Knowledge Distance, Cognitive-Search Processes, and Creativity

Abstract

Prior research has provided conflicting arguments and evidence about whether people who are outsiders or insiders relative to a knowledge domain are more likely to demonstrate scientific creativity in that particular domain. We propose that the nature of the relationship between creativity and the distance of an individual’s expertise from a knowledge domain depends on his or her cognitive processes of problem solving (i.e., cognitive-search effort and cognitive-search variation). In an analysis of 230 solutions generated in a science contest platform, we found that distance was positively associated with creativity when problem solvers engaged in a focused search (i.e., low cognitive-search variation) and exerted a high level of cognitive effort. People whose expertise was close to a knowledge domain, however, were more likely to demonstrate creativity in that domain when they drew on a wide variety of different knowledge elements for recombination (i.e., high cognitive-search variation) and exerted substantial cognitive effort.

Collective firm-internal online idea development

“…The examined positive role of knowledge overlap supports the argued benefits of knowledge relatedness and knowledge redundancy (e.g. Acar and van den Ende, 2016;Koch, 2011) in innovation management. One explanation is that an increased knowledge overlap refers to an increased ability to combine diverse knowledge sets and transfer new insights to the domain of ideas (Acar and van den Ende, 2016).…”

“…Acar and van den Ende, 2016;Koch, 2011) in innovation management. One explanation is that an increased knowledge overlap refers to an increased ability to combine diverse knowledge sets and transfer new insights to the domain of ideas (Acar and van den Ende, 2016). Another possible reason is that the mutual understanding is better guaranteed with higher knowledge overlap, as feedback providers feel that it is then easier to form richer and more elaborate schemas of ideas, something which potentially supports idea development.…”

“…Generally, as research in contributors' homogeneity and heterogeneity (Baer, 2010) has tended to collapse knowledge overlap and diversity into the constructs of "cognitive distance" (e.g. Nooteboom et al, 2007;Acar and van den Ende, 2016) and "information redundancy" (e.g. Nonaka, 1990) high cognitive distance and low information redundancy have come to imply high knowledge diversity and low knowledge overlap.…”

“…Moreover, as feedback requires substantial cognitive effort and is time-intensive/flexible (Hoornaert et al, 2017), two important aspects are whether feedback is given in real time (Hoornaert et al, 2017) and whether feedback providers are familiar with the ideas or not (Zhu et al, 2017). These aspects have been more carefully investigated in terms of feedback timeliness (Lurie and Swaminathan, 2009) and feedback frequency (Lam et al, 2011), and in terms of knowledge relatedness and knowledge diversity of contributors (Acar and van den Ende, 2016;Beretta, 2019;Koch, 2011), respectively. However, the effects of these factors in collective firm-internal online idea development are still not well understood.…”

Leading Innovation

“…These developments have had their impact on the field of innovation management. The field has shifted from a narrow focus on the operational and strategic aspects of innovation to a focus on the social side of innovation by, for instance, investigating social networks (Deichmann & van den Ende, 2013), team dynamics (Stam et al, 2013) and (social) motivations in crowdsourcing (Acar & van den Ende, 2016;Boons et al, 2015). In my opinion, this is a positive development.…”