and development. Journal of Product Innovation Management, 32(6), pp. 939-953. Wiley 10.1111/jpim.12210

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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.

Item Type:

Journal Article (Original Article)

Division/Institute:

03 Faculty of Business, Economics and Social Sciences > Department of Business Management > Institute of Organization and Human Resource Management > Human Resource Management

UniBE Contributor:

de Groote, Julia Katharina

Subjects:

600 Technology > 650 Management & public relations

ISSN:

1540-5885

Publisher:

Wiley

Language:

English

Submitter:

Julia Katharina de Groote

Date Deposited:

13 May 2015 09:47

Last Modified:

02 Mar 2023 23:26

Publisher DOI:

10.1111/jpim.12210

BORIS DOI:

10.7892/boris.68813

URI:

https://boris.unibe.ch/id/eprint/68813

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