Satisfaction with innovation training processes and outcomes: a field study across two cultures

ABSTRACT

Research shows that innovation training can increase the number of innovative ideas that are proposed and successfully executed by an organization. Training satisfaction is also a strong predictor of the degree to which people use the knowledge they gain in training. To improve innovation training processes, therefore, it would be useful to have a theoretically sound, empirically validated instrument to measure innovation training satisfaction. We propose and validate such an instrument derived from the Yield Shift Theory of satisfaction in a field study of innovation training satisfaction in the U.S.A and China. The findings of the study demonstrated the convergent and discriminant validity of the instrument, and the results were consistent with the causal relationships proposed by the theory, suggesting that the theory may be a useful explanation for satisfaction effects and as a way to measure training satisfaction. We discuss the implications of the findings for research and practice.

KEYWORDS:

• Innovation
• training
• satisfaction
• yield shift theory
• measurement
• multi-cultural

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Notes

1. Nomological theories link observable measurements to unobservable theoretical constructs and provide indirect evidence of construct validity by demonstrating how well the measure correlates with other measures to which it should theoretically relate.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Dale T. Eesley

Dale T. Eesley, Ph.D. (University of Wisconsin, Madison, 2004). Dr. Eesley is the director of the Center for Innovation, Entrepreneurship & Franchising at the University of Nebraska at Omaha.  He is also an associate professor of Entrepreneurship & Strategy and the John Morgan Community Chair in Entrepreneurship.  He teaches courses in Entrepreneurship, Innovation, Entrepreneurial Finance, and Corporate Strategy.  His research explores how small businesses manage the unexpected and how they develop the capacity to compete, best practices in small business human resources, firm reputation and corporate entrepreneurship.

Robert O. Briggs

Robert O. Briggs, Ph.D. (University of Arizona, 1994). Dr. Briggs studies the cognitive foundations of collaboration and applies his findings to the design and deployment of collaboration systems. He is co-founder of the field of Collaboration Engineering and co-inventor of the ThinkLets design pattern language for collaborative work practices. He has made theoretical contributions on group productivity, ideation, creativity, consensus, change, technology transition, and satisfaction. He is currently working to reduce military decision cycles with collaboration systems and to reduce the dropout rate among K12 learners-at-risk with collaborative learning techniques, with a focus on technical and cognitive challenges for transferring engineered work practices to non-experts without training on either the techniques or technologies.