Understanding the Roles of Intrinsic Motivation, Monetary Rewards, and Creative-Thinking Skills in New Product Design

The value and importance of creativity has been well established in the business world. The effective fostering of creativity, however, remains a somewhat elusive goal for most organizations. Using the context of product design, we examine three factors that are likely to have an important influence on the creativity of new product ideas: intrinsic motivation, monetary rewards, and the accessibility of creative thinking skills. We present and test a conceptual framework explaining the differential and interactive influences of these factors on the two essential components of creativity - the originality and the usefulness - of the end design. Further, we identify effort and enjoyment as two variables mediating the effects of intrinsic motivation and monetary rewards on originality and usefulness. The findings are integrated into a discussion that clarifies the role of these factors in producing creative outcomes and highlights their potential in the new product design process