The effect of preparation and willingness to participate on idea quality in interactive brainstorming groups

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University of Groningen Faculty of Economics & Business

MSc Business Administration, Strategic Innovation Management

The effect of preparation and willingness to

participate on idea quality in interactive

brainstorming groups

Supervisor: dr. R.A. van der Eijk Co-‐reader: dr. F. Noseleit

Author: Wouter Kok Student number: 2591081

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Abstract

This study was motivated by an attempt to get a better understanding of effectiveness within brainstorming groups. With groups being so vital and present in modern organizations, understanding their effectiveness is a challenging and important question to address. If we would know the impact of each phenomenon on the effectiveness of brainstorming groups, these could be manipulated in order to significantly increase the effectiveness of these groups. The phenomena examined in this study are preparation and willingness to participate. The aim is to examine their effect on idea quality in interactive brainstorming groups. Idea quality is seen as an outcome of these groups, which we measure in terms of originality, feasibility, and effectiveness. The findings of this study demonstrated a positive relationship between higher levels of willingness to and idea quality in the sense of effectiveness. No relationship was found concerning preparation and any of our idea quality criteria.

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Executive summary

It is commonly assumed that innovation is vital for long-‐term corporate success. Usually, this innovation starts with the generation of creative ideas. A well-‐known tool for generating these ideas is brainstorming, which is designed to remove a natural tendency that people have to be selective in the expression of their ideas. For this reason, understanding what makes these groups effective is an important question to address. The purpose of this study is to examine the effect of two phenomena that can impact the effectiveness of these groups, which are preparation and willingness to participate. We measure the effectiveness of brainstorming groups in terms of idea quality, which is seen as an output of these groups. Accordingly, the main research question has been formulated as follows: What is the effect of preparation and willingness to participate on idea quality in interactive brainstorming groups?

After reviewing the existing literature about brainstorming, the focus turns to idea quality. Next to presenting different definitions of this concept, it is explained that we use originality, feasibility, and effectiveness as three quality criteria for this concept. Further, we present an overview of precursors of effectiveness in brainstorming groups in terms of idea quality. Finally, the focus turns to the role of motivation in brainstorming groups and in particular the concepts of preparation and willingness to participate.

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3.2 Preparation ... 22 3.3 Conceptual model ... 22 4. Method ... 23 4.1 Research design ... 23 4.2 Data collection ... 23 4.3 Variables measured ... 25 4.3.1 Dependent variable ... 25 4.3.2 Independent variables ... 26 4.3.3 Control variables ... 27 4.3.3.1 Group size ... 27 4.3.3.2 Age ... 27 4.3.3.3 Gender ... 27 4.3.3.4 Educational level ... 28

4.3.4 Overview of variables ... 28

4.4 Data analysis ... 29

4.4.1 Factor and reliability analyses ... 29

4.4.2 Sample selection ... 30

4.5 Validity, reliability, and generalizability ... 31

5. Results ... 33 5.1 Correlation matrix ... 32 5.2 Regression analysis ... 33 6. Discussion ... 37 7. Conclusion ... 41 7.1 Conclusion ... 41 7.2 Implications ... 41

7.3 Limitations and future research ... 42

References ... 43

Appendix ... 49

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1. Introduction

According to Amabile (1997), the business world is seldom static and the pace of change appears to be rapidly accelerating. No firm that continues to deliver the same products and services in the same way can long survive. Therefore, innovation is vital for long-‐ term corporate success. A first step in innovation is creativity, which is referred to as the production of novel, appropriate ideas in any realm of human activity. Subsequently, successful implementation of these ideas gives us the definition of innovation. So, as innovation starts with the generation of creative ideas, how are these ideas then generated?

Following Rietschzel (2005) and many others, a well-‐known tool for idea generation is brainstorming, a term that was first used by Osborn (1963). This tool is designed to remove a natural tendency that people have to be selective in the expression of their ideas. So, the goal for participants of brainstorming groups is to come up with as many creative ideas as possible. The underlying assumption here is that quantity leads to quality, which simply means that the more ideas are generated, the higher the probability that at least one of these ideas is extremely good.

As Girotra et al. (2010) note, most prior research has focused on the average quality of ideas or the number of ideas generated, ignoring the fact what most organizations seek; a few great ideas. This statement is supported by a study of Nijstad & De Dreu (2002), who say that producing a large number of ideas is never the ultimate goal of a brainstorming group. Instead, what they are after is a limited number of high quality ideas. In this way creative ideas can be selected for further development and, after successful implementation, possibly become an innovation.

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1.1 Research objective and research question

According to Nijstad & De Dreu (2002), with groups being so vital and present in modern organizations, understanding their effectiveness, or ineffectiveness, is a challenging and important question to address. This is in line with Bouchard (1972), who notes that for the practical purpose of producing effective groups, as well as the theoretical purpose of understanding what makes groups effective (or ineffective), a useful approach would be to assemble groups on variables that would be expected to facilitate effective performance. He continues by saying that a consideration generally ignored by most studies in the brainstorming literature is individual differences. Most studies assume that one group of brainstorming participants is just as good as the other. However, one of the differences between brainstorming groups may lie in motivational aspects. As Bouchard (1972) notes, a consequence of using these groups is that they depend on curiosity or willingness to help as a source of motivation. For this purpose, the following main research question is proposed:

What is the effect of preparation and willingness to participate on idea quality in interactive brainstorming groups?

To help answering the main research question, the following sub questions are used: (a) How can we define and use brainstorming?

(b) What is idea quality?

(c) What are precursors of effectiveness in brainstorming groups?

(d) What is the role of motivation, preparation and willingness to participate in brainstorming groups?

1.2 Scope and domain of the study

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groups, and the focus is not on the number if ideas generated. Instead, we will focus exclusively on interactive brainstorming groups as the setting of this research. Furthermore, the aim is to study the effect of preparation and willingness to participate by members of these brainstorming groups on idea quality, which is seen as an outcome of these brainstorming groups. Why these concepts are chosen, and how they are being used, is explained in the theoretical background section.

1.3 Managerial relevance

According to Rietzschel et al. (2010), it is commonly assumed that successful innovation depends on creative idea generation. For this reason, facilitation of this idea generation stage is crucial. In order to know how to do this, factors that stimulate or inhibit idea generation need to be studied. The importance of the practical purpose of understanding the effectiveness of these groups was already mentioned in the study of Bouchard (1972), who suggested to assemble groups on variables that would be expected to facilitate effective performance. This is in line with a later study, by Barki & Pinsonneault (2001), who state that if the magnitude of each phenomenon’s impact on brainstorming groups is known, these different phenomena can be manipulated to significantly increase brainstorming groups’ effectiveness. Although we are not able to study every phenomenon that can impact brainstorming groups, for the practical purpose of this study it will be interesting to see in what way preparation and willingness of brainstorming group members to participate will have an effect on the quality of ideas generated. In this way, managers will be able to composite brainstorming groups more effectively.

1.4 Organization of the paper

In the next section, we will first give an overview of relevant literature on brainstorming, idea quality, preparation, and willingness to participate. Then, after presenting the conceptual model, the methodological issues will be addressed. Hereinafter, the results will be presented and the findings will be discussed. Finally, the last section contains the implications of this study, discusses its limitations, and provides direction for further research.

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2. Theoretical background

This chapter serves to provide insights into existing literature and will be used to explain relevant concepts and their relationships.

According to Rietzschel et al. (2010), in all domains of society, progress depends on the adoption of new procedures or products. Such innovation necessarily starts with the generation of creative ideas. As, according to Amabile (1997), innovation is vital for long-‐term corporate success, generating these ideas is crucial for organizations. A well-‐known creativity technique that is specifically designed to maximize participants’ ideational output is the brainstorming technique, which is the topic of this research. In the following section, we will elaborate further on this creativity technique.

2.1 Brainstorming

In order to get a better understanding of the context of this study, it is useful to start with an introduction to brainstorming. To begin, brainstorming is one of the most popular and well-‐known creativity techniques, and is widely used by organizations in order to come to innovations and creative solutions. According to Rickards (1999), this technique can be traced back to extensive efforts initiated in around 1940 by Alex Osborn. His intention was to restructure meetings in order to overcome inhibitions that block idea generation. Rietzschel (2005) notes that the main premise of the brainstorming procedure is that quantity breeds quality, which means that the more ideas are generated, the more good ideas will be found among them. Therefore, boosting the number of ideas generated is the essence of brainstorming. According to creativity researchers, like Amabile (1979), it is found that people are thought to generate more ideas when feeling free of evaluation and criticism. For this reason, in most brainstorming activities the idea generation and idea selection processes are separated.

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and even themselves. The second principle is extended idea search, which also focuses on quantity by constantly asking our imagination to search for more and different ideas. When these conditions are not met, the number of ideas expressed is probably not maximized, which means that the possibility of missing some excellent ideas will exist.

2.1.1. Different brainstorming groups

In his paper, Rickards (1999) states that several versions of the brainstorming technique are known, including individual, nominal, interactive and even electronic brainstorming groups. In many studies, both nominal and interactive brainstorming groups are being examined. In a nominal group people generate ideas in isolation, but their output is pooled. Members of interactive groups are brainstorming together in the same room (Putman & Paulus, 2009). In their study, they examined group and individual brainstorming processes, and related this to idea selection performance. They found that nominal groups generated more ideas than interactive groups. Furthermore, members of nominal groups generated more original ideas than members of interactive groups. These findings on idea generation are in line with several others who conducted similar research (Diehl & Stroebe, 1987; Faure, 2004; Rietzschel et al., 2006).

2.1.2. Productivity loss in interactive brainstorming groups

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productivity loss is possible. However still, as Bouchard (1972) states, brainstorming is a procedure widely used in organizations in spite of the overwhelming experimental evidence that indicates that individual problem solving is superior under most circumstances. But then why do organizations still make use of interactive brainstorming groups?

2.1.3 The continued use of interactive brainstorming groups

Several studies provide arguments for the continued use of interactive brainstorming groups. For instance, Nijstad & De Dreu (2002) mention higher levels of satisfaction and enjoyment, and higher levels of task persistence as benefits associated with the continued use of interactive brainstorming groups. Further, Putman & Paulus (2009) note that positive effects of group brainstorming may occur when other participants are a source of motivation or a source of cognitive stimulation. Furthermore, by noting that nominal groups possibly will have difficulties shifting to an interactive format, a potential disadvantage is mentioned by the authors. If the nominal group members are susceptible to the shared information bias, they may not fully share their more original ideas with the rest of the group.

Bouchard (1972) notes that the continued use of interactive brainstorming groups rests on two relatively rational assumptions. First, the necessary information for solving problems is scattered among different people. Second, with respect to implementation of these new ideas or solutions, acceptance of a decision for a certain idea or solution by the participants involved is often as important as the quality of that decision. This latter point, which actually goes beyond the brainstorming task, is reflected on in the paper of Faure (2004). She states that brainstorming is a technique designed to help companies solve problems and as such its effectiveness should be assessed over the entire problem-‐ solving process. So, focusing exclusively on productivity may be a too narrow definition of brainstorming effectiveness. Further, it is suggested that companies appear willing to give up some efficiency at the idea generation stage, hoping for increased quality of the ideas selected and greater commitment to implementing these ideas in later stages. However, the results of this study show that interactive brainstorming groups do not make up for their inferiority at the idea generation stage in later stages.

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2.1.4 The ultimate goal of brainstorming groups

While the goal of brainstorming sessions is to generate as many creative ideas as possible, businesses do not have the resources to further develop every idea, and people do not have the time or ability to take every idea into consideration. As Rietzschel et al. (2010) note, when it comes to the selection of ideas, people typically have problems with making their selection from a very large number of ideas. It may be that Faure (2004), as we argued before, is right, by suggesting that focusing exclusively on productivity may be a too narrow definition of brainstorming effectiveness. This statement is supported by Nijstad & De Dreu (2002) who see the exclusive focus of previous literature on the idea generation stage and quantity of ideas as a limitation. They state that producing a large number of ideas is never the ultimate goal of a brainstorming group. Instead, what they are after is a limited number of high quality ideas that will eventually have a chance of being implemented.

Thus, when we see brainstorming as a tool for innovation, a focus on productivity indeed is too narrow. Therefore, besides on interactive brainstorming groups, this study will focus on idea quality, a topic we will now discuss in more detail.

2.2 Idea quality

In their research about small group brainstorming, Barki & Pinsonneault (2001) state that idea quality is the most important indicator of group brainstorming performance. However, according to Bretschneider et al. (2012), idea quality is a complex construct. Furthermore, he notes that quality of a creative idea is in the eye of the beholder, which means that if a judge or group of judges independently agrees that a given product is highly creative, it can and must be accepted as such. Despite this subjectivity, previous literature identified several idea quality criteria, which we will discuss now.

2.2.1 Idea quality criteria

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In order to overcome these problems, in their review of the idea generation and creativity literature, Dean et al. (2006) revealed that terms used to evaluate ideas can be grouped into four general constructs. These four constructs are novelty, feasibility, relevance, and specificity. First, novelty refers to the degree to which an idea is original and modifies a paradigm. Second, an idea is feasible if it can be easily implemented and does not violate known constraints. Third, we can speak of relevance when the idea applies to the stated problem and will be effective at solving the problem. Last, an idea is specific if it is worked out in detail. Dean et al. (2006) themselves define a quality idea as one that contains three characteristics. First, the idea should apply to the problem at hand. Second, it should be an effective solution. Third, it should be implementable. According to this definition, an idea can be termed a quality idea without it being novel or unusual.

Different from the definition of Dean et al. (2006), Diehl & Stroebe (1987) proposed that the quality of an idea is reflected by its originality, which is the extent to which the idea is novel, and feasibility, the extent to which the idea precise and the ease with which it can be implemented. This is in line with Rietzschel et al. (2010), who note that idea quality is usually defined as a combination of originality and feasibility. Hence, a high quality idea is both highly original, or unusual, and highly feasible. In the study of Barki & Pinsonneault (2001) it is argued that this conceptualization of idea quality is satisfactory. However, they also state that numerous authors have argued that effectiveness, which is the extent to which the idea helps to solve the problem, is also an important dimension of quality. An idea may be very original and feasible, but its quality cannot be very high if it does not help to solve the problem at hand. Therefore, we will use originality, feasibility, and effectiveness as our three quality dimensions in this study.

2.2.2 Quality of the best idea

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making a comparison with the manufacturing industry, where most firms would prefer producing 100 units with good quality over making 1 unit with exceptional quality followed by 99 that have to be scrapped. For most innovation challenges, an organization would prefer 99 bad ideas and 1 extremely good idea to 100 ideas of average quality. In the world of innovation, the extremes are what matter, and not the average or the norm. For this reason, in this study we will not look at the average quality of ideas, but only to the quality of the best ideas.

To conclude, Rietzschel et al. (2010) state that, although it is clearly possible to reliably rate the quality of ideas, it is not immediately obvious that these ratings actually predict implementation success. This statement is supported by a quote that even experts are not able to predict which ideas or solutions will turn out to be effective or successful (Simonton, 1997 in Rietzschel et al., 2010). However, if the effectiveness of creative ideas could easily and accurately be judged in advance, innovation would probably be an easier task than it is today. A final remark in this study is that the results show that it is important to distinguish not only between performance in different stages of the creative process, like idea generation and idea selection, but also between different quality dimensions, such as novelty and feasibility. This is in line with the study of Dean et al. (2006), who state that to systematically sample each dimension, it is better to score each dimension separately rather than assess a unitary, overall score. Both studies argue against the use of aggregate measures of idea quality, because these can easily cloud meaningful patterns of results.

To summarize, in this study we will use originality, feasibility, and effectiveness as our idea quality criteria. Furthermore, we follow the reasoning of Rietzschel et al. (2010) and Dean et al. (2006), by distinguishing between different quality dimensions. Further, as explained before, we will only look at the quality of the best ideas. So, now that we have discussed the concept of idea quality, it is interesting to take a look at precursors of effectiveness in brainstorming groups in terms of idea quality.

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2.3 Precursors of effectiveness in brainstorming groups

Woodman et al. (1993) developed a theoretical framework for understanding creativity in complex social settings. In their framework, the authors suggest that individual, group, and organizational characteristics have an impact on the creative process and situation, resulting in the creative product for the organization. This framework gives a broad overview of what affects creative behavior, and lists characteristics that are illustrative and not intended to suggest an exhaustive list.

According to Woodman et al. (1993), although group creativity is not the simple aggregate of all group members’ creativity, it is clearly a function of the creativity of individuals in the group. The cognitive factors of the group members are likely to influence the outcome of a process like group brainstorming. Brown et al. (1998) examined these cognitive factors that are involved in group idea generation. For instance, it is stated that the degree of attention that group members pay to each other’s ideas will have a large influence on the effectiveness of group brainstorming. Further, social factors are mentioned, like the fact that group members may be motivated by the social reinforcement or approval provided by others as they express their ideas.

Next, in their study, Barki & Pinsonneault (2001) compared the effectiveness of four brainstorming technologies in terms of idea quality. They provide a framework consisting of factors that affect a brainstorming group’s effectiveness. Although their list is not exhaustive, it includes most effects that have been examined in different research fields and that are thought to influence group processes during brainstorming. These factors are grouped into procedural, social-‐psychological and economic mechanisms. Further, the authors note that the framework can serve as a starting point for addressing the issue of how phenomena affect brainstorming processes and in what magnitude. If the magnitude of each phenomenon’s impact on brainstorming groups is known, the different phenomena operating in these sessions can be manipulated to significantly increase brainstorming groups’ effectiveness. Compared to the other two articles discussed in this section, the framework of Barki & Pinsonneault (2001) is more specific and aimed at brainstorming groups in particular.

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Based on the three studies that are mentioned above, a non-‐exhaustive list of relevant precursors of effectiveness in interactive brainstorming groups is provided in Table 1.

TABLE 1

Overview of precursors in brainstorming group effectiveness

Concept Description Reference

Cognitive stimulation At the same time the utterances of another participant

may contain task-‐relevant stimuli that elicit ideas in oneself which otherwise he might not have generated (at least not at the given point)

Lamm & Trommsdorf (1973), Pinsonneault et al. (1999)

Observational learning

Learning from and imitating best performers, with the goal of increasing group productivity

Social recognition Recognition of an individuals’ contribution by others Bond (1982),

Pinsonneault et al. (1999)

Motivation/arousal Working in groups stimulates individuals to perform better

Attention An individual’s tendency to use ideas generated and spoken by another member of the brainstorming group

Brown (1998), Larey & Paulus (1999) Divergent thinking Members’ ability to look for new and innovative ideas Kasof (1997), Barki &

Pinsonneault (2001), Brown (1998) Production blocking Being unable to verbalize ideas as they occur because of

the fact that only one person can speak at a time. Participant’s may forget or suppress these ideas because they seem less relevant or less original at a later time

Diehl & Stroebe (1987), Pinsonneault et al. (1999), Brown (1998)

Evaluation apprehension

The fear of negative evaluations from other group members, which prevents subjects who are working in groups from presenting their more original ideas

Diehl & Stroebe (1987), Pinsonneault et al. (1999), Lamm & Trommsdorf (1973) Free riding Members might intentionally limit their efforts and

contributions by relying on others to generate high quality ideas.

Diehl & Stroebe (1987), Pinsonneault et al. (1999), Brown (1998)

Source: author

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avoided instead of stimulated. Regarding this last concept, free riding, Hunton & Gold (2010) found participants of interactive brainstorming groups to adopt effort-‐ minimizing strategies during the preparation stage. They suggest that participants are tacitly assuming that other team members are working diligently to prepare for group interaction, resulting in fewer ideas generated as negative effect on the outcome of these brainstorming groups. Since we focus on the quality of the generated ideas instead of the quantity, it will be interesting to see how levels of preparation can influence idea quality in interactive brainstorming groups. Further, although motivation is mentioned in this framework as a precursor of brainstorming group effectiveness, a related and interesting avenue for research is examining the willingness to participate of brainstorming group members. This is a concept on which little research is undertaken up to now, particularly in relation to brainstorming groups. The importance of this concept in the context is this study is expressed in a statement by Bouchard (1972), who notes that a consequence of using brainstorming groups is that they depend on curiosity or willingness to help as a source of motivation.

When it comes to motivation, Amabile (1996) states that task motivation can be considered as the most important component in her creativity component model, as it is stated that no amount of skill or expertise in creative thinking can compensate for a lack of intrinsic motivation to perform that activity. From this statement we can expect the willingness to participate by group members to play an important role in brainstorming groups. Now that we have introduced the concept of willingness to participate, we will further discuss this concept, next to the role of motivation and preparation in brainstorming groups.

2.4 The role of motivation, preparation, and willingness to participate in brainstorming groups

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that an intrinsic motivational orientation is a key element in creativity, and is more conducive to creativity than a primarily extrinsic motivation (Woodman, 1993; Amabile, 1997).

2.4.1 Motivation in brainstorming groups

In the three-‐component model of creativity of Amabile (1996), which consists of expertise, creativity skills, and task motivation, the latter one is being considered as the most important component. According to Amabile (1997), task motivation makes the difference between what a person can do and what he will do. It determines the extent to which he will fully engage his expertise and creative thinking skills in the service of creative performance. Further, it is stated that to some extent a high degree of intrinsic motivation can even make up for a deficiency of expertise or creative thinking skills. For participants of brainstorming groups this would mean that, even when there is a lack of expertise or creative thinking skills, being very motivated might compensate these shortcomings. The same holds the other way around, while a participant may have a high level of expertise, or possesses excellent creative thinking skills, if he or she is simply not willing to fully engage, these capabilities tend to become useless.

Another noticeable fact is that, according to Amabile (1997), the strongest and most direct influence of the environment is probably on motivation. She notes that a person starts out with a level of intrinsic motivation that depends on his or her basic enjoyment of the task, but that this can be influenced by even momentary alterations in the work environment. For instance, reward and recognition for creative ideas, clearly defined project goals, or constructive feedback on the task can be seen as positive influencers.

2.4.2 Preparation in brainstorming groups

Another perspective on the importance of motivation is given by the paper of Baer & Frese (2003), who state that in the long run, a high degree of personal initiative in the workforce leads to new ideas, smoother production and service processes, better implementation of innovations, and ultimately to better performance. Frese et al. (1996) relate personal initiative to whether an individual is taking an active and self-‐starting approach to work and going beyond what is formally required in a given job.

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In the context of brainstorming groups, being well prepared can be seen as a way of taking an active and self-‐starting approach. Lumpkin et al. (2004), define preparation as the stocks of knowledge that an entrepreneur brings to the process of opportunity identification. This identification of opportunities is reflected on in the paper of Ko & Butler (2007), who link preparation to creativity. In their paper, it is stated that creativity also involves connecting the dots, sometimes where links are not obvious. They further state that inventions and innovations do not just spontaneously happen. Instead, preparation is needed in order to be creative. The authors explain preparation in the sense of having and building on prior knowledge and experiences, being alert to new opportunities, and making use of social networks to get information about technological trends. Further, Harnad (2006) adds to this that preparation does not guarantee creativity, since nothing guarantees creativity. However, he notes that preparation is the only way to maximize the probability of creativity, and quotes the famous sentence ‘’chance favors the prepared mind’’.

Finally, Isaksen (1998) emphasized the importance of preparation specifically in the context of brainstorming groups. He notes that preparation is recommended on two levels. First, the type of problem to be approached has to be clearly stated and carefully prepared. Next, the participants attending the brainstorming session have to be oriented in advance or during the session.

From these points discussed above it is clear that motivation and preparation can play an important role in creativity, which on its turn plays an important role in brainstorming groups, with the ultimate goal of successful innovation.

2.4.3 Willingness to participate

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knowledge into innovative procedures, services, and products. From the findings of this paper, we can state that participation is a relevant concept when it comes to the effectiveness brainstorming groups.

Finally, even more specifically related to our concept, Miller et al. (1994) conducted a study about antecedents of willingness to participate in a planned organizational change. They state that employees’ willingness to participate is fundamental to the success of any planned change, and note that all organizations to some extent must rely on the voluntary cooperation of members to affect change. Further, they note that if their willingness to participate is low, planned change may be derailed by employees delaying the implementation of instructions, enacting the minimum required by the changes, or following rules which are counterproductive to the intended change.

Miller et al. (1994) define employees’ willingness to participate as their intention to perform their duties in keeping with the spirit of the planned change. As we can see from this description of willingness to participate, it indicates a person’s intention prior to the task, or in this case, the implementation of the restructuring. However, as we have learned from Amabile (1997), the strongest and most direct influence of the environment is probably on motivation. For instance, in brainstorming groups, this could mean that a person’s willingness to participate prior to the task would not necessarily be at the same level during the task. Miller et al. (1994) more or less acknowledge this fact by saying that the level of cooperation among employees may change with their appraisal to the outcomes of change. They conclude this by stating that a lack of intention to cooperate prior to change implementation forecasts an ominous sign about the likelihood of the venture’s success, but if most employees indicate their willingness to participate, then the restructuring at least has a chance of succeeding. In the context of brainstorming groups, it would be interesting to see what willingness to participate could mean for the outcomes of these groups, in terms of idea quality.

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examining the effect of preparation, it would be interesting to see how the relationship between willingness to participate by group members and idea quality as an outcome in brainstorming groups will unfold.

2.5 Summary

This chapter defined important concepts of this study. The main topics were brainstorming, idea quality, preparation and willingness to participate. After a short explanation of the relevance of brainstorming, the existing literature about this topic is reviewed. Several forms of brainstorming groups are introduced, and arguments for the continued use of interactive brainstorming groups are given, despite repeated findings that these groups are less efficient. Further, we argued about the goal of brainstorming groups.

Hereafter, what is known about idea quality is discussed. Different definitions and ways of measuring this construct are presented here. After explaining how we will look at idea quality in this study, it is stated that we will only take the quality of the best ideas into account. Next, precursors of effectiveness in brainstorming groups are examined, and presented in Table 1. Finally, the focus turned to the role of motivation in brainstorming groups and in particular the concepts of preparation and willingness to participate. After stressing the importance of motivation and preparation in creativity and brainstorming groups, we reviewed the concept of willingness to participate in other research fields.

The goal of this section was providing a foundation for later parts of this study, by giving insights into existing literature and explaining relevant concepts. To summarize, these different concepts and their definition are presented in Table 2 below.

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TABLE 2

Overview of relevant concepts and definitions

Concept Description Reference

Brainstorming Brainstorming is an idea generation tool and is designed to remove a natural tendency that people have to be selective in the expression of their ideas and to maximize one’s creative productivity

Rietzschel (2005), Rickards (1999), Rietzschel et al. (2010)

Idea quality The quality of an idea is reflected by a combination of its originality, feasibility, and effectiveness

Rietzschel et al. (2010), Barki & Pinsonneault, (2001), Dean et al. (2006)

Originality The degree to which the idea is not only rare but is also ingenious, imaginative, or surprising

Dean et al. (2006), Rietzschel (2005), Rietzschel et al. (2010)

Feasibility The extent to which the idea precise and the ease with which it can be implemented

Diehl & Stroebe (1987), Dean et al. (2006)

Effectiveness The degree to which the idea will solve the problem Dean et al. (2006), Barki &

Pinsonneault, (2001) Preparation The stocks of knowledge that an entrepreneur brings to the

process of opportunity identification

Lumpkin et al. (2004), Corbett (2005)

Willingness to participate

Employees’ willingness to participate indicates their intention to perform duties in keeping with the spirit of the planned change

Willingness to participate in collective action `is the expression of the individual’s identification with, and commitment to, the group’

Miller et al. (1994)

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3. Conceptual model

In this study, the effect of preparation and willingness to participate on idea quality in interactive brainstorming groups is examined. This chapter serves to present a conceptual model, which visually represents the assumed relationships between the constructs in this study. Subsequently, these relationships are tested, and the results will be presented in the results section.

3.1 Willingness to participate

As we have seen from Amabile (1997), task motivation makes the difference between what a person can do and what he will do. It determines the way in which a person will use his or her skills in the service of creative performance, which may well be a brainstorming session. Further, De Dreu & West (2001), who study team innovation and the importance of participation in decision making, found that participation stimulates the exchange and integration of information, and facilitates team members’ commitment to team decisions. Furthermore, they note that participation generates the social support needed for new ideas to be pursued and implemented. Especially this last point is critical for brainstorming groups, as their goal is to generate a number of high quality ideas that will eventually have a chance of being implemented.

In the context of their study, Miller et al. (1994) described that employees’ willingness to participate indicates their intention to perform their duties in keeping with the spirit of the planned change. For these reasons mentioned above, we expect that if participants of brainstorming groups indicate they have positive intentions to perform their duties, or in other words that their willingness to participate is high, it has a positive effect on the outcome of these brainstorming sessions. Therefore, we propose the following hypothesis:

H1: willingness to participate is positively related to idea quality in brainstorming groups.

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3.2 Preparation

As mentioned in the previous section, Lumpkin et al. (2004), define preparation as the stocks of knowledge that an entrepreneur brings to the process of opportunity identification. This is in line with Ko & Butler (2007), from which we stated three ways of preparation that help identifying these opportunities. They further state that inventions and innovations do not just spontaneously happen. Instead, preparation is needed in order to be creative. Finally, in summarizing some of Osborn’s (1963) guidelines in his review of brainstorming research, Isaksen (1998) emphasized the importance of preparation specifically in the context of brainstorming groups to encourage ideation. On the basis of this, we expect higher levels of preparation in brainstorming groups to be positively related to idea quality. Therefore, the following hypothesis is proposed:

H2: higher levels of preparation are positively related to idea quality in brainstorming groups.

3.3 Conceptual model

To conclude, figure 1 below visually represents the assumed relationships between the variables in this study. The research design for testing these variables for testing these relationships is set out in the method section, while the results section present the outcomes of the tests.

FIGURE 1 Conceptual model

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4. Method

The goal of this chapter is to explain the methodological issues of this study. First, an overview of the research design is given. Further, methods of data collection are presented in more detail. Next, an overview of the different variables and their measurements is given. Thereafter, the data analysis process is being discussed, and more information about the sample selection is provided. Finally, the validity, reliability, and generalizability issues of this study are being discussed.

4.1 Research design

The main point of interest of this study is to test the effect of preparation and willingness to participate on idea quality in interactive brainstorming groups. In order to provide an answer to our main research question, desk research as well as field research has been conducted. At first, a literature review was performed and used to present the relevant concepts that can be found in the theoretical background section. Next, in order to collect the data for this study, several brainstorming groups organized by companies were visited. These sessions were observed, and the participants as well as the facilitator filled in a questionnaire. The outcomes of these observations and questionnaires are used to test the hypotheses formulated in the previous section and help answering the main research question.

4.2 Data collection

As Adams et al. (2007) note, surveys, or questionnaires, are perhaps the most widely used method of data collection in business and management research. An advantage of using a questionnaire, according to Zikmund et al. (2012), is that it provides a quick, inexpensive, efficient, and accurate means of assessing information about a population. However, Adams et al. (2007) also note that if the survey is not well designed and formulated, then you may well face the criticism of ‘garbage in, garbage out’ when you analyze and report on your research.

The effect of preparation and willingness to participate on idea quality in interactive brainstorming groups