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Abstract
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Before
Research on the effect of anonymity on individual’s creativity in idea generation sessions is inconclusive: anonymous brainstorming techniques supposedly perform better since they preclude evaluation apprehension; non-anonymous brainstorming techniques supposedly perform better since they reduce free riding. In this project I suggest brainstorming with selective anonymity as a new method (anonymous brainstorming in which the identity of the idea creators is revealed after evaluation, but only for the top rated ideas). I expect that the proposed method yields more and better ideas than the two traditional methods, as it dampens the inhibitors at work in each of the other methods. I plan to use a randomized control trial to check whether this new method is more powerful than the traditional ones in terms of generating idea quantity and idea quality in idea generation sessions.
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After
Research on the effect of anonymity on individual’s creativity in idea generation sessions is inconclusive: anonymous brainstorming techniques supposedly perform better since they preclude evaluation apprehension; non-anonymous brainstorming techniques supposedly perform better since they reduce free riding. In this project I suggest brainstorming with selective anonymity as a new method (anonymous brainstorming in which the identity of the idea creators, their ideas, and the ranking is revealed after evaluation, but only for the top rated ideas). I expect that the proposed method yields more and better ideas than the two traditional methods, as it dampens the inhibitors at work in each of the other methods. I plan to use a randomized control trial to check whether this new method is more powerful than the traditional ones in terms of generating idea quantity and idea quality in idea generation sessions.
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Trial Start Date
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November 24, 2019
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October 01, 2021
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Trial End Date
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December 31, 2020
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December 31, 2021
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Last Published
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November 22, 2019 11:05 AM
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May 04, 2021 06:06 AM
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Intervention Start Date
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November 26, 2019
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October 01, 2021
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Intervention End Date
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March 31, 2020
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November 30, 2021
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Primary Outcomes (Explanation)
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Quantity
Number of ideas Number of ideas suggested by participant
Quality
Novelty per idea Novelty rated on 1-9 scale by three independent raters
Use value per idea Use value rated on 1-9 scale by three independent raters
Average novelty per participant Average rated novelty across all ideas per participant
Average use value per participant Average rated use value across all ideas per participant
Most novel idea per participant Highest novelty rating per participant
Most usable idea per participant Highest use value rating per participant
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Keyword(s)
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Firms And Productivity
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Firms And Productivity
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Intervention (Hidden)
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Before
he type of trial that is to be carried out is an explanatory trial. The trial seeks to understand how different types of anonymity regimes affect creative behaviour of participant in brainstorming setting. Brainstorming sessions are widely used in different context but always represent a setting in which participants are taken out of their natural environments and day to day jobs. Brainstorming sessions represent highly controllable environments, in which RCTs can be run with high internal validity. Nevertheless, they also represent high external validity, as the proposed setting and intervention can be transferred to practice in the same or very similar ways.
I suggest three arms of the experiment, one for the treatment and two control arms. The reason for this choice lies in the fact that brainstorming research has debated whether anonymity is conducive to creative performance or not, which resulted in two different dominant designs in brainstorming: anonymous and non-anonymous. Using two control groups achieves two things: First, the experiment will answer whether the treatment related to the new proposed form of brainstorming yields better results than both traditional forms. Second, this design enables me to understand whether the proposed theory of change holds, i.e. if the proposed form of brainstorming performs best since it alleviates the drawbacks associated with each traditional method without reducing their benefits.
(Control group 1) will be evaluated under a non-anonymous brainstorming evaluation regime. Participants are informed that their ideas are presented to evaluators with the idea creators‘ name visible. The top three winning ideas will be revealed after idea evaluation, including the idea creators‘ names.
(Control group 2) will be evaluated under an anonymous brainstorming evaluation regime. Participants are informed that their ideas are presented to evaluators without the idea creators‘ name visible. The top three winning ideas will be revealed after idea evaluation, without the idea creators‘ names.
(Treatment group) will be evaluated under an anonymous brainstorming regime with ex post identity revelation for top ideas. Participants are informed that their ideas are presented to evaluators without the idea creators‘ name visible, but that the top three winning ideas will be revealed after idea evaluation, including the idea creators‘ names.
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After
The different ways of how anonymity is granted to participants represents the intervention in the RCT. There are three information pieces that accrue during the experiment and will be presented or not in the different conditions: An ideator’s name, an ideator’s idea, and the ranking an idea receives. The study will ideally take part in an organization such as a firm or a university. Participants will be invited to take part in an idea creation task to come up with new ideas for a given topic (similar to Girotra et al. (2010)). Before starting with the idea generation task, each group will receive a different explanation of how their ideas will be evaluated, that mirror one type of brainstorming each.
(Control group 1) will be evaluated under a non-anonymous brainstorming evaluation regime. Participants are informed that their ideas are presented to evaluators without the idea creators' name visible. All ideas will be revealed after idea evaluation in ranked form, including the idea creators' names.
(Control group 2) will be evaluated under an anonymous brainstorming evaluation regime. Participants are informed that their ideas are presented to evaluators without the idea creators' name visible. No ideas will be revealed after idea evaluation.
(Treatment group) will be evaluated under an anonymous brainstorming regime with ex post identity revelation for top ideas. Participants are informed that their ideas are presented to evaluators without the idea creators' name visible. Only the top 3 ideas will be revealed after idea evaluation in ranked form, including the idea creators' names. The rest of the ideas will not be revealed.
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