The Role Of Sharing Ideas In Creative Ideas Generation Of Virtual Team

Knowledge creation and innovation,which is one of sustainable conditions for organizations in a competitive and technological environment.Creative ideas generation as an early stage of knowledge creation attracts many managers' and researchers' eyes.In today's business globalization and the rapid development of information technology,virtual teams are emerging.They provide an important resource for collaborative knowledge creation.Virtual team members exchange their ideas in order to come up with creative ideas for future innovations.But how can virtual team members best use others' ideas to create new ideas?Recent research suggests that exposure to others'ideas has both stimulating and limiting effects on team creation;furthermore,what kind of effect is depending on the originality of others' ideas and members' characters.Based on the condition mentioned above,this paper examined the role of shared original ideas in virtual team creative ideas generation from team and individual cognitive perspective.There were following studies:Pilot studies:Pilot study 1 explained the topics undergraduates interested in and closing to them.According to these topics,we determined the creative ideas generation tasks used in formal studies.Pilot study 2 was designed to construct ideas pool,and choose original ideas and common ideas as the following experiments material.Pilot study 3 revised preference for group work scale through online.Study 1 examined the effects of shared original ideas and team composition on virtual team creative ideas generation from team level.Ninety two undergraduate students were randomly divided into 10 teams.Each team included 9 or 10 members.Furthermore,an experimenter took part in the creative ideas generation tasks in each team and participants did not know it.The experimenter shared original ideas,common ideas or meaningless ideas to control the originality of shared ideas.A within-subjects design was used in this study.Each team completed 3 tasks and accepted 3 experiment conditions.All participants completed 3 online scales:divergent thinking test,openness to experience scale and preference for group work scale.We computed the average scores and standard deviation on 3 scales of each team.We found that shared original ideas enhanced the novelty of teams' ideas;the level of team divergent thinking was positive with teams' novelty,especially when members shared common ideas and meaningless ideas;the standard deviation of team members' preference for group work scores was negative with teams' fluency and usefulness.Study 2 included two experiments.Experiment 1 investigated how the proportion of shared original ideas affected members creative ideas generation in virtual team by eye tracking technique.All participants took part in the same virtual team constructed by 9 members.During virtual team generated creative ideas,other 9 members' shared 30 ideas and these ideas were prepared before experiment based on Pilot studies and Study 1.All participants completed 3 tasks:curriculum task,dormitory task and canteen task;and accepted 3 experiment conditions:high proportion of shared original ideas,medium proportion of shared original ideas and low proportion of shared original ideas(10%).In high proportion condition,other team members shared 40%original ideas;In medium proportion condition,other team members shared 20%original ideas;In low proportion condition,other team members shared 10%original ideas.We found that when shared original ideas from 10%raised to 20%,the novelty of participants' ideas was increased;however,when shared original ideas from 20%raised to 40%,the novelty of participants' ideas was decreased;furthermore,when shared original ideas was 20%,participants' average fixation time and fixation counts on shared original ideas was more than shared common ideas,and their blink rates increased more during ideas generation.These results medium proportion of shared original ideas most benefited team members generating novel ideas;blink rate inflected creative cognitive process,and blink benefited cutting off information input and internal attention.Experiment 1 investigated the differences between the time participants process shared original ideas and shared common ideas in virtual team by behavioral experiment.We found that participants processing shared original ideas needed more time than processing shared common ideas.Study 3 included 3 experiments.Experiment 1 focused on the effects of the proportion of shared original ideas and team members' divergent thinking on their creative ideas generation and the cognitive mechanism from individual level by eye tracking technique.We choose the participants with high trait and low trait on divergent thinking by alternative use tasks.The creative ideas generation tasks were same to Experiment 1 of Study 2.We found that when shared original ideas was 20%,the novelty of high trait participants' ideas was highest,their average fixation time and fixation counts on shared original ideas was more than shared common ideas,and their blink rate was increase more during ideas generation.However,the proportion of shared original ideas did not affect low trait participants' creative ideas generation.Experiment 2 examined the effects of the proportion of shared original ideas and team members' openness to experience on their creative ideas generation and the cognitive mechanism.We choose the participants with high trait and low trait on openness to experience by scale.The creative ideas generation tasks were same to Experiment 1 of Study 2.We found that when shared original ideas were increased,the fluency and novelty of high openness participants' ideas were improved,and their blink rate was increase more during ideas generation.However,the proportion of shared original ideas did not affect low openness participants' creative ideas generation.Experiment 3 examined the effects of the proportion of shared original ideas and team members' preference for group work on their creative ideas generation and the cognitive mechanism.We choose the participants with high trait and low trait on preference for group work by scale.The creative ideas generation tasks were same to Experiment 1 of Study 2.We did not find that participants' preference for group work affect their creative ideas generation.Study 4 examined the effect of others' shared original ideas on virtual team creative ideas generation in emuch forum(one of popular academic forums in China)by case study.We collected the posts of two topics closing to graduates,that is,"how to do when I would like to droup out of my doctoral study" and "how to do when editor claimed I have expropriated".We compared the originality of the fisrt-ideas after original ideas and common ideas.It was found that the fisrt-ideas after original ideas were more original than common ideas.The results showed that the ideas stimulted by original ideas were more original than stimulted by common ideasBased on above studies,we made the following conclusions:(1)Sharing moderate nunmber of original ideas in virtual team enhanced the originality of team's ideas.(2)Team composition on divergent thinking,openness and preference for group work,and the orginality of shared ideas had interaction effect on team creative idea generation.(3)The cognitive mechanism underlying the effects of team composition and the orginality of shared ideas were that they affected the attention allocation on shared original ideas and common ideas,and internal attention.The innovation of the dissertation was:(1)Based on CSM model and SIAM model,we explored the cognitive mechanism of virtual team.CSM model and SIAM model did not include the hypothesis about the role of shared original ideas in virtual team creative ideas generation.Therefore,the results of the dissertation could expanded CSM model and SIAM model.(2)The dissertation expanded previous studies.We examined the cognitive mechanism about the effect of shared original ideas on virtual team creative ideas generation by eye tracking technique and behavioral experiment.Specifically,we examined how members processed the shared original ideas and shared common ideas,and how they allocated their internal attention.We found that when members' ideas were more novel,their eye blink rates were higher.Therefore,eye blink rates could be an indicator as internal attention of creative cognition.(3)Few studies examined the interaction effect of shared original ideas and team composition on virtual team creative ideas generation.The dissertation explored the team composition on divergent thinking,openness to experience and preference for group work.CSM model and SIAM model did not focus on members' characters and provide related hypothesis.The dissertation not only expanded previous studies,but also expanded the two theories.