Idea Management: A Systemic View

Idea Management: A Systemic View*

Betty Vandenbosch, Argun Saatcioglu and Sharon FayWeatherhead School of Management, Case Western Reserve University; Weatherhead School of

Management, Case Western Reserve University; Flashline, Cleveland, Ohio

Ideas are a central ingredient of organizational life and ideation is anessential faculty that propels every day management action. Yet, little is known about how ideation is manifested and managed. We employ the philosophies oftranscendentalism, process and interactionism to provide insights into the empiricalreferents of idea management. We use these referents as a point of departure in our interpretations. Rather than studying idea management in terms of lists ofcategories, continua of characteristics, or details about process, we explore itssystemic nature and investigate the inter-relatedness of idea generation, problemsolving and inquiry. Based on field interviews, we propose idea managementarchetypes that reflect managers’ dominant approaches and a model of ideamanagement based on patterns of behaviour. The study validates the notion of ideamanagement and demonstrates the strengths of grounded theorizing. We discussimplications for theory and practice and identify possible strategies for futureresearch.

INTRODUCTION

An idea is commonly understood to be a concept or plan formed by mental effort(Newell et al., 1962). But what do we really know about ideas? Where do theycome from? What are their ingredients? How are they expressed? When do man-agers search for ideas? Where exactly do they get their ideas from? Do they havecertain styles or patterns of recognizing the need for, generating, and evaluatingideas?

In management research, our view of ideas is often subsumed under our notionsof administration and leadership. Good ideas are assumed to underlie effectivemanagement and ineffective management implies poor ideas (Barnard, 1938;March and Simon, 1958; Simon, 1957; Weick, 1979a). Two related streams of

Journal of Management Studies 43:2 March 20060022-2380

© Blackwell Publishing Ltd 2006. Published by Blackwell Publishing, 9600 Garsington Road, Oxford, OX4 2DQ,UK and 350 Main Street, Malden, MA 02148, USA.

Address for reprints: Betty Vandenbosch, Weatherhead School of Management, Case Western ReserveUniversity, 10900 Euclid Avenue, Cleveland, Ohio 44106-7235, USA ([email protected]).

research in management and organization studies address ideas explicitly: crea-tivity and innovation. However, there is a need to address ideas and idea genera-tion in their own right.

Creativity research concerns itself with ‘the production of novel and useful ideasby an individual or small group of individuals working together’ (Amabile, 1988,p. 126). It consistently puts a positive spin on ideas such that inquiry focuses exclu-sively on the generation of ‘unique and functional’ ideas. Yet, not all ideas are creative, nor do they have to be. In fact, successful managers often rely on old,ordinary ideas or new but imperfect ones to cope with the challenges they face.The dynamics involved in such efforts deserve to be understood just as well asthose involved in more creative endeavours.

Innovation research typically views ideas as ‘plans to be implemented’. An inno-vation is the successful implementation of a (creative) idea, which may be expressedin the form of knowledge, practice, or a physical object (Rogers, 1995; Zaltmanet al., 1973). Although each innovation begins with an idea, the original idea isoften altered or ‘re-invented’ during the implementation process according tochanging contingencies and needs (Rogers, 1993; Van de Ven, 1995). Studies ofinnovation largely focus on what happens to an idea during implementation aswell as the effectiveness of the end result.

‘Idea management’ needs to be studied as a topic in its own right. Therefore,although our work is related to both creativity and innovation, it is not focused onthe generation of ‘creative’ ideas and is not subordinated to the process of imple-mentation. We view ideation as a capability that underpins human beings’ adap-tive and imaginative skills (Bateson, 1972) and as an essential faculty that propelseveryday managerial action. An understanding of ideas without the positive spinof creativity and without the implementation required for innovation is importantfor understanding various approaches to management and organization, and forimproving managerial processes and performance. Dasgupta (1996) posits that thegeneration of ideas is a special instance of a general model of knowledge levelprocesses. Inventions arise from solving problems and problems arise from dissat-isfaction with inventions (Dasgupta, 1996). In fact, as in the figure-ground rela-tionship, ideas and problems are closely intertwined, and, in many cases, are notseparable (Arrow, 1973; O’Reilly, 1983). Similarly, ideas and opportunities areintertwined. Recognizing or creating an opportunity is an occasion for generatingor testing an idea; an idea may lead to an opportunity and it may require an ideato capitalize on an opportunity.

Our working assumption is that, given the centrality of ideas in management,specific patterns regarding their origins and development are associated with dis-tinct styles of managing and organizing. We thus propose the concept of idea man-

agement, defined as the process of recognizing the need for ideas, and generatingand evaluating them. The remainder of this paper describes our exploration ofidea management by means of the grounded theory method of inquiry (Glaser

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© Blackwell Publishing Ltd 2006

and Strauss, 1967; Strauss and Corbin, 1990). We begin by reviewing the litera-ture on ideas and by developing the concept of idea management. We thendescribe our search for archetypes of idea management based on the analysis ofsemi-structured executive interviews. Finally, we discuss the implications of ourfindings and outline directions for further research in this area.

THEORETICAL UNDERPINNINGS

A key advantage of the grounded theory method is that it allows an emergent for-mulation of concepts being studied (Strauss, 1987). However, no concept can bestudied from a blank perspective. Our concept of idea management is under-pinned by a perspective derived from three modern philosophical approacheswhich specifically discuss the notion of ideas. These philosophical approaches notonly address what ideas are, but, by so doing, also provide insights into the mea-surable aspects or ‘empirical referents’ of idea management. Such referents arecritical components of inductive theorizing in grounded research. Below, wediscuss each one briefly in order to posit the broad outlines of a working concep-tual framework expressed in the form of ‘guiding questions’.

The first approach is Whitehead’s process philosophy which emphasizes thoseaspects of ideas associated with change and stability. Whitehead (1961) defines anidea as a ‘force’ that can create movement and transformation or maintain thestatus quo. All ideas have such qualities in varying degrees regardless of whetheror not they are novel. The ancient idea of ‘freedom’, for instance, may propelactors to pursue change or to find ways to reinforce the social arrangements theylive by. This aspect of ideas is commonly addressed in management research inimplicit fashion, particularly under the rubric of organizational adaptation andsurvival. Managers search for ideas and generate and evaluate them in responseto perceived issues or opportunities posed by their environment. Survival dependsnot only on adaptation to circumstances (Lawrence and Lorsch, 1967; Thomp-son, 1967), but also on manipulating or proactively shaping those circumstances(Child, 1972; Pfeffer and Salancik, 1978; Weick, 1995). As such, ideas have a rolein relation to both adjusting to variation and creating variation.

From a broad perspective then, circumstances and prospects governing man-agerial action provide the rationale for ideas: Why are ideas generated? What sortsof issues, perceptions, predictions, or needs prompt them? Under what circum-stances do different forms of rationalization become dominant? Are there patternsof rationalizing that managers fall into when generating ideas?

The second philosophical approach we draw on is Kant’s transcendentalism.Kant (1990) defines an idea as a cognitive entity a priori necessary to reason. Inthis view, ideas are products of the mind that give sensibility and provide disci-pline to thinking and systematic reasoning. For Kant, ideas often transcend thebounds of concrete experience in that they need not be empirically verifiable.

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Without such a priori ideas, reasoning cannot proceed. This purely cognitive aspectof ideas is separate from the rationale for generating and evaluating ideas. Crea-tivity research and information systems research address the cognitive aspect ofideas in different ways.

In the creativity paradigm, the mental processes of ‘synthesizing’ multiple inputsin a complex fashion (De Bono, 1967), ‘bisociating’ previously unrelated frames of references (Koestler, 1964), or pursuing variations around a core theme (Hofstadter, 1985) are critical to generating and evaluating ideas. Studies oftendepict such processes in terms of either stage models, such as Wallas’s (1926)preparation–incubation–illumination–revision model and Campbell’s (1960) vari-ation–selection–retention model, or in terms of linear systems, such as O’Reilly etal.’s (1987) input–transformation–output–feedback model. Yet, despite their focuson cognition, studies of creativity exclusively inquire into ‘novel’ ideas. However,as Weick (1979a, 1989) argues, the idea generation and evaluation process oftenyields revised (or even unrevised) versions of previous ideas which are neverthe-less effective given the circumstances. Thus, the objective should be to understandthe nature of and variation in mental dynamics involved in idea generation and evaluation: How do managers reason? When do they search for new ideas?When do they modify existing ones or re-enact them ‘as is’? Do managers manifest different styles of mental processes at different times or under differentcircumstances?

Mental dynamics relevant to idea generation and evaluation are also addressedby information systems research. Different types of information facilitate differenttypes of cognitive processes (Haskins and Nanni, 1988; Hedberg and Jonsson,1978). Managers are often exposed to environments that vary in terms of infor-mation amount and variety (Daft and Lengel, 1986). Although information-richcontexts are commonly preferred (Duncan, 1972), information variety is alsoimportant for effective managerial reasoning (Fiol, 1995). Indeed, Weick (1995)argues that information systems that are ‘too effective’ can at times inhibit managerial reasoning and performance due to their de-sensitizing effects (see alsoZaltman, 1994). Furthermore, ideas may rely on information in a cumulativefashion. Existing information is often critical for recognizing and utilizing newinformation in the generation and evaluation of ideas (Argyris, 1976; Cohen andLevinthal, 1990; March, 1996; Nonaka, 1994). In exploring idea managementthen, a key issue involves information acquisition and processing: Where do man-agers obtain information in their efforts to generate and evaluate ideas? What kindsand how much information do they look for? How do they process the informa-tion? And, how do they integrate information into their reasoning?

The third philosophical approach we draw on is interactionism. Symbolic inter-actionists (Blumer, 1969; James, 1967; Mead, 1934) have argued that ideas areessentially properties and products of relationships rather than individual posses-sions. From a relational perspective, the mind (or perhaps the ‘self ’) enters into



dialogue with real and imagined actors, situations, and possibilities in taking shapeand in producing and employing ideas (Bakhtin, 1981). According to Bateson(1972), one’s ingenuity is determined by the diversity of beings with which oneenters into relationships. This is particularly relevant in the increasingly interde-pendent world of management. Managers constantly interact with others andcreate conditions for interaction that affect their need for, and generation and eval-uation of ideas. Weick (1979b) has defined organizations as ‘bodies of thoughtcreated by active thinkers’. Baker et al. (2002) have used the term ‘conversationspace’ to describe the relational context in which managers generate and evaluateideas.

The relational aspects of ideas also receive attention – although implicit – inthe work on social networks. Network research views ideas as constructions embed-ded in relationships (Granovetter, 1985). The nature and frequency of an indi-vidual’s ideas are to a considerable extent a function of his or her position inrelevant social networks (Bourdieu, 1993). Studies typically refer to individuals’social networks as their ‘social capital’ (Coleman, 1990). Because network positionin an organization is a critical resource for idea generation (Perry-Smith andShalley, 2003), social networks also constitute ‘idea capital’. Recent work on knowl-edge management and knowledge communities (Hayes and Walsham, 2001;Wenger, 1998) indicates that the field of management is developing approachesthat explicitly address relational aspects of ideas. One aspect of social networksthat is particularly salient to organizations is the recognition of ideas (Zhou andWoodman, 2003). Idea management is not just concerned with generating ideas;it is also concerned with recognizing the need for them and evaluating them whenthey are presented.

Thus, inquiry into idea management needs to address the types and processesof interaction associated with ideas: What sorts of relationships do managersengage in as they search for ideas? How do these relationships affect the genera-tion and evaluation of ideas? Are there particular patterns and variations of rela-tionships associated with managers’ ideas and with the way they recognize theideas of others?

The three philosophical approaches that address the rationale for, as well as themental and relational dynamics associated with, ideas guide our working per-spective on idea management which we define as the process of recognizing theneed for ideas, generating ideas and evaluating them. Certain aspects of our per-spective are echoed in theories of creativity and innovation. For example, Amabile(1988) emphasizes the importance of factors such as cognitive skills, interpersonalrelationships, task design, and the quality of group and organizational environ-ments in the generation and implementation of creative ideas. Likewise, Woodmanet al. (1993) suggest that ‘creative performance . . . is a function of salient indi-vidual characteristics (biographic information, personality, cognitive factors, andknowledge), social influences that enhance or constrain individual creativity (e.g.

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group norms), and contextual influences that also enhance or constrain individualcreativity (e.g. reward structure)’ (p. 310). As generative as they are, suchapproaches focus exclusively on creative ideas. Yet, ordinary ideas have such signifi-cance in managerial and organizational operations that research in idea genera-tion and implementation need not be subsumed under the quest for understandingcreativity and innovation. The notion of idea management can help broaden ourview of the relationship between ideas on the one hand and managerial and orga-nizational patterns on the other. Our research investigates variation in the ways inwhich the need for ideas are recognized and how ideas are generated and evalu-ated. We focus particularly on how idea management is associated with distinctpatterns of managing and organizing.

METHODS

Given the flexible nature of our method of grounded inquiry, we did not set limitson the aspects of ideas that would be explored. Instead, we appreciated the pos-sibility of discovering aspects of ideas other than those we had theoretically con-sidered. That is, we were open to ‘anomalies’. Most importantly, we intended tolook for archetypes of idea management based on the various ‘configurations’(Meyer et al., 1993) of transformative and static, mental, and relational (as well asany other emergent) aspects of idea management in our sample. For example, wewondered whether different justifications for ideas were associated with specificmental dynamics and relational patterns, whether a given pattern of mentaldynamics is manifested in tandem with a specific pattern or information process-ing, and so on. Such configurations not only help understand idea managementbetter but also constitute a certain level of internal validity.

Grounded Theory

The grounded approach to research emphasizes the central role of data and fieldobservation in building theories and proposing constructs. In some cases, this istaken to mean that the researcher is or should be completely free of any theoreti-cal expectations when collecting and analysing data. Such a view is unrealistic. Allknowledge is ultimately a function of antecedent interests and passions (Polanyi,1958). Another common misconception about grounded theory is that it is inher-ently unempirical. Both Glaser and Strauss (1967) and Strauss and Corbin (1990)strongly argue that what is distinct about grounded theory is not the method ofdata collection or analysis involved, but rather the explorative, iterative, and cumu-lative nature of the whole approach. A properly grounded inquiry into idea man-agement should be free of such methodological misconceptions.

In this study, we explored our perspective and our presumptions while follow-ing a research design and analysis strategy that allowed us to rely on them mainly



as a ‘point of departure’ in our subsequent interpretations. We collected andanalysed our data through a strictly empirical procedure that addressed issues ofreliability and validity. Moreover, as noted earlier, we did not presume that thereis an ideal pattern or type of idea management. Instead, we believe that it is morefruitful to identify different archetypes that exist in our sample. In explorativestudies, typological approaches provide a critical methodological advantage in thatthe diversity of types discovered further validates the existence of the focal con-struct by identifying its various manifestations (Doty and Glick, 1994; Meyer et al.,1993). Hence, the more types[1] we discover, the more substantiated is the notionof idea management. Recently, Christensen et al. (2002) made the point that‘Glaser and Strauss’s (1967) landmark work on the development of groundedtheory is not about theory at all – it relates to categorization [i.e. typologies]’(p. 10).

Churchman (1971) looked to the ideas of Locke, Leibniz, Kant, Hegel andSinger to determine how to design a system of inquiry. These philosophers weresome of the great thinkers of Western civilization. Inspired by notions of ratio-nality and spirituality, they spent their lives contemplating the essence of thinking.Their introspection and observation provide a believable basis for identifying patterns of idea management that we might well expect to see today. We used theinspiration of his types as a starting point to map the things we were seeing. Todifferentiate our summaries of his summaries of philosophers from the philoso-phers themselves, we developed convenience labels for the archetypes.

Idea Management Types

Incrementalists. These are managers who place a great deal of importance on whatthey already know. They evaluate new information on the basis of how well it fitswith their existing mental models. They link facts together into coherent ‘fact nets’using chains of reasoning to arrive at a single, internally consistent and usuallystrongly held point of view. As a consequence, they value experience and skill.They are uncomfortable with contradiction and are always on the lookout for aright answer. When information is encountered, it is commonly classified accord-ing to their pre-existing understanding. They typically seek confirmation ratherthan diverse viewpoints.

Incrementalists are experience-based decision makers. When faced with a deci-sion, they will usually attempt to call on a similar situation for guidance. Theyconfine their information searches to a fixed number of sources that they havefound useful in the past and rarely move beyond that set. Incrementalists tend to take control and direct others. They often view themselves as educators, or the most knowledgeable person available and regularly express their strongly held points of view. The inspiration for the incrementalist type comes fromChurchman’s description of Liebnizians.

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Consensus builders. These are managers concerned with gaining agreement. Theyask others to generate ideas, but are not usually active generators of ideas them-selves. Similarly, they do not actively attempt to change their environment, unlessthe change creates harmony and unanimity. Rather than checking to see if newinformation fits within existing understanding, they check for agreement withinthe relevant community. If there is unanimity, new information is incorporatedinto their personal understanding. Information is used only when it is deemedappropriate by the group, and the search for information is limited to those sourcesthe group has approved. The consensus builder definition was inspired by Church-man’s Lockean inquirers.

Searchers. Searchers employ a network of information sources. They are very broadin their quest. They are not concerned with consensus, but rather with objectiv-ity. They search out differing points of view and are comfortable with inconsis-tency and multiple perspectives. Searchers easily accept new information into theirexisting mental models, and revise or discard models when they are no longerappropriate. They recognize change in their environments and the opportunitiesit presents, seeing change as progress. Searchers engage in active idea generationand brainstorming strategies. They argue to resolve rather than to win over. Theirdecisions are based on the synthesis of ideas, rather than on past experience orconsensus. The searcher type is inspired by Churchman’s description of Kantianinquirers.

Debaters. Debaters theorize and create thought experiments to understand. Inquirytakes place through strong internal debate. The debater constructs alternate per-spectives from his or her own understanding, and then frequently has difficultychoosing among them. Debaters’ mental models are much like a set of buildingblocks. They use the same basic blocks, consisting of values, emotions and facts tobuild different structures. Debaters believe that a better solution emerges fromdebate and the dialectic process. They are likely to think beyond the boundariesof standard rules and approaches. Hence, they are more likely to have ideas thatcan be characterized as leaps, but they have difficulty reaching decisions becauseof their endless internal debate. The debater type was inspired by Churchman’sdescription of Hegel.

Assessors. These are managers characterized by frequent, dramatic, and unpre-dictable change. Convergence or consensus does not indicate progress to an asses-sor. Rather, it indicates that is time to revisit. Finding an answer is less importantthan finding a better question. Assessors alternate between making things simplerand making them more complicated. They are comfortable with a myriad infor-mation sources. Bruner’s (1965) description of idea generation as a heuristic ratherthan algorithmic process fits most closely with the assessor model. Assessors find



the optimum mix between commitment to a problem and detachment, betweenpassion for it and decorum or reflection about it, and between deferral and imme-diacy. Assessors do not take anything for granted; everything is open for inspec-tion at all times. They constantly question and work very hard at remainingbias-free. The assessor type was inspired by Churchman’s Singerians.

Sample and Procedure

Convenience sampling was used to select participants. They included members ofa business school visiting committee, business associates, university alumni, andpeople suggested by interested colleagues. No attempt was made to find particu-larly creative or uncreative individuals. We believe that the main drawbacks ofconvenience sampling are not particularly relevant in this case. Our ultimate objec-tive is construct development rather than theory testing. In the former process,convenience sampling can be used to substantiate the ‘internal validity’ of anemerging construct (Calder et al., 1981, 1982). The bias involved in such samplingis a significant problem in testing the external validity of the construct and inves-tigating the effects of this construct on other ones. A distinct feature of our sampleis that it involves a bias toward people who are interested in supporting universi-ties and their research. As the randomness of any sample is compromised by thosewho do not agree to participate, any sample we could construct would have thesame bias. We consider this a problem common to exploratory research wheregeneralizability is a secondary concern.

We interviewed a total of 53 people. Age ranged from 33 to 77 with a medianof 49. Seventy four per cent had an advanced degree. Most were presidents oftheir organizations or reported to the president. Average tenure ranged betweenone and 38 years with a mean of 14. Tenure in the job ranged from one to 29years with a median of eight. Three of the participants were women.

We chose to focus on executives to study archetypes for three reasons. As muchas is possible in an organizational setting, we wanted to study subjects who havecontrol over the inquiry system that they personally employ. Most executives havethe power to ensure the implementation of their preferred inquiry systems, theyhave the power to ask others to help in the idea generation process and they haveinfluence over whether or not ideas are pursued. We also wanted to ensure thatorganizational position did not have a confounding effect on our results. Finally,upper-level managers interpret information for their entire organizations (Daft andWeick, 1984). They influence their organizations by setting agendas for subordi-nates’ activities consistent with their own personal problem formulations (Marchand Simon, 1958). Understanding their idea management archetypes may bemore fruitful in the quest for improved organizational performance than focusingon any other level in the organization. The drawback of interviewing executives,of course, is that our findings are not broadly generalizable.[2]

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Each executive took part in an hour-long interview that was designed to elicitan understanding of their pattern of idea management (Appendix 1 contains theinterview guide). The interviews were taped and transcribed for subsequentcontent analysis. Our questions were designed to elicit critical incidents (Flanagan,1954) involving ‘idea generation’ as well as efforts to ‘resolve issues’ and to ‘changeone’s mind’. Data in three different types of incidents were collected to ensure thatthe behaviours and other patterns we captured and coded were consistent acrossdifferent situations. Such consistency ensures that the findings for a given inter-viewee are intrinsic to that interviewee and not any particular situation discussedduring the interview. Asking about a recent instance of idea generation is obvious.Recent instances of resolving an issue and changing a point of view may be lessso. We used issue resolution as a critical incident because problem solving runsthrough all the literature on ideas. For example, Wallas’s (1926) stage model, Cyertand March’s (1963) theory of choice and theory of search, and Simon’s (1965)process of intelligence, design and choice are used extensively by creativity theo-rists. Asking executives how they solve problems provides an alternate window intotheir idea management processes. Issue resolution is an instantiation of idea man-agement. It provides a context for observing idea management (e.g. responding toproblems or recognizing strategic opportunities). Also, the term ‘issue resolution’facilitated respondents’ process of recalling past incidents and experiences duringthe interview. We asked interviewees about changing their minds to provide insightinto their idea evaluation processes.

The critical incident technique consists of a set of procedures for collecting inci-dents of human behaviour that have special significance to the phenomenon ofinterest. An incident is any interval that is sufficiently complete in itself to permitinferences and predictions to be made about the person involved. In a well con-ducted interview, several critical incidents are recorded, each offering a number ofanalysable moments. These moments include points during the incident when anidea was searched for, generated and evaluated. To be critical, an incident mustoccur in a situation where the purpose or intent of the act seems fairly clear tothe observer and where its consequences are sufficiently definite to have little doubtconcerning its effects. The critical incident technique is particularly useful whendeveloping and substantiating new constructs, such as idea management, becauseit enables a rich understanding of the context, causes, effects, behaviours, attitudesand assumptions associated with the individual’s experience (Boyatzis, 1998). Datacomprised of ‘codable moments’ (Strauss and Corbin, 1990) constitutes an elab-orate basis for construct validity and typologies (Nuendorf, 2002).

Data Analysis

Our effort consisted of three components: (1) open coding, (2) axial coding, and(3) typologizing. These components were derived from Strauss and Corbin’s (1990)



approach to qualitative data analysis. Open coding involves a free-flow search forthemes in qualitative data, which facilitates not only an empirical exploration ofthe emergent construct but also the typological evaluation necessary for catego-rizing subjects in the study. Axial coding, on the other hand, involves conceptualgrouping of the themes in a theoretically meaningful manner. The objective is toidentify the themes that tend to converge on a higher level abstract category (e.g.a ‘meta-code’). This enhances the conceptual coherence and the internal validityof the codes. Finally, typologizing consists of associating particular theme combi-nations with particular groups of subjects in the sample such that a mutually exclu-sive set of types are created on a sound empirical basis (e.g. in a four-theme codeset, themes one and three may define group A, whereas themes two and four maydefine group B). It is important to note at this point that the three components arenot necessarily employed in sequence – although they can be, particularly whenthe research design involves large data sets, multiple treatments, and little or noconceptual background for theme exploration (Strauss and Corbin, 1990). Ourstudy met none of these criteria. Therefore, we relied on the three components in‘creative’ ways during different phases of our analysis.

Phase 1. In our first phase, we randomly selected 25 of the 53 interviews for opencoding.[3] These 25 interviews were then categorized independently by one of theauthors and a graduate student using the archetype descriptions to guide theircoding decisions.[4] For example, one individual said ‘They all thought that thiswas something that needed to be done’, illustrating a focus on agreement ratherthan an idea per se, leading to a categorization of consensus builder. Table I pro-vides additional interview quotations illustrative of those that led to the archetypeassignments. The two coders agreed on all assignments.

Phase 2. Ten of the 25 interviews that, in the opinion of the author who devel-oped them, clearly reflected the broad archetypes were selected as a sub-sampleto be used to create a set of initial codes. This was done to ensure maximal dif-ference among the interviews to be coded. Another author coded these ten inter-views using Boyatzis’ (1998) thematic coding procedures.[5] The recurrent themesacross the interviews were explored and identified with little reliance on theoreti-cal insights – notwithstanding our working perspective on ideas based on the threephilosophies discussed earlier. The intention was to understand ‘what the data said’as objectively as possible. Thematic coding is a process in which the researcheridentifies ‘codable/analysable moments’ (e.g. critical incidents) and developsthemes from them. Once a sufficient number of themes are discovered that runacross several interviews, variation among the interviews can be captured in termsof the presence, absence, or simply the frequency of these themes. A fully devel-oped theme defines a specific commonality (e.g. behaviour, style, ritual, contextualcharacteristic) that can be identified in terms of at least two indicators (see

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Table I. Archetype sketches, illustrative quotes, and associated thematic codes

Archetypes

Incrementalist Consensus Searcher Debater Assessor

(14) builder (3) (2) (3)

(3)

Descriptive Takes small Focuses on Combines Argues with Seems to besketches steps; ideas agreement information him or infinitely

are usually among from diverse herself to objective andmodest stakeholders places; ideas develop ideas flexiblechanges rather than result from

ideas per se unusualassociations

Quotes – If you’ve done – They all – I’ve always – I read many – I’m constantlyit enough times, thought that this liked to push the books assessing. I don’tthere’s always a was something envelope a little unrelated to take anything right answer that needed bit. When I business for granted. I

– That’s what to be done push my people, – I place a great have very few management is; – My clients often it’s more to deal of mental models it’s moving other convince me to push them to importance on that are people – getting vgo in different think and to values and sacrosanct.them to think directions ask a series of ethics Everything isyour idea was – I look to others questions to – It’s valuable to open for theirs to see what make sure they at least inspection at

– I think I get my works and what thought about it theorize about all timesbest ideas when doesn’t work thoroughly than throwing off – I never needI’m listening to – I make sure we it is to tell them the four walls somebody to something that all agree on my opinion of what you’re tell me (when I’m

someone is goals and – I don’t feel doing today doing a good job)presenting and objectives there is and determine – I work to myI’m clicking off anything wrong how you might own standardswhat that means with changing otherwise – I questionto me and what your mind accomplish it everythingit means to myorganization

Thematic Searching Searching Scanning Scanning Scanningcodes* Maintaining Reacting Initiating Initiating Initiating

Directing Mediating Collaborating Internalizing UnpredictableRetaining Converging Diverging Debating Unpredictable

* See Appendix 2 for detailed descriptions and indicators of the codes.

Boyatzis, 1998, pp. 29–52). Some of the themes or ‘codes’ developed in phase oneare listed in Appendix 2. We say ‘some’ because these themes changed and somenew ones were added in later parts of the analysis process.

Each of the selected interviews was separated into two parts to ensure that thecodes address all the anchors. Part A consisted of the interview sections thataddressed the context of ideas, which included, for example, the reasons andresources (e.g. information) for ideas. Part B consisted of sections that addressedthe cognitive and social dimensions of ideation, which included the reasoning,information processing, and interpersonal styles involved. It should be noted that

these two parts were not sequential blocks of an interview. Rather, for a given inter-view, pieces of Part A and Part B were found across the several critical incidentscomprising the whole interview. For example, in an interview in which the respon-dent provided three incidents, segments of each incident that addressed the contextof ideas were pooled together to constitute Part A of the interview. Similarly, seg-ments of each incident that addressed the cognitive and social dimensions ofideation were pooled together to constitute Part B.

A total of 13 codes (nine from Part B and four from Part A of the interviews)were tested across the whole sample by coding the remaining 14 interviews. Thistime, each interview was coded without being divided into parts. There was 84per cent agreement with the initial coding. After multiple rounds of rewording andsharpening the codes, the archetypes and the associated codes became distinctenough to test with the rest of the sample. Before going forward, however, we con-ducted axial coding.

Phase 3. Axial (horizontal) coding involves a conceptual grouping of the codes

rather than the subjects in the sample. The objective is to explore the inherentassociation among the codes on a conceptual basis. This phase was facilitated inlarge part by the three philosophies we relied on in developing our working perspective on ideas, namely process philosophy (change/stability), transcenden-talism (mental dynamics), and interactionism (relational dynamics). We developedfour dimensions (axial codes) by which the archetypes could be identified. Theseare inquiry approach, impetus for idea generation, relationship to others, and evaluation

approach. The dimensions were designed to capture the content of the 13 thematiccodes to the highest extent possible. In other words, they constitute meta-codesfrom the themes developed earlier. For instance, inquiry approach represents twoof the 13 themes, namely searching and scanning because both of these themesare about information and knowledge acquisition as part of the ideation process.Similarly, impetus for idea generation captures three of the themes associated with change and stability, namely maintaining, reacting, and initiating. We discusseach dimension in further detail below. Table II shows our axial grouping of thethemes. Notice that the three philosophies we have relied on are woven into thefour rows.

It should be noted that unlike most previous schemes, we did not focus on endpoints or continua in our coding process. Rather, the codes – both axial andthematic–identified the distinguishing characteristic about each archetype. It wasour belief that the four axial dimensions varied together to form the archetypes.As a consequence, there are a few overlaps in the descriptions, since some of thearchetypes share characteristics with each other. Given the interdependence of thecharacteristics, this configurational approach (Meyer et al., 1993) yields a discreteset of empirically viable combinations enabling us to consider idea managementholistically.

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Phase 4. In the fourth and final phase of our analysis, we used our hold-out sample,the remaining 27 interviews for a final validation of our coding.[6] Two of the inter-views could not be coded because of poor quality transcripts. Three graduate stu-dents were asked to use the thematic codes to recode the hold-out sample. Thelevel of agreement among them was 89 per cent (coder 1 – coder 2, 90 per cent;coder 2 – coder 3, 87 per cent; coder 1 – coder 3, 92 per cent). These indepen-dent coders also helped further improve the distinctiveness and meaning of eachthematic code, and sharpened the way it was expressed. Of the 25 individuals, 12were incrementalists, three were consensus builders, eight were searchers and onewas an assessor. There were no debaters. In one case, the three coders could notagree on archetype, even after discussion, so the participant was removed from thesample. Thus, 24 participants remained. Table III shows the coding results for thesecond sample.

We recombined our sample (25 from phase 1 and 24 from phase 4) to evaluatethe distribution of archetypes in our data and found that it was not symmetrical(chi square 38.04,4, p < 0.001). An alternate explanation to the intrinsic nature ofarchetypes is that they are the consequence of demographics, industry or position.Our data refute this possibility. We tested whether the archetypes might be theconsequence of industry or position. Visual inspection did not point to any par-ticular relationships. Table IV shows the relationships between archetype andindustry and Table V shows the relationships between archetype and organiza-tional position for all the interviews. The lambda statistic (Siegel and Castellan,1988) was used to measure the degree of dependence of archetype on industryand organizational rank respectively. There appears to be no relationship betweenarchetype and industry (approximate significance is 0.314). Dependence on posi-tion could not be computed because of insufficient data in many of the cells. We



Table II. Axial coding and associated philosophical approaches

Axial codes Corresponding Archetypes

philosophies

Incrementalist Consensus Searcher Debater Assessor

builder

Inquiry Transcendentalism Searching Searching Scanning Scanning Scanningapproach (mental dynamics)

Impetus for Process philosophy Maintaining Reacting Initiating Initiating Initiatingidea (change/stability)generation

Relationship Interactionism Directing Mediating Collaborating Internalizing Unpredictableto others (relational view)

Evaluation Transcendentalism Retaining Converging Diverging Debating Unpredictableapproach and interactionism

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Tab

le I

II.

Det

aile

d co

ding

Res

pond

ent

Con

sens

us B

uild

erD

ebat

erA

rche

type

Incr

emen

talist

Sear

cher

Mai

ntai

ning

Dir

ecting

Ret

aini

ngSe

arch

ing

Rea

ctin

gM

edia

ting

Con

verg

ing

Col

labo

rating

Div

ergi

ngSc

anni

ngIn

itia

ting

Inte

rnal

izin

gD

ebat

ing

11

14

31

51

1Se

arch

er2

22

Incr

emen

talis

t3

62

3In

crem

enta

list

41

11

11

4Se

arch

er5

42

11

Incr

emen

talis

t6

115

Incr

emen

talis

t7

11

Incr

emen

talis

t8

32

6In

crem

enta

list

91

22

23

Sear

cher

101

22

11

Incr

emen

talis

t11

21

12

12

35

Ass

esso

r12

24

34

Incr

emen

talis

t13

12

16

13

Sear

cher

144

35

1Se

arch

er15

34

11

Sear

cher

161

111

11

Incr

emen

talis

t17

15

33

3C

onse

nsus

build

er18

12

42

53

Con

sens

usbu

ilder

199

13

2In

crem

enta

list

201

21

22

15

1Se

arch

er21

32

Incr

emen

talis

t22

15

13

Incr

emen

talis

t23

21

12

12

Sear

cher

241

61

24

Con

sens

usbu

ilder

Not

es:

One

dis

agre

emen

t ha

s be

en e

xclu

ded

from

the

tab

le.

Ass

esso

rs d

o no

t ap

pear

in t

he h

eadi

ngs

beca

use

they

are

an

amal

gam

atio

n of

the

othe

r id

ea m

anag

emen

t ty

pes.

did not have sufficient data to test the relationships between demographic factorsand archetypes.

DISCUSSION

Our inquiry does not presume that there is an ideal process or set of factors con-cerning the management of ideas, nor is it our purpose to explain how human’ssystems of idea management emerge. Instead, it may be fruitful to identify differ-ent approaches and strategies and to delineate the benefits and drawbacks of each.We believe that our research points to the existence of archetypes and supportsthe view that managers present recognizable patterns of idea management. Thisis in concert with literature that demonstrates the conviction with which decisionmakers maintain their approaches. Decision makers are unresponsive to materi-ally significant differences in the quality and cost of information, they display slowor no learning in repeated trials, and different experts use different information inmaking judgements. In experimental situations, subjects’ ‘way of doing things’tends to overshadow what is considered to be the best way, in spite of clear adviceand specific training (Connolly and Thorn, 1987).



Table IV. Archetype by industry

Archetypes

Incrementalist Consensus builder Searcher Debater Assessor

Manufacturing 3 2 6 1 3Non-profit 9 0 2 0 1Financial 8 2 1 1 0Service 6 2 2 0 0

Note: LB = 0.130.

Table V. Archetype by organizational position

Archetypes

Incrementalist Consensus builder Searcher Debater Assessor

CEO/president 13 5 6 1 3One level removed 9 0 4 1 0Two or more levels removed 4 1 1 0 1

Theoretical work by Unsworth (2001) has focused on the different types of crea-tivity delineated by the nature of the problem and the driver of performance. Sheproposes that the nature of creativity may be different depending on the startingpoint (voluntary or required contribution and discovered or specified problem).Our ‘impetus for idea generation’ code indicates that type of problem does indeedhave an effect on the approach to idea management. However, we found that thenature of the problems is, at least in part, internal to the individual – incremen-talists tend to consider ideas in order to maintain the status quo, consensus buildersreact to specified problems and the remaining archetypes initiate or discover problems.

Our archetypes also respond to Zhou and Woodman’s (2003) call to understandhow managers recognize creative ideas. Although we do not focus on creative ideasper se, we do explore the nature of the relationship that idea managers have withothers and the approaches they use for evaluating ideas they encounter. Zhou andWoodman propose that managers’ creativity schemata are influenced by their per-sonal characteristics, their relationship with their subordinates and organizationalinfluences and that those schemata can be described by causality, valence and infer-ence. Our axial codes provide insight into the behaviours that are manifested as aconsequence of the schemata. For example, incrementalists’ search for the status

quo responds to their inference that only the ideas that support it are viable can-didates for implementation. We therefore structure our discussion in two parts.First, we will consider idea management types in their own right, focusing particu-larly on their salient features and implications for management and organization.In the second part, we will focus more on the implications of our findings for creativity and innovation.

We have set out to study patterns of idea management without the positive spincharacteristic of research on creativity and without the focus on implementationrequired for innovation. However, since our basic framework has echoes in studiesof creativity and innovation, our findings have implications for both literatures,particularly for the study of creativity. After all, creativity, innovation and man-agerial patterns are likely to be correlated in any organization. Zhou andWoodman (2003), for instance, propose that managers’ creativity schema are influ-enced by their personal characteristics, their relationship by their subordinates, andtheir organizational influences.

Constituting the largest group in the sample, incrementalists appear to follow apattern of management and organization in many bureaucracies. One may arguethat there is a little bit of an incrementalist in every manager. They engender effi-cient and stable information structures and use a fixed set of relationships bothinside and outside their organizations (searching). Such structures and relation-ships are crucial for smoothing out operations but are at the same time vulnera-ble side effects of rountinzation (‘if you’ve done it enough times, there’s always a

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right answer’). Consistent with this pattern they maintain a directive style, remi-niscent of what Ouchi (1980) has called ‘bureaucratic control’. Incrementalistsretain their authority and rely on their personal expertise in managing their orga-nizations (‘That’s what management is; it’s moving other people, getting them tothink your idea was theirs’). Also, incrementalists do not go out of their way topursue change but tend to remain well equipped to embark on change when theefficiency and effectiveness of fundamental organizational processes and perfor-mance are compromised. In some respects, incrementalists are single-loop learn-ers (Arygris, 1976) who prefer to maintain the status quo.

Consensus builders are similar to incrementalists in some ways, particularly inhow they obtain and manage information (searching). However, they differ signifi-cantly with respect to their interrelational patterns and approach to change andstability. They are quicker than incrementalists to react to changes that affect theirorganizations, and do not rely on their own expertise as much. Instead, they del-egate key managerial and organizational issues and tasks to others (‘I look to othersto see what works and what doesn’t’). In this respect, they are likely to engenderrelatively organic hierarchies (Burns and Stalker, 1961) where participation andinput are important norms. They value convergence among important actorsaround them (‘I make sure we all agree on goals and objectives’). While consen-sus builders may appear to elicit more ‘pleasant’ environments than do incre-mentalists, given the emphasis on consensus, processes they manage may be toocomplex and deliberative in certain contexts.

Searchers follow a different pattern in information collection and utilization,as well as in their relational characteristics. They not only solicit ideas and knowledge from a number of diverse sources but also welcome different, even conflicting, points of view. As such, they tend to pull together a rich array ofinputs, thereby avoiding rigid and routine approaches and perspectives to prob-lems regarding organizational issues. Consistent with this pattern, they tend tobring about work structures where participation by others is crucial. Their peersand subordinates are likely to feel free and encouraged to speak their minds.Searchers fit McGregor’s (1960) classical notion of ‘Theory Y’ managers. Theycollaborate with others and encourage dynamics in which preferences and sug-gestions diverge (‘I’ve always liked to push the envelope a little bit. When I pushmy people, it is more to push them to think and to ask a series of questions tomake sure they thought about it thoroughly than it is to tell them my opinion’).They do not wait for change to affect organizational processes and performance;instead, they tend to be proactive and create circumstances for considering newprojects and initiatives (‘We look at the industry and try to find opportunities . . .we look for opportunities and it’s a highly regulated industry where people arestuck in their ways’). Searchers are, in Starbuck’s (1983) words, ‘action generators’.Given such tendencies, searchers manifest a unique skill in synthesizing a varietyof standpoints. At the same time, given their appetite for divergence, searchers



run the risk of constantly changing focus on particular issues on which they arecollaborating with others (‘I don’t feel there is anything wrong with changing yourmind’).

Debaters manifest similar patterns to those of searchers, particularly in regardto information management and their posture toward change (scanning, initiat-ing). They solicit input from a number of diverse sources and tend to welcomedifferent viewpoints. They also tend seek out opportunities and manage proac-tively. Debaters do not like constraints and try to go beyond standardized rules andprocedures when necessary. They can be ‘creative’. However, they tend to managein a way that, in some respects, resembles the incrementalists. In other words,despite their creativity and proactive stance, at the end of the day, they tend torely more on their own perspectives than those of others. For debaters, externalinputs are largely stimuli for debating issues in their own minds. They follow adialectical pattern and consume alternative viewpoints until they reach a decisionor solution. Similar to searchers, they take extra time in reaching resolutions andmay at times change focus on a frequent basis rather than moving forward whennecessary (‘It’s valuable to . . . throw off the four walls of what you are doing todayand determine how you might otherwise accomplish it’). It is important to note,of course, that for both searchers and debaters, context determines whether or nottendencies toward divergence and procrastination are appropriate. Japanesebureaucrats procrastinated very successfully when not providing economic incen-tives for inefficient farmers to move to the city (Drucker, 2002), but Napolean’sinability to decide cost him Waterloo. Eisenhart (1999) indicates that a measureddecision pace is better than either procrastination or choices made to meet dead-lines while Charan (2001) bemoans managers’ inability to execute. In any case,debaters are very capable of looking at all sides of a situation before reaching aconclusion.

Finally, assessors are the eclectic type. They tend to manifest patterns associatedwith several other idea management types. In this respect, they are truly uniquein our typology. Assessors are the renaissance people. Although they resemblesearchers and debaters in terms of information management and posture towardsocial and organizational change, their relational patterns, managerial attitudesand evaluation processes are quite unpredictable. They may collaborate withothers or debate issues on their own, shifting managerial and organizationalarrangements at various times. The may also gravitate quickly toward particularchoices or prefer to diverge and welcome multiple perspectives, taking it slow andletting others participate. They simply do not take anything for granted (‘Every-thing is open to inspection at all times’).

Although each idea management type reflects a different pattern of manage-ment and organization, our comparisons are not intended to be evaluative. Fromthe previous discussion, it seems that each archetype is likely to be effective incertain situations and ineffective in others. These archetypes together constitute

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a spectrum of possibilities for the way idea management affects organizational life.

The differences among the archetypes reveal the ways in which our findingsadvance research on creativity and innovation. Various properties of the idea man-agement archetypes can be used to understand how managers might participate,and how successful they are likely to be, in the processes of creativity and inno-vation. For example, some creativity theorists (e.g. Amabile, 1988; Koestler, 1964)would probably consider incrementalists to be unimaginative and bereft of crea-tive ideas because of their rigidity. However, Simon (1969) theorized that creativityis most effective when it is limited. When it isn’t, it does not materialize into any-thing worthwhile (see also Nachmanovitch, 1990). Hence, incrementalists may bethe most successful generators of workable, low-risk solutions. Goals and prepa-ration are the incrementalist’s forte (Lindblom, 1969). Innovation research (e.g.Van de Ven, 1986, 1995; Van de Ven et al., 1989) has consistently shown that per-sistent commitment to a focal idea is critical for success in the innovation process.Incrementalists might be just who are required to turn an idea into an innovation,as long as they can accept the idea itself.

Consensus builders might suffer so excessively from groupthink ( Janis, 1982)that they are unlikely to generate good ideas or be able to tell if an idea is bad.However, Amabile (1988) found that qualities of the group and social skills pro-moted creativity. Consensus builders’ focus on group cohesion will probably leadto implementation rather than abandonment. Collective ownership of initial ideassignificantly supports the innovation process (Burns and Stalker, 1961; Rogers,1995; Van de Ven, 1986; Zaltman et al., 1973). Creativity research also empha-sizes the importance of collective ownership and participation (Amabile, 1988;Kanter, 1983, 1988).

Searchers would probably be considered good idea managers by those theoristssuch as Prietula and Simon (1989) and Dasgupta (1996) who subscribe to thenotion that a well-prepared mind is more likely to be a creative mind. They believethat effective problem solving depends on possession of deep knowledge or exper-tise and that engagement in cognitive activities such as problem definition, envi-ronmental scanning, data gathering and generation of alternatives is necessary forcreative responses to emerge (Shalley, 1995). For some, the essence of idea man-agement is the act of bisociation (Koestler, 1964). Famous examples of bisociationinclude the development of the telephone, the invention of microprogrammingand the invention of the airplane (Dasgupta, 1996). Searchers, because of theirbroad scanning, are most likely to make unusual associations. Searchers mightnever settle down long enough to ensure a successful innovation. They are muchmore likely than either incrementalists or consensus builders to want to move onto the next idea.

To theorists, debaters are probably high in terms of innovation potential. Ratherthan just generating a stream of ideas, they are the most likely to think of conse-



quences and alternatives. In addition, the dialectic process in which they engagewill often lead them to change the boundaries of the problem space, encouragingleaps in thinking.

Finally, assessors are a group for whom it is very difficult to develop a point ofview on creativity and innovation. While they are probably creative, they are alsocritical, so many of their ideas may never surface. Nevertheless, the ideas they dosurface are well thought out, comprehensive and practical.

Limitations and Future Research

Our research has several limitations. The first is the small convenience sample.While a small sample does not hamper our ability to determine whether varia-tions in idea management exist, it does limit our ability to determine whether ourset of archetypes is complete. In addition we do not have enough data to deter-mine whether personal and organizational demographics and other characteris-tics vary by idea management type. Our suppositions about the implications ofidea management type also need a larger sample to be tested.

Our data show that distinct archetypes exist, but our coding scheme must betested on a larger, more diverse sample. In addition, it is important to investigatewhether or not these archetypes are the most appropriate, or if more or fewerarchetypes with different characteristics better capture idea management.Research is also required to investigate whether or not there are relationshipsbetween the archetypes and more traditional measures such as Jung’s personalitytypes, Kolb’s (1984) learning styles, and Kirton’s (1976) innovator-adaptor types.Examination of such relationships would not only improve the conceptual valuebut also enhance the external validity of the idea management archetypes. Still,we note that, unlike our archetypes, most traditional measures suffer from over-reliance on a minimum number of dimensions. Kolb’s inventory, for instance, sit-uates people in a two dimensional space to understand how they learn and themechanisms that support them. Similarly, Kirton (1976) believes that ‘everyonecan be located on a continuum ranging from an ability to “do things better” to anability to “do things differently” ’ (p. 622). He found that some managers weregood at improving the current way of doing things (adaptors), while others weregood at coming up with new ideas, but not so good at getting them accepted (inno-vators) (1961). One could imagine his descriptions corresponding to incremental-ists and searchers. However, his work does not provide room for the other threearchetypes.

While these categories and continua provide insight into the different ways thathumans think, we find that they do not provide enough dimensionality for deepunderstanding and explanation. In addition, all these schemes rely on self-scoringand therefore describe espoused preferences rather than actual inclination and behaviours. In contrast, our typology of idea management is driven by the

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objective capturing of actual patterns manifested in real life settings. While it istempting to use the notions of endpoints and opposites to distinguish the arche-types along the four dimensions we identified, we did not do so to avoid the arbi-trariness of the endpoints themselves.

There are many unanswered questions about the way archetypes form. Are thearchetypes immutable or do they emerge and develop? Do they change? Whatinfluences them? Is there a developmental process in which people become eithermore rigid or more flexible? On what does it depend? Developmental psychology(Loevinger, 1976) posits that people evolve through several stages during their life-times and thereby increases their capacity to learn, understand and act. Fisher andTorbert (1991) found that MBA alumni did indeed evolve in the four to eight yearssince the completion of their degrees. Are the same mechanisms at work in ideamanagement? Finally, there are many unanswered questions about idea manage-ment and its role in organizational life. How do combinations of archetypes worktogether in organizations, and what is the exact nature of the ideas that each arche-type generates, evaluates and implements? What is the impact of environment?Are some archetypes more effective in certain environments? What is the impactof organizational variables such as structure, strategy and so forth? Perhaps mostimportantly, it is necessary to explore the relationships between idea managementarchetypes and organizational performance. This requires an examination ofvarious conditions to determine for which particular archetypes perform betterthan others.

Implications for Management

While limited, our research provides insight for managers as well. Creating envi-ronments that are conducive to idea generation may not be as fruitful as employ-ing people who have characteristics that are similar to those of the more seeminglycreative archetypes. These archetypes (searcher, debater, assessor) were relativelyrare in both our sub-samples. It may be that incrementalist tendencies are moreappropriate for senior executives. However, it may also be that incrementalists inpositions of hiring authority tend to hire people like themselves.

Second, it would seem that questions about information sources, ideas, problemsolving, and changing point of view might be used to help to determine the natureof the idea management one might expect from an individual. For example, anorganization that wanted to ensure that their programmers were searchers ratherthan incrementalists might ask them about what they read beyond what is requiredfor work, and to describe their last idea for a software innovation. An organiza-tion looking for a ‘get it done’ kind of leader might look to these questions toensure that they found an incrementalist. Of course, these are suppositions only.Until research compares archetypes directly to objective outcomes, we cannot besure of the nature of the benefit of one archetype over another.



Because the archetypes follow distinct patterns, seeing one part of a patternmight provide insight into the rest of it. Noticing that someone is truly a scannerin his or her information acquisition approach would lead one to believe that thisperson is more likely to be an initiator than a maintainer or reactor. Someone whois dialectical or divergent in idea generation would be more likely to scan infor-mation than someone who is a maintainer. Hence, they would be more likely touse information scanning resources effectively. More information or better scan-ning resources may not turn incrementalists and consensus builders into initiatorsand less information and resources may not limit the diverging and debating inthe remaining three archetypes. Perhaps the question that is most pressing iswhether or not it is fruitful or desirable for all people to attempt to improve in allthe competencies associated with the archetypes. Should we all become better atbuilding consensus and scanning the environment without losing sight of the needto get things done, or will that result in people who perform satisfactorily in manyways, but not exceptionally in any? Is it appropriate to focus on improving every-one’s creativity? Should everyone learn how to implement innovations? Should wespecialize?

CONCLUSION

We have found that managers engage in recognizable patterns of idea manage-ment and that five archetypes of idea management can be discerned through fouraxial codes: inquiry approach, impetus for idea generation, relationship to othersand evaluation approach. These codes overlap in the archetypes and should notbe construed as continua with endpoints. They point to the systemic nature of ideamanagement and the interrelatedness of idea generation, problem solving andinquiry. The codes, in addition to having empirical referents, correspond closelyto the philosophies of transcendentalism, process and interactionism.

Not one of our interviewees claimed never to have ideas; in fact, quite the con-trary. Everyone has ideas all the time. Not all are creative, nor do they all lead toinnovations. Using archetypes to provide insight into idea management mayprovide the beginnings of a view that can be employed to understand idea man-agement inclinations and to improve both creativity and innovation in organiza-tions as well as the performance of management in general.

NOTES

*We would like to thank Dick Boland for his significant contributions to this research.[1] It is, in fact, more correct to use the term ‘taxonomy’ and ‘taxonomizing’ instead of ‘types’ and

‘typologizing’ to describe our objective, since the word ‘taxonomy’ is generally used to refer toa set of archetypes developed in largely a data-driven fashion (Miller and Friesen, 1984), whichis what we have set out to do in our study. We simply retain the terms ‘type’ and ‘typology’ forconventional simplicity.

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[2] Gender bias may also be an issue, although the bias we found does reflect the population ofexecutives.

[3] In this group, age ranged from 33 to 77 with a median of 49. Seventy-five per cent had at leastone graduate degree. Educational backgrounds included arts, science, social science, business,law and engineering. Most individuals were heads of their organizations or reported directly tothe head. Tenure in the organization ranged from two to 36 years, with a median of 12. Tenurein current position ranged from one to 28 years with a median of eight. Two participants werefemale.

[4] One interview was deemed unusable and dropped from the sample due to insufficient responsesand a lack of coherence. Another interview was selected from the original sample to replace it.

[5] We followed Boyatzis’s procedure because it introduces an extra element of rigour into theprocess outlined by Strauss and Corbin (1990).

[6] Participants in the second set of interviews were not much different from the first set. Age rangedfrom 40 to 58 with a median 49. Seventy-three per cent had an advanced degree and many dis-ciplines were represented. The group contained 16 presidents and six who reported to the pres-ident of their organization. The remainder were one level below that. Tenure in the organizationwas between one and 38 years with a median of 17. Tenure in current position was betweenone and 29 years with a median of 6. One of the participants was a woman.

APPENDIX 1: INTERVIEW GUIDE

Please tell me about yourself. What is your educational background? How did youget to where you are now? (Abbreviated life story.)

Please tell me about your job. What are your responsibilities? How do you spendyour time? What type of information do you get and ignore?

Remember a recent instance when you came up with an idea. What was the idea?Can you recall why or how you got that idea?

How do you usually get ideas?Remember an instance when you resolved an issue. What issue did you resolve?

What enabled you to resolve it?How do you usually resolve issues?Please describe an instance of changing your mind recently. (Areas to investi-

gate might include the future/values/cause–effect/goals/duties/ethics/profit/employees/superiors.) Who was involved? What caused you to change yourmind? How did it feel?

How do you stay informed? How do you use information in your job? What kindof information do you use? (Computer reports, people inside the organization,outside the organization?) How do you decide what information to look at?

APPENDIX 2: CODING SCHEME

Approach to Information Acquisition

Label: SearchingDefinition: Searching for information with a pre-determined agenda and focusIndicators: Coded when the person:



a. seeks specific information or information with specific character-istics and content

b. looks at (evaluates, interprets) information from a pre-specifiedperspective

c. seeks and/or receives information from similar, stable sourcesLabel: ScanningDefinition: Scanning for information with a broad agenda and viewIndicators: Coded when the person:

a. seeks diverse information or information with diverse characteris-tics and content

b. looks at (evaluates, interprets) information from severalperspectives

c. seeks and/or receives information from various, diverse sources

Impetus for Idea Generation

Label: ReactingDefinition: Initiating or considering ideas in reaction to a real or potential

problem or issueIndicators: Coded when the person:

a. is prompted by others about idea generationb. triggers idea generation in order to adapt to circumstances

Label: MaintainingDefinition: Initiating or considering ideas in order to maintain the status quoIndicators: Coded when the person:

a. initiates idea generation only in the face of inevitabilitiesb. is slow or hesitant to initiate idea generationc. triggers idea generation to maintain consistency

Label: InitiatingDefinition: Initiating or considering ideas in order to increase capacity, improve

competitiveness, and/or influence the environmentIndicators: Coded when the person:

a. self-initiates idea generationb. is prompted to generate ideas by opportunities and/or futuristic

visionsc. triggers idea generation in order to take advantage of, contribute

to, and/or participate in emerging situations or patterns

Relationship to Others

Label: DirectingDefinition: Authoritatively directing others

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Indicators: Coded when the person:a. maintains a strong personal point of viewb. considers him/herself the most knowledgeable in his/her envi-

ronment, and often takes the role of educatorc. attempts to convince and/or manipulate othersd. tells people what to do

Label: MediatingDefinition: Authorizing and/or empowering others to generate ideas, solve prob-

lems, and make decisionsIndicators: Coded when the person:

a. relies on the judgements and opinions of othersb. invites and/or expects others to develop ideas and solutionsc. creates and/or enacts processes/structures for others to develop

ideas and solutionsLabel: CollaboratingDefinition: Joining with others to generate ideas, to solve problems, or to make

decisionsIndicators: Coded when the person:

a. includes judgements and opinions of othersb. asks and/or instructs others to develop ideas and solutionsc. actively involves himself with others in the processes/structures of

idea and solution developmentLabel: InternalizingDefinition: Attempting to resolve problems individually by playing through

multiple scenariosIndicators: Coded when the person:

a. assumes the role of others when considering the problemb. plays through multiple scenarios in his/her mindc. examines contingencies

Evaluation Process

Label: RetainingDefinition: Focusing on ideas, perspectives, and inputs that affirm and/or com-

plement one’s own approachIndicators: Coded when the person:

a. takes personal control of idea and solution development effortsb. heavily relies on his/her own judgements and opinionsc. seeks consistency and confirmation of personal viewpointd. highly values and/or relies on past experiences

Label: Converging



Definition: Closing in upon ideas, perspectives, and inputs to find an agreeablesolution and/or conclusion

Indicators: Coded when the person:a. seeks consensus and agreement among approaches and ideasb. seeks synthesis of ideas and informationc. clearly defines the boundaries and parameters for ideas and

solutionsLabel: DivergingDefinition: Considering and expanding upon many ideas, perspectives, and

inputs in order to develop a specific solution and/or conclusionIndicators: Coded when the person:

a. is comfortable with inconsistencyb. seeks diverse experiences and inputc. is flexible around the boundaries and parameters for ideas and

solutionsLabel: DebatingDefinition: Debating several ideas, perspectives, and inputs in order to develop

a specific solution and/or conclusionIndicators: Coded when the person:

a. challenges and/or likes to be challenged by others’ perspectivesb. engages and/or likes to be engaged in dialectical debates and

discussionsc. experiences difficulty in choosing sides or reaching resolution in

conflicting situations

REFERENCES

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Idea Management: A Systemic View