Gender Effect of Simplex and Apcaw Strategy in Fostering Business Creativity Competence of Managers in Selected ICT Companies in Lagos State, Nigeria

This study investigated the gender effect of SIMPLEX and Akinboye PracticalCreativity at Work (APCAW) strategy in fostering business creativitycompetence of managers in Information Communication and Technologyindustry (ICT) in Lagos. The study adopted the pre-test, post-test, controlgroup, experimental design using a 3x3x2 factorial design matrix. A sampleof 126 managers drawn from three (ICT) companies was used for the study.The Schutte, Malouff, Hall, Haggerty, Cooper, Golden (1998) emotionalIntelligence Assessment Scale was used to select and categorize subjectson levels of emotional intelligence based on their scores on the scale. Eachgroup consists of 42 subjects (21 male and 21 female managers). Theexperimental groups were exposed to six weeks of business creativitytraining while the control group was given training not related to creativity.The business creativity competence of managers were measured usingIbadan Creativity Assessment Scale (ICAS).Three hypotheses were testedand the data were analyzed using Analysis of Co-variance (ANCOVA). Findings from the study revealed that treated participants’ were significantlysuperior to control on business creativity competence (F(2,107)=27.325;p<0.01).Findings also showed that there were no significant effects of gender (F(2,107)=.351;>0.05); and no significant two-way interaction effect of treatmentand gender (F(2,107)=.256;P>0.05) on participants’ business creativitycompetence. Based on the result of the study, it was therefore recommendedthat SIMPLEX and APCAW strategy could be used to foster the businesscreativity competence of managers irrespective of gender.