The Influence of Organizational Creative Climate on Product Innovation: A Study of Malaysian Manufacturing Firms

The purpose this study is to examine the effect of organizational creative climate on product innovation. Organizational creative climate is conceptualized as comprising of challenge, freedom, idea support, trust/openness, dynamism/liveliness, playfulness/humour, debate, conflict, risk taking and idea time. A total of 163 large manufacturing firms in Malaysia were sampled. Ten hypotheses were tested using regression analyses. Our results showed that of the eight dimensions of organizational creative climate (risk taking idea time, playfulness/ humour dynamism/liveliness, absence of conflicts, trust/openness, debates, challenge, idea support, freedom), only challenge, debate, and idea support were found to have significant positive effects on product innovation. Implications and limitations of the study are also discussed.