An Empirical Analysis of Mid-Career Managers' Adaptive-Innovative Cognitive Styles and Task Orientations in Three Countries

Studies of the cognitive styles of broadly defined managerial functions are reviewed, showing that internally vs externally oriented subfunctions within each exhibit predicted differences in adaptive/innovative modes of decision-making and problem-solving. A sample of mid-career managers on MBA programs in the United States, who provided career histories and completed the Kirton Adaption-Innovation Inventory, confirmed the distribution of adaptors and innovators that was established on the basis of studies in the United Kingdom and Australia. Data from a sample of European managers permit the marketing function to be subdivided on the same basis of internal- vs external-orientation, and the cognitive styles of marketers who differ in task orientation to be compared for the first time.