249 Volume 41 Number 4 Fourth Quarter 2007 ABSTRACT INTRODUCTION KAMAL BIRDI A Lighthouse In The Desert? Evaluating The Effects Of Creativity Training On Employee Innovation The contribution of three different creativity training program- mes to employees’ workplace idea generation and implemen- tation was evaluated. The research was conducted within a government organization, where 191 employees (a mixture of participants and non-participants in creativity training) were surveyed. Analyses showed that creativity training participants in one type of course only were more likely to generate ideas back at work and that this relationship was mediated by their creative ability and motivation to innovate. However, in terms of later implementation of those ideas, the environmental factors of management support and divisional climate were much more strongly related than the creativity training. Keywords: Creativity, innovation, training, evaluation Recent years have seen an increasing emphasis placed on innovation as a key contributor to organizational success (Ford and Gioia, 2000; Wolfe, 1994). Innovation is regarded as not only covering the generation of ideas that are novel and useful to the workplace but also includes the implementation of them to produce new products, services or ways of working (Amabile, 1988). A potentially successful individual innova- tor, therefore, needs the capabilities to both create and put into practice new ideas. The study described in this paper examines the role, and highlights the limitations, of creativity training in promoting the two different aspects of employee innovation. Organizations have taken various routes in their attempts to enhance the creativity and innovation of their workforce, including recruiting and selecting more innovative individuals, Creativity training and idea generation and implementation