Folk, Linda Suzanne (2020) Towards uncovering the hidden barriers and enablers of collaborative idea generation : an exploration of process gains and losses as they pertain to novel idea production in an organizational team context. PhD thesis, University of Warwick.

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Abstract

While creativity as a research field is comparatively young, the last seven decades have seen tremendous productivity and progress in its research. In recent years, especially the area of organisational creativity has seen a rapid influx in research.

In the context of organisational creativity, however, there still remain some dark corners that have not been fully illuminated yet. This thesis aims to look at a subsection of the team-level creative process within the advertising industry – collaborative idea generation.

The goal of investigating collaborative idea generation in an environment that requires frequent and high-quality idea production is to uncover the hidden barriers and more crucially enablers of shared ideation. Choosing an industry whose primary business model is the pursuit and production of new, unusual but also fit-for-purpose ideas has the purpose of uncovering what behavioural adaptations this pressure has produced. Uncovering these adaptations will give insights into the pitfalls and boosters of effective idea generation, which in turn can provide a valuable source of information for other organisations as to how to improve their innovation processes.

In this endeavour, this thesis builds specifically on theories that have come out of brainstorming research. While a significant proportion of brainstorming research has made the case that the very concept that it analyses is ineffective, a number of models that have come out of it are a valuable foundation for looking at idea generation outside of specific methodologies like brainstorming, design thinking or hackathons. Specifically, the process gains and losses framework is foundational to the research presented in this thesis.

Through qualitative expert interviews quantitative experimental observation, this thesis has identified three overarching elements that appear to boost the collaborative idea generation process in the advertising industry- the team composition, the method used to structure the process and the interpersonal relationships and dynamics within the team.

This thesis closes with specific policy suggestions as to how the learnings about the hidden barriers and boosters of idea generation can be applied to ensure a higher standard of organisational creativity and a better environment for idea creation.

Item Type:	Thesis or Dissertation (PhD)
Subjects:	H Social Sciences > HD Industries. Land use. Labor > HD28 Management. Industrial Management H Social Sciences > HF Commerce
Library of Congress Subject Headings (LCSH):	Creative ability in business, Teams in the workplace, Creativity in advertising, Advertisers
Official Date:	March 2020
Dates:	Date Event March 2020 UNSPECIFIED
Institution:	University of Warwick
Theses Department:	Centre for Cultural and Media Policy Studies
Thesis Type:	PhD
Publication Status:	Unpublished
Supervisor(s)/Advisor:	Bilton, Chris
Format of File:	pdf
Extent:	137 leaves : illustrations (some colour)
Language:	eng

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