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  • November 2019
  • Article
  • Research Policy

Conversations and Idea Generation: Evidence from a Field Experiment

By: Sharique Hasan and Rembrand Koning
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Abstract

When do conversations lead people to generate better ideas? We conducted a field experiment at a startup boot camp to evaluate the impact of informal conversations on the quality of product ideas generated by participants. Specifically, we examine how the personality of an innovator (openness to experience, capturing creativity) and the personalities of her randomly assigned conversational peers (extroversion, measuring willingness to share information) affects the innovator's ideas. We find that open innovators who spoke with extroverted peers generated significantly better ideas than others at the boot camp. However, closed individuals produced mediocre ideas regardless of the individuals they interviewed, suggesting limited benefits of conversations for these people. More surprisingly, open individuals, who are believed to be inherently creative, produced worse ideas after they spoke with introverted peers, suggesting individual creativity's dependence on external information. Our study demonstrates the importance of considering the traits of both innovators and their conversational peers in predicting who will generate the best ideas.

Keywords

Peer Effects; Field Experiment; Interpersonal Communication; Creativity; Personal Characteristics; Entrepreneurship; Innovation and Invention

Citation

Hasan, Sharique, and Rembrand Koning. "Conversations and Idea Generation: Evidence from a Field Experiment." Art. 103811. Research Policy 48, no. 9 (November 2019).
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About The Author

Rembrand M. Koning

Strategy
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  • Won’t You Be My Neighbor? Events, Knowledge Spillovers, and Entrepreneur Performance in Togo By: Stefan Dimitiadis and Rembrand Koning
  • Social Skills Improve Business Performance: Evidence from a Randomized Control Trial with Entrepreneurs in Togo By: Stefan Dimitriadis and Rembrand Koning
  • Lyra Health: Transforming Mental Health By: Rembrand Koning and Nicole Keller
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