Idea adoption in workplace innovation: Scale development and initial validity evidence

Despite the importance of workplace innovation, the adoption of creative ideas at workplace level has received little attention owing to a lack of measures for idea adoption. The purpose of this study was to develop and validate a scale that measures the process of idea adoption. More specific, the scale assesses the behavior of supervisory leaders in terms of idea openness, selection and application. Three studies were conducted to develop the idea adoption scale and investigate its psychometric properties (Study 1, n = 326); establish concurrent, convergent and divergent validity (Study 2, n = 334); and assess test-retest reliability over a three month period (Study 3, n = 189). The findings showed that the full idea adoption scale and its subscales have good psychometric properties: the three factor structure was supported and scales showed internal consistency and retest reliability. Furthermore, the scales’ associations with other variables provided initial evidence for concurrent, convergent and divergent validity. Several recommendations are made for the application of the scale in research and practice.