The influence of software developers' creative style on their attitudes to and assimilation of a software process innovation

摘要

This study examines outcomes associated with differences in software developers' creative style, based on Kirton's adaption-innovation theory. Propositions were developed and tested to identify the relationship between software developers' creativity and their attitude to a technological innovation that altered the software development process in their organizations. Based on adaption-innovation theory, we expected that innovators (i.e. more innovative employees) would demonstrate higher levels of job satisfaction and performance than adaptors (i.e. less innovative employees), after approximately 4 months of using the innovation. We conducted a survey of 220 developers in two firms that had recently replaced mainframe-based software development with client/server development. Our results demonstrate a pattern of relationships among employees' creative style, attitude to the innovation, job satisfaction, and performance which we believe have important implications for managers responsible for implementing other technological innovations.