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Video games and movie industry are and have always been billion-dollar businesses. In the last decades, they have had a major impact on how people spend their leisure time, and it is widely recognized that they are changing people’s behaviors and activities. On the other hand, one of the key characteristics of today’s societies is creative idea generation. This study intends to investigate the relation between simple funny video games and short comedy movies and creative idea generation. The contribution of this paper is to suggest that certain short, simple funny/comedy digital audiovisual technologies are important to drive creativity. In particular, it is shown that both simple funny video games and short comedy movies have a positive and meaningful correlation with computer users’ creative idea generation. The results of this research may have positive impact on organizational resources management, especially, human resources management and it can justify the creation of new start-ups in the multimedia industry targeting the production of special video games and movies addressing organizational objectives.

To understand the characteristics of ASEAN countries that are conducive to unique innovation, a series of idea generation and selection experiments were conducted in three emerging countries, Malaysia, Indonesia, and Thailand, which were compared with one developed country, Japan. The experiments consisted of one-day-workshops held in each of the four countries. Two significant differences were found between emerging and developed countries. First, participants from the ASEAN countries proposed ideas that entailed a lower investment risk than did the Japanese participants. Secondly, the ASEAN participants were more confident in their idea selection than the Japanese participants were. The results suggested new possibilities for the development of strategies encouraging collaboration between emerging and developed countries in innovation management.

The purpose of this study is to investigate the type of factors that facilitate two key aspects of the innovation process, idea generation and idea implementation. It is common in innovation research to collapse the two together which in some cases may lead to erroneous conclusions if the two aspects relate differently to organizational antecedents. Employing a mixed-method approach using a questionnaire and semi-structured interviews the study examined and further explored whether individual, group and organizational level factors relate differently to the two innovation aspects. The questionnaire findings showed that individual level factors had a stronger influence on idea generation than idea implementation and vice versa for group and organizational factors. A similar pattern emerged in the interview findings where the factors that influenced idea implementation fell mainly into group and organizational typologies. The implications of these findings for organizations and research are considered.

This paper explores the front end innovation activities in a multinational Global Healthcare Company (GHC). A questionnaire was designed and distributed to front end innovators from 20 operating companies to understand team composition, essential skill sets, and the methodology used to assess customer needs, generate ideas, and define the selection criteria used during the go/no go decision. For each category the current state and best practice (based on the views of the individual respondents) for front end innovation was analyzed and reported in this paper. The results of this study reflect the opinions and suggestions of 37 respondents (23 that were at directorship level or above). These results were amalgamated and used to develop existing models of innovation to produce a framework (termed the Total Front End Framework (TFEF)) that should be useful for both senior managers and innovation teams to optimize their activities and increase the efficiency of the innovation process.

Generating novel and sustainable business model ideas is a crucial yet challenging innovation task. A growing body of literature shows that artefacts, such as visual templates, objects and sketches, can enhance team collaboration and creativity in innovation activities. Drawing on literature from diverse fields we propose a model that aims to explain how artefacts can affect the team processes in developing new business model ideas, positing that they have an impact on creativity and collaboration. We report the results of an illustrative experimental study comparing the team processes of managers working on a business model innovation task. Teams were supported by different types of artefacts (a business model template; physical objects with sketching; or PowerPoint). The results indicate that using the template significantly increases perceived collaboration and decreases perceived creativity, hence showing that artefacts can have the power to shape team work for innovation tasks.

Crowdsourcing as a tool for idea generation has become popular for companies in the last few years. The aim of this research is to identify innovative behaviour types in an intra-organisational online ideation contest. Based on a survey with 75 employees of a specialty chemicals company, we determined the degrees of personality severity of two main factors — creativity and proactivity. Creativity seems to enhance the number of submitted ideas while proactive people's ideas seem to have greater chances of being pursued by the company. Four different personality combinations arise out of the empirical analysis that show specific performance types and are clustered into different activity roles, such as the follower, the proactive promotor, the creative innovator and the intrapreneur. Some of them refer to existing innovation roles. This novel combination of crowdsourcing performance and innovative behaviour delivers new insights that enrich current understanding on the characteristics of internal crowds.

The article argues for greater attention to be given to discursive approaches to the leadership of innovation through proposing a variant of Potter and Wetherell's concept of interpretative repertoires. Drawing upon empirical material from a case study of managers engaged in R&D activities at a multimedia company, the study illustrates how the talk and thought of leadership reveals the contrasting discursive resources and interpretative repertoires underpinning the leadership of innovation. The article proposes, illustrates and develops six interpretative repertoires for leading the practices and processes of innovation. These are informed by six images or root metaphors: creating, challenging, focusing, selling, linking and travelling. In turn, these prompt leadership practices that either encourage variety, secure agreement or a combination of the two.

The formation of idea generation groups through the combination of dyads, rather than individuals, is examined. The results show that pairwise group structuring is an effective method by which to reduce evaluation apprehension within idea generation groups composed of managerial participants in a controlled experimental environment. The integration of solitary ideators into an interactive group in nominal group technique (NGT) is shown to be problematic in terms of participants' evaluation apprehension. The study's sample consisted of 72 middle and upper managers from a broad range of functions and industries. This demographic is heavily involved with cross-functional collaboration in industry. The results open up a new research area and suggest that pairwork within groups be leveraged to optimise creativity in groups by addressing common problems such as evaluation apprehension, the common knowledge effect, hidden profile and free riding.

More and more consumers base their buying decision process on online reviews. Not surprisingly, researches show that online reviews have an actual impact on revenues. As a result, a new product can disappear even before it makes it to the market. How to make sure that the new product will get positive online reviews before it goes to market? By evaluating the market value of a new product before and after Crowdsourcing, we offer the proof-of-concept that crowd-wisdom pertaining to new-product idea generation improves its market value significantly, both in term of ratings and comments after just one integration of the crowd into the new product development process. The improvement took place before a large investment was done. More surprisingly, this market value after Crowdsourcing is the same for the Crowd involved in the Crowdsourcing process than for the potential customers of the new product created by using this process.

Values-based management and evidence-based innovation management both improve a company’s innovation performance. However, there are no systematic studies of how combining values-based and evidence-based innovation management influences the innovation culture in mid-sized B2B companies. In this exploratory case study, we describe how a longitudinal analysis of innovation culture and a values-based initiative were combined in a 7-step approach, which was applied in a global mid-sized B2B manufacturer of drug-delivery systems and pharmaceutical components over a three-year period. The results of the longitudinal innovation culture survey and the analysis of front-end innovation key performance indicators provided insight into the positive impact of new normative company values on the organisation’s innovation culture as well as on the effectiveness of the idea generation process. The exploratory case study demonstrates how a customised combination of values-based and evidence-based innovation management elements can systematically strengthen an organisation’s innovation culture and the effectiveness of its idea generation process.

Crowdsourcing as a tool for idea generation has become popular for companies in the last few years. The aim of this research is to identify innovative behaviour types in an intra-organisational online ideation contest. Based on a survey with 75 employees of a specialty chemicals company, we determined the degrees of personality severity of two main factors — creativity and proactivity. Creativity seems to enhance the number of submitted ideas while proactive people’s ideas seem to have greater chances of being pursued by the company. Four different personality combinations arise out of the empirical analysis that show specific performance types and are clustered into different activity roles, such as the follower, the proactive promotor, the creative innovator and the intrapreneur. Some of them refer to existing innovation roles. This novel combination of crowdsourcing performance and innovative behaviour delivers new insights that enrich current understanding on the characteristics of internal crowds.

This chapter focuses on the impact of the use of social media (SM) on the process of new service development by consultants. SM used by consultants in this case is LinkedIn, one of the largest professional networking sites available today. We carry out content analysis based on concrete practices and benefits described by actors. Results show significant differences in practices. Some consultants have basic practices (i.e. login once a week to read messages and answer contact requests for example). Other consultants have much more advanced practices and can spend several hours a week using this tool. They look for interesting professional contacts, send messages to explain their contact request, consult profiles of new contacts of their network’s members. They also classify their contacts by categories (customers, prospects, positions, etc.), look who publishes what, who reacts on what subject, etc. The level of time investment for the use of SM determines the level of benefits received by consultants. Regarding the utility for new services development, results highlight two main points. In a global way, possibilities are poorly perceived and exploited for generating ideas. There are only a few isolated practices aiming at diversifying the network of professional relations for ideas generation (heterogeneity in terms of expertise and geographical location). Most consultants make more spontaneous use of SM to validate ideas for developing new services. They test the interest for their proposals (article, post, event, etc.) to their target market via SM. The utility is therefore mainly to be able to detect concerns of target market and guide new consulting services development depending on the reactions. At the end of the chapter, we discuss the fact that these changes in behaviors can have a positive impact on new service development but do not come without risks and challenges.