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Idea Generation and the Quality of the Best Idea
Abstract
In a wide variety of organizational settings, teams generate a number of possible solutions to a problem, and then select a few for further investigation. We examine the effectiveness of two creative problem solving processes for such tasks - one, where the group works together as a team (the team process), and the other where individuals first work alone and then work together (the hybrid process). We define effectiveness as the quality of the best ideas identified by the group. We build theory that relates previously observed group behaviour to four different variables that characterize the creative problem solving process: (1) the average quality of ideas generated, (2) the number of ideas generated, (3) the variance in the quality of ideas generated, and (4) the ability of the group to discern the quality of the ideas. Prior research defines effectiveness as the quality of the average idea, ignoring any differences in variance and in the ability to discern the best ideas. In our experimental set-up, we find that groups employing the hybrid process are able to generate more ideas, to generate better ideas, and to better discern their best ideas compared to teams that rely purely on group work. Moreover, we find that the frequently recommended brainstorming technique of building on each other’s ideas is counter-productive: teams exhibiting such build-up neither create more ideas nor are the ideas that build on previous ideas better.
... Second, the literature on the innovation fuzzy front-end focuses predominantly on innovation idea generation and less on innovation project selection. The scant research on project selection (e.g., Criscuolo et al., 2017;Girotra, Terwiesch, and Ulrich, 2010;Keum and See, 2017) applies various theoretical lenses to explain project selection decisions but does not examine the decision-making process empirically. Moreover, the literature tends to disregard the importance of the decision-making context. ...
... Theoretical lens Key findings Girotra, Terwiesch, and Ulrich (2010) & Lab experiment (N = 44 students) & Group structure (team vs. hybrid) ...
... Our research contributes to the literature on the innovation fuzzy front-end. In this space, we first contribute to the nascent but still scant literature on innovation project selection (e.g., Criscuolo et al., 2017;Girotra, Terwiesch, and Ulrich, 2010). Most studies that focus on the innovation front-end investigate factors that facilitate idea generation, not project selection. ...
Innovation project selection is a decision of major relevance to firms. Errors in this decision may have serious consequences for firms, especially as many firms struggle with optimizing innovation project selection decisions. In their pitches to innovation decision-makers, project teams invariably present financial projections on their innovation projects, which often include best- and worst-case scenario presentation. Despite the potential influence the presentation of such financial projections has on firms’ innovation project selection decisions, this topic has not received sufficient attention in the literature. This study examines the role of scenario presentation on financial projections in innovation project selection by conducting two conjoint experiments among 2,425 managers and 11 follow-up interviews with senior executives. First, the findings of this study suggest that firms should help project teams present small- rather than large-range scenarios. This is important for at least the 57% of firms surveyed in this study where project teams are reported to present ‘too wide’ and ‘too extreme’ scenarios. Second, firms seeking to promote transformational innovation in their innovation pipeline should make the presentation of small-range scenarios required for an innovation proposal to be presented to a project selection committee. This is relevant for 79% of surveyed firms that would like to select more transformational than core innovation projects and especially for the half of which that currently do not require scenario presentation. Third, project teams with less expertise should develop scenarios analytically rather than intuitively and convey the project’s strategic merit to decision-makers to help increase innovation project selection likelihood.
... Prior empirical evidence in research contexts similar to ours have generally suggested that high expertise similarity is associated with poorer team inventive outcomes (Hargadon and Sutton 1997;Singh and Fleming 2010;Uzzi and Spiro 2005). One explanation for such negative outcomes is that high overlaps in expertise among team members can constrain teams from being able to tap into a greater pool of diverse ideas-the essential raw materials of innovation upon which creative and novel solutions are built (Girotra et al. 2010, Hargadon and Sutton 1997, Singh and Fleming 2010, Sosa 2011, Tortoriello et al. 2015. Furthermore, high expertise similarity may also prevent team members from viewing a problem from different perspectives, hampering the team's ability to search for novel solutions (Sutton and Hargadon 1996). ...
... reported here indicate that certain team composition factors-namely, a high degree of expertise similarity (Tortoriello et al. 2015), network cohesion (Fleming et al. 2007;Girotra et al. 2010), and mixed-gender composition (Nielsen et al. 2017, Nielsen andBörjeson 2019)-that appear to be innovation liabilities, on average, are actually beneficial when teams work on integral inventions. ...
Research has demonstrated that certain team composition factors—high expertise similarity, high network cohesion, and mixed‐gender teams—have predominantly negative effects on the teams’ invention outcomes. Yet these factors have also been shown to improve team coordination, which should (in theory) lead to better invention outcomes. We address this tension by highlighting the need to consider the invention's integrality, which increases task interdependencies among team members and thereby strengthens the positive relationship between team coordination and invention value. We hypothesize that (i) the main effects of these team composition factors reduce a team's invention value but, more importantly, that (ii) invention integrality positively moderates those effects. We support these claims with evidence from utility patent data filed in the United States during the period 1983–2015. This article is protected by copyright. All rights reserved
... Therefore, we had to revert to non-expert participants (which in our context meant that we recruited students) and train them in developing business models. From the perspectives of creativity and cognitive fit research, this is unproblematic as it is well-accepted practice to employ student participants (for cognitive fit, e.g., Khatri et al. 2006;Zhu and Watts 2010; for creativity, e.g., Baer et al. 2010;Girotra et al. 2010). Particularly in cognitive fit-based studies, the theoretical rationale for using students is strong because the mechanisms underlying cognitive fit "apply to generalized human cognition" rather than past experience and expertise (Zhu andWatts 2010, p. 341, building on Besuijen andSpenkelink 1998), and hence are valid rather independently from an individual's background. ...
... Prior creativity studies typically employ tasks that non-experts can readily understand, such as developing ideas for sleeping mattresses(Goldenberg et al. 1999), for eating safely in a moving vehicle(Dahl and Moreau 2002), for sporting goods(Girotra et al. 2010), skating equipment(Franke et al. (2013), or technologies for classroom use(Kornish and Ulrich 2011). ...
The Business Model Canvas (or Canvas) has achieved tremendous popularity in research, practice, and education. However, despite its popularity, we know virtually nothing about what makes it more effective than competing approaches. To address this issue, we build theory that explains how the Canvas' visual template affects idea generation performance at the cognitive level. Our theory predicts that using the visual template of the Canvas leads to better ideas than a naïve benchmark: a simple list. To test that prediction, we employ a mixed-methods design that includes a scenario-based survey, three experiments and a participatory observation with altogether more than 700 participants (including pilot studies). While the scenario-based survey supports our prediction, in the experiments the idea quality of Canvas users is worse than that of the list users. We reconcile these conflicting results through insights from our participatory observation and subsequent reanalysis of the experimental data. From a theoretical perspective, our work is a first step towards the theoretically grounded design of visual tools for business model idea generation. From a methodological perspective, we extend prior business model research concerning idea evaluation and controlled experiments.
... Innovation contests have become a popular way to find exceptional ideas and establish new ways to innovate and create value in companies [1,2]. However, such idea competitions involve a variety of challenges [3] that require raters to be careful not to "kill the wrong ones" [4] as the uncertainty linked to such creativity contexts does not allow the application of typical problem solving models [5]. ...
... Another source for feedback can be related to the contributor of the idea itself. In this sense, research has found that an ideator's prior success is an indicator of idea quality, since some individuals generate better ideas than others and tend to persist in producing ideas of higher quality [2]. Finally, crowdbased information such as the number of likes (commonly referred to as the "wisdom of crowd" [32]) expresses a community's opinion or appreciation about ideas on the platform. ...
... First, the literature on sources of fuzziness provided insights into core definitions, the way in which different levels of fuzziness emerge, and actions to resolve, mitigate, or manage these different levels of fuzziness (Frishammar et al., 2011;Rizova et al., 2018;Stevens, 2014). Second, the literature that has discussed the use of front-end capabilities was reviewed (e.g., Björk et al., 2010;Girotra et al., 2010;Schweitzer et al., 2016;Thanasopon et al., 2016), with a focus on assessing which front-end capabilities could be deployed to deal with sources of fuzziness. ...
... Third, new product ideas differ in quality (Girotra et al., 2010) and levels of fuzziness (Chang et al., 2007;), yet the existing literature does not explain how these factors influence the capabilities that should be deployed. The implication is that, depending on the difficulty of developing new ideas, the resources required to create robust definitions will vary (Beretta et al., 2018;Koen et al., 2001). ...
Based on the results of a multiple case study of seven manufacturing firms, a contingency framework for harnessing fuzziness in the front end of innovation is proposed by delineating two discrete capability paths through which new product ideas are developed into corroborated product definitions. The study illustrates that ideas characterized by high levels of fuzziness benefit from following an exploratory path, where the creative potential of fuzziness is embraced by deploying problem-formulation and problem-solving capabilities. In contrast, ideas at low levels of fuzziness benefit from following an exploitative path, where fuzziness is tolerated by drawing upon idea-refinement and process-management capabilities. When the fuzziness level of the idea and the set of capabilities to develop the idea are poorly aligned, the idea-development process is either inefficient or runs the risk of stalling. These findings have theoretical and practical implications for the front end of innovation and new product idea development.
... The teams compete with other teams for a cash prize based on their proposed product. We implement this task based on prior work by Girotra et al. (2010). 30 We randomly assign teams to one of three experimental conditions described later, where we vary the implementation of the iterative coordination treatment. ...
... We can track in the software code development process when code is being integrated across individuals (i.e., Code Integration Action). There are plenty of opportunities for future studies to use code tracking of across-individual activity-for example, integration across managers and subordinates (e.g., Maciejovsky 2015 andGhosh et al. 2020), division of labor in innovation production (e.g., Lawrence and Lorsch 1967, Knudsen and Srikanth 2014, and the extent to which ideas are combined with one another or discarded from consideration (e.g., Girotra et al. 2010). ...
An innovating organization faces the challenge of how to prioritize distinct goals of novelty and value, both of which underlie innovation. Popular practitioner frameworks like Agile management suggest that organizations can adopt an iterative approach of frequent meetings to prioritize between these goals, a practice we refer to as iterative coordination. Despite iterative coordination’s widespread use in innovation management, its effects on novelty and value in innovation remain unknown. With the information technology firm Google, we embed a field experiment within a hackathon software development competition to identify the effect of iterative coordination on innovation. We find that iterative coordination causes firms to implicitly prioritize value in innovation: Although iteratively coordinating firms develop more valuable products, these products are simultaneously less novel. Furthermore, by tracking software code, we find that iteratively coordinating firms favor integration at the cost of knowledge-creating specialization. A follow-on laboratory study documents that increasing the frequency and opportunities to reprioritize goals in iterative coordination meetings reinforces value and integration, while reducing novelty and specialization. This article offers three key contributions: highlighting how processes to prioritize among multiple performance goals may implicitly favor certain outcomes; introducing a new empirical methodology of software code version tracking for measuring the innovation process; and leveraging the emergent phenomenon of hackathons to study new methods of organizing.
... Therefore, in the creative process, the evaluation of ideas is as important as their generation. However, this part of the creative process remains underexplored in the literature on creativity (Girotra, Terwiesch, & Ulrich, 2010). Depending on its form and the context of dissemination, it may be difficult to assess the quality and value of an idea. ...
... Depending on its form and the context of dissemination, it may be difficult to assess the quality and value of an idea. For example, during creativity sessions, participants find it hard to identify the best ideas (Putman & Paulus, 2009) and do not systematically select the best intrinsic ideas for the organization (Girotra et al., 2010). ...
... The simpler recipes proposed by the students in the simple brainstorming exercise had a high score on 'workability' and a minimum score on 'novelty'. The introduction of the DT exercise brought a significant (p < 0.05) decrease in 'workability', but with a significantly large increase in the 'novelty' scores ( Fig. 4), meaning that a hybrid creative model may improve idea quality, as already reported by Girotra et al. (2010). The lower initial 'novelty' scores may be explained by the lower exposure to real-world (food service) situations, as many of the MSc students were coming directly from their BSc courses, with a very short professional experience. ...
Portugal is the greatest European rice consumer. Thus, incorporating whole rice and rice bran in innovative rice products is challenging. An experimental method based on the creativity association theory was applied. A group of nine students performed simple brainstorming to generate recipe ideas. Following the Design Thinking approach, a group of nine chefs received a stimulus to generate words related to rice recipes, working as a stimulus for a group of 14 students to generate recipe ideas. All ideas from both groups were evaluated by the chefs. The inclusion of stimuli led to more creative ideas from young aspiring chefs.
... Effective idea generation is the foundation for success to ensure that all options of a problem are explored, and it is not just the first idea thought of that is seen as the solution, and therefore, this gives a better chance of success. The success of idea generation usually depends on the quality of the best opportunities identified rather than the quantity [2]. This highlights the importance of idea generation as a key skill for graduate engineers. ...
... Assessment of the opportunity might include assessing the strategic, market, and fi nancial variables such as risk, expected demand, industry profi ts, technology cycles, competition density, technical feasibility, and novelty (Belousova, et al., 2009;Girotra, Terwiesch and Ulrich, 2010;Belousova and Gailly, 2013b). Assessment can also lead to recognition of additional opportunities or adjustments to the initial idea (Ardichvili, et al, 2003). ...
Intrapreneurship combines entrepreneurship and innovation, being entrepreneurial behaviour of employees, an individual intention or drive to innovate in an organisation. Intrapreneurship is recognised in the literature as a vital element of economic and organisational competitiveness, growth, and success. In contemporary organisations, employees are increasingly required to deal with or initiate change and propose innovative product or process ideas, i.e. employees are expected to behave intrapreneurially. Therefore, organisations need to find ways to foster intrapreneurial behaviour of employees, i.e. intrapreneurship. The dissertation addresses the research problem: how can intrapreneurship be fostered in organisations through education and training?
While intrapreneurship is gaining increasing attention both in academia and management practice, the intrapreneurship research field is lacking a clear conceptual framework. Addressing the need for an integrative systematic framework of intrapreneurship, a conceptual (theoretical) research study is conducted, integrating prior knowledge and research in intrapreneurship, applying critical thinking, conceptual reasoning, conceptual synthesis, and conceptual modelling as research methods. In the development of the conceptual models, the author employs deductive, inductive, and abductive reasoning, moving from description to prescription, building from and upon extant literature and secondary empirical data from case studies of intrapreneurship projects. Addressing the need for educational and training interventions aimed at developing intrapreneurship competence of learners, development type design research is conducted, which has the dual purpose of developing research-based educational interventions as solutions to complex problems in educational practice and advancing the knowledge about the characteristics of these interventions and the processes of designing and developing them in the form of design principles.
The dissertation provides a conceptual framework for operationalising intrapreneurship and how intrapreneurship can be fostered in organisations through education and training. The author’s main contributions to the knowledge base in the management research field are: the model of intrapreneurship process, the model of intrapreneurship project, the model of intrapreneurial organisation, the model of intrapreneurship competence, and the set of design principles for designing educational and training
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interventions aimed at developing intrapreneurship competence of learners. These contributions have potential practical implications for managers and management of organisations and educational institutions. From the organisational manager’s perspective, the contributions provide knowledge about how to manage and foster intrapreneurship in organisations. From the education manager’s perspective, the contributions provide knowledge about how to develop the intrapreneurship competence of learners.
... One way to interpret our findings in the larger context of team innovation is to consider one classic process suggestion for creative thinking in teams: asynchronous brainstorming (Girotra, Terwiesch, & Ulrich, 2010;Paulus, Korde, Dickson, Carmeli, & Cohen-Meitar, 2015). ...
... This is because evidence from prior research is scarce and equivocal. Most research has focused on the evaluation of relatively mature ideas at later stages of the creative process (Blair & Mumford, 2007;Girotra et al., 2010;Rietzschel et al., 2010). The few studies examining the selection of early-stage ideas suggest that while individuals can identify their more novel ideas fairly accurately (Berg, 2019;Sidi et al., 2020;Silvia, 2008), they may have an implicit bias against them, thus favoring less risky ideas that offer more certainty (Mueller et al., 2011). ...
Creativity depends on individuals' willingness to invest in their novel ideas early in the creative process. Burgeoning research on idea evaluation suggests that while people can identify their novel ideas, they may reject them because they are risky and uncertain. Selecting novel ideas is crucial at the earliest phase of the creative process, in which individuals may evaluate several generated ideas to identify those they want to develop and share with others. To uncover when and why people select these ideas, we develop and test theory on the early-stage selection of novel ideas. Integrating theory from attachment, self-construal, and creativity we posit that creators can become attached to, and therefore select their early-stage novel ideas when the idea features affirm core aspects of their self. Individuals with an independent self-construal wish to affirm their unique identity and idiosyncratic agenda and thus are more likely to feel attached to, and select their novel ideas. In contrast, individuals with an interdependent self-construal are less likely to become attached to novel ideas, because these ideas do not validate their self. Findings from a field study on three early-stage hackathons and three experiments support our theory. Our research points to idea attachment as a new mechanism that explains when and why creators embrace early-stage novel ideas.
... Most of the research about decision-making during idea selection is prescriptive in nature and deals with strategies, tools or methods to select the most novel concept (Stevanovic, Marjanovic & Storga 2015;Yan & Childs 2015;Gabriel et al. 2016) rather than following a descriptive approach that focuses on the factors that lead to that choice. In some studies done in the past, it was found that individuals and groups who generated ideas during brainstorming showed no difference in the quality of the selecting idea or had poor abilities while doing so (Rietzschel, Nijstad & Stroebe 2006;Girotra, Terwiesch & Ulrich 2010). Thus, indicating that selecting ideas is a challenging task and there are several biases that affect decision-making (Jones & Roelofsma 2000;Lockton 2012). ...
Idea selection is crucial in design as it impacts the outcome of a project. A collaborative design activity could be considered as a social process where the interactions and individual states (such as the importance in the team and self-efficacy level) could affect decision-making. It is often seen in design teams that some individuals, referred to as 'influencers' in the article have more capacity to influence than others, hence they govern the team process for better or worse. Due to the limited work done in the past to study the effect of these influencers on design outcomes, the work aims at increasing the understanding by presenting some insights from its agent-based simulation. The simulation results show how different influencer team compositions affect design outcomes in terms of quality and exploration of the solutions. The idea selection starts with the agents who are ready with their solution in their 'mind'. The work presented in this article describes a framework for simulating decision-making during idea selection by considering the influencer and majority effect. The empirical study presented in the article verifies the model logic, that is, the presence of influencer and the majority during idea selection and supports the assumption that individuals' agreement on solutions proposed by other team members depends on the degree of influence and past agreement. The results of the simulation show that teams with well-defined influencers produced solutions with higher variety and had more uniform contributions from team members, but also produced solutions of lower quality.
... Another difficulty in examining how collaboration impacts collective outcomes is in how to acquire measurements with which to evaluate performance at multiple levels. Earlier human-subject studies typically evaluated performance only at one level using straightforward metrics such as the number of ideas generated [25], speaking time [26], performance scores [27], and win rates [28]. However, in most realworld scenarios, performance needs to be evaluated using multilevel measurements which examine the performance at both the individual and collective levels [29]- [31]. ...
Collective idea generation and innovation processes are complex and dynamic, involving a large amount of qualitative narrative information that is difficult to monitor, analyze, and visualize using traditional methods. In this study, we developed three new visualization methods for collective idea generation and innovation processes and applied them to data from online social network experiments. The first visualization is the Idea Cloud , which helps monitor collective idea posting activity and intuitively tracks idea clustering and transition. The second visualization is the Idea Geography, which helps understand how the idea space and its utility landscape are structured and how collaboration was performed in that space. The third visualization is the Idea Network , which connects idea dynamics with the social structure of the people who generated them, displaying how social influence among neighbors may have affected collaborative activities and where innovative ideas arose and spread in the social network.
... Academics and practitioners recognize the value creation associated with customer empowerment practices on brand equity outcomes (Chaudhuri, 1999), leading to high-quality ideas (Afuah and Tucci, 2012;Girotra et al., 2010) with lower innovation costs (Moayedikia et al., 2019;Vernette and Tissier-Desbordes, 2012;Worm et al., 2017), which consequently positively impact their evaluation in terms of positive perceptions and attitudes from the customer point of view (Fuchs et al., 2010;Fuchs and Schreier, 2011;Nishikawa et al., 2013) and their effectiveness in terms of sales (Allen et al., 2018) and firm stock market performance (Cappa et al., 2019). These positive outcomes can be explained through the lens of community psychology theory (Speer et al., 2013;Zimmerman and Rappaport, 1988), according to which people feel more empowered when they feel their voices are heard, leading to economic (i.e. sales and profit) and customer-related benefits (i.e. ...
In the past decade, numerous international brands as Lay’s (Frito-Lay), Dop (L’oréal), Danette (Danone) have all embraced consumer empowerment strategies relying on consumers for new product development in consumer goods sector in France. Consumer empowerment, through managerial strategies, is defined as « a strategy that firms use to give customers a sense of control over a company’s product selection process, allowing them to collectively select final products the company will later sell to the broader market » (Fuchs et al. 2010, p. 65). These authors have distinguished two types of strategies: empowerment-to-create which enable customers to submit ideas for new products and empowerment-to-select which rely on consumers votes to choose products that will ultimately be marketed. On the one hand, with the advent of Internet technologies, brands are increasingly deploying empowerment campaigns through dedicated platforms or facebook pages taking advantage of communicational and innovation opportunities enabled by these practices implementation. On the other hand, marketing scholars studying consumer empowerment theme (Dahl et al. 2015; Fuchs et al. 2010) have addressed several positive effects for companies launching empowerment strategies on various performance indicators (brand attitude, word-of-mouth, purchase intention). However, it appears when reviewing the actual literature that while both empowerment strategies effects on various companies’ brand equity metrics have been documented, comparison between empowerment to create and empowerment to select effectiveness didn’t get attention while it has a significant importance for managers when deploying marketing actions in a context of pressure on return on investment. Our research is building on avenues of research gaps introduced by Fuchs et Schreier (2011; p.29). More specifically, this research aims at empirically examine (1) benefits retrieved by participants to empowerment campaigns (2) comparison between empowerment to create and to select effects as perceived by both participating and non-participating consumers (3) behavioral attitudes arising from participation to these campaigns and changes induced in terms of the perception of brands launching such initiatives. To answer to these questions, we’ve adopted a qualitative approach aiming at answering to research objectives and combining three series of in-depth interviews (see Annex 1 for profile description of respondents). This research combines a total of 24 interviews conducted with participating consumers (N = 9) that were involved in empowerment campaigns, projective interviews (N = 7) and interviews with non-participant consumers (N = 8). Results show that both participating and non-participating consumers prefer empowerment to create strategies as they are more opened and they enable consumers’ freedom of speech letting consumers themselves more than empowerment to select. Consumers discourse analysis also shows that they prefer empowerment to select comparing to create when they feel they don’t have the sufficient skills or expertise.
... Further, if idea theft is interpreted as social undermining (Duffy, Ganster, & Pagon, 2002), individuals may see it as particularly harmful to employee outcomes. Conversely, individuals may at times be incapable of, or uninterested in, pursuing their idea or seeing it through to completion (Girotra, Terwiesch, & Ulrich, 2010), thus potentially creating a pool of "abandoned" ideas. If perceivers believe it is likely the stolen idea would have otherwise been abandoned, the thief may be judged less harshly. ...
As the demand for creativity grows, the vulnerability of ideas to theft becomes increasingly salient. Knowledge workers are keenly aware of idea theft and nearly one-third report having co-workers who steal ideas. However, the severity of consequences people face for stealing ideas is unclear. In this article, I investigate the interpersonal consequences of stealing ideas compared to stealing money. Across a series of experiments, I found that idea thieves are judged to have worse character than money thieves, and that individuals are less willing to offer them co-worker support. Further, I found that stronger internal attributions for idea theft behaviors drive this effect. Furthermore, I tested and found no evidence supporting value as an alternative explanation. Lastly, I found that individuals are judged more negatively for stealing creative (vs. practical) ideas. Taken together, these findings suggest that idea theft has significant interpersonal consequences with negative implications for co-worker dynamics.
... Some researchers have suggested that creativity research ought to study processes that maximize the quality of one or a very small number of great ideas. A result of one single breakthrough idea and half a dozen low quality ideas is preferable to a dozen of merely decent ideas (Girotra et al., 2010). In ideation research the latter would be judged as more creative as it produces both more ideas and a higher average score. ...
... Main survey question logic applied in this papersee Table 1, where the 3 main research elements are described: idea quality or ideas created; idea quantity or ideas selected for implementation and involvementnumber of persons involved in the idea management process [9][10][11][12]. These three research elements were evaluated by using three IMS types based on involved sources (internalidea creator involvement from in-house, externalfrom outside the company, mixed-in-house and outside the company simultaneously) and 2 based on IMS focus (activeparticipants generate ideas for the specific tasks and passive IMS are without a task focus) [13]. ...
... For instance, scholars could explore idea evaluation and selection from a portfolio perspective. Prior research has addressed individuals' accuracy in evaluating new product ideas in terms of creativity (e.g., Blair and Mumford, 2007;Mueller, Wakslak, and Krishnan, 2014), resource requirements (e.g., Dailey and Mumford, 2006), and likely market success (e.g., Girotra, Terwiesch, and Ulrich, 2010;Berg, 2016). But prior work has largely overlooked these matters in the context of creators' broader portfolios of products. ...
Creative industries produce many one-hit wonders who struggle to repeat their initial success and fewer hit makers who sustain success over time. To develop theory on the role of creativity in driving sustained market success, I propose a path dependence theory of creators’ careers that considers creators’ whole portfolios of products over time and how their early portfolios shape their later capacity to sustain success. The main idea is that a creator’s path to sustained success depends on the creativity in their portfolio at the time of their initial hit—relatively creative portfolios give creators more options for leveraging their past portfolios while adapting to market changes, increasing their odds of additional hits. I tested the proposed theory using an archival study of the U.S. music industry from 1959–2010, including data on over 3 million songs by 69,050 artists, and the results largely support the hypotheses. Artists who reached their initial hits with relatively creative (novel or varied) portfolios were more likely to generate additional hits, but a novel portfolio was less likely to yield an initial hit than was a typical portfolio. These findings suggest that new creators face a tradeoff between their likelihood of initial versus sustained success, such that building a relatively creative early portfolio is a risky bet that can make or break a creator’s career.
... The dependent variables in the empirical studies involve the number and novelty of the subsequently generated ideas. However, from a managerial perspective, it is important that increases in quantity or novelty do not come at the cost of usefulness (cf., Girotra et al., 2010;Kornish & Ulrich, 2011). Thus, although creative cognition theories do not make specific predictions about the usefulness of ideas, we will take this dimension into account. ...
Research has shown that exposing people to others’ ideas and the ratings of those ideas can influence their subsequent idea generation performance. In this article, we utilize a socio-cognitive perspective to study this in an online crowdsourcing context. The cognitive factor concerns knowledge activated in memory because of idea exposure, which can be used for subsequent idea generation. The social factor concerns idea ratings that may steer the search for ideas in memory in the direction of ideas that are more likely to receive approval. Our contribution to the literature concerns an investigation of the joint effect of (1) the type of ideas posted by others (i.e., common versus novel ideas) and (2) the ratings of those ideas (i.e., low versus high ratings) on subsequent idea generation performance. We find compelling evidence for an interaction effect between these two factors in four empirical studies. That is, exposure to posted ideas that are “highly-rated and novel” or “poorly-rated and common” can result in more novel subsequent ideas. Exposure to posted ideas that are “highly-rated and common” can result in a larger number of subsequent ideas. These findings have implications for product innovation managers who wish to exert more control over the number and type of generated ideas, for example, on online crowdsourcing platforms.
... Descriptive evidence, in both research and practice, suggests that crowdsolving platforms are key players in this growing industry [3,24], offering lucrative outcomes for the firms that hire them and adding value for various activities [18,24,64,88,97]. This novel organizational form also produces innovative, voluminous, and varied knowledge and diverse forms of problem-solving expertise [3,7,49,56,99,106]. Yet crowdsolving contests raise challenges for platform and its client firms, who must develop their own capabilities to review, assess, and integrate the vast volume of data and solutions provided to create valueadded knowledge [84,106]. ...
This conceptual article contains a proposed four-part categorization of crowdsolving platform features: contest, idea, participant, and community. A related conceptual framework depicts the relationships of these features with the outcomes of creating, transferring, and assimilating knowledge for the platform and its client firms, according to the socialization, externalization, combination, and internalization (SECI) model. Arguments based in Social Capital Theory, Social Cognitive Theory, and Organizational Knowledge Creation Theory inform the predictions about the spiral of interactions between explicit and tacit knowledge that occurs during a contest on a crowdsolving platform. The findings suggest ways to design a crowdsolving ba (shared space for creativity) and platform-level absorptive capacity. For platform managers, this study also offers new insights into the important decisions they must make to develop their platforms’ features.
... The task was similar in design to previous idea-generation paradigms (Girotra et al., 2010;van Knippenberg & van Knippenberg, 2005) where participants come up with ideas and solutions (e.g., for product design or environmental campaign) that have real-world applications. The task in the present study required subordinates to generate and propose to their leader ideas to improve the student experience at university (verbatim instructions available from first author). ...
... The participants have information about different parts of the need and/or solution landscape [18] and share their diverse perspectives on the problem [20]. The submitted ideas are discrete descriptions of potential solutions that comprise a specific configuration of features [10] and can be seen as opportunities to create value through investment [14,29]. They take positions in an opportunity space that incorporates a collective representation of the solution-related knowledge of the crowd. ...
... De ce fait, il est possible qu'ils s'investissent davantage dans le processus et aboutissent à des idées de meilleure qualité que les clients classiques (Harmeling et al., 2017), ce qui constitue un deuxième facteur déterminant de la performance d'une stratégie de co-innovation. En effet, les idées les meilleures sont celles qui ont le plus de chance d'accéder à la phase de développement et de maximiser les profits attendus par l'entreprise (Füller et al., 2011 ;Girotra et al., 2010 ;Poetz et Schreier, 2012). De plus, les membres ont accès à un certain nombre d'informations privilégiées concernant l'entreprise (Caire, 2010 ;Jussila et Tuominen, 2010), ce qui devrait leur permettre de proposer des idées plus réalistes que les autres clients (Magnusson, 2009 ;Schweitzer et al., 2014). ...
Les recherches traitant de l'implication des consommateurs dans le processus d'innovation des entreprises identifient les profils présentant les caractéristiques individuelles les plus intéressantes pour innover. Nous considérons un nouveau profil : le client membre, copropriétaire de l'entreprise, très répandu dans les coopératives. Nous étudions l'influence de l'implication des clients membres sur la performance de la phase d'idéation d'un processus de co-innovation. Une quasi-expérimentation est menée à travers l'organisation d'un concours de co-innovation en ligne, en partenariat avec une banque coopérative. Nous avons recours à une variable invoquée : le statut des clients (membres et non-membres). Ce processus aboutit à 535 idées déposées par 425 clients de la banque. Les membres participent plus à l'idéation que les non-membres et proposent des idées de meilleure qualité, via le contrôle perçu, la propriété psychologique et l'attitude envers l'entreprise. Les membres sont donc une ressource intéressante à mobiliser pour les coopératives souhaitant innover. Abstract: Research on consumer involvement in the innovation process of firms identifies profiles with the most interesting individual characteristics to innovate. We consider a new profile: the customer-member, co-owner of the firm, widespread in cooperative firms. We study the influence of customer-members involvement on the performance of the ideation phase of a co-innovation process. A quasi-experiment is conducted through the organization of an online co-innovation contest, in partnership with a cooperative bank. The independent variable is the status of clients (members and non-members). This process results in 535 ideas submitted by 425 customers of the bank. Members participate more in the ideation phase and offer ideas of better quality than non-members, via perceived control, psychological ownership and attitude toward the firm. Members are therefore an interesting resource to mobilize for cooperatives who want to innovate.
... This may reflect the benefit of integrating diverse perspectives in groups. It also appears to be beneficial if the group discussion is preceded by an individual idea generation session (Girotra et al., 2010;Putman & Paulus, 2009). This enables one to experience a contrast between the ideas that one generated alone with those generated by others and may make the novel ideas more salient. ...
The creative process typically involves a series of phases including the divergent process of generating many ideas and the convergent process of idea evaluation and selection for further development. Only limited research has examined the convergent process and the relationship between the divergent and convergent processes. This research suggests that often the most novel ideas tend not to be selected for further development. We examine this research literature and present a model of the various factors that influence the links between the divergent and convergent phases. We describe the development and potential implementation of computer-based feedback system that may enhance the linkage between the quality of the divergent and convergent processes.
... Interestingly, individuals who focus on generating as many ideas as possible can produce more high-quality ideas than those who focus on generating high-quality ideas (Paulus et al. 2011); one explanation is that generating more ideas could increase the likelihood of thinking up some that are good, whereas an idea-quality focus might cause some good ideas to be rejected too early during ideation. For seekers, another reason to increase idea quantity is that the odds of an idea being good can be very low; having a large number of ideas thus increases the likelihood of identifying and obtaining outstanding ideas (Stevens and Burley 1997, Girotra et al. 2010, Zheng et al. 2014. ...
Crowdsourcing ideation contests allow solution-seeking firms (seekers) to solicit ideas from external individuals (solvers). Contest platforms often recommend seekers to provide examples of solutions (i.e., seeker exemplars) to guide and inspire solvers in generating ideas. In this study, we delve into solvers’ ideation process and examine how different configurations of seeker exemplars affect the quantitative outcomes in solvers’ scanning, shortlisting, and selection of ideas. Results from an online experiment show that solvers generally search for, shortlist, and/or submit fewer ideas when shown certain seeker exemplars. In addition, solvers who submit fewer ideas tend to submit lower-quality ideas, on average. Thus, a key insight from this study is that showing seeker exemplars, which contest platforms encourage and seekers often do, could negatively affect quantitative ideation outcomes and thereby impair idea quality. To help mitigate these adverse ideation outcomes, we propose a few areas of which seekers should be mindful. We also suggest ways that contests’ platforms can contribute to the idea generation process that solvers undertake.
... Crowdsourcing communities have gained increased popularity in attempting to generate novel ideas and solutions to organizational problems in a cost-effective and low-risk way (Girotra et al., 2010;Dissanayake et al., 2019). More than 85% of the best global brands have used crowdsourcing communities to benefit from the 'wisdom of the crowd' including Lego, Nestle, and Unilever (Olenski, 2015). ...
Crowdsourcing has attracted significant attention from organizations seeking to capture new ideas and solutions, finance new projects, and obtain market feedback about product concepts. The success of online crowdsourcing communities relies on the engagement of solvers that participate in crowdsourcing activities. In line with the Stimulus-Organism-Response (S-O-R) model, this study aims to examine the relationships between the dimensions of perceived interactivity, relationship quality, psychological ownership, and solver engagement. The resulting relationships are examined using both symmetric (PLS-SEM) and asymmetric (fsQCA) approaches, applying survey data from 423 active solvers on two online crowdsourcing communities, Epwk.com and Zbj.com. PLS-SEM identified that high levels of perceived interactivity increased relationship quality. In contrast, the influence of perceived responsiveness on psychological ownership was not statistically significant. Finally, relationship quality and psychological ownership significantly influences solver engagement. The fsQCA results reinforced the PLS-SEM findings and revealed five alternative causal configurations that are sufficient for higher levels of solver engagement.
... Design process success depends highly on ideation stage results [21], [22]. Extensive studies have focused on the improvement of metrics to evaluate ideation processes and associated mechanisms: quality, quantity, novelty (originality), workability (usefulness), relevance, thoroughness (feasibility), variety, and breath [18], [23], [24], [25], [26], [27], [28] Group Level Diversify personality type [8]; [11] Individual Group Use of C-K expansive examples [12] pictorial examples [46]; [13]; [9]; [16]; [47] audio recorded examples [49]; [50] Provide analogies [48]; [15] Provide analogies along with open design goals [51]; [52]; [16] Use of design heuristics [53] Idea generation enabled with computational tools [54]; [8]; [18] Graphical representations [13]; [55]; [47] Case-Based Reasoning and Case-Based Design [9]; [88]; [89] Use word graphs [56] word trees [57]; [58]; [50] Group Level Electronic Brainstorming (EBS) [49]; [50] 6-3-5/C-Sketch ...
... We also include market orientation, as prior research has shown that market orientation is an antecedent of a firm's innovativeness (Hurley & Hult, 1998). To instrument for resource availability, we include number of employees and revenues in our selection model, to proxy economies of scale (Cohen & Levin, 1989) and access to a larger pool of ideas (Girotra, Terwiesch, & Ulrich 2010). ...
An increasing number of firms engage in grassroots innovation, i.e., the voluntary generation and development of innovations by any member of an organization, regardless of function or seniority. However, no empirical study to date identifies the determinants of success or failure of grassroots innovation initiatives. We execute a survey study among 3,728 managers in 14 countries, 2,353 of which (63.1%) had already engaged in grassroots innovation. We find that, on average, firms that adopt grassroots innovation outperform firms that do not. We also find that firms that enable (1) employee autonomy, (2) competence development, and (3) relatedness (i.e., helping employees establish mutually beneficial relationships with trusted colleagues) in their grassroots innovation initiatives outperform firms that do not. We document that such effects are contingent on a firm’s institutional environment (i.e., leadership style and market orientation). For instance, the lower the market orientation and the higher the hierarchical leadership of the firm, the higher the performance returns the firm obtains from fostering autonomy and relatedness in grassroots innovation. These findings encourage managers and firms to adopt (or persist in their) grassroots innovation initiatives, to infuse them with sufficient autonomy, competence, and relatedness and match them with the right leadership style.
... Another difficulty in examining how collaboration impacts collective outcomes is in how to acquire measurements with which to evaluate performance at multiple levels. Earlier human-subject studies typically evaluated performance only at one level using straightforward metrics such as the number of ideas generated [25], speaking time [26], performance scores [27], and win rates [28]. However, in most real-world scenarios, performance needs to be evaluated using multi-level measurements which examine the performance at both the individual and collective levels [29,30,31]. ...
Collective idea generation and innovation processes are complex and dynamic, involving a large amount of qualitative narrative information that is difficult to monitor, analyze and visualize using traditional methods. In this study, we developed three new visualization methods for collective idea generation and innovation processes and applied them to data from online collaboration experiments. The first visualization is the Idea Cloud, which helps monitor collective idea posting activity and intuitively tracks idea clustering and transition. The second visualization is the Idea Geography, which helps understand how the idea space and its utility landscape are structured and how collaboration was performed in that space. The third visualization is the Idea Network, which connects idea dynamics with the social structure of the people who generated them, displaying how social influence among neighbors may have affected collaborative activities and where innovative ideas arose and spread in the social network.
... They revealed that novelty and usefulness are consistently used as the core elements for defining and assessing creativity across the board. Novelty refers to both newness and originality, while usefulness refers to quality, feasibility and value (Chiu & Shu, 2012;Girotra et al., 2010;Han et al., 2021;Sarkar & Chakrabarti, 2011;Shah et al., 2003). Although Gero et al. (2019) argued that surprise should be included as the third element of design creativity for measuring the unexpectedness of a design, many other researchers, including Chiu and Shu (2012), Zheng and Miller (2020) and Koronis et al. (2019), indicated surprise as a nuance of novelty. ...
Creativity is a significant element in design education, and frequently a significant competency during recruitment for design professions. Group work and individual work are widely employed in higher education. Many studies have highlighted the merits of employing group work in design education, cultivating collaborative design abilities and fostering sought-after employability skills. Although the benefits of group work in design practice and education are widely recognised, few studies have shown evidence that group work outperforms individual work regarding creative design activities in higher education contexts. Therefore, the aim of this research is to explore whether group or individual work is more beneficial for fostering students in generating creative designs in STEM design education. A case study, involving two cohorts of second-year undergraduate students studying a UK Engineering degree Industrial Design programme, is reported. The case study compares the design outputs produced by the two cohorts tackling the same design challenge in a product design module but employing individual and group work, respectively. The case study results show that no significant differences have been found between the design outputs produced by group work and individual work, considering novelty, usefulness and overall creativity. Further analysis reveals that a student’s academic performance is not significantly related to the level of creativity of the design produced. This research indicates design educators should employ both group and individual work to complement each other in design education, and suggests potential solutions to enhance students’ design creativity.
... Higher idea quantity is negatively associated with satisfaction with process. The findings regarding the relationships between idea selection quality/satisfaction and idea quantity is in line with some previous studies [29] but counter to some other findings [30]. A possible explanation is that the number of ideas in high quantity group is still within the threhold that a group of individuals could deliberately discuss, but idea selection quality might be decreased when the ideas to be selected reach 48 in the same timeframe. ...
Idea selection is a critical activity in open innovation crowdsourcing projects. Yet, the generation of vast amounts of ideas makes it cognitively challenging to identify the subset of ideas that are worthy of further consideration. We conducted an experiment to explore the influence of idea quantity and idea homogeneity on idea selection outcomes evaluated by crowds in the form of teams and nominal groups. We found that higher idea quantity is positively associated with idea selection quality and negatively associated with satisfaction with process. Further, team idea selection quality outperformed individual idea selection quality in both homogeneous information groups and low idea quantity groups. We did not find significant differences between group idea selection quality and individual idea selection quality in the heterogeneous information groups and high idea quantity groups. Theoretical contributions and practical implications are discussed.
... Extending the intuition that crowdsourcing platforms are arenas where ideas and idea creators are linked by visible signals of support, we now explore how generalized exchange systems of commitments by idea creators are influenced by the characteristics of the submitted ideas. In particular, we focus on idea novelty and idea feasibility-two features of ideas that are central to the current debate on creativity in the context of crowdsourcing (Chan, Li, and Zhu, 2018;Girotra, Terwiesch, and Ulrich, 2010;Litchfield, Gilson, and Gilson, 2015). ...
While it is commonly known that ideas submitted through crowdsourcing platforms need support from others to be realized, our understanding of what idea creators can do to garner this support is still limited. In this study, we argue that the behavior of idea creators on a crowdsourcing platform plays a critical role to attract support. In particular, we suggest that creators who commit their time and energy to the development and realization of others’ ideas may activate generalized exchange dynamics that result in an increased number of commitments from other peers to their own ideas—especially when these ideas are very novel or not very feasible. To test our hypotheses, we studied 1,201 participants and their behavior related to 244 ideas on the internal crowdsourcing platform of the car manufacturer Renault. Controlling for a series of relevant individual and idea characteristics, our findings confirm that creators who commit themselves to others’ ideas on the crowdsourcing platform elicit more commitments from others for their own ideas. This relationship becomes stronger for very novel and not very feasible ideas. We discuss the theoretical and managerial implications of these findings that contribute to the general discussion of crowdsourcing and how idea creators can assemble a team of supporters on such platforms.
... Sharing information will tackle the following issues:' what to share,'' whom to share,'' how to share' and' when to share' and, if addressed properly, should reduce cost-sharing, information deficit or duplication and increase responsiveness (Sun and Yen, 2005). Girotra et al. (2010), found that information sharing mechanisms would increase the number and quality of ideas produced in group brainstorming sessions, as well as the satisfaction of the participants. Much of the knowledge that inspired workers to render is idiosyncratic around (Campbell et al., 2014). ...
Service delivery is a key factor to be taken seriously for organizations that wants to survive and thrive. This study examines the influence of managerial resourcefulness on quality services delivery while assessing the relevance of information sharing in the process. The theory of learned resourcefulness was adopted to serve as an undergirded model in this review. It was concluded that; organizations can make excellence in customer service their hall work of success if they take advantage of the opportunity to have resourceful managers who will not feel discouraged and withdrawn in the face of a challenge, but who are posit to think critically and demonstrate readiness and enthusiasm to turn such situations around in favor of the organization. Therefore, organizational leadership should: Pay active attention to changes, events, and trends in the business environment and take practical steps to adapt to these changes to increase customer traffic to the organization in a seamless manner. Adopt a flexible disposition that allows the organization to modify these changes, events, and trends in the business environment and better understand what can drive the organization to succeed. Allow customers to prioritize change to help management get a better understanding of their expectations and respond sufficiently to improve the user experiences of these customers. Provide a lasting purpose to make informed decisions that will generate greater productivity and boosts organizational growth through effective collaborations. Give room for information sharing to dispense knowledge and competencies that will help in resource utilization, and cost-effective operation to improve service delivery.
... Sharing information will tackle the following issues:' what to share,'' whom to share,'' how to share' and' when to share' and, if addressed properly, should reduce cost-sharing, information deficit or duplication and increase responsiveness (Sun and Yen, 2005). Girotra et al. (2010), found that information sharing mechanisms would increase the number and quality of ideas produced in group brainstorming sessions, as well as the satisfaction of the participants. Much of the knowledge that inspired workers to render is idiosyncratic around (Campbell et al., 2014). ...
The maiden budget of the Akufo-Addo administration, presented by the Finance Minister on Thursday, March 2, 2021, saw the downward revision of certain taxes while others were completely abolished. According to Public Finance General Directorate, the purpose of taxation as enshrined in the French laws is “for the maintenance of public force and administrative expenses”. The need therefore to increase internally generated funds have been at the center stage of most developing countries, as Donor Partners insist on ensuring efficiency in tax administration before loans can be granted. Against the backdrop of tax cuts announced in the 2021 budget, this study seeks to evaluate the effect of tax cuts on revenue mobilization in the Wiawso Municipal Assembly of Ghana. The study employed the purposive sampling technique, making use of a population of 50. The result of the study showed that there is a strong negative relationship between tax cuts and revenue mobilization. Hence tax cuts can be assumed to reduce revenue mobilization. It also came to light that non-compliance was the main challenge facing the revenue collectors in the Wiawso Municipality. In the light of the above, the following recommendations were made. Government should support GRA by providing the necessary resources needed by the staff to carry out their daily activities effectively. For instance, the introduction of the taxpayer identification system. Technical training should also be organized regularly for GRA staff in other to help them acquire the necessary technical skills needed to carry out their activities effectively.
... Sharing information will tackle the following issues:' what to share,'' whom to share,'' how to share' and' when to share' and, if addressed properly, should reduce cost-sharing, information deficit or duplication and increase responsiveness (Sun and Yen, 2005). Girotra et al. (2010), found that information sharing mechanisms would increase the number and quality of ideas produced in group brainstorming sessions, as well as the satisfaction of the participants. Much of the knowledge that inspired workers to render is idiosyncratic around (Campbell et al., 2014). ...
This study sought to find out the extent of employee engagement in the public sector in Ghana using the Upper East Regional Health Directorate as a case study. The survey method was employed in the study. Close-ended and Likert-Scaled questionnaires were administered to participants to generate the data. Descriptive statistics were used to analyze the demographic data while the Relative Importance Index (RII) was used to analyze the scaled responses using the equation: RII= Σ???? / (???? × ????). The figures obtained confirmed the positive relationship between employee engagement and organizational performance. The good performance of the Upper East Regional Health Directorate was found to be influenced by the effective engagement of the staff.
... This enabled us to also assess the extent to which the ideas were creative, that is, both novel and appropriate (Amabile 1983). We operationalized creativity in three ways: as the average of the novelty and appropriateness scores (1) for all ideas generated by the participant (see, for example, Althuizen and Wierenga 2014) and (2) for the participant's best idea only (see, for example, Girotra et al. 2010) and (3) as the number of creative ideas generated by the participant, that is, ideas that scored above the sample mean on both novelty and appropriateness (see, for example, Dean et al. 2006). ...
When soliciting novel product ideas from the “crowd,” companies may opt to show a prototype in order to steer the generation of ideas in the desired direction. On the one hand, the more features the prototype incorporates, the larger the potential for activating relevant knowledge in memory that may serve as a basis for generating novel ideas. On the other hand, it increases the risk of fixation on the incorporated features, which may inhibit the generation of novel ideas. Based on the “dual pathway to creativity” theory, which identifies the depth and breadth of exploration of one’s knowledge base as cognitive pathways to the generation of novel ideas, we argue that the number (and type) of features included in the prototype in combination with the design goal, that is, generating ideas for functional versus aesthetic product improvements, determines whether the positive effects outweigh the negative effects. With a functional design goal, we find that exposure to a prototype with more features leads to more novel ideas as a result of a more thorough exploration of one’s knowledge base. However, with an aesthetic design goal, exposure to a prototype with more features leads to less novel ideas because of a narrower exploration. The latter effect is driven by people’s tendency to consider the whole or gestalt of the prototype when generating aesthetic ideas. This negative effect can, thus, be mitigated by stimulating people to employ a nonholistic, piecemeal thinking style.
This paper was accepted by Ashish Arora, entrepreneurship and innovation.
... The first activity (Step 2) is a "waste speed dating" and uses a nominal group technique (Van de Ven and Delbecq, 1974;Girotra, Terwiesch and Ulrich, 2010). First, each participant thinks individually about how it can reuse waste (products, parts or materials) of other participants. ...
While existing tools can help in identifying circular value opportunities, tools supporting the generation of solutions to transform those value opportunities into value propositions are missing. This paper aims to identify the characteristics such tools should display by using a literature review complemented by semi-structured interviews. Based on these results, we propose a new tool for circular business model ideation.
To fuel the innovation process with high‐quality ideas, firms are increasingly soliciting ideas from their employee workforce and involving them in idea contests. During an idea contest employees suggest ideas on a firm‐internal, digital idea platform. Once submitted, idea holders can receive constructive feedback from colleagues on their ideas – which has been advanced as positive instrument for stimulating idea improvement and idea quality. Examining three firm‐internal, multi‐staged idea contests that generated 395 ideas from a global management consulting firm, we examine under what conditions constructive feedback positively influences idea quality. We focus on the hierarchical roles of feedback providers and receivers and the role of feedback overlap (which indicates whether feedback focuses on similar issues). We find that the effect of constructive feedback on idea quality is larger when feedback providers have a higher hierarchical rank, but that this effect does not depend on the hierarchical rank of feedback recipients. Further, we show that (partial) feedback overlap strengthens idea quality. Our results generate new insights for both idea‐contributing employees and innovation managers about the important role of managing feedback during idea contests.
This paper investigates venture capital decision‐making, a process that occurs under changing conditions and limited, ambiguous information. We shed new light on the inherent dynamics of this strategic process. One of the key distinguishing features of our study is its unprecedented access to the internal decision‐making process of a venture capital firm. By analyzing unique, longitudinal data capturing 2,383 proposal selection processes conducted over the life of one venture capital fund, we show how decision‐making speed and the information cues that decision makers rely upon will, over time, change in systematic and predictable ways. Specifically, our approach allows us to identify fundamental, unexplored patterns with respect to the selection process as a whole and the multiple stages within the process Each year venture capitalists receive hundreds of investment proposals, but is every proposal received by a venture capitalist processed equally? In this study, we show how the source of a proposal and the available amount of investment capital, factors that are not contained within the pages of a proposal, may influence the investment decision making process. Our results highlight the impact of being referred to a venture capitalist by a trusted source, as more time is spent evaluating these proposals and they proceed further along in the process. We also find that venture capitalists process proposals more quickly as the capital in the fund is invested over the life of the fund. This article is protected by copyright. All rights reserved.
Collocating manufacturing with either the market or with R&D encourages innovation: Customer ideas are more easily communicated, and product and process innovations are more rapidly tested. We develop a system dynamics model of the interaction between responsiveness and innovation. We demonstrate how real options-created when decisions about what will be produced respond to demand information-generate follow-on options through innovation.
Beekeeping and the production of bee products is a specific activity in which heterogeneous factors interact.
The main factors of competitiveness in beekeeping are formed at the regional level, but they are realized on a supra-
regional basis, which is why a marketing strategy is needed to develop the potential and competitiveness of beekeeping
in the Rousse district, the starting point of which is the economic and geographical characteristic of the area. There is a
discrepancy between the natural zoning of the Danube plain and the administrative and territorial structure of the Ruse
region. The aim of the study is the interdependence between the triad "natural conditions - natural resources - economy".
One of the specific tasks is related to the analysis of beekeeping by administrative-territorial units in Ruse district, and
the second is focused on the economic and market characteristics of regional beekeeping.
The hilly nature of the relief, the relatively low altitude and the great biodiversity are the factors determining the variety
of beekeeping grazing in the region of Ruse in terms of quantity and quality. The analysis revealed that it is more
professionally oriented and managed by the national, with more efficient territorial organization and development, and
with a higher relative share of organic beekeeping. These advantages determine its higher competitiveness. Now the
district of Ruse forms more than 10% of the national production of honey (over 1000 tons per year), respectively and
in proportion to the economic effect of pollination - over BGN 100 million / year. The district offers very good
opportunities and optimal conditions for the development of api-tourism, which will diversify the beekeeping farms and
provide them with more stable and higher incomes. It has significant production, educational and innovative potential,
a solid base for the formation of a regional beekeeping cluster.
As a result of increased digitization and increasingly dynamic work environments, web-based idea management system (IMS) research has significantly increased in practical and academic relevance. A Web-based IMS is a manageable, systematic tool to generate and evaluate ideas. The following research gap was identified in IMS literature by the authors-are there industry-specific differences in web-based IMS results based on application type? To fill the gap, this paper aims to investigate how the number of ideas created (quantity), the number of ideas selected (quality), and the number of involved people (involvement) changes depending on the applied IMS type and industry. To achieve the aim of the research, the authors conducted a global survey of 504 organisation representatives from different industries that apply web-based IMS within their organisations. Based on the analysis, Chi-squared test results (p <0.05) allow us to conclude that there is a statistically significant difference at a confidence level of 95% in the number of ideas created and people involved using all five IMS types. Further test results (p <0.05) allow us to conclude that there is a statistically significant difference at a confidence level of 95% between industry groups in the number of ideas selected when applying external, mixed and active IMS types. All industry groups, except the manufacturing industry, generate more ideas with mixed and active IMS. Agriculture, forestry, fishing, mining, quarrying and activities of households as employers generate the greatest involvement when using mixed, external, and active IMS, while more ideas are selected when using mixed, active and internal IMS. Results show that different types of IMS applications could result in different outcomes in different industries. The main contribution of this research highlights the most likely IMS type industry should use to achieve a desired idea management outcome.
The introduction of digital technologies in agricultural production is one of the most important elements of strategic development in the agricultural sector and rural areas in Ukraine. In agriculture, these new technologies can modernize the industry, promoting innovation in agribusiness and creating new opportunities for rural development. The introduction of digital technologies in agriculture ensures the accuracy of measurements, speed data collection and processing. Digitization in rural areas is an inevitable process that brings a number of economic, social and environmental benefits. The immediate aim of this paper is to assess the state of implementation of digital technologies in agriculture and to examine opportunities for rural development in Ukraine. Research methods: monographic, descriptive, analysis, synthesis, induction. The results indicate that only large agricultural enterprises in Ukraine are able to implement and use digital technologies. Thus, it is proposed to create an integrated digital portal for agricultural needs, combining solutions that optimize activities of agricultural enterprises: land bank management, production, crop monitoring, warehouse, procurement and supply, equipment and repairs, logistics, inventory and finished products. The article identifies technological and human barriers to introduction of digital technologies in rural areas of Ukraine. In addition it proposes strategies for development of digital literacy and skills among rural residents in Ukraine. The results of the research can have a significant impact on the development of agriculture in Ukraine, promoting digital technologies among other agricultural enterprises and ensuring the development in rural areas, attracting additional agricultural market participants and infrastructure that provide relevant information and digital services to rural residents.
Taking into account conventional innovation methods, a direct link from the current business of the corporation with high traction towards innovative, new business is often not established. This is because innovation processes usually deal with either the customer (pull) or the company (push) side. Differentiating from such innovation processes, the 5C process stands out in combining both customer fit and traction to enable efficient innovation for corporations through processual ambidexterity. To achieve this, the 5C process is broken down in five steps: Configuration, Customisation, Compilation, Construction and Conversion.During the Configuration, innovation potentials are derived by combining emerging market/customer opportunities with existing core business strengths. Customisation marks the identification and validation of customer pain points within a selected potential. On this basis, new inspirations for ideas are gathered through scouting during the Compilation. Subsequently, in the Construction, multidimensional ideation is applied to create innovative ideas and concepts that are innovative ‘inside-the-box’ and hence, as close to the core business as possible and as disruptive as necessary. Finally, the Conversion deals with the transition from an implementable innovation concept to its implementation and commercialization as a successful innovation.
Innovation contests within firms offer the potential to tap latent employee expertise across the organization, and expand innovation beyond the core R&D teams. Still, firms undertaking an internal contest, unlike the more commonly studied external contests, incur significant opportunity costs when employees divert their efforts toward the contest (and away from their routine work). Managing this key challenge forms the focus of the current study, with the overarching question being How should firms design internal contests?.
Motivated by field work in electronics companies, we develop an application-driven model that explicitly captures the fundamental trade-off between incurring greater opportunity cost (of lost routine work) and increasing participation and contest effort. Analysis of our model demonstrates that for problem types that do not need significant effort for solution generation, the optimal contest reward is non-monotonic in both the problem uncertainty and the wage rate of the participating employees. In case of more complex problems that require contestants to exert some minimal effort, the firm uses the reward decision to restrict participation and to ensure that contestants exert required effort. In this case the optimal reward increases with problem uncertainty, thereby incentivizing more contestants to enter. While the firm can attempt to mitigate the loss due to opportunity costs by organizing internal contests during employee leisure time, we identify conditions under which it is still optimal to organize these contests during working hours.
This article is protected by copyright. All rights reserved
Organizational decision-making that leverages the collective wisdom and knowledge of multiple individuals is ubiquitous in management practice, occurring in settings such as top management teams, corporate boards, and the teams and groups that pervade modern organizations. Decision-making structures employed by organizations shape the effectiveness of knowledge aggregation. We argue that decision-making structures play a second crucial role in that they shape the learning of individuals that participate in organizational decision-making. In organizational decision making, individuals do not engage in learning-by-doing, but rather, in what we call learning-by-participating, which is distinct in that individuals learn by receiving feedback not on their own choices, but rather on the choice made by the organization. We examine how learning-by-participating influences the efficacy of aggregation and learning across alternative decision-making structures and group sizes. Our central insight is that learning-by-participating leads to an aggregation-learning tradeoff in which structures that are effective in aggregating information can be ineffective in fostering individual learning. We discuss implications for research on organizations in the areas of learning, microfoundations, teams, and crowds.
Experimental research indicates that people in face-to-face brainstorming meetings are less efficient at generating ideas than when working alone, This so-called productivity loss has led many brainstorming researchers to conclude that there is overwhelming evidence for the ineffectiveness of these sessions, We question this conclusion because it is based on efficient idea generation as the primary effectiveness outcome and on studies that do not examine how or why organizations use brainstorming. We report a qualitative study of a product design firm that uses brainstorming sessions. These sessions had six important consequences for this firm, its design engineers, and its clients that are not evident in the brainstorming literature, or are reported but not labeled as effectiveness outcomes: (1) supporting the organizational memory of design solutions; (2) providing skill variety for designers; (3) supporting an attitude of wisdom (acting with knowledge while doubting what one knows); (4) creating a status auction (a competition for status based on technical skill); (5) impressing clients; and (6) providing income for the firm, This study suggests that when brainstorming sessions are viewed in organizational context and the ''effectiveness at what'' and ''effectiveness for whom'' questions are asked, efficiency at idea generation may deserve no special status as an effectiveness outcome. We propose a broader perspective for assessing brainstorming effectiveness in organizations.
We conducted four experiments to investigate free riding, evaluation apprehension, and production blocking as explanations of the difference in brainstorming productivity typically observed between real and nominal groups. In Experiment 1, we manipulated assessment expectations in group and individual brainstorming. Although productivity was higher when subjects worked under personal rather than collective assessment instructions, type of session still had a major impact on brainstorming productivity under conditions that eliminated the temptation to free ride. Experiment 2 demonstrated that inducing evaluation apprehension reduced productivity in individual brainstorming. However, the failure to find an interaction between evaluation apprehension and type of session in Experiment 3 raises doubts about evaluation apprehension as a major explanation of the productivity loss in brainstorming groups. Finally, by manipulating blocking directly, we determined in Experiment 4 that production blocking accounted for most of the productivity loss of real brainstorming groups. The processes underlying production blocking are discussed, and a motivational interpretation of blocking is offered. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2012 APA, all rights reserved)
We examine how knowledge and experience affect both the mean and variance values of innovations from individuals and teams. We apply and extend theory on innovativeness and creativity to propose that holding multiple knowledge domains produces novel combinations that increase the variance of product performance; and that extensive experience produces outputs with high average performance. We analyzed innovations in the comic book industry, finding that innovations with extreme success and failure are affected by similar factors as high-performing innovations. Multi-member teams and teams with experience working together produced innovations with greater variation in value, but individuals were able to combine knowledge diversity more effectively than teams.
Are lone inventors more or less likely to invent breakthroughs? Recent research has attempted to resolve this question by considering the variance of creative outcome,distributions. It has implicitly assumed a symmetric thickening or thinning of both tails, that a greater probability of breakthroughs comes at the cost of a greater probability of failures.In contrast, we propose that collaboration can have opposite effects at the two extremes: it reduces the probability of very poor outcomes,– due to more
Since Osborn's Applied Imagination book in 1953 (Osborn, A. F. 1953. Applied Imagination: Principles and Procedures of Creative Thinking. Charles Scribner's Sons, New York), the effectiveness of brainstorming has been widely debated. While some researchers and practitioners consider it the standard idea generation and problem-solving method in organizations, part of the social science literature has argued in favor of nominal groups, i.e., the same number of individuals generating solutions in isolation. In this paper, we revisit this debate, and we explore the implications that the underlying problem structure and the team diversity have on the quality of the best solution as obtained by the different group configurations. We build on the normative search literature of new product development, and we show that no group configuration dominates. Therefore, nominal groups perform better in specialized problems, even when the factors that affect the solution quality exhibit complex interactions (problem complexity). In cross-functional problems, the brainstorming group exploits the competence diversity of its participants to attain better solutions. However, their advantage vanishes for extremely complex problems.
Several of the largest marketing research suppliers estimate that 70 to 90% of their clients use purchase intention scales in some form on a regular basis. Though there have been many studies of purchase intention, relatively few researchers have tried to relate purchase intention to actual purchase behavior. Those who have attempted to relate the two often have found substantial variation between stated intention and actual behavior. The authors have collected what they believe is the largest and most comprehensive database on purchase intention and actual purchase behavior for new products yet developed. They use different models in a comparison of predictive accuracy when stated intentions data are adjusted by separate perceptions of products such as willingness to consult others before purchase, affordability, liking, and availability.
This article reports the results of a meta-analytic integration of previous research on productivity loss in brainstorming groups. The following patterns were observed: Generally, brainstorming groups are significantly less productive than nominal groups, in terms of both quantity and quality. Stronger productivity Toss was demonstrated in the context of (a) larger groups, (b) experimenter presence, (c) tape-recorded vocalization of contributions (vs. writing of contributions), and (d) in comparison to a nominal group of truly Alone individuals (vs. a nominal group of Together individuals). These patterns are (a) highly consistent with predictions derived from social psychological explanatory mechanisms, and (b) only marginally consistent with procedural explanatory mechanisms, and (c) highly inconsistent with economic explanatory mechanisms. This article considers the implications of these patterns for the use of, and for future research on, brainstorming.
This study investigated the differential effects of task design and reward system design on group functioning; the effectiveness of ''hybrid'' groups, in which groups' tasks and/or rewards have both individual and group elements; and how individuals' preferences for autonomy moderate their responses to interdependence at work. An intervention in the reward system at a large U.S. corporation created group, individual, and hybrid rewards for 150 existing teams of technicians that had group, hybrid, or individual tasks. Groups performed best when their tasks and outcomes were either pure group or pure individual. Hybrid groups performed quite poorly, had low-quality interaction processes, and low member satisfaction. Task and outcome interdependence affected different aspects of group functioning: Tasks influenced variables related to cooperation, while outcomes influenced variables related to effort. Individuals' autonomy preferences did not moderate the effects of task and reward interdependence but, instead, were themselves influenced by the amount of interdependence in the work. These findings have implications for the design of work and reward systems for work groups.
There is pervasive evidence that people produce more ideas and more good ideas when working alone rather than in groups. This chapter will first review the evidence for the productivity loss in brainstorming groups and then evaluate the various theoretical explanations which have been offered to account for these findings in the light of empirical research. This evidence suggests that the productivity loss in idea-generating groups is caused mainly by mutual production blocking due to the constraint on groups that members can talk only in turn. We then discuss various strategies that have been developed to overcome the disruptive effects of production blocking. However, since so far even the most successful strategies have raised the productivity of group members only to the level they would have achieved if they had worked individually, our final section discusses an ‘illusion of group effectivity’ as a reason for the persistence of the belief that group discussions are an effective means of generating ideas.
In a typical innovation process, the innovator identifies or generates a set of raw opportunities or "ideas" before selecting one or more for further investment. This mode of innovation can be thought of as search within the opportunity space. In this paper we characterize some properties of innovation opportunity spaces as reflected by the set of ideas collected, and address three main questions: (1) When a large number of independent efforts to generate ideas are conducted in parallel, how likely are the resulting ideas to be redundant? (2) Do independent exploration efforts tend to result in clusters of similar opportunities or more uniformly distributed opportunities? (3) Are isolated opportunities more valuable than those that are located within clusters of similar opportunities? Our approach is to analyze the similarity of raw opportunities within five data sets comprised of between 232 and 311 ideas each. These data were gathered incidentally to our teaching university electives on innovation over a three-year period. We estimate similarity using a novel coding method performed by 230 independent judges. We estimate the quality of the opportunities based on 10-20 peer evaluations for each idea. We find that there is remarkably little redundancy in opportunities. For one broadly defined domain, 90 percent of ideas were unique, and for a very narrow domain, 68 percent were unique. We find that there is more redundancy as the innovation problem is defined more narrowly. We find that opportunities are located in clusters, apparently aligned with areas of high perceived user need. Finally, we find that opportunities that are similar to other opportunities are not necessarily of lower quality; for two of the five domains, we find that quality is increasing and then decreasing in the number of similar opportunities.
We model concept testing in new product development as a search for the most profitable solution to a design problem. When allocating resources, developers must balance the cost of testing multiple designs against the potential profits that may result. We propose extreme-value theory as a mathematical abstraction of the concept-testing process. We investigate the trade-off between the benefits and costs of parallel concept testing and derive closed-form solutions for the case of profits that follow extreme-value distributions. We analyze the roles of the scale and tail-shape parameters of the profit distribution as well as the cost of testing in determining the optimal number of tests and total budget for the concept phase of NPD. Using an example, we illustrate how to estimate and interpret the scale and tail-shape parameters. We find that the impact of declining concept-testing costs on expected profits, the number of concepts tested, and total spending depend on the scale/cost ratio and tail-shape parameter of the profit distribution.
Four experiments were conducted to identify the mechanisms that mediate the impact of production blocking on the productivity of idea-generating groups and to test procedural arrangements that could lessen its negative impact. Experiment 1 manipulated the length of group and individual sessions. Although Experiment 1 failed to find a closing of the productivity gap over time in equal man-hour comparisons, real 4-person groups produced more than nominal groups when given 4 times as much time. Because lengthening the time of session increases thinking as well as speaking time, speaking time was manipulated in Experiment 2. The finding that individuals who brainstormed for 20 min but were allowed to talk either for all or for only ƈ of the time did not differ in productivity eliminates differences in speaking time as an explanation of the productivity loss in idea-generating groups. In Experiments 3 and 4, procedural strategies to lessen the impact of blocking were examined.
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