Sub-theme 31: Generating and Recognizing New Ideas: The Problematic Journey of Novelty
Call for Papers
By definition, novelty does not fit well-established categories. In the business world, life outside the mainstream is
harsh, and social objects (e.g., ideas, products, technologies or organizational forms) that lie off the beaten path, tend
to be overlooked. Acquiring the legitimacy that comes with being part of an established category helps actors survive but
recognition depends on an actor not being ignored (Zuckerman, 1999). Although there is a growing consensus that the process
of novelty recognition is key to understanding the journey of novelty from the moment it arises to the time it takes hold
(e.g., Cattani et al., 2017; Perry-Smith & Mannucci, 2017; Sgourev, 2013), extant research has yet to expound on a crucial
and common problem that tends to undermine the recognition of novelty: entering into the attention space of the evaluating
audience(s).
As Csikszentmihalyi (1996: 345) pointed out, “the most fundamental difference between people
consists in how much uncommitted attention they have left over to deal with novelty. In too many cases, attention is restricted
by external necessity”. The novelty-attention problem, therefore, captures a puzzling tension: the type of novelty that demands
more attention to be recognized also deflects audiences’ attention away. This problem may by compounded by several factors.
Besides simply being overwhelmed by the number of ideas they must sort through (Piezunka & Dahlander, 2015), novelty evaluators
may not have the attention bandwidth and skills to recognize the value of an idea (Berg, 2016). In addition, people may have
implicit biases against new ideas (Mueller et al., 2012). Research has also shown a tendency among managers to favor ideas
from people they know or who somehow resemble them (Aadland et al., 2018; Reitzig & Sorenson, 2013). Such in-group biases
often persist even after correcting for the quality of an idea. Whether or not novel ideas are recognized might also depend
on how connected they are to other ideas. One the one hand, highly connected ideas might be perceived as novel because they
blend existing knowledge in new ways but, on the other hand, they might also be perceived as familiar because people can relate
more easily to such connected ideas (Deichmann et al., 2020).
Because any novel social object must attract
and win social audience’s attention in order to advance in its legitimation journey, we need scholarly inquiry to deepen our
understanding of the underlying mechanisms that govern how and why novelty gets recognition. To this end, we encourage researchers
from a diverse array of academic disciplines – including organizational sociology, organizational behavior, strategy and psychology
– to submit papers that address this fundamental question. We are open to different types of theoretically grounded empirical
work based on qualitative and/or quantitative methods. We especially welcome work that aims to challenge received wisdom in
the organizational literature, and recommend submitting papers that are already in advanced state of development. We will
place special emphasis on innovative doctoral research that shows potential for contributing to the field in a non-conventional
way. We also look forward to manuscripts whose theoretical perspectives and empirical findings allow comparing practices across
different empirical settings.
To this end, we would like to solicit conceptual and empirical papers addressing
the following or very similar questions:
What are the characteristics of novel ideas?
Under what conditions does novelty take root and propagate?
When does novelty win the attention of relevant audiences and then progress in its journey towards recognition?
How does novelty enter the attention space of individuals?
How do organizations allocate attention to novel ideas?
How do creators of novel ideas overcome resistance against their ideas?
What are the factors that influence the accuracy of idea evaluations?
How can idea evaluators overcome some of the challenges that are associated with the recognition and evaluation of novel ideas?
What audience level features may render the field more or less permeable to the reception of novelty?
What is the role of exogenous shocks in opening entry points for the introduction of novelty?
How does the production of earlier novel work stimulate or inhibit the generation of subsequent ideas?
We will publish a
special issue in Innovation: Organization and Management on the topic of our sub-theme. We invite our sub-theme participants
to submit to this special issue, and will use the opportunity to discuss potential contributions during our sub-theme.
References
- Aadland, E., Cattani, G., & Ferriani, S. (2018): “The social structure of consecration in cultural fields: The influence of status and social distance in audience-candidate evaluative processes.” Research in the Sociology of Organizations, 55, 129–157.
- Berg, J.M. (2016): “Balancing on the creative highwire: Forecasting the success of novel ideas in organizations.” Administrative Science Quarterly, 61 (3), 433–468.
- Cattani, G., Ferriani, S., & Lanza, A. (2017): “Deconstructing the outsider puzzle: The legitimation journey of novelty.” Organization Science, 28 (6), 965–999.
- Csíkszentmihályi, M. (1996): Flow and the Psychology of Discovery and Invention. New York: Harper Collins.
- Deichmann, D., Moser, C., Birkholz, J.M., Nerghes, A., Groewegen, P., & Wang, S. (2020): “Ideas with impact: How connectivity shapes idea diffusion.” Research Policy, 49 (1), 1–11.
- Mueller, J.S., Melwani, S., & Goncalo, J.A. (2012): The bias against creativity: Why people desire but reject creative ideas.” Psychological Science, 23 (1), 13–17.
- Perry-Smith, J., & Mannucci, P.V. (2017): “From creativity to innovation: The social network drivers of the four phases of the idea journey.” Academy of Management Review, 42 (1), 53–79.
- Piezunka, H., & Dahlander, L. (2015): “Distant search, narrow attention: How crowding alters organizations’ filtering of suggestions in crowdsourcing.” Academy of Management Journal, 58 (3), 856–880.
- Reitzig, M., & Sorenson, O. (2013): “Biases in the selection stage of bottom-up strategy formulation.” Strategic Management Journal, 34 (7), 782–799.
- Sgourev, S.V. (2013): “How Paris gave rise to cubism (and Picasso): Ambiguity and fragmentation in radical innovation.” Organization Science, 24 (6), 1601–1617.
- Zuckerman, E.W. (1999): “The categorical imperative: Securities analysts and the illegitimacy discount.” American Journal of Sociology, 104 (5), 1398–1438.