8.2 Cognitive distance and user involvement in ideation
8.2.4 User involvement and moderation of cognitive distance
The results of this study draw a differentiated picture of the effects of user involvement, directly as well as in conjunction with cognitive distance of the developers to the target group. I conceptualise different degrees of user involvement, from low to high degree user-involvement approaches (Alam, 2002; Kaulio, 1998; Nonaka & Takeuchi, 1995). Low user-involvement approaches are characterised by supplying explicit user needs only, whereas high degrees also help to reveal implicit information through direct interaction (Kaulio, 1998).
I find mixed results on the effect of direct user involvement; on the one hand, there are strong positive effects on how many ideas are produced within the ideation slots (idea
quantity) but, on the other hand, there are only non-significant slightly positive effects on how well the resulting ideas fit customer needs (idea quality).
The positive results for idea quantity mean that user involvement (both medium and high degree) can be helpful in significantly increasing ideation productivity. In both medium as well as high user-involvement treatments, participants were able to generate more ideas in ideation time slots of the same length, which has also been found by other studies (Witell et al., 2011). This can help to create a large stock of ideas in the very early phase of innovation. One explanation of this effect could be that user involvement, ceteris paribus, brings forth additional stimuli (in terms of user needs and/or solutions), e.g.
through audio recordings or via co-creation partners as in this study. These needs are readily accessible for the developer if this takes place immediately before or during the ideation session and thus are translated into more ideas.
The results on idea quality mean that simply exposing developers to a medium degree of user involvement, such as a focus group recording prior to ideation (medium degree of user involvement), or assigning a user a co-creation partner for ideation (high degree of user involvement) does not directly lead to ideas of higher quality, as measured by perceived use value compared to ideating based on detailed market research data, as in the low user involvement group/control group (see Figure 56).
Low user involvement (market research) Medium user involvement (focus group) High user involvement (co-creation in dyads) Degree of user involvement
Idea
quality* Idea quantity**
* Positive, non-significant effect; **Positive, significant effect
Figure 56: Effects of user involvement, source: own depiction
These results are expected and confirm the findings on the effects of user involvement on use value of Witell et al. (2011), who measured user-involvement effects experimentally in a group ideation setting. Theoretically, these findings resemble psychological learning theory, which claims that “the more objects, patterns and concepts that are stored in memory, the more readily is new information about these constructs acquired” (Bower
& Hilgard, 1981, p. 424). Furthermore, the prior product development experience of participants with or for silver agers was low in general. User involvement was conducted in compact one-day workshops. Thus, one might argue that, in order to internalise distant target groups’ need knowledge, a stand-alone session is not sufficient; more frequently conducted user-involvement sessions would be required to build up sufficient knowledge. This reasoning is supported by the findings on social distance. Social proximity in this study is measured as the number of silver-ager relations that have a high duration and that are characterised by a high degree of closeness. Both factors indicate a learning process taking place over time.
These experimental findings are in contrast to those of other cross-company studies conducted via ex-post survey designs (Gruner & Homburg, 2000; Lau et al., 2010). In those studies, participants, who were mostly R&D managers, self-evaluated their intensity or use of user-involvement measures and also new product success (Gruner
& Homburg, 2000) or product performance (Lau et al., 2010) of past projects. Both studies found positive associations between user involvement and success. However, both of these studies study user involvement in a broader context, alongside other effects, and do not address different degrees or intensities of user involvement. Nevertheless, since the two streams of scientific inquiry (cross-company survey research and experimental design) do not converge, a final conclusion on the direct effects of different degrees of user involvement cannot be drawn.
Although I do not find direct effects of user involvement on idea quality, social proximity is positively moderated by medium user-involvement degree. This means that the application of user involvement affects developers differently, depending on how socially close they are to the target group. Concretely, I show that medium degree user involvement amplifies the already positive effect of social closeness. One explanatory approach is related to the existing user representation prior to user involvement.
Following Construal Level Theory, socially close developers are expected to have a more detailed user representation than more distant developers (Trope, Liberman, & Wakslak, 2007), which is potentially derived from deeper interactions with the target group, both
in terms of frequency as well as quality (Perry-Smith, 2006). Therefore, it can be expected that information supplied by the user can be better appropriated and used for idea generation. However, I do not find a similar reinforcing moderation effect in the high user involvement degree setting, or direct effects from a high degree of user involvement on idea quality, which is characterised by direct interactions in the ideation session (see discussion below in chapter 8.2.5).
At the outset of this dissertation, I raised the research question of whether potentially negative distance effects can be offset through user involvement (RQ3). Based on my findings in this setting, I have to answer this question negatively in regard to the findings of study 1 (effects on idea quality). However, if the goal is to create a high number of ideas (study 2) then an affirmative answer can be given. In the first case, user involvement does not show significant effects on idea quality. However, exposing developers to the medium user-involvement setting (without direct user interaction) increased socially close developers’ idea quality output significantly. For number of ideas generated, the research question can be answered positively, as user involvement has a significant and strongly positive influence on idea quantity, which on average more than compensates for the negative effects of social distance.