Selection Bias in the Adoption of Ideas: The Role of Status, Experience and Idea Radicality on Idea Adoption in the Initiation Stage MASTER S THESIS

Selection Bias in the Adoption of Ideas: The Role of Status, Experience and Idea Radicality on Idea Adoption in the Initiation Stage

MASTER’S THESIS

Jacqueline van Burgsteeden Student No.: 2006316 Supervisor: Dr. D. Deichmann VU University Amsterdam Faculty of Social Science Master Policy, Communication and Organization De Boelelaan 1105 Amsterdam, 1081 HV, The Netherlands Tel: +31 20 59 89898 Fax: +31 20 598 6765 e-mail: [email protected] Amsterdam, August 5, 2013

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Selection Bias in the Adoption of Ideas: The Role of Status, Experience and Idea Radicality on Idea Adoption in the Initiation Stage

ABSTRACT The submission of good ideas does not necessarily imply their adoption. This study examines the selection bias regarding the adoption of ideas in the initiation stage. This implies both the influence of the perceived status and the perceived experience of the idea inventor as well as the perceived radicality of an idea on the idea adoption. An experiment was conducted under 244 employees of an international telecom operator. The participants were divided into 8 groups. I confirm the hypothesis that ideas from inventors with perceived high experience will sooner be adopted than ideas from less experienced idea inventors. The perceived status of the idea inventor and the idea radicality do not affect the idea adoption. Furthermore, I unexpectedly find that the perceived status and the experience of the idea inventor jointly moderate the relation negatively between idea radicality and idea adoption. My findings illustrate how idea experience and a triple interaction between status, experience and idea radicality bias the idea selection in the initiations stage of the innovation process and give insights into how managers can restructure their organization to minimize this bias.

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INTRODUCTION For organizations to thrive and survive in an increasingly competitive environment, they need to harness and support idea generation and implementation (Roth and Sneader, 2006; Tellis, Prabhu and Candy, 2009). The need for a continual stream of new products and processes – deriving from the input of new ideas – is critical to the growth and economic position of the organization (Jaruzelski and Dehoff, 2010). A longstanding interest in the idea generation and implementation by academics and practitioners also reflects this heightened importance (e.g., Hauser, Tellis and Griffin, 2006; Wolfe, 1994; Damanpour, 1991; Kanter, 1983; Schumpeter, 1942). Take for example the study of Hauser et al. (2006) who described how ideas, when implemented, can be beneficial to organizations. Successful adopted ideas raise the quality and lower the prices of products and services. In addition, by finding new solutions to problems, good ideas can attack competitors and enter new markets or transform old ones (Hauser et al., 2006). According to Damanpour (1991) the adoption of new ideas is required for the performance and effectiveness of the organization. Also several other studies state that the development, adoption and implementation of new ideas is an important asset to organizations, because it enables organizations to deal with the tumultuous markets and is one of the key drivers of long-term success in organizations (Baker and Sinkula, 2002; Lyon and Ferrier, 2002; Utterback, 1994). However, before ideas can realize all these benefits, organizations and its managers first need to select the “best” ideas that they intent to implement. Selection decision are inherently biased. According to Martino, Kumaran, Seymour and Dolan (2006) theories of decision making tend to emphasize the rationality in choice behavior, but several studies show that decision making is more a matter of emotion and intuition than deliberate reasoning (Green and Haidt, 2002; Loewenstein, Weber, Hsee and Welch, 2001). The study of Edwards and Smith (1996) indicates that humans are unable to evaluate independently without being biased. This also applies in the selection of new ideas by which is meant the first evaluation point where the assessor decides whether an idea is, or is not, suitable for further development. An example of rating

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bias in the selection of new ideas is displayed in the study of Licuanan, Dailey and Mumford (2007). They claim that there are many errors in evaluating ideas. One error that is commonly observed is that evaluators have the tendency to underestimate good ideas. Other studies show that the exposure to another person leads people to associate that person with positive feelings and, as a consequence, ideas of the person will be excessively high evaluated (Lawler, 1992; Zajonc, 1968). According to the report of the Boston Consulting Group, less than half of the 2,500 senior executives that participated in the research are pleased with the results on innovation spending, in large part because of poor decision making (Boston Consulting Group, 2007). Overall, it can be stated that idea assessors can grind further development of good ideas to a halt because of biases in the idea selection process. Despite these potentially negative and far-reaching consequences, so far, the literature on ideation and innovation has primarily focused on the antecedents and the driving mechanisms that shape idea generation (e.g., Toubia, 2006; Paulus and Yang, 2000; Amabile, 1996) or implementation (e.g., West, 2002; Woodman, Sawyer and Griffin, 1993). Scant attention has been paid to the actual selection decision about ideas; so the decision managers make about whether they want to implement a specific idea or not. The novelty and usefulness of ideas are two commonly used characteristics of ideas to “objectively” measure them (Dean, Hender, Rodgers and Santanen, 2006). However, the study of Simonton (1995) shows that individuals who are successful in identifying the novelty and usefulness of an idea are less successful at identifying the eventual success of an idea. Research of Blair and Mumford (2007) indicates that a wider set of characteristics like the fit of an idea to social context, peoples’ ability to understand an idea, and the requirements for idea implementation influence the final selection decision. Furthermore, individuals are more likely to judge on their sense rather than using numerical criteria (Kuipers, Moskowitz and Kassinger, 1988). In this study, I will further examine the evaluation and selection decision about one particular idea, taking the viewpoint of the idea assessor and his or her perceptions about the idea and the idea inventor.

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In this study several potential explanations will be tested why people perform very poorly at selecting the best ideas (Faure, 2004; Putman and Paulus, in press; Rietzschel, Nijstad and Stroebe, 2006). Specifically, I take the viewpoint of the idea assessor and his or her perceptions about characteristics of the idea inventor and the radicality of the idea. I will take this specific perspective because various studies indicate that ideas may not be evaluated objectively (Licuanan et al., 2007; Michaelowa and Borrmann, 2006) and characteristics of the inventor and the way in which an idea is presented (incremental versus radical) may play an important role in the idea evaluation. By biases in the assessment of ideas,

promising ideas may never get a chance to become successful in an

organization while innovation has become indispensible in the contemporary society and organizations need good ideas more than ever (Roth and Sneader, 2006). Making the right decisions in the idea adoption process is inextricably linked with the success of the organization (Crawford and Di Benedetto, 2006). Thus, the central question in this study will be: “To what extent does the perceived status and the perceived experience of the idea inventor and the perceived radicality of an idea influence the idea selection and thus the adoption of an idea?” The inventor will be seen as the employee who submits an idea in the organization. The adoption of an idea will be considered as the approval of an idea in the initiation stage. An idea that is marked as adopted, does not mean that it provides the “best” solution to a problem, but means that the inventor can pursue with the execution of his or her idea (Deichmann and Van den Ende, 2012). Status of the idea inventor refers to the hierarchical level of the inventor in the organization. Experience of the idea inventor includes the prior idea adoptions and/or rejections which the inventor encountered. While recent research on innovation has provided a number of interesting findings about the idea development process, it still is incomplete. In the literature, much attention is devoted to the generation of ideas (e.g., Amabile, 1996; Paulus & Yang, 2000; Toubia, 2006) as well as to the implementation of ideas (e.g., West, 2002; Woodman, Sawyer and Griffin, 1993). Thus, we know a good deal about idea generation and implementation but little research is done on recognizing and

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selecting the best ideas from the pool of generated ideas. This is a serious shortcoming, because the idea selection process determines the potential of the organization to identify promising new ideas (Goldenberg, Lehman and Mazursky, 2001). Despite this importance though, the idea evaluation process still demands the most improvement (Klink and Athaide, 2006; Barczak, Griffin and Kahn, 2009). This study aims to complement the literature about the entire idea development process by focusing on idea selection. However literature on this issue is rare, there is a limited number of studies that did focus on the idea selection process. Some of these studies assert that idea assessors are able to identify the best ideas (Groborz and Necka, 2003; Runco and Smith, 1992), while other studies claim that the opposite is true (Faure, 2004; Simon, 1993; Putman and Paulus, in press). For example, Simon (1993) believes that decision makers are wittingly or unwittingly influenced by prejudicial beliefs. More specifically, this study support studies of Rietzschel et al. (2010), Licuanan et al. (2007) and Reitzig et al. (in press) by stressing the influence of implicit idea selection criteria. However, so far, the phenomenon of why assessors are incompetent in picking the best ideas from a set of options is still unclear (Rietzchel, Nijstand and Stroebe, 2010). This study also seeks to clarify a part of this unexplained phenomenon of selection bias in idea adoption in the initiation stage of the innovation process. It may occur that some of the potentially most productive ideas never will be realized. Biases may be responsible for that, rather than issues related to the ideas themselves (Reitzig and Sorenson, in press). Organizations and their managers need to be aware of that. When an organization fails in selecting the best ideas from the many good ideas generated by its employees it is as poor as an organization that fails to produce any good ideas at all (Lazer and Friedman, 2007). Hansen and Birkinshaw (2007) state that the selection of ideas is one of the most common weakest links in the innovation process of an organization and state that the success of the innovation is as strong as the weakest link in the process. From the above it becomes clear that the idea selection process is critical for the innovation success of the organization. Another reason why selecting the right ideas is

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important for organizations is because it can save a lot of money. Possible biases in beliefs in the early stage of an selection decision may cause that not the “best” ideas will be adopted, resulting in the loss of money (Axtell, Holman, Unsworth, Wall, Waterson and Harrington, 2000). While the adoption of new ideas is very important for the competitiveness of organizations it also brings, at the same time, risks and uncertainties for the organization. Unknown factors like competition, customers and economy can affect the success of the new ideas (Ozer, 2005). The idea selection process plays a decisive role for organizations to reduce the risks and uncertainties associated with new products and services by selecting the right ideas to stay ahead of the competition. The awareness of organizations of the fact that idea selection processes are biased, enables them to minimize this bias and only adopt ideas with the most potential to become successful by further development.

THEORETICAL BACKGROUND Idea Adoption Given that managers and organizations often have limited resources to move an idea forward and implement it, they need to select among a multitude of submissions a limited number of ideas that they want to pursue further. In this study an idea will be defined as an opportunity to create value through further investment (Kornisch and Ulrich, 2012). Prior literature has identified some criteria that managers could or should consider when assessing an idea. For example research by Dean et al. (2006) – who distilled idea evaluation constructs that are commonly used in the literature – made a selection consisting of the following constructs: idea quality, idea novelty and idea creativity. Many researchers also use the idea evaluation criteria of MacCrimmon and Wagner (1994) that can be grouped into the following four general constructs: novelty, workability, relevance and specificity. Many of these terms are defined and sampled in different ways and scholars are still working on improving the evaluation tools and methods. Although it is needed to assess ideas on the basis of various criteria, individuals are more likely to use qualitative norms of judgment, for example: if an idea seems more or less “good”

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(Kuipers, Moskowitz and Kassinger, 1988). Research indicates that evaluation and thus possible adoption of an idea goes beyond idea criteria such as novelty and feasibility including more complicated underlying mechanisms like selection biases (Reitzig and Sorenson, in press). For example, Reitzig and Sorenson (in press) state that: “Biases in beliefs can lead the selection stage of the process to deviate substantially from the identification of the “best” ideas” (Reitzig and Sorenson, in press: 7). In literature, different stages of idea adoption are described. For instance, Kwon and Zmud (1987) distinguish four stages of adoption: adaptation, acceptance, routinization and infusion. However, the most common distinction is made between the initiation and implementation stage of idea adoption (e.g., Rogers, 1995; Zaltman, Duncan and Holbek, 1973). This study focuses on the selection bias in the initiation stage of the idea adoption process, in which the initiation phase can be described as the first idea evaluation point which leads to the decision whether or not an idea will be adopted for further development.

Selection bias Many concepts of biases in decision making are based on the heuristics and biases theory of Tversky and Kahneman (1987). This theory assumes that individuals are “simply” unable to make their choices and decisions in a fully rational way. A bias can be defined as: “A prejudice in favor of or against one thing, person, or group compared with another, usually in a way considered to be unfair” (The New Oxford American Dictionary, 2001). In literature, many different biases in decision making are described. This study only focuses on the selection bias. The selection bias refers to a distortion in making rational decisions, caused by irrelevant information that affects the final decision making (Hernan, Hernandez-Diaz and Robins, 2004). Tversky and Kahneman (1987) believe that individuals simplify their decision by applying systematic thumb rules what allows them to quickly come to satisfactory but irrational choices. Other theories state that positive and negative moods are also related to decision making and influence the decision making process so as to moderate the effects of biases on

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decision making (Watson and Tellegen, 1985). Selection decision can be biased by the organizational climate, culture or work group norms (Wherry and Bartlett, 1982) or by demographic characteristics, such as race, gender or tenure (Kraiger and Ford, 1985). In relation to the selection bias of ideas: recent study of Smith, Kisamore, Stone and Jawahar (2010) shows that there could be errors in each stage of the idea process caused by the selection bias, which might lead to the rejection of the best ideas. In this study the selection bias implies that idea inventors will be unfairly penalized in the idea selection process because of the inventors’ personal characteristics or by the perceived radicality of an idea. The next section will be used to further define and elaborate these personal characteristics and the type of idea.

Perceived Idea Radicality and Inventor Status and Experience According to a various number of scientists, there are two types of ideas: incremental and radical (e.g., Gersick and Hackman, 1990; Tushman and Romanelli, 1985). Radical ideas can be defined as fundamental, ground-breaking changes in the activities of an organization (Gilson and Madjar, 2011). Radical ideas have a high degree of new knowledge (Dewar and Dutton, 1986). For example, switching the nature of a business from a traditional supermarket to a store with only organic products is a radically new way of selling the expertise. In contrast, incremental ideas are those that imply changes in frameworks and adjustments to the existing processes and products (Gilson and Madjar, 2011). Incremental ideas have a low degree of new knowledge (Dewar and Dutton, 1986). In this study one single idea is described in a radical and incremental way by changing several words in the description. Small changes in wording can have big effects on preferences (Mellers, Swartz and Cooke, 1999). People often accept and use information in the form in which they receive it, with the result that this information will only be assessed on the description and not on the quality of an idea. (Slovic, 1972). In addition to the description of an idea, status and experience of the idea inventor also are important constructs in this study. Status of the inventor refers to the hierarchical level which he or

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she occupies in the organization. Other dimensions of status like network abilities, tenure or educational level are not included. Like status, experience can also have different dimensions and sources (Argote and Miron-Spektor, 2011). This study focuses on how experienced the inventor is in the idea generation process. This includes that if the inventor is working actively with idea management and repeatedly submits new ideas, he gaines experience from doing this.

HYPOTHESES Perceived Inventor Status and Idea Adoption There are several reasons why one can expect that ideas from inventors with a perceived high status will more easily be adopted than ideas from perceived low status inventors. First, several studies indicate that employees with high status are associated with high quality (Stuart, Hoang and Hybels, 1999; Podolny, 1993). For example, the study of Oldham and Cummings (1996) shows that employees with high status are rated higher on their creativity than low status employees. It is also proven that employees with a high status level are better able to generate ideas on how to improve their work than employees with a low status level (Scott and Bruce, 1994). For this reason, it is likely that ideas that originate from employees with higher status will be seen as more valuable. Secondly, high status employees can exert more pressure on the idea assessors than low status employees by having more power and by being able to threat with unpleasant consequences when the idea evaluator does not want to adopt an idea (Green, Welsh and Delher, 2003). The study of Kirchler and Davis (1986) supports this by stating that high status employees were more effective at fulfilling their desires than low status employees. Finally, various studies suggest that status level of an employee is positively related to the selling skills of a person (Levy and Sharma, 1994; Lamont and Lundstrom, 1977). High status employees are better in formulating and conveying their ideas than employees with lower status. The idea assessor may be influenced in the idea selection process by the selling skills of the idea inventor.

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By the above arguments it is likely that ideas from high status employees will more easily be adopted than from low status employees. This leads to the following hypothesis: Hypothesis 1: Perceived status level is positively related to idea adoption.

Perceived Inventor Experience and Idea Adoption The perceived experience of the idea inventor is for several reasons positively related to idea selection. First, the intuition of the idea evaluator causes that ideas from more experienced inventors will more likely be adopted than ideas from inventors with little experience. As a large body of theorizing and research documents, intuitive can profoundly influence decision making processes (Khatri, 2000; Burke and Miller, 1999; Baron, 1998). Individuals seem to make their decisions based on rational considerations, though in practice individuals often take action based on subconscious intuitive processes. Several studies state that expertness is a factor that intuitively leads to more trust, which indirectly may lead to an easier acceptance of ideas (Good, 1988; Giffin, 1967) . Secondly, several studies have explored the relation between the number of submitted ideas by an employee and the number of ideas implemented in the organization (e.g., Axtell, Holman, Unsworth, Wall, Waterson and Harrington, 2000); Clegg, Unsworth, Epitropaki and Parker, 2002). The study of Axtell et al. (2000) and Clegg et al. (2002) indicates that the amount of submitted ideas is positive associated with the amount of implemented ideas. Moreover, Frese Teng and Wijnen (1999) investigated how many ideas an employee submitted to the suggestion system over a period of three years and found the same positive correlation. Thus, ideas submitted by inventors with prior experience seem more likely to be adopted than ideas submitted by inventors with no prior experience. Finally, individuals are able to create certain patterns through prior experiences (Gersick and Hackman, 1990). The study of Kim, Kim, and Miner (2009) supports this by stating that individuals can develop a specific mindset by earlier experiences which leads to more success. It may be assumed that prior experience in idea

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submission also leads to a specific mindset which causes indirectly that ideas are more likely to be adopted. The above mentioned arguments lead to the following hypothesis: Hypothesis 2: Perceived experience level is positively related to idea adoption.

Perceived Radicality of the Idea and Idea Selection Expected is that perceived incremental ideas will be more quickly adopted by organizations than perceived radical ideas. Idea evaluation is a critical aspect of creative thought. However, a number of biases might occur in the evaluation of radical ideas. One common mistake is that the originality and novelty of radical ideas are being underestimated by idea assessors and therefore radical ideas will not be easily adopted (Blair and Mumford, 2007). Another mistake is that idea assessors do not recognize radical ideas. The study of Rice, Kelly, Peters and O’Conner (2001) suggest that idea assessors experience problems in recognizing the potential of radical ideas rather than the potential of incremental ideas. According to Rice et al. (2001), idea assessors have an incremental way of thinking. A possible cause for this behavior could be that the evaluation criteria of organizations are not suitable for the evaluation of radical ideas but focus on the evaluation of incremental ideas (Rice et al., 2001). It is also found that idea assessors prefer conventional ideas that provide short-term growth, while disregarding risky and original and thus radical ideas (Blair and Mumford, 2007). It is given that decision makers are generally risk averse (Pratt, 1964; Arrow, 1965). Risk is an important underlying mechanism in decision making. People feel more comfortable making less risky decisions (March and Shapira, 1987). This assumes that incremental “less risky” ideas will sooner be adopted than radical ideas. The above mentioned arguments leads to the following hypothesis: Hypothesis 3:Perceived idea radicality is negatively related to idea adoption.

Status Level and Experience Level as Moderators of the Relation between Idea Radicality and Idea Adoption

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The perceived status and the perceived experience jointly moderate the relation between the idea radicality and the idea selection. When the perceived status level and the perceived experience level are high, it is expected that the perceived idea radicality is negatively related to the idea adoption. This suggests that incremental ideas from employees with high status and high experience will more likely be adopted. Bantel and Jackson (1989) provided some indirect evidence for status and experience as potential moderators of the association between idea radicality and idea adoption. These authors showed that age and organizational tenure are correlated with risk taking in innovation. Bantel and Jackson (1989) state that young aged employees with short tenure take more risks in the innovation process than older aged employees with long tenure. In literature, age and tenure are linked to experience and status. The study of Koberg, Detienne and Hapard (2003) shows that younger aged employees with short tenure generally have lower status and are less experienced than employees with older age and long tenure. Radical ideas can also be described as risky ideas (March and Shapira, 1987). Previous hypotheses show that one can expect that ideas from inventors with perceived high status or high experience will more easily be adopted than ideas from perceived low status inventors. Hypothesis 3 also suggests that perceived incremental ideas will be more quickly adopted by organizations than perceived radical ideas. For this purpose, it is expected that radicaility of the idea is negatively related to adoption of an idea when the perceived status and the perceived experience level of the idea inventor are high. This leads to the following hypothesis. Hypothesis 4: The perceived status and experience level of the inventor jointly moderate the relation between idea radicality and idea adoption; the perceived idea radicality is negatively related to idea adoption when the perceived status and perceived experience are high. Also relative to inventors with low status and low experience, the relation should be less negative for those who have either high status or high experience.

METHOD

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Data and Sample The study was conducted in an international telecom operator established in the Netherlands. The organization provides fixed and mobile telephony, internet and television and is in the process of stimulating their employees to generate and submit more new ideas to improve the organizational effectiveness and to be more innovative. The organization uses an innovation funnel to judge an idea on several fixed evaluation criteria as feasibility, relevance, novelty etc. However, before an idea can enter the innovation funnel, it first will be evaluated by another employee labeled as an “idea assessor”. Upon reading the submitted idea, the assessor can deem an idea unworthy for further consideration or can decide that it is good enough to follow the subsequent steps from the funnel. Other aspects like reciprocity, future interpersonal interactions, or potential frictions between those who submitted the ideas and those who evaluate the ideas can play a decisive role in the idea adoption process because assessors could see who submitted an idea and the assessors also do not always remain anonymous to the submitters. So, there is a possibility of a quid pro quo trading of favoritism in exchange for employee loyalty in this organization as an explanation for decision making biases (Bower, 1970). In this study a fictive idea inventor is presented, so favoritism will be excluded and that is why this research setting is so appropriate to test the hypotheses. The first idea selection point, where the idea assessor decides if an idea is good enough to go through the innovation funnel, is tested in this study. The unit of analysis is the idea assessor. The purpose of the study is to measure if the participants are biased by the inventor status, experience or the way an idea is presented in selection decision of ideas. To study the relationship between status and experience of the inventor, idea radicality, and the adoption of an idea, a three-factor experiment was designed (2x2x2 factorial design). To control for the reliability, the experiment contained 8 different groups with a minimum of 30 respondents for each group. The level of the presented status of the inventor (low status vs. high status), experience of the inventor (low experience vs. high experience) and idea radicality (incremental vs. radical) rotated. So the experiment is structured as follows:

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Figure 1: 2x2x2 factorial design

Employees who participated in the experiment were asked to evaluate one fictive idea related to the operations of the organization. Through storytelling I tried to let the participants visualize that they are truly part of the idea evaluation committee and make them believe that the adoption of the idea truly depended on their evaluation. All participants had substantive knowledge about the presented idea (a question in the experiment asked for this). Half of the groups got the idea presented in a radical way by using radical terms as “innovative”, “extreme”, “not in line with other services”, “long-term growth”, “changing the relationship with the customer”, and “new service”. The other half of the participants were given incremental terms as “conventional”, “continual”, “in line with other services”, “short-term growth”, “strengthen the relationship with the customer”, and “expand an existing service”. The idea itself remained the same in all groups and unchanged. Aside from the presented idea, status and experience of the fictive inventor were described as well. Versions with high status got a fictional high positioned director defined, while low status versions got a mailroom employee who had not been able to achieve a high position in the past ten years. The high experienced inventor was described as someone who is working actively with idea management and repeatedly submitted ideas and gained a lot of experience from this. The low experienced inventor was described as someone who is not working actively with idea management and had no prior experience in submitting ideas. For the reliability an attempt was made to keep the texts of all versions as similar as possible (same length and

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text, only the relevant words changed). Special attention was also given to make sure that only the variables status, experience and the radicality of the idea have been tested by presenting information only on these three variables. On the basis of several questions about the radicality, status, experience and the idea itself, participants were asked to give the presented idea a “go” (adopt) or a “no go” (not adopt) in order to further develop the idea. Most of the participants were recruited during a meeting by the organization, called the “Brainsync XL”. This was a meeting for employees interested in ideation to emphasize the importance of innovation and inspire them to generate new ideas and come up with innovative solutions. Unfortunately there were not enough employees who wanted to participate in the experiment to make the study reliable. Therefore I chose to continue the experiment at another meeting the next day to obtain a minimum of 30 participants per version. The experiment on the next meeting was performed in the same setting as in the “Brainsync XL” to keep the environment as constant as possible. People of the first meeting were not participating in this second meeting. Before the experiment was expanded at the “Brainsync XL” it was pretested by five college students. They filled in the questionnaire and there were no complications. During the experiment it emerged that the presented idea was not a fictive ‘new’ idea but already known by many participants. Ultimately, this had no impact on the final results of the experiment. The results of the questionnaire filled in by participants who were familiar with the idea did not differ from the results of questionnaires filled in by participants who were unfamiliar with the idea. The topic list in the experiment is created by using measures and scales of different studies about idea evaluation. The questions are translated as accurately as possible to Dutch language. This is verified by two supervisors and by a college student who is proficient in both languages. Chosen is to perform the experiment offline, because this is more reliable than online performing (Riva, Teruzzi, Anolli, 2003). The questionnaires were collected directly after the experiment had been completed. Contact between the participants was not allowed to make sure that they were not influenced by social or environmental factors during the experiment.

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Out of the 244 employees who participated in the experiment, a total of 223 completed all sections of the survey. Around the 50% of the people who were approached filled in the questionnaire. The choice is made to remove three respondents from the sample due to the fact that they did not manage to fully answer the experiment. In the sample, 200 were men and 41 were women. The age ranges from 20 to 64 years (mean = 40.93, s.d. = 10.58) and average company tenure was 12.40 years (s.d. = 10.73). Employees from different divisions including accounting, consultant, finance, processing, and technical specialists, and from different hierarchical levels (nonsupervisory employees, supervisors, etc.) participated the experiment. Despite the different hierarchical levels, the vast majority of the participants were higher professionals or university educated (76 percent), and believe that their functional level can best be described as medium to high (95 percent).

Dependent Variable Adoption of an idea. This was measured via nine items composed of different constructs and scales based on preliminary work on this subject. Questions from the study of Cady and Valentine (1999) are used to find the degree in which an idea can be successfully adopted by an organization, where adoption incorporates the development and implementation of new ideas. Constructs of the scale of Cooper (1998) are used to examine the idea support and idea promotion. Also constructs of the study of MacGrimmon and Wagner (1994) and Runco and Charles (1993) are applied in order to develop a scale that measures the adoption of the idea in this specific study. The scale was ranging from 1 (“very strongly disagree”) to 7 (“very strongly agree”). A few examples of questions were: “I want this idea to be realized”, “I would like to support this idea”, and “I am optimistic about the success of this idea” (α = 0.96). The measure of the adoption of an idea was made binary, because we only want to know if the idea assessors want to adopt or not adopt the idea. The value of one is taken if a participant adopts the idea and wants the idea to be further developed (scale range: 3,5 – 7), and zero if he or she did reject it (scale range 1 – 3,5).

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Independent Variables Perceived status. Status measures the hierarchical level of an employee in the organization. Group one, two, five and six were presented an idea inventor with a high status while group three, four, seven and eight were reading a text about an idea inventor with a low status. Versions with high status got a fictional high positioned director defined, while low status versions got a mailroom employee who had not been able to achieve a high position in the past ten years. The perceived status was made binary. Groups with high status were given a value of one, low status groups were given a value of zero. To see if all the participants read the experiment well, they were asked two questions about the status of the idea inventor on a scale ranging from 1 (“very strongly disagree”) to 7 (“very strongly agree”): “Does the idea inventor has a high position within the organization?” and, “Is the idea inventor high in the hierarchy of the organization?” (α = 0.97).

Perceived experience. Group one, three, five and seven were presented an idea inventor with high experience, other groups were presented with an idea inventor with low experience. The high experienced inventor was described as someone who is working actively with idea management and repeatedly submitted ideas and gained a lot of experience from this. The low experienced inventor was described as someone who is not working actively with idea management and had no prior experience in submitting ideas. The perceived experience was a binary measure, taking a value of one in the groups with high experience, and zero in the groups with low experience. To see if all the participants read the experiment well, they were asked two questions about the experience of the inventor on a scale that ranging from 1 (“very strongly disagree”) to 7 (“very strongly agree”): “Is the idea inventor practiced in submitting ideas?” and, “Is the idea inventor an expert in submitting ideas?” (α = 0.92).

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Radicality of the idea. Group one to four got an idea presented in a radical way, and group five to eight in a incremental manner. Half of the groups got the idea presented in a radical way by using radical terms as “innovative”, “extreme” and “long-term growth” while the other half of the participants were given incremental terms as “conventional”, “continual” and “short-term growth”. Just like the perceived experience and status, radicality of the idea is a binary measure. Radical is recoded as one, and incremental as zero. The radicality of the idea was also measured with six items derived from those developed by Blohm, Riedl, Leimeister & Krcmar (2011), to confirm again, that the manipulation worked. The dimensions were measured on a 7-point Likert scale ranging from 1 (“very strongly disagree”) to 7 (“very strongly agree”). The scale includes questions like: “The idea is revolutionary”, “The idea is unusual, ingenious and surprising”, and, “The idea is radical” (α = 0.92).

Control Variables I controlled for several characteristics related to the participants (“the idea assessors”) which could influence the participant’s inclination to adopt the idea under certain conditions. Several studies have examined the extent to which gender affects decision making in business environments. The results show that females are less risk seeking than males (Powell and Ansic, 1997; Jjanakoplos and Bernasek, 1998). Therefore, it is expected that men will sooner adopt a radical – more risky – idea than women and, as such I included gender as a control variable. Also, the age of the participants might play a role in the way an idea will be evaluated. It is assumed that older people are more experienced and let themselves less likely be lead by the degree of experience or status level of the inventor. Therefore, I included the control variable age in my regression models. To evaluate ideas in a rational manner, it is necessary that the idea evaluator is open to new ideas. Results of a survey among 126 managers from large international firms shows that evaluation

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teams can improve their decision making by stimulating openness (Hammedi and Van Riel, 2011). According to Chesbourgh (2003), openness to new ideas is beneficial for the innovation of the organization. Openness was measured via the three-item Openness to experience NEO-FFI scale (Costa & MacRae, 1992) and ranging from 1 (“very strongly disagree”) to 7 (“very strongly agree”). To make the scale more reliable I chose to remove one question, which increased the Cronbach’s alpha by 0.06 to 0.70. Furthermore, I controlled for the self-reported creativity of the participants. According to Ekval (2002) it is likely that radical ideas will be more highly assessed by creative people because radical ideas are more creative by nature. This is confirmed by Perry-Smith and Shalley (2003) who claim that radical ideas can be considered as highly creative. Self-reported creativity will be measured with three items developed by Oldham and Cummings (1996). The following questions are translated and used in the experiment: “The work I produce is creative,” “The work I produce is original” and “The work I produce is novel.” It is assumed that individuals with a highly creative job will sooner adopt a radical idea. Responses were coded using a Likert-type scale ranging from 1, “very strongly disagree,” to 7, “very strongly agree” (α = 0.84).

Analysis Logistic regression analysis is used to predict the dependent variable idea adoption based on the binary variables status, experience and the radicality of the idea. The logistic regression makes it possible to identify relational linkages between multiple variables and can establish whether the hypotheses should be rejected or accepted. Before the performing of the logistic regression, several steps were conducted as can be seen in the Statistics in Appendix A. It has been checked for outliers (Table 1), the dependent variable was controlled on a normal distribution (Figure 1). Also a factor analysis (Table 2 and Figure 2) and a reliability analysis (Table 3) were performed and the model is controlled for multicollinearity. In the logistic regression analysis there were no correlations detected

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with r ≥ 0.9. The variance inflation factors (VIF) are checked for the reported models. The values remain below the recommended value of ten.

RESULTS Table 4 summarizes means, standard deviations, and correlations among the study variables. The relation between status of the inventor and adoption of the idea was statistically non significant (r = .04, p > .05 ). The relation between idea radicality and adoption of the idea is also not significant (r = .09, p > 0.05). However, the relation between adoption of the idea and experience of the inventor is significant (r = .14, p < .05), providing some support for Hypothesis 2 that the perceived experience of the inventor results in the adoption of the idea. To predict the adoption of the idea on the basis of the independent variables, logistic regressions were performed stepwise and reported in Table 5.

---------------------------------------Insert Table 4 and 5 about here ----------------------------------------

Status and Idea Adoption Hypothesis 1 states that status of an idea inventor is related to the success of the idea in such a way that, idea inventors with high status get their idea adopted more quickly than low positioned idea inventors. In the second model, reported in Table 5, we can see that there is no statistically significant relation between the perceived status of the inventor and the success of an idea (Table 5 Model 2: b = .19, p > .05). Hypothesis 1 is therefore rejected.

Experience and Idea Adoption

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Hypothesis 2 states that ideas from inventors who work actively with idea management and repeatedly submitted ideas will sooner be adopted than ideas from less experienced idea inventors. A positive significant association was found between the perceived experience of the idea inventor and the adoption of an idea (Table 5, Model 2: b = .60, p < .05). Hypotheses 2 is supported which implies that more ideas are adopted if the experience level of the idea inventor is high.

Idea Radicality and Idea Adoption Hypothesis 3 states that perceived radicality of an idea is negatively associated with idea adoption. This means the more radical the idea is described, the less likely it is adopted. In the second model, reported in Table 5, we can see that there is no statistically significant relation between the idea radicality and the adoption of an idea (Table 5, Model 2: b = .44, p > .05). Hypothesis 3 is therefore rejected.

Status and Experience as Moderators of the Idea Radicality - Idea Adoption Relation Hypothesis 4 states that the perceived status and perceived experience of the idea inventor jointly moderate the relation between the idea radicality and the idea adoption in such way that, relative to inventors with low status and low experience, the relation should be less negative for those who have either high status or high experience, and least negative for those who both have high status and high experience. I found a positive and statistically significant three-way interaction effect (Table 5, Model 4: b = 3.02, p < 0,05). To further analyze this interaction, I plotted the three-way interaction (in Figure 3 and) investigated the paired test of slopes (Table 6) as proposed by Dawson and Richter (2006).

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------------------------------------------------Insert Figure 3 and Table 6 about here -------------------------------------------------

In contrast to my expectations, Figure 3 displays that radical ideas from perceived inventors with high status and high experience are more often adopted than incremental ideas from inventors with perceived high status and experience. Furthermore, Figure 3 displays that radical ideas from perceived inventors with high status and high experience are more often adopted than ideas from inventors with either high status or experience or both low status and experience. In support of this finding, Table 6 shows that the slopes for the relation between idea radicality and idea adoption when status and experience where both high were indeed statistically significantly more positive than the slope when either (t = 4.28, p < 0.01 and t = 7.13, p < 0.01) or both variables were low (t = 4.10, p < 0.01). Hypothesis 4 also assumes that the slopes generated for the relation between idea radicality and idea adoption when either status or experience is low, differs from the slope when both status and experience are low. Expected was that the slope is more positive when only one variable (status or experience) is low, instead of both variables. Results reported in Table 6 show that the relation between idea radicality and adoption of the idea when either status or experience is not more positive than the slope when both variables were low (t = 1.16, p >.05 and t = -2.14, p <0.05). However, the difference between low status and low experience in contrast to low status and high experience is statistically not significant. Hypothesis 4 is rejected because there is no confirmation found that perceived incremental ideas in combination with perceived high status and high experience of the idea inventor increases the chance for idea adoption.

DISCUSSION

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The findings of this study provides partial support for the proposed framework. Contrary to the expectations, there was no significant link between the perceived status of the idea inventor and the adoption of an idea. The same applies to the link between idea radicality and the extent to which an idea will be adopted. However, I found support for the relation between the experience of the idea inventor and the adoption of an idea, which implies that ideas from inventors with previous experiences in the field of ideas will more likely be adopted than ideas from inventors with little experience. There is no confirmation found that perceived incremental ideas in combination with perceived high status and high experience of the idea inventor increases the chance for idea adoption. Surprisingly, I did find a significant relation between the perceived radical ideas in combination with perceived high status and high experience of the idea inventor resulting in an increased chance for idea adoption. These results offers opportunities and challenges for academics and practitioners who are interested in the idea selection (biases) about ideas. Theoretical Implications This study explored how the idea selection is influenced by perceived characteristics of the idea inventor, and an interaction between perceived characteristics and the type of an idea and how organizations can maximize the selection effectiveness. Previous work has mainly focused on idea generation, not the selection decision, as a predictor of adoption (e.g., Axtell et al., 2000; Clegg et al., 2002; Frese et al., 1999). The research shed light on calls for more empirical work of biases in idea selection. More specifically, it support studies of Rietzschel et al. (2010), Licuanan et al. (2007) and Reitzig et al. (in press) by stressing the influence of implicit idea selection criteria. In contrast to what I expected, I found no significant relation between perceived status and idea selection. This is contrary to other studies (Green et al. 2003; Stuart et al. 1999). Several studies show that the organizational culture, including status of an employee, has a major impact on the values of employees and behavioral responses (O’Reilly and Chatman, 1966; Locke, 1976). An explanation for the finding of this study,

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may be that employees of the examined organization attach value to other things and status is not that important. Also, I found not direct relation between idea radicality and idea selection. This is in contradiction with other studies (Blair et al., 2007; Rice et al., 2001). However, an interaction between perceived status, perceived experience and radicality of an idea does influence the idea selection process. This may complement studies of Levy et al. (1994) and Lamont et al. (1977) indicating that the multitude of factors works convincing and therefore idea assessors will be biased. The study may also clarify a part of the unexplained phenomenon why idea assessors are unable in adopting the best ideas (Rietzschel et al. 2010) and contributes to the stream of research recognizing that decision makers are influenced by biases in beliefs (Simonton, 1995; Simon, 1993) Simultaneously it invalidates other literature that states idea selection is completely rational (Basadur et al. 2000; Runco et al. 1992). This study proves that the experience of the inventor and the threefold interaction between the experience and status of the inventor and the description of an idea influences the idea selection process. The decision to adopt an idea is not made in a rational way. This research is one of the first to directly address the decision making bias to idea selection focusing on this specific characteristics of the idea inventor. This can inform our understanding that these findings have implications for other streams of research studying, for example for theories of organizational alliance behavior. Several studies show that alliances between multiple organizations are influenced by partner characteristics such as the firm’s reputation and history which influences the decision of the willingness to “partner” with another organization (Dollinger, Golden and Saxton, 1997; Harrigan, 1986). It is even claimed that partner characteristics are the focal point for understanding alliance behavior (Saxton, 1997). Moreover, the findings of this study can be applied in contexts where rational decisions must taken whereby personal or organizational characteristics - which may affect the selection - are also visible for the decision makers. Another context in which this is the case is in medical decision making. Research shows that doctors can have difficulties and multiple biases in medical judgments, for instance, in diagnosing the patients (Bornstein and Emler, 2001). For

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example, the study of Verbrugge and Steiner (1981) reveals that women (after controlling for medically relevant factors) get more medical care than men. Other personal characteristics, the way a patient brings the problem or a combination of this could bias the diagnosis of the doctor. My study shows that personal characteristics affect the selection in decision making processes. This finding can help other streams of research by making them aware of this bias and take this into account within their own research.

Managerial Implications The results of this study show a number of interesting managerial implications. This study offers insights for managers on how they might structure their idea evaluation process. Managers need to be aware that some of their potentially most productive ideas will possibly never be realized because of the selection bias in the initiation stage of idea adoption. Although, organizations may have good reasons to focus on idea generation and implementation, the results of this study show that idea selection is a fragile endeavor for the innovations success of the organization that requires systematic attention and needs to be conducted in a rational way. One of the main purposes of this study is to make an organization aware of the presence of the selection bias in idea adoption, so that managers can restructure their idea evaluation process to minimize the selection bias. This bias can be minimized by, for example, providing only information about the idea itself and disclose any information about the idea inventor. Another option to minimize this bias is to evaluate an idea with two or more idea assessors in the initiation stage of idea adoption (Armstrong, 2001). If organizations are able to minimize this selection bias it will increase the chance that only the best ideas will be adopted, which subsequently results in saving the organizations a lot of money and thereby also improves the competitiveness of the organization (Axtell et al., 2000).

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In addition, this study lowers the threshold for idea inventors if organizations restructure the idea evaluation process. On one hand, this study reveals that there is no relationship between the perceived status of the idea inventor and the idea adoption in the initiation stage. There is also no relationship between idea radicality and idea adoption. On the other hand, the experience level of the idea inventor and the combination of status, experience and idea radicality does play a role in the idea adoption. When idea inventors become aware of the fact that the above mentioned variables does not affect whether an idea will be adopted or rejected, employees might be more encouraged to submit ideas. Ideas of low experienced inventors would normally be rejected immediately because of selection bias will now get a chance to achieve success in the organization.

Limitations and Future Research There are some limitations in my study that present opportunities for future research. A first concern could be that this study only focuses on the selection bias in the initiation stage of the idea adoption process. The process of moving from idea to implementation involves numerous stages (Reitzig and Sorenson, in press). It is essential to study the bias in all stages to determine how innovations develop in organizations over time. One can imagine that the bias in the initiation stage of idea selection is less strong compared to the bias in other adoption stages, due to the fact that the idea assessor builds up a personal relationship with increases the selection bias. Thus, I call for future research to examine whether the bias in idea adoption in the initiation stage differs from bias in other stages in the idea adoption process. Another possibility for future research is to explore what happens with the selection bias if two or more idea assessors jointly evaluate an idea. Results from forecasting studies show that the inclusion of multiple, various idea assessors instead of one appears beneficial for the idea selection process (Armstrong, 2001). Within an organization, these idea assessors may represent different organizational

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departments, such as marketing, R&D, and production which will likely lead to a more rational considered decision. Interactions among idea assessors also should increase the quality of their evaluations. Interactive and iterative evaluation techniques, like the Delphi method, provide the idea assessors the ability to learn from one another and improve overall decision quality (Rowe and Wright, 1999). By the above arguments it is likely that idea assessors are less biased when two or more evaluate an idea and they interact with each other. It is interesting for future research to explore to which extent the bias changes by evaluating an idea by two or more idea assessors instead of one idea assessor. Unfortunately, I was not able to conduct the experiment with official idea assessors. Instead, employees participated whereby the majority of the participants has little experience with assessing ideas. It is assumed that official idea assessors judge an idea differently than people with little or no experience in assessing ideas. Official idea assessors probably pay more attention to evaluation criteria like novelty, workability, relevance and specificity in comparison to “unofficial idea assessors” who pay less attention to these criteria. Future research could conduct the experiment with official idea assessors and test whether the results differ from the results of this study. The data of the study is gathered from one single organization. Examining only one organization limits the generalizability of the results. Selection bias in idea adoption appears to have an effect on the evaluation of ideas in this particular organization but this effect may be different in other organizations or contexts. I would expect that the bias will be stronger in organizations whereby status and experience of the employee is considered as very important. It would be, for instance, interesting to perform this study in the medical sector. Doctors have a high status and gain a lot of respect from the management and can exert a lot of influence with this status (Hallier and Forbes, 2005). It also would be interesting to conduct this study in an organization which is more focused on the implementation of radical ideas to investigate if there is a (significant) relationship between idea radicality and idea adoption.

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Finally, my study shows that the Wald chi-square and the pseudo R-square (Table 5) are statistically not significant in all models suggesting that other factors that are not measured influence the idea adoption. Other factors that may play a role in the idea adoption could be for example the social network of the idea inventor or the number of inventors. Rietzschel et al. (2006) shows that the number of inventors certainly plays a role in idea selection. Further research could examine these other factors that may bias the idea adoption process.

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS I would like to thank the telecom operator for giving me the opportunity to conduct this research in their organization. Special thanks goes to Harald den Houter for providing me with the possibilities to perform my experiment as good as possible. Furthermore, I would like to thank the employees for their participation during the experiment. I would also like to express my appreciation to Nicoletta Dimotrova for her input in my experiment and her useful feedback. Special gratitude goes out to my supervisor Dirk Deichmann for all of his efforts and for supporting me throughout the whole process.

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and

irrational.

Educational

Simonton, D.K. 1995. Foresight in insight? A Darwinian answer. In R.J. Sternberg and J.E. Davidson (eds.). The nature of insight. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 465-494. Smith, F.L., Stone, T.H., Kisamore, J.L., Jawahar, I.M. 2010. Decision-making biases and affective

37

states: their potential impact on best practice innovations. Canadian Journal of Administrative Sciences, 27: 277-291. Stuart, T., Hoang, H. & Hybels, R. 1999. Interorganizational endorsements and the performance of entrepreneurial ventures. Administrative Science Quarterly, 44(2): 315-349. Tellis, G.J., Prabhu, C.J.& Chandy, R.K. 2009. Radical innovations across nations. The preeminence of corporate culture. Journal of Marketing, 73: 3-23. Tushman, M.L. & Romanelli, E. 1985. Organizational evolution: a metamorphosis model of convergence and reorientation. Research in Organizational Behavior, 7: 171-222. Toubia, O. 2006. Idea generation, creativity and incentives. Marketing Science, 25(5): 411-425. Tversky, A., & Kahneman, D. (1974). Judgment under uncertainty: Heuristics and biases. Science, 185: 1124–1131. Utterback, J.M. 1994. Mastering the dynamics of innovation: how companies can seize opportunities in the face of technological change. Boston: Harvard Business School Press. Verbrugge, L.M., Steiner, R.P. Physician treatment of men and women patients: Sex bias or appropriate care? 1981. Journal of Medical Care, 19(6): 567-692. Watson, D., & Tellegen, A. (1985). Toward a consensual structure of mood. Psychological Bulletin, 98(2): 219–235. West, M.A. 2002. Sparkling fountains or stagnant ponds: An integrative model of creativity and innovation in work groups. Applied psychology: An international review, 52: 355-424. Wherry, R. J. and Bartlett, C. J. 1982. The control of bias in ratings: A theory of rating. Personnel Psychology, 35: 521–55. Wilson, T.D. & Bar-Anan, Y. 2008. The unseen mind. Science, 321:1046-1047. Wolfe, R.A. 1994. Organizational innovation; review, critique and suggested research directions. Journal of Management Studies, 31(3): 405-431. Woodman, R.W., Sawyer, J.E. & Griffin, R.W. 1993.Toward a theory of organizational creativity. Academy of Management Review, 18: 293-321. Zajonc, R.B. 1968. Attitudinal effects of mere exposure. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 9(2): 1-27. Zaltman, G., Duncan, R., & Holbek, J. 1973. Innovations and organizations. New York: Wiley.

38

APPENDIX A. Statistical Output Table 1 Test for Outliers Idea Adoption

Highest 1 2 3 4 5 Lowest

1 2 3 4 5

Case Number 110 92 179 221 156

Value 7,00 6,89 6,78 6,67 6,56

218 227 133 109 175

1,00 1,11 1,11 1,11 1,33

39

Table 2 Factor Loadings Idea Adoption (adopt), Perceived Status (stat), Perceived Experience (exp), Perceived Idea Radicality (rad), Idea Openness (open), Self Reported Creativity (crea)

1 Items Adopt potential Adopt positve Adopt trust Adopt optimism Adopt promoting Adopt support Adopt development Adopt approval Adopt realising Stat high positioned Stat high hierarchy Exp practiced Exp expert Rad new Rad unique Rad unusual Rad brilliant Rad revolutionair Rad radical Open fun Open open Crea creative Crea original Crea new

2

Factor 3 4

5

6

0.82 0.87 0.88 0.82 0.88 0.93 0.86 0.83 0.90 0.96 0.96 0.98 0.97 0.77 0.87 0.82 0.82 0.85 0.78 0.81 0.70 0.77 0.93 0.72

Dropped items Open confusing

0.40 Table 3 Reliability Analysis

Variables Cronbach's Alpha Idea adoption 0.96 Idea status 0.97 Idea experience 0.92 Idea radicality 0.92 Idea openess 0.70 Idea creativity 0.84

N of items 9 2 2 6 2 3

40

Table 4 Means, Standard Deviations, and Correlations among All Variablesa Variables Mean Min Max SD 1 2 b 1. Gender 1.17 1 2 0.38 c 2. Age 40.93 20 64 10.58 -0.11 3. Self reported creativity 4.43 1 7 1.16 -0.02 0.08 4. Idea openness 5.65 3 7 1.01 -0.15* 0.08 5. Status level 0.51 0 1 0.50 -0.00 -0.04 6. Experience level 0.51 0 1 0.50 0.00 0.03 7. Idea radicality 0.50 0 1 0.50 -0.07 0.05 8. Adoption 0.71 0 1 0.45 0.00 0.02 a n = 241 (listwise deletion). b (1 = men, 2 = women). c (in years). * p < .05 ** p < .01

3

4

5

0.45** -0.16* -0.03 0.09 -0.02 -0.08 -0.03 0.05 0.04

0.00 0.00 0.04

6

7

-0.02 0.14* 0.08

Table 5 Logistic Regression Results of Adoptiona Variable Constant Gender Age Self reported creativity Idea openness Status level Experience level Idea radicality Status level x experience level Status level x radicality of the idea Experience level x radicality of the idea Status level x experience level x radicality of the idea Wald χ2 Pseudo R2 -2 log-likelihood a n = 241 (listwise deletion). + p < .10 * p < .05 ** p < .01 Two tailed tests.

Model 1 0.13 (1.13) 0.14 (0.39) 0.01 (0.01) 0.06 (0.14) 0.03 (0.16)

Model 2 -0.57 (1.18) 0.18 (0.40) 0.00 (0.01) 0.06 (0.14) 0.05 (0.16) 0.19 (0.29) 0.60* (0.29) 0.44 (0.29)

0.624 0.00 288.003

7.549 0.04 281.078

Model 3 Model 4 -0.73 (1.23) -1.33 (1.26) 0.23 (0.41) 0.23 (0.41) 0.00 (0.01) 0.00 (0.01) 0.07 (0.14) 0.07 (0.15) 0.05 (0.16) 0.10 (0.17) 0.03 (0.48) 0.56 (0.54) 1.07* (0.51) 1.87* (0.66) 0.60 (0.48) 1.25* (0.57) -0.07 (0.59) 1.52+ (0.86) 0.51 (0.59) -0.80 (0.80) -0.93 (0.59) -2.42* (0.88) 3.02* (1.25) 10.747 16.886 0.06 0.10 277.880 297.897

41

Table 6 Results of t-Test of slope differences Slope pairs

t-value

Status levelhigh and Experience levelhigh vs.

4.28**

Status levelhigh and Experience levellow Status levelhigh and Experience levelhigh vs. Status level

low

and Experience level

Status levelhigh and Experience levelhigh vs. Status level Status level

low

high

and Experience level

7.13**

high

4.10**

low

and Experience levellow vs.

2.42*

Status levellow and Experience levelhigh Status levelhigh and Experience levellow vs. Status level

low

and Experience level

1.16

low

Status levellow and Experience levelhigh vs. Status levellow and Experience levellow * p < .05 ** p < .01

Figure 1 Normal Q-Q plot of Idea Adoption

–2.14*

42

Figure 2 Scree Plot of Idea Adoption

Figure 3 Interaction Effect of Idea Radicality, Inventors’ Status Level, and Inventors’ Experience Level on the Adoption of the Idea

43

APPENDIX B. Experiment Alle verstrekte informatie op dit formulier is fictief.

Versie A.

Ik wil u vragen zich in te leven in de volgende situatie: U zit in de beoordelingscommissie bij KPN en mag vandaag het nieuwe idee van een directielid gaan beoordelen. Het directielid is van middelbare leeftijd en heeft in 10 jaar een hoge positie binnen KPN weten te bereiken. Samen met de twee andere leden van de beoordelingscommissie wacht u tot de directeur zijn nieuwe idee aan jullie komt presenteren. Het directielid is actief met ideemanagement bezig. Het directielid heeft in het verleden meerdere malen ideeën ingediend en heeft hierdoor veel ervaring opgedaan over het ideeproces (idee generatie tot idee implementatie). Het directielid presenteert het idee als volgt: “Het is een vernieuwend, extreem idee dat niet in lijn ligt met de andere diensten die KPN aanbiedt. Het idee moet zorgen voor groei op lange termijn en de relatie met de klant veranderen. Dit is het idee: een nieuwe dienst aanbieden, namelijk “het nieuwe vergaderen”. KPN zal bedrijven en consumenten gaan faciliteren in het nieuwe vergaderen. Dit betekent onder andere dat niet iedereen fysiek aanwezig hoeft te zijn in de vergaderingen en er staand vergaderd kan worden hetgeen de efficiëntie kan bevorderen.” Heeft u dit idee al eens eerder gezien?

Ja

Nee

Het directielid vraagt u of u ter plekke het nieuwe idee wil beoordelen op de volgende punten (1 = helemaal oneens, 7 = helemaal eens): helemaal oneens helemaal eens 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 Het idee is vernieuwend Het idee is uniek Het idee is vindingrijk, ongewoon of verrassend Het idee is briljant Het idee is revolutionair Het idee is radicaal Het idee heeft potentie Ik ben positief over dit idee Ik heb vertrouwen in dit idee Ik ben optimistisch over het succes van dit idee Ik wil dit idee promoten Ik wil dit idee steunen Ik zou dit idee graag verder zien ontwikkelen Ik vind dat dit idee moet worden goedgekeurd Ik wil dat dit idee gerealiseerd wordt Als het idee verder wordt ontwikkeld, vind ik het: Een vernieuwend idee Een duidelijk en toepasbaar idee Een technisch en economisch haalbaar idee

44

Wat vind u van het directielid? Ervaren op het gebied van ideeën indienen Deskundig op het gebied van ideeën indienen Staat hoog in de hiërarchie Heeft een hoge positie binnen KPN

helemaal oneens 1 2

3

4

5

helemaal eens 6 7

Graag wil ik u vragen nog wat achtergrondinformatie over uzelf in te vullen. 1. Wat is uw geslacht? man vrouw 2. Wat is uw leeftijd?

….. jaar

3. Wat is uw hoogst genoten opleiding? Geen Mavo/havo/Vwo MBO HBO WO 4. Hoeveel jaar ben u werkzaam bij KPN?

…… jaar

5. Wat is uw functie binnen KPN? Midden management Consultant Technisch specialist Anders, namelijk… 6. Mijn functieniveau wordt het best omschreven als: Hoog Middel Laag 7. Heeft u ervaring in beoordelen van nieuwe ideeën (binnen KPN of een andere organisatie?) Nooit Een enkele keer Soms Regelmatig Vaak 8. In hoeverre bent u het eens met de volgende stellingen? (1 = helemaal oneens, 4 = helemaal eens) helemaal oneens helemaal eens 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 Het werk dat ik produceer is creatief Het werk dat ik produceer is origineel Het werk dat ik produceer is nieuw Ik vind dat mensen alleen maar in verwarring worden gebracht door ze te laten luisteren naar sprekers met afwijkende ideeën Ik heb vaak plezier in het spelen met theorieen of abstracte ideeen Ik sta open voor nieuwe ideeën Graag wil ik u heel erg bedanken voor uw medewerking!

45

Alle verstrekte informatie op dit formulier is fictief.

Versie B.

Ik wil u vragen zich in te leven in de volgende situatie: U zit in de beoordelingscommissie bij KPN en mag vandaag het nieuwe idee van een directielid gaan beoordelen. Het directielid is van middelbare leeftijd en heeft in 10 jaar een hoge positie binnen KPN weten te bereiken. Samen met de twee andere leden van de beoordelingscommissie wacht u tot de directeur zijn nieuwe idee aan jullie komt presenteren. Het directielid is niet actief met ideemanagement bezig. Het directielid heeft in het verleden nog nooit eerder een idee ingediend en heeft hierdoor nog geen eerdere ervaringen opgedaan over het ideeproces (idee generatie tot idee implementatie). Het directielid presenteert het idee als volgt: “Het is een vernieuwend, extreem idee dat niet in lijn ligt met de andere diensten die KPN aanbiedt. Het idee moet zorgen voor groei op lange termijn en de relatie met de klant veranderen. Dit is het idee: een nieuwe dienst aanbieden, namelijk “het nieuwe vergaderen”. KPN zal bedrijven en consumenten gaan faciliteren in het nieuwe vergaderen. Dit betekent onder andere dat niet iedereen fysiek aanwezig hoeft te zijn in de vergaderingen en er staand vergaderd kan worden hetgeen de efficiëntie kan bevorderen.” Heeft u dit idee al eens eerder gezien?

Ja

Nee

Het directielid vraagt u of u ter plekke het nieuwe idee wil beoordelen op de volgende punten (1 = helemaal oneens, 7 = helemaal eens): helemaal oneens helemaal eens 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 Het idee is vernieuwend Het idee is uniek Het idee is vindingrijk, ongewoon of verrassend Het idee is briljant Het idee is revolutionair Het idee is radicaal Het idee heeft potentie Ik ben positief over dit idee Ik heb vertrouwen in dit idee Ik ben optimistisch over het succes van dit idee Ik wil dit idee promoten Ik wil dit idee steunen Ik zou dit idee graag verder zien ontwikkelen Ik vind dat dit idee moet worden goedgekeurd Ik wil dat dit idee gerealiseerd wordt Als het idee verder wordt ontwikkeld, vind ik het: Een vernieuwend idee Een duidelijk en toepasbaar idee Een technisch en economisch haalbaar idee

46

Wat vind u van het directielid? Ervaren op het gebied van ideeën indienen Deskundig op het gebied van ideeën indienen Staat hoog in de hiërarchie Heeft een hoge positie binnen KPN

helemaal oneens 1 2

3

4

5

helemaal eens 6 7

Graag wil ik u vragen nog wat achtergrondinformatie over uzelf in te vullen. 1. Wat is uw geslacht? man vrouw 2. Wat is uw leeftijd?

….. jaar

3. Wat is uw hoogst genoten opleiding? Geen Mavo/havo/Vwo MBO HBO WO 4. Hoeveel jaar ben u werkzaam bij KPN?

…… jaar

5. Wat is uw functie binnen KPN? Midden management Consultant Technisch specialist Anders, namelijk… 6. Mijn functieniveau wordt het best omschreven als: Hoog Middel Laag 7. Heeft u ervaring in beoordelen van nieuwe ideeën (binnen KPN of een andere organisatie?) Nooit Een enkele keer Soms Regelmatig Vaak 8. In hoeverre bent u het eens met de volgende stellingen? (1 = helemaal oneens, 4 = helemaal eens) helemaal oneens helemaal eens 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 Het werk dat ik produceer is creatief Het werk dat ik produceer is origineel Het werk dat ik produceer is nieuw Ik vind dat mensen alleen maar in verwarring worden gebracht door ze te laten luisteren naar sprekers met afwijkende ideeën Ik heb vaak plezier in het spelen met theorieen of abstracte ideeen Ik sta open voor nieuwe ideeën Graag wil ik u heel erg bedanken voor uw medewerking!

47

Alle verstrekte informatie op dit formulier is fictief.

Versie C.

Ik wil u vragen zich in te leven in de volgende situatie: U zit in de beoordelingscommissie bij KPN en mag vandaag het nieuwe idee van een postkamer medewerker gaan beoordelen. De postkamer medewerker is van middelbare leeftijd en heeft in 10 jaar geen hogere positie in KPN weten te bereiken. Samen met de twee andere leden van de beoordelingscommissie wacht u tot de administratief medewerker zijn nieuwe idee aan jullie komt presenteren. De postkamer medewerker is actief met ideemanagement bezig. De medewerker heeft in het verleden meerdere malen ideeën ingediend en heeft hierdoor veel ervaring opgedaan over het ideeproces (idee generatie tot idee implementatie). De postkamer medewerker presenteert het idee als volgt: “Het is een vernieuwend, extreem idee dat niet in lijn ligt met de andere diensten die KPN aanbiedt. Het idee moet zorgen voor groei op lange termijn en de relatie met de klant veranderen. Dit is het idee: een nieuwe dienst aanbieden, namelijk “het nieuwe vergaderen”. KPN zal bedrijven en consumenten gaan faciliteren in het nieuwe vergaderen. Dit betekent onder andere dat niet iedereen fysiek aanwezig hoeft te zijn in de vergaderingen en er staand vergaderd kan worden hetgeen de efficiëntie kan bevorderen.” Heeft u dit idee al eens eerder gezien?

Ja

Nee

De postkamer medewerker vraagt u of u ter plekke het nieuwe idee wil beoordelen op de volgende punten. (1 = helemaal oneens, 7 = helemaal eens): helemaal oneens helemaal eens 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 Het idee is vernieuwend Het idee is uniek Het idee is vindingrijk, ongewoon of verrassend Het idee is briljant Het idee is revolutionair Het idee is radicaal Het idee heeft potentie Ik ben positief over dit idee Ik heb vertrouwen in dit idee Ik ben optimistisch over het succes van dit idee Ik wil dit idee promoten Ik wil dit idee steunen Ik zou dit idee graag verder zien ontwikkelen Ik vind dat dit idee moet worden goedgekeurd Ik wil dat dit idee gerealiseerd wordt Als het idee verder wordt ontwikkeld, vind ik het: Een vernieuwend idee Een duidelijk en toepasbaar idee Een technisch en economisch haalbaar idee

48

Wat vind u van de postkamer mw? Ervaren op het gebied van ideeën indienen Deskundig op het gebied van ideeën indienen Staat hoog in de hiërarchie Heeft een hoge positie binnen KPN

helemaal oneens 1 2 3

4

5

6

helemaal eens 7

Graag wil ik u vragen nog wat achtergrondinformatie over uzelf in te vullen. 1. Wat is uw geslacht? man vrouw 2. Wat is uw leeftijd?

….. jaar

3. Wat is uw hoogst genoten opleiding? Geen Mavo/havo/Vwo MBO HBO WO 4. Hoeveel jaar ben u werkzaam bij KPN?

…… jaar

5. Wat is uw functie binnen KPN? Midden management Consultant Technisch specialist Anders, namelijk… 6. Mijn functieniveau wordt het best omschreven als: Hoog Middel Laag 7. Heeft u ervaring in beoordelen van nieuwe ideeën (binnen KPN of een andere organisatie?) Nooit Een enkele keer Soms Regelmatig Vaak 8. In hoeverre bent u het eens met de volgende stellingen? (1 = helemaal oneens, 4 = helemaal eens) helemaal oneens helemaal eens 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 Het werk dat ik produceer is creatief Het werk dat ik produceer is origineel Het werk dat ik produceer is nieuw Ik vind dat mensen alleen maar in verwarring worden gebracht door ze te laten luisteren naar sprekers met afwijkende ideeën Ik heb vaak plezier in het spelen met theorieen of abstracte ideeen Ik sta open voor nieuwe ideeën Graag wil ik u heel erg bedanken voor uw medewerking!

49

Alle verstrekte informatie op dit formulier is fictief.

Versie D.

Ik wil u vragen zich in te leven in de volgende situatie: U zit in de beoordelingscommissie bij KPN en mag vandaag het nieuwe idee van een postkamer medewerker gaan beoordelen. De administratief medewerker is van middelbare leeftijd en heeft in 10 jaar geen hogere positie in KPN weten te bereiken. Samen met de twee andere leden van de beoordelingscommissie wacht u tot de administratief medewerker zijn nieuwe idee aan jullie komt presenteren. De postkamer medewerker is niet actief met ideemanagement bezig. De medewerker heeft in het verleden nog nooit eerder een idee ingediend en heeft hierdoor nog geen eerdere ervaringen opgedaan over het ideeproces (idee generatie tot idee implementatie). De postkamer medewerker presenteert het idee als volgt: “Het is een vernieuwend, extreem idee dat niet in lijn ligt met de andere diensten die KPN aanbiedt. Het idee moet zorgen voor groei op lange termijn en de relatie met de klant veranderen. Dit is het idee: een nieuwe dienst aanbieden, namelijk “het nieuwe vergaderen”. KPN zal bedrijven en consumenten gaan faciliteren in het nieuwe vergaderen. Dit betekent onder andere dat niet iedereen fysiek aanwezig hoeft te zijn in de vergaderingen en er staand vergaderd kan worden hetgeen de efficiëntie kan bevorderen.” Heeft u dit idee al eens eerder gezien?

Ja

Nee

De postkamer medewerker vraagt u of u ter plekke het nieuwe idee wil beoordelen op de volgende punten. (1 = helemaal oneens, 7 = helemaal eens): helemaal oneens helemaal eens 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 Het idee is vernieuwend Het idee is uniek Het idee is vindingrijk, ongewoon of verrassend Het idee is briljant Het idee is revolutionair Het idee is radicaal Het idee heeft potentie Ik ben positief over dit idee Ik heb vertrouwen in dit idee Ik ben optimistisch over het succes van dit idee Ik wil dit idee promoten Ik wil dit idee steunen Ik zou dit idee graag verder zien ontwikkelen Ik vind dat dit idee moet worden goedgekeurd Ik wil dat dit idee gerealiseerd wordt Als het idee verder wordt ontwikkeld, vind ik het: Een vernieuwend idee Een duidelijk en toepasbaar idee Een technisch en economisch haalbaar idee

50

Wat vind u van de postkamer mw.? Ervaren op het gebied van ideeën indienen Deskundig op het gebied van ideeën indienen Staat hoog in de hiërarchie Heeft een hoge positie binnen KPN

helemaal oneens 1 2 3

4

5

6

helemaal eens 7

Graag wil ik u vragen nog wat achtergrondinformatie over uzelf in te vullen. 1. Wat is uw geslacht? man vrouw 2. Wat is uw leeftijd?

….. jaar

3. Wat is uw hoogst genoten opleiding? Geen Mavo/havo/Vwo MBO HBO WO 4. Hoeveel jaar ben u werkzaam bij KPN?

…… jaar

5. Wat is uw functie binnen KPN? Midden management Consultant Technisch specialist Anders, namelijk… 6. Mijn functieniveau wordt het best omschreven als: Hoog Middel Laag 7. Heeft u ervaring in beoordelen van nieuwe ideeën (binnen KPN of een andere organisatie?) Nooit Een enkele keer Soms Regelmatig Vaak 8. In hoeverre bent u het eens met de volgende stellingen? (1 = helemaal oneens, 4 = helemaal eens) helemaal oneens helemaal eens 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 Het werk dat ik produceer is creatief Het werk dat ik produceer is origineel Het werk dat ik produceer is nieuw Ik vind dat mensen alleen maar in verwarring worden gebracht door ze te laten luisteren naar sprekers met afwijkende ideeën Ik heb vaak plezier in het spelen met theorieen of abstracte ideeen Ik sta open voor nieuwe ideeën Graag wil ik u heel erg bedanken voor uw medewerking!

51

Alle verstrekte informatie op dit formulier is fictief.

Versie E.

Ik wil u vragen zich in te leven in de volgende situatie: U zit in de beoordelingscommissie bij KPN en mag vandaag het nieuwe idee van een directielid gaan beoordelen. Het directielid is van middelbare leeftijd en heeft in 10 jaar een hoge positie binnen KPN weten te bereiken. Samen met de twee andere leden van de beoordelingscommissie wacht u tot de directeur zijn nieuwe idee aan jullie komt presenteren. Het directielid is actief met ideemanagement bezig. Het directielid heeft in het verleden meerdere malen ideeën ingediend en heeft hierdoor veel ervaring opgedaan over het ideeproces (idee generatie tot idee implementatie). Het directielid presenteert het idee als volgt: “Het is een voortbouwend, gangbaar idee dat in lijn ligt met de andere diensten die KPN aanbiedt. Het idee moet zorgen voor groei op korte termijn en de relatie met de klant versterken. Dit is het idee: de bestaande dienst ‘het nieuwe werken’ uitbreiden door “het nieuwe vergaderen”. KPN zal bedrijven en consumenten gaan faciliteren in het nieuwe vergaderen. Dit betekent onder andere dat niet iedereen fysiek aanwezig hoeft te zijn in de vergaderingen en er staand vergaderd kan worden hetgeen de efficiëntie kan bevorderen.” Heeft u dit idee al eens eerder gezien?

Ja

Nee

Het directielid vraagt u of u ter plekke het nieuwe idee wil beoordelen op de volgende punten (1 = helemaal oneens, 7 = helemaal eens): helemaal oneens helemaal eens 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 Het idee is vernieuwend Het idee is uniek Het idee is vindingrijk, ongewoon of verrassend Het idee is briljant Het idee is revolutionair Het idee is radicaal Het idee heeft potentie Ik ben positief over dit idee Ik heb vertrouwen in dit idee Ik ben optimistisch over het succes van dit idee Ik wil dit idee promoten Ik wil dit idee steunen Ik zou dit idee graag verder zien ontwikkelen Ik vind dat dit idee moet worden goedgekeurd Ik wil dat dit idee gerealiseerd wordt Als het idee verder wordt ontwikkeld, vind ik het: Een vernieuwend idee Een duidelijk en toepasbaar idee Een technisch en economisch haalbaar idee

52

Wat vind u van het directielid? Ervaren op het gebied van ideeën indienen Deskundig op het gebied van ideeën indienen Staat hoog in de hiërarchie Heeft een hoge positie binnen KPN

helemaal oneens 1 2

3

4

5

helemaal eens 6 7

Graag wil ik u vragen nog wat achtergrondinformatie over uzelf in te vullen. 1. Wat is uw geslacht? man vrouw 2. Wat is uw leeftijd?

….. jaar

3. Wat is uw hoogst genoten opleiding? Geen Mavo/havo/Vwo MBO HBO WO 4. Hoeveel jaar ben u werkzaam bij KPN?

…… jaar

5. Wat is uw functie binnen KPN? Midden management Consultant Technisch specialist Anders, namelijk… 6. Mijn functieniveau wordt het best omschreven als: Hoog Middel Laag 7. Heeft u ervaring in beoordelen van nieuwe ideeën (binnen KPN of een andere organisatie?) Nooit Een enkele keer Soms Regelmatig Vaak 8. In hoeverre bent u het eens met de volgende stellingen? (1 = helemaal oneens, 4 = helemaal eens) helemaal oneens helemaal eens 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 Het werk dat ik produceer is creatief Het werk dat ik produceer is origineel Het werk dat ik produceer is nieuw Ik vind dat mensen alleen maar in verwarring worden gebracht door ze te laten luisteren naar sprekers met afwijkende ideeën Ik heb vaak plezier in het spelen met theorieen of abstracte ideeen Ik sta open voor nieuwe ideeën Graag wil ik u heel erg bedanken voor uw medewerking!

53

Alle verstrekte informatie op dit formulier is fictief.

Versie F.

Ik wil u vragen zich in te leven in de volgende situatie: U zit in de beoordelingscommissie bij KPN en mag vandaag het nieuwe idee van een directielid gaan beoordelen. Het directielid is van middelbare leeftijd en heeft in 10 jaar een hoge positie binnen KPN weten te bereiken. Samen met de twee andere leden van de beoordelingscommissie wacht u tot de directeur zijn nieuwe idee aan jullie komt presenteren. Het directielid is niet actief met ideemanagement bezig. Het directielid heeft in het verleden nog nooit eerder een idee ingediend en heeft hierdoor nog geen eerdere ervaringen opgedaan over het ideeproces (idee generatie tot idee implementatie). Het directielid presenteert het idee als volgt: “Het is een voortbouwend, gangbaar idee dat in lijn ligt met de andere diensten die KPN aanbiedt. Het idee moet zorgen voor groei op korte termijn en de relatie met de klant versterken. Dit is het idee: de bestaande dienst ‘het nieuwe werken’ uitbreiden door “het nieuwe vergaderen”. KPN zal bedrijven en consumenten gaan faciliteren in het nieuwe vergaderen. Dit betekent onder andere dat niet iedereen fysiek aanwezig hoeft te zijn in de vergaderingen en er staand vergaderd kan worden hetgeen de efficiëntie kan bevorderen.” Heeft u dit idee al eens eerder gezien?

Ja

Nee

Het directielid vraagt u of u ter plekke het nieuwe idee wil beoordelen op de volgende punten (1 = helemaal oneens, 7 = helemaal eens): helemaal oneens helemaal eens 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 Het idee is vernieuwend Het idee is uniek Het idee is vindingrijk, ongewoon of verrassend Het idee is briljant Het idee is revolutionair Het idee is radicaal Het idee heeft potentie Ik ben positief over dit idee Ik heb vertrouwen in dit idee Ik ben optimistisch over het succes van dit idee Ik wil dit idee promoten Ik wil dit idee steunen Ik zou dit idee graag verder zien ontwikkelen Ik vind dat dit idee moet worden goedgekeurd Ik wil dat dit idee gerealiseerd wordt Als het idee verder wordt ontwikkeld, vind ik het: Een vernieuwend idee Een duidelijk en toepasbaar idee Een technisch en economisch haalbaar idee

54

Wat vind u van het directielid? Ervaren op het gebied van ideeën indienen Deskundig op het gebied van ideeën indienen Staat hoog in de hiërarchie Heeft een hoge positie binnen KPN

helemaal oneens 1 2

3

4

5

helemaal eens 6 7

Graag wil ik u vragen nog wat achtergrondinformatie over uzelf in te vullen. 1. Wat is uw geslacht? man vrouw 2. Wat is uw leeftijd?

….. jaar

3. Wat is uw hoogst genoten opleiding? Geen Mavo/havo/Vwo MBO HBO WO 4. Hoeveel jaar ben u werkzaam bij KPN?

…… jaar

5. Wat is uw functie binnen KPN? Midden management Consultant Technisch specialist Anders, namelijk… 6. Mijn functieniveau wordt het best omschreven als: Hoog Middel Laag 7. Heeft u ervaring in beoordelen van nieuwe ideeën (binnen KPN of een andere organisatie?) Nooit Een enkele keer Soms Regelmatig Vaak 8. In hoeverre bent u het eens met de volgende stellingen? (1 = helemaal oneens, 4 = helemaal eens) helemaal oneens helemaal eens 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 Het werk dat ik produceer is creatief Het werk dat ik produceer is origineel Het werk dat ik produceer is nieuw Ik vind dat mensen alleen maar in verwarring worden gebracht door ze te laten luisteren naar sprekers met afwijkende ideeën Ik heb vaak plezier in het spelen met theorieen of abstracte ideeen Ik sta open voor nieuwe ideeën Graag wil ik u heel erg bedanken voor uw medewerking!

55

Alle verstrekte informatie op dit formulier is fictief.

Versie G.

Ik wil u vragen zich in te leven in de volgende situatie: U zit in de beoordelingscommissie bij KPN en mag vandaag het nieuwe idee van een postkamer medewerker gaan beoordelen. De administratief medewerker is van middelbare leeftijd en heeft in 10 jaar geen hogere positie in KPN weten te bereiken. Samen met de twee andere leden van de beoordelingscommissie wacht u tot de administratief medewerker zijn nieuwe idee aan jullie komt presenteren. De postkamer medewerker is actief met ideemanagement bezig. De medewerker heeft in het verleden meerdere malen ideeën ingediend en heeft hierdoor veel ervaring opgedaan over het ideeproces (idee generatie tot idee implementatie). De postkamer medewerker presenteert het idee als volgt: “Het is een voortbouwend, gangbaar idee dat in lijn ligt met de andere diensten die KPN aanbiedt. Het idee moet zorgen voor groei op korte termijn en de relatie met de klant versterken. Dit is het idee: de bestaande dienst ‘het nieuwe werken’ uitbreiden door “het nieuwe vergaderen”. KPN zal bedrijven en consumenten gaan faciliteren in het nieuwe vergaderen. Dit betekent onder andere dat niet iedereen fysiek aanwezig hoeft te zijn in de vergaderingen en er staand vergaderd kan worden hetgeen de efficiëntie kan bevorderen.” Heeft u dit idee al eens eerder gezien?

Ja

Nee

De postkamer medewerker vraagt u of u ter plekke het nieuwe idee wil beoordelen op de volgende punten. (1 = helemaal oneens, 7 = helemaal eens): helemaal oneens helemaal eens 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 Het idee is vernieuwend Het idee is uniek Het idee is vindingrijk, ongewoon of verrassend Het idee is briljant Het idee is revolutionair Het idee is radicaal Het idee heeft potentie Ik ben positief over dit idee Ik heb vertrouwen in dit idee Ik ben optimistisch over het succes van dit idee Ik wil dit idee promoten Ik wil dit idee steunen Ik zou dit idee graag verder zien ontwikkelen Ik vind dat dit idee moet worden goedgekeurd Ik wil dat dit idee gerealiseerd wordt Als het idee verder wordt ontwikkeld, vind ik het: Een vernieuwend idee Een duidelijk en toepasbaar idee Een technisch en economisch haalbaar idee

56

Wat vind u van de postkamer mw.? Ervaren op het gebied van ideeën indienen Deskundig op het gebied van ideeën indienen Staat hoog in de hiërarchie Heeft een hoge positie binnen KPN

helemaal oneens 1 2 3

4

5

6

helemaal eens 7

Graag wil ik u vragen nog wat achtergrondinformatie over uzelf in te vullen. 1. Wat is uw geslacht? man vrouw 2. Wat is uw leeftijd?

….. jaar

3. Wat is uw hoogst genoten opleiding? Geen Mavo/havo/Vwo MBO HBO WO 4. Hoeveel jaar ben u werkzaam bij KPN?

…… jaar

5. Wat is uw functie binnen KPN? Midden management Consultant Technisch specialist Anders, namelijk… 6. Mijn functieniveau wordt het best omschreven als: Hoog Middel Laag 7. Heeft u ervaring in beoordelen van nieuwe ideeën (binnen KPN of een andere organisatie?) Nooit Een enkele keer Soms Regelmatig Vaak 8. In hoeverre bent u het eens met de volgende stellingen? (1 = helemaal oneens, 4 = helemaal eens) helemaal oneens helemaal eens 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 Het werk dat ik produceer is creatief Het werk dat ik produceer is origineel Het werk dat ik produceer is nieuw Ik vind dat mensen alleen maar in verwarring worden gebracht door ze te laten luisteren naar sprekers met afwijkende ideeën Ik heb vaak plezier in het spelen met theorieen of abstracte ideeen Ik sta open voor nieuwe ideeën Graag wil ik u heel erg bedanken voor uw medewerking!

57

Alle verstrekte informatie op dit formulier is fictief.

Versie H.

Ik wil u vragen zich in te leven in de volgende situatie: U zit in de beoordelingscommissie bij KPN en mag vandaag het nieuwe idee van een postkamer medewerker gaan beoordelen. De postkamer medewerker is van middelbare leeftijd en heeft in 10 jaar geen hogere positie in KPN weten te bereiken. Samen met de twee andere leden van de beoordelingscommissie wacht u tot de administratief medewerker zijn nieuwe idee aan jullie komt presenteren. De postkamer medewerker is niet actief met ideemanagement bezig. De medewerker heeft in het verleden nog nooit eerder een idee ingediend en heeft hierdoor nog geen eerdere ervaringen opgedaan over het ideeproces (idee generatie tot idee implementatie). De postkamer medewerker presenteert het idee als volgt: “Het is een voortbouwend, gangbaar idee dat in lijn ligt met de andere diensten die KPN aanbiedt. Het idee moet zorgen voor groei op korte termijn en de relatie met de klant versterken. Dit is het idee: de bestaande dienst ‘het nieuwe werken’ uitbreiden door “het nieuwe vergaderen”. KPN zal bedrijven en consumenten gaan faciliteren in het nieuwe vergaderen. Dit betekent onder andere dat niet iedereen fysiek aanwezig hoeft te zijn in de vergaderingen en er staand vergaderd kan worden hetgeen de efficiëntie kan bevorderen.” Heeft u dit idee al eens eerder gezien?

Ja

Nee

De postkamer medewerker vraagt u of u ter plekke het nieuwe idee wil beoordelen op de volgende punten. (1 = helemaal oneens, 7 = helemaal eens): helemaal oneens helemaal eens 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 Het idee is vernieuwend Het idee is uniek Het idee is vindingrijk, ongewoon of verrassend Het idee is briljant Het idee is revolutionair Het idee is radicaal Het idee heeft potentie Ik ben positief over dit idee Ik heb vertrouwen in dit idee Ik ben optimistisch over het succes van dit idee Ik wil dit idee promoten Ik wil dit idee steunen Ik zou dit idee graag verder zien ontwikkelen Ik vind dat dit idee moet worden goedgekeurd Ik wil dat dit idee gerealiseerd wordt Als het idee verder wordt ontwikkeld, vind ik het: Een vernieuwend idee Een duidelijk en toepasbaar idee Een technisch en economisch haalbaar idee

58

Wat vind u van de postkamer mw.? Ervaren op het gebied van ideeën indienen Deskundig op het gebied van ideeën indienen Staat hoog in de hiërarchie Heeft een hoge positie binnen KPN

helemaal oneens 1 2 3

4

5

6

helemaal eens 7

Graag wil ik u vragen nog wat achtergrondinformatie over uzelf in te vullen. 1. Wat is uw geslacht? man vrouw 2. Wat is uw leeftijd?

….. jaar

3. Wat is uw hoogst genoten opleiding? Geen Mavo/havo/Vwo MBO HBO WO 4. Hoeveel jaar ben u werkzaam bij KPN?

…… jaar

5. Wat is uw functie binnen KPN? Midden management Consultant Technisch specialist Anders, namelijk… 6. Mijn functieniveau wordt het best omschreven als: Hoog Middel Laag 7. Heeft u ervaring in beoordelen van nieuwe ideeën (binnen KPN of een andere organisatie?) Nooit Een enkele keer Soms Regelmatig Vaak 8. In hoeverre bent u het eens met de volgende stellingen? (1 = helemaal oneens, 4 = helemaal eens) helemaal oneens helemaal eens 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 Het werk dat ik produceer is creatief Het werk dat ik produceer is origineel Het werk dat ik produceer is nieuw Ik vind dat mensen alleen maar in verwarring worden gebracht door ze te laten luisteren naar sprekers met afwijkende ideeën Ik heb vaak plezier in het spelen met theorieen of abstracte ideeen Ik sta open voor nieuwe ideeën Graag wil ik u heel erg bedanken voor uw medewerking!