Research Report: Modifying Paradigms—Individual Differences, Creativity Techniques, and Exposure to Ideas in Group Idea Generation

Abstract

I n today's networked economy, ideas that challenge existing business models and paradigms are becoming more important. This study investigated how individual differences, groupware-based creativity techniques, and ideas from others influenced the type of ideas that individuals generated. While individual differences were important (in that some individuals were inherently more likely to generate ideas that followed the existing problem paradigm while others were more likely to generate paradigm-modifying ideas that attempted to change the problem paradigm), the exposure to paradigm-modifying ideas from others and the use of intuitive groupware-based creativity techniques rather than analytical groupware-based creativity techniques were found to increase the number of paradigm-modifying ideas produced.

The Power of Individual-Level Drivers of Inventive Performance

“…Scott and Bruce (1994) use data on 172 engineers, scientists, and technicians in the R&D facility of a large US corporation and find a negative correlation between a self-assessed systematic problemsolving style of these individuals and superiors' assessment of their inventive performance. Based on data derived from an experiment, Garfield et al (2001) find that an intuitive cognitive thinking style positively correlates with generation of paradigm-modifying rather than merely novel ideas.…”

“…Even studies on the drivers of inventive performance that link patent data with survey evidence include very few individual characteristics (Hoisl, 2007;Mariani and Romanelli, 2007;Hoisl, 2009;Gambardella et al, 2012;Schettino et al, 2013). Therefore, leaving aside a few small-scale studies, we know only little about the individual-level determinants of inventive performance (Scott and Bruce, 1994;Garfield et al, 2001;Dewett, 2007;Mieg et al, 2010). Our analysis shows that educational level, skills acquired during the career, personality traits such as the Big 5 and risk tolerance, career motivations, cognitive abilities, and cognitive problem-solving style, have high predictive power for inventive performance.…”

Exploring the Effects of Problem Framing on Solution Shifts: A Case Study

“…Providing some support for the relationship between cognitive style and paradigm-relatedness, research that assessed paradigmrelatedness in idea generation found that more innovative individuals did tend to generate more paradigm-modifying ideas than more adaptive individuals. 23 However, the same study found that cognitive style was not the only aspect that influenced paradigm-relatedness, as exposing individuals to either paradigm-preserving or paradigm-modifying example ideas also influenced those individuals to generate more ideas of that particular type. 23 So although cognitive style may play a role in the types of ideas that designers generate, there is still opportunity for interventions or situational characteristics to have an influence as well.…”

“…[23][24][25] To the best of our knowledge, the role of the problem statement itself has not been studied directly. As we have detailed in our previous research, 26 there are many features of problem statements that can be framed in different ways to influence the approach taken by the designer.…”

“…Our coding scheme was consistent with prior studies on idea generation and paradigm-relatedness. [23][24][25] In their review of the literature on idea evaluation, Dean et al 21 found that paradigm-relatedness can best be evaluated by considering the elements of the problem and the relationships between those elements. Paradigm-preserving ideas use elements commonly found in the problem context, and maintain the relationships between those elements.…”