4.2 Hypotheses development for product development outcomes
4.2.2 Hypothesis regarding idea quantity
Ideation session outcomes can be assessed in terms of quality as well as quantity. The latter is frequently measured as a count of ideas in creativity related research (Briggs, Reinig, Shepherd, Yen, & Nunamaker Jr., 1997; Dean et al., 2006). Idea quantity is in turn associated with idea quality, following Osborn’s mantra of quantity breeds quality (Osborn, 1979). In a literature review, Dean et al. (2006) found positive, negative and neutral correlations between idea quantity and quality. Nevertheless, in assuming the positive relation of quantity with quality, one circumvents a potentially error-prone qualitative idea-rating process. When it comes to user involvement and co-creation activities with customers, there is a low level of time availability for both corporate and customer participants. Thus, effective joint ideation time slots are limited (e.g. as low as five minutes in an experimental study, i.e. Franke, Poetz, & Schreier, 2014). This implies that the generated ideas may be at an early preliminary stage in terms of detail level.
These ideas are eventually specified further, prior to initial idea screening. Therefore, not only initial quality but also quantity is important. Large numbers of ideas can be regarded as a body of knowledge which can be exploited, i.e. further developed and evaluated.
Furthermore, idea quantity can be regarded as a productivity measure to predict ideation efficiency (Shalley, 1995). Thus, both idea quantity and quality are established measures of creative problem-solving studies (MacCrimmon & Wagner, 1994).
4.2.2.1 Cognitive distance
As described above, Construal Level Theory posits that distant objects are mentally construed in a more abstract way. Specifically, the user needs of a distant target group will generally be represented in a more simplified way with less detail. Thus, high cognitive distance can be linked to a lower level of customer need knowledge. In ideation, customer need knowledge, in conjunction with solution knowledge, is translated into product ideas. Less rich need knowledge leads to fewer creativity sparking potential need/solution combinations. Therefore, I hypothesise that lower levels of customer need knowledge, due to cognitive distance, impact idea quantity in ideation:
H2,a: Higher cognitive proximity improves ideation productivity, leading to a higher number of ideas in ideation
Temporal distance
In the case of temporal distance, product developers think ahead to their own later years in order to anticipate customer needs for idea creation. Temporal proximity, i.e. being closer, age wise, to retirement, means traversing a shorter distance. Thus, the level of abstractedness of one’s own representation should be lower. In turn, the richness and density of the customer representation should be higher. Turning to one’s own needs and assuming an overlap of shared experience can be misleading, especially in the case of the silver-ager target group (Hyysalo, 2009). However, the number of shared experiences for developers who are temporally more proximal to the target group can be assumed to be higher. Thinking of one’s own needs should provide the richest representation. Thus, I hypothesise:
H2,a1: Higher temporal proximity improves ideation productivity, leading to a higher number of ideas in ideation
Social distance
Social distance is linked to personal closeness in various aspects. As discussed in previous paragraphs, it is assumed to affect the richness of customer representation in ideation.
Higher social proximity to a target group implies that a developer has more ties upon which he or she can draw to facilitate learning, knowledge transfer and the establishment of cognitive focus, compared to a more distant developer. Thus, social proximity is expected to facilitate need knowledge accumulation, which should lead to a higher quantity of ideas in ideation sessions through manifold need-solution combination opportunities.
Therefore, I hypothesise
H2,a2: Higher social proximity improves ideation productivity, leading to a higher number of ideas in ideation
4.2.2.2 User involvement
For the individual product developer, user involvement serves the purpose of bringing forth scarce customer need knowledge into the new product development process generally, or into ideation in the fuzzy front-end of innovation. Innovation rests on a novel combination of need and solution knowledge (Terwiesch & Ulrich, 2009). Thus, product developers might be exposed to customer needs which they were not aware of before, potentially enabling new combinations of need and solution knowledge. Depending on
the degree of user involvement (see above), the knowledge to be transferred can be characterised as tacit and/or explicit (Polanyi, 1983), but it is the zone in between and the complementarities between the two that often matter the most (Nonaka & Takeuchi, 1995). Higher level user involvement (e.g. focus group output or direct exchanges with customers) facilitate these kinds of knowledge exchanges through the provision of context information, in contrast to low or passive user involvement, like market research information. Thus, higher degrees of user involvement, e.g. through direct interaction with users, expose product developers to a potentially richer and deeper set of need information, especially when considering new or distant target groups. Anecdotal evidence in Magnusson, Matthing, and Kristensson (2003) supports this chain of reasoning. There, a corporate company innovation expert expressed the value of direct customer interaction in the ideation phase, which led to the acquisition of plenty of real needs and wants, rendering self-familiarisation with the user group irrelevant. Thus, it can be assumed that ideation productivity, which can be measured as idea quantity, is raised by user involvement (Briggs et al., 1997). Therefore, I generally hypothesise:
H2,b: User involvement improves ideation productivity, leading to a higher number of ideas in ideation
Breaking this down to different degrees of user involvement, it can be assumed that both a medium and a high degree of user involvement will lead, ceteris paribus, to a higher number of ideas compared to a control group:
H2,b1: Medium degree user involvement (e.g. with focus groups) increases ideation productivity, leading to a higher number of ideas in ideation
H2,b2: High degree user involvement (e.g. with co-creation sessions) increases ideation productivity, leading to a higher number of ideas in ideation