Workshop design for enhancing the appropriateness of idea generation using analogical thinking

Abstract

As technologies advance and replace human labor in a variety of settings, we focus our attention on human creativity for generating new ideas. Business organizations, more than ever, recognize that they need employees who think creatively to maintain their competitive edge. Nonetheless, there is a lack of research assessing new ideas and influential factors in generating innovative ideas. The aim of this study is to identify the factors that influence the creation of innovative ideas. We conducted two different types of workshops with 22 subjects and 23 subjects each. In the first workshop, subjects were asked to generate new business ideas through analogical thinking. As a result, half of the participants generated appropriate ideas, and three influential factors were determined: categorization skill, deliberation, and trial and error. The second workshop was designed to facilitate participants to enhance these three factors. As a result, 70% of the participants could generate appropriate ideas. By identifying influential factors, this paper suggests a procedure for designing an innovation workshop that enables the creation of appropriate ideas. Keywords: Analogical thinking, Appropriateness in ideas generated, Trial and error, Categorization, Deliberation