Understanding the Climate for Creativity and Innovation: 40 Years of Progress on the Situational Outlook Questionnaire

Establishing a work environment that is conducive to creativity and innovation is a key priority for organizations of all kinds. A variety of measures have been developed to assess the climate and culture for creativity and innovation and some limited literature is available that reviews these. Those sources that do review these assessments usually include only a handful of measures and their reviews are brief. The purpose of this article is to comprehensively summarize forty years of research, development, and application of one of these assessments called the Situational Outlook Questionnaire (SOQ). This summary includes an overview of the development, conceptual and theoretical foundations, psychometric characteristics, as well as the status of the evidence for reliability and validity of the SOQ. It also includes three new analyses of data that illustrate its relationship to a variety of other variables. Finally, although much progress has been made, the article concludes by suggesting a number of future fruitful pathways for further inquiry.