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Journal ArticleDOI

From Creativity to Innovation: The Social Network Drivers of the Four Phases of the Idea Journey

01 Jan 2017-Academy of Management Review (Academy of Management)-Vol. 42, Iss: 1, pp 53-79
TL;DR: In this paper, the authors conceptualize four phases of the journey of an idea, from conception to completion: idea generation, idea elaboration, idea championing, and idea implementation, and propose that a creator has distinct primary needs in each phase: cognitive flexibility, support, influence, and shared vision.
Abstract: Interest has burgeoned, in recent years, in how social networks influence individual creativity and innovation. From both the theoretical and empirical points of view, this increased attention has generated many inconsistencies. In this article we propose that a conceptualization of the idea journey encompassing phases that the literature has so far overlooked can help solve existing tensions. We conceptualize four phases of the journey of an idea, from conception to completion: idea generation, idea elaboration, idea championing, and idea implementation. We propose that a creator has distinct primary needs in each phase: cognitive flexibility, support, influence, and shared vision, respectively. Individual creators successfully move through a phase when the relational and structural elements of their networks match the distinct needs of the phase. The relational and structural elements that are beneficial for one phase, however, are detrimental for another. We propose that in order to solve this seeming ...

Summary (2 min read)

Acknowledgments

  • The authors extend their gratitude to associate editor Sherry Thatcher and three anonymous reviewers for their invaluable feedback throughout the review process.
  • In this article the authors propose that a conceptualization of the idea journey encompassing phases that the literature has so far overlooked can help solve existing tensions.
  • Social networks, creativity, innovation, relationships (e.g., McCrae, 1987; Barron & Harrington, 1981), the notion that creativity is a social process has increasingly gained prominence, also known as Keywords.
  • Greater attention and research, however, have revealed inconsistencies.
  • The authors conceive of needs as the primary socially derived ingredients that facilitate success in each phase.

Idea Generation: Need for Cognitive Flexibility

  • The authors define the idea generation phase as the process of generating a novel and useful idea.
  • This phase concludes with the creator selecting a single, novel idea that they deem more promising, useful or valuable than others (Amabile, 1983; Woodman, Sawyer, & Griffin, 1993).
  • Wes Anderson, the famous screenwriter and director, got the initial inspiration for the story of The Royal Tenenbaums by the chance purchase of a CD of Maurice Ravel’s music.
  • Additional knowledge may elicit more rigid cognitive pathways, making it less likely that individuals will connect previously disconnected elements (Amabile, 1996; Mumford & Gustafson, 1988).
  • The creator has the capacity to integrate content from the social environment to generate novel ideas that depart from existing practices within the field.

Idea Elaboration: Need for Support

  • The authors define the elaboration phase as the process of systematically evaluating a novel idea’s potential and further clarifying and developing it.
  • During this phase, the creator clarifies the initial idea and makes it ready to share with gatekeepers.
  • They need emotional support in order to reduce uncertainty and be motivated to push the idea further and not abandon it (Madjar et al., 2002).
  • Chris Bangle, BMW director of design, stresses the importance of creating a “fortress” around designers in order to shield them from “hurtful criticism” prematurely (Bangle, 2001: p. 7-8).

Idea Championing: Need for Social Influence and Legitimacy

  • The championing phase is defined as the active promotion of a novel idea, aimed at obtaining the approval to push the idea forward and, consequently, also obtaining money, talent, time or political cover (Howell & Higgins, 1990; Kanter, 1983, 1988; Maidique, 1980; Staw, 1990).
  • During this phase, he or she tries to sell the idea to film studio executives.
  • Shared vision and understanding help overcome interpretive problems, create a common language that guarantees that the idea is correctly communicated to other field members, and ensure its successful interpretation and acceptance (Carlile, 2004; Carlile & Rebentisch, 2003).
  • Table 2 depicts key papers in the literature and the phases on which they explicitly and implicitly focus.
  • This can be depicted as a continuum (see Figure 1) where the influence of the social context is similarly strong, but contacts’ involvement and creator’s intentionality varies.

Idea Generation and Elaboration: The Weak versus Strong Tie Paradox

  • The standard logic commonly used to predict the optimal tie strength and structure for novel ideas can be summarized as follows: tie strength and structures that provide access to nonredundant knowledge content facilitate recombination and, ultimately, creativity (see Perry-Smith & Mannucci, 2015, and Phelps et al., 2012, for reviews).
  • Both adopt logics or measures that encompass other phases.
  • Taken together, their arguments and existing empirical evidence suggest that weak ties rather than structural holes should be beneficial during the idea generation phase.
  • Emotionally close contacts serve the important function of validating one another’s views (Cross & Sproull, 2004; Reis & Shaver, 1988), and their feedback is perceived as constructive, useful and is more easily accepted (Cross, Borgatti, & Parker, 2001; Sniezek & Van Swol, 2001).
  • Sosa (2011) suggests that strong ties have a positive impact on creativity, because they increase support and motivation to share ideas.

Idea Championing and Implementation: The Sparseness versus Closure Paradox

  • Scholars have argued that structural holes are a relevant source of influence and legitimacy.
  • In addition to the problems engendered by strong ties and dense structures, the effectiveness of network activation may also be limited by the extent to which an idea gets caught in recursive loops between phases.
  • This is a novel approach to understanding creativity in the social context.
  • 1168-1181. friendship network brokerage on attributions and performance, also known as Organization Science, 22.
  • He or she must convince producers of the novelty and potential of the ideas.

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ORE Open Research Exeter
TITLE
From creativity to innovation: The social network drivers of the four phases of the idea journey
AUTHORS
Perry-Smith, JE; Mannucci, PV
JOURNAL
Academy of Management Review
DEPOSITED IN ORE
14 October 2019
This version available at
http://hdl.handle.net/10871/39186
COPYRIGHT AND REUSE
Open Research Exeter makes this work available in accordance with publisher policies.
A NOTE ON VERSIONS
The version presented here may differ from the published version. If citing, you are advised to consult the published version for pagination, volume/issue and date of
publication

1
FROM CREATIVITY TO INNOVATION:
THE SOCIAL NETWORK DRIVERS OF THE FOUR PHASES OF
THE IDEA JOURNEY
Jill Perry-Smith
Emory University
jill.perry-smith@emory.edu
Pier Vittorio Mannucci
HEC Paris
pier-vittorio.mannucci@hec.edu
Forthcoming, Academy of Management Review
Acknowledgments
We extend our gratitude to associate editor Sherry Thatcher and three anonymous reviewers for
their invaluable feedback throughout the review process. We thank Kevyn Yong for his insightful
comments on earlier versions of this manuscript. We also appreciate the feedback received from
organizers and participants of the symposium Networks and Innovation: The Multilevel
Journey at the 2014 Academy of Management Annual meeting.

2
Abstract
In recent years interest has burgeoned in how social networks influence individual
creativity and innovation. This increased attention has generated many inconsistencies from both
the theoretical and empirical points of view. In this article we propose that a conceptualization of
the idea journey encompassing phases that the literature has so far overlooked can help solve
existing tensions. We conceptualize four phases of the journey of an idea from conception to
completion: idea generation, idea elaboration, idea championing, and idea implementation. We
propose that a creator has distinct primary needs in each phase cognitive flexibility, support,
influence, and shared vision, respectively. Individual creators successfully move through a phase
when the relational and structural elements of their networks match the distinct needs of the
phase. The relational and structural elements that are beneficial for one phase, however, are
detrimental for another. We propose that in order to solve this seeming contradiction and the
associated paradoxes, individual creators have to change interpretations and frames throughout
the different phases. This in turn allows them to activate different network characteristics at the
appropriate moment and successfully complete the idea journey from novel concept to a tangible
outcome that changes the field.
Keywords: social networks, creativity, innovation, relationships

3
Although creativity was initially conceived of as a function of innate personality traits
(e.g., McCrae, 1987; Barron & Harrington, 1981), the notion that creativity is a social process has
increasingly gained prominence. In contrast to the lone genius view, theorists suggest that
interactions with others influence various aspects of the creative process (e.g. Amabile, 1983;
Simonton, 1984; Woodman, Sawyer & Griffin, 1993). This perspective is consistent with
accounts from notable and historic creative organizations. For example, accounts of Bell Labs
describe how the culture and physical space influenced collaboration and interaction with other
scientists (Gertner, 2012). In the realm of innovation, creativity’s close cousin, a social view of
innovative behavior and a social network approach have been used extensively (e.g., Burt, 1980;
Edabi & Utterback, 1984; Hargadon & Sutton, 1997; Obstfeld, 2005; Tsai, 2001). At the same
time, social networks have been increasingly used as a lens through which to understand the
effect of social context on creativity (e.g., Brass, 1995; Fleming, Mingo & Chen, 2007; Perry-
Smith & Shalley, 2003; Sosa, 2011). These trends have resulted in a merge of macro approaches
to innovation with micro approaches to creativity.
Greater attention and research, however, have revealed inconsistencies. In many cases, the
discrepant logic and results may appear less significant within a single research domain, but
become evident as different research streams are melded. For example, it is widely accepted
within the network literature that structural holes facilitate access to novel information and
creativity (Phelps, Heidl, & Whadwa, 2012); however, empirical support linking structural holes
and creativity is equivocal. Burt (2004) finds a positive association between structural holes and
“good ideas, but others (e.g., Perry-Smith, 2006; Zhou, Shin, Brass, Choi, & Zhang, 2009) find
no association between measures of structural non-redundancy and creativity. As another
example within the network literature, closure and trust are widely thought to facilitate
cooperation and knowledge transfer (Morgan & Soerensen, 1999; Morrison, 2002; Reagans &

4
McEvily, 2003). Accordingly, some studies suggest that bringing people together is critical for
innovative activities (Hargadon & Beckhy, 2006; Lingo & O’Mahony, 2010; Obstfeld, 2005).
Yet at the same time, these structures have been described as promoting conformity (Fleming,
Mingo, & Chen, 2007; Uzzi & Spiro, 2005), the antithesis of creativity (Goncalo & Duguid,
2012; Woodman, Sawyer, & Griffin, 1993). Finally, the findings are discrepant related to strong
versus weak ties. Are strong tiesrich with trust and supportbest for creativity (e.g., Sosa,
2011; Chua, Morris & Mor, 2012), consistent with creativity theorists’ emphasis on positive
affect and support (e.g. Madjar et al., 2002; Isen, Johnson, Metz, & Robinson, 1985; Isen &
Patrick, 1983)? Or are weak ties rich with breadth and reach best (e.g., Baer, 2010; Perry-
Smith, 2006; Zhou et al., 2009), consistent with network theorists’ emphasis on different
information and recombination (e.g., Burt, 1992; Granovetter, 1973)?
One important tenet of this body of research has been implicit assumptions about the
phases of the idea journeythe path followed by a novel idea from its conception to its
successful dissemination. Creativity scholars have primarily underlined the importance of
generation, or coming up with a novel and useful idea (e.g., Amabile, 1983). In contrast,
innovation scholars have stressed the importance of the implementation of the idea and its effects
on the field (e.g., Frost & Egri, 1991; Howell & Higgins, 1990; Maidique, 1980). Both the
creativity and innovation literatures, however, independently have come to recognize that
between the start (the generation of an idea) and the end of the journey (its implementation), there
also are intermediary phases. Creativity scholars have highlighted that after an idea is generated,
it requires further development and validation checks (Campbell, 1960; Ford, 1996; Harvey,
2014; Staw, 1990). Moreover, innovation scholars have elucidated the importance of
championing activities prior to the successful implementation of an idea (e.g., Frost & Egri,
1991; Howell & Higgins, 1990; Maidique, 1980). Despite the importance of these phases for the

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Frequently Asked Questions (11)
Q1. What have the authors contributed in "From creativity to innovation: the social network drivers of the four phases of the idea journey" ?

In this article the authors propose that a conceptualization of the idea journey encompassing phases that the literature has so far overlooked can help solve existing tensions. The authors propose that a creator has distinct primary needs in each phase – cognitive flexibility, support, influence, and shared vision, respectively. The authors propose that in order to solve this seeming contradiction and the associated paradoxes, individual creators have to change interpretations and frames throughout the different phases. This in turn allows them to activate different network characteristics at the appropriate moment and successfully complete the idea journey from novel concept to a tangible outcome that changes the field. 

Sosa (2011) suggests that strong ties have a positive impact on creativity, because they increase support and motivation to share ideas. 

The premise behind the argument that strong ties are critical for championing is that friends have more social influence over friends (Krackhardt, 1992). 

It may be that rewards negatively affect generation, as the reward may detract from the cognitive generation process, but rewards may be beneficial during the elaboration phase, when a creator is at risk of abandoning the idea. 

Although the importance of changing frames for creative problem solving has been acknowledged (Mumford, Mobley, Reiter‐Palmon, Uhlman, & Doares, 1991; Reiter-Palmon, Mumford, O’ Connor, & Runco, 1997), their application to social networks extends its importance beyond generating novel solutions. 

Some aspects of strong ties may facilitate understanding of an idea, as they favor value recognition (Friedkin, 1980), creation of a common language (Tortoriello & Krackhardt, 2010), and the development of heuristics and shared meaning (Uzzi, 1997). 

In a meta-analytic study, Hülsheger, Anderson, and Salgado (2009) find that shared vision is the most important determinant of a group’s ability to produce innovative outcomes. 

The standard logic commonly used to predict the optimal tie strength and structure fornovel ideas can be summarized as follows: tie strength and structures that provide access to nonredundant knowledge content facilitate recombination and, ultimately, creativity (see Perry-Smith & Mannucci, 2015, and Phelps et al., 2012, for reviews). 

while the authors suggest that dyadic tie strength and structure are more beneficial in certain phases, this does not mean that the non-primary network characteristic can never be beneficial. 

The authors suggest that these contradictions can be resolved if the creator activates different parts of his or her network in different phases, and that this depends on his or her ability to change interpretations and frames across phases. 

When a creator assumes that he or she is driving and controlling a given event, he or she is said to adopt an internal locus of control as opposed to the assumption that overall performance and control resides outside the creator, the so-called external locus of control (e.g., Ferree & Miller, 1985; Klandermans, 1984; Snow, et al., 1986).