Rethinking ideation: a cognitive approach of innovation lock-ins

Marine Agogué (1) , Pascal Le Masson (2)

1 HEC Montréal - HEC Montréal
2 CGS i3 - Centre de Gestion Scientifique i3

Some industries are lacking the proposal of truly original new ideas to renew existing products and/or services, despite repeated efforts from all stakeholders to make innovative and original proposals. These situations, called orphan innovation, lead to revisit the contemporary approaches to the study of obstacles in ideation, as orphan innovation is a paradoxical situation. Conventional financial constraints and institutional level are released, the market demand is strong, niche strategies are possible and bold entrepreneurs abound. And yet, the proposals do not fulfil expectations regarding innovation. We advocate in this paper that cognitive sciences can contribute to making sense of this phenomenon. Based on recent studies in cognitive psychology on idea generation, we propose a model of ideation reasoning, contrasting heuristic-based reasoning and exploration-based reasoning. We then apply this model on a case study, showing how a cognitive model of ideation allows to diagnose orphan innovation and more generally innovation lock-ins.

Mots clés: cognition; ideation; idea generation 2; innovation lock-ins

Domaines: Gestion et management; Sciences de l'Homme et Société; Sciences cognitives

Marine Agogué, Pascal Le Masson. Rethinking ideation: a cognitive approach of innovation lock-ins. Academy Of Management, Aug 2015, Vancouver, Canada. ⟨hal-01132377⟩