Barracudas, Piranhas and crowds: making ideas valuable in pharmaceutical innovation through opening and closing practices of valuation

ABSTRACT

Attributing value to ideas is central in the journey from generating and elaborating ideas, to realising ‘creative’ products and processes. In this study, we explore the ways in which ideas are attributed value through practices of valuation in the innovation process. We examine valuation practices and intentionally and deliberately designed digital and anolog spaces in pharmaceutical innovation across various stages of the ‘idea journey’. The findings shed light on the valuation of objects and emerging ideas as well as unveiling how pharmaceutical firms adapt valuation practices in times of crisis, when the imperative to generate novel solutions intensifies. The empirical case illustrates the interplay between ‘opening’ valuation practices, such as crowd votings facilitated by a digital ideation software, and ‘closing’ mechanisms, such as idea rankings within exclusive evaluation boards, or idea clustering through the digital device, as well as how these practices enable a working consensus on defining what qualifies as new and valuable within the organisation. While closing valuation with its quantifying practices might allow for efficient decision-making in organising novelty, it may turn out to be problematic when it comes to achieving organisational legitimacy in innovation processes. Balancing opening and closing mechanisms seems crucial in innovation processes, particularly in times of uncertainty. Taking a closer look at the spatial and temporal conditions and dynamics of valuation, as well as the role of digital technology in the production of value advances the understanding of how value is produced.

KEYWORDS:

• Creativity and innovation management
• valuation
• pharmaceutical research and development
• openness and closedness
• digital and analog spaces
• process perspective
• qualitative research
• uncertainty

Introduction

Creativity is traditionally explored by looking at characteristics and experiences of creative individuals or at conditions facilitating an individual’s creative action. Turning away from this individualistic perspective, creativity scholars have recently become interested in creativity as a collective and collaborative process (e.g., Fortwengel et al., 2017; Garud et al., 2016; Hargadon & Bechky, 2006; Hondros et al., 2023; Schiemer et al., 2023; Zangerle, 2020), constituted by a set of practices, and negotiated between contexts and actors (Ortmann & Sydow, 2018; Schaefer, 2023). The definition of creativity in organisational literature, depicted as the generation of novel and valuable ideas (Amabile, 1996), indicates that value, as a correlate of valuation practices (Dewey, 1939), is at the core of creativity. However, the mechanisms by which evaluating audiences enter and leave valuation spaces have hardly been explored, though this is a central issue that tends to undermine the final recognition, appreciation and acceptance of novelty.

Currently, creativity research barely touches on how evaluation processes unfold in an organisational context, specifically examining how ‘the value of an idea is established when a field of experts and other influential individuals evaluate its feasibility based on the grammar of a domain and either choose to accept or reject it’ (Schaefer, 2023, p. 118). Valuation practices in innovation processes typically unfold in collaborative spaces (cf. Montanari et al., 2021), and are shaped, in complex innovation processes as in the pharmaceutical industry, by temporal complexity and related temporal work, as recetly have been shown by Otto et al. (2024). They can be conceptualised as valuation spaces, or ‘attention spaces’ as we will show, where an idea’s potential value is collaboratively negotiated. These spaces are either intentionally and deliberately designed within organisations, as in our empirical case, in order to draw the attention of different audiences to potentially valuable ideas for further development, or they emerge more coincidentally.

Building on valuation literature (e.g., Beckert & Aspers, 2011; Helgesson & Muniesa, 2013; Kornberger et al., 2015) provides conceptual tools for studying the role of valuation in the process of organising creativity, which has played a minor role in creativity literature so far. Valuation studies that have engaged with creative products such as wine and artwork (Bourdieu, 1998) mostly focus on the marketisation phase and the consumption side (Callon et al., 2002) rather than on the production side. From literature on openness (e.g., Splitter et al., 2023), we know that, in order to innovate, temporal openness towards other participants and topics can be beneficial for legitimising the value of an idea (cf. Dobusch et al., 2017; Gegenhuber & Dobusch, 2017); however, this also necessitates the development of new forms of closure (Dobusch & Dobusch, 2019). Against this backdrop, we ask the following research questions: how are ideas for creative products made valuable by practices of valuation throughout various phases of the innovation process? How, in particular, is the value of creative ideas and products negotiated in spaces of valuation that are characterised by specific forms of openness and closure?

Empirically, we focus on pharmaceutical research and development. This is of particular interest for addressing our question, since pharmaceutical innovation and valuation are traditionally perceived as rather closed processes. Typically, pharmaceutical companies intend to keep operations secret, not least to prevent creative ideas from migrating out into the ‘open’. Vice versa, external idea submitters and evaluators are typically excluded. However, as we will show in our study, this secrecy and closedness is regularly interrupted along the innovation process. Our data comprise interviews with key actors (scientists, managers and legal professionals) involved in the pharmaceutical innovation process and participant observation in a big pharmaceutical firm located in Switzerland and Germany, observing the valuation of scientific ideas and inventions along the ‘idea journey’ (Perry-Smith & Mannucci, 2017). By linking digital and physical spaces of valuation with stages of the idea journey and identifying valuation practices within those spaces, we show how valuation constitutes the creative artefact throughout the innovation process. We thereby show that it is the interplay of opening up and closing that plays a key role in creative valuation, including larger groups of people either within the firm or even external communities and crowds (Dobusch & Kapeller, 2018).

In terms of theory, this study contributes to anchoring innovation and creativity in the micro-practices of everyday organising. Understanding the foundation of the value in pharmaceutical production requires exploring processes, struggles, and dilemmas in creative cooperation and ways of managing them. Value is thus not conceptualised as given or inherent in something or someone, but rather as an outcome or product of a process in which a set of techniques and practices determines what organisations define as valuable, worthy of further consideration and investigation. Thus, we address the problem of how things, novelty, and ideas become valuable.

Making ideas valuable: valuation as theoretical lens

Objectivist (or essentialist) approaches assume that the value of things is something intrinsic to an object and can be ‘discovered’ or determined by specific methods (for example, using measurement or calculation methods). Subjectivist approaches, on the other hand, assume that value is subjectively perceived and/or intersubjectively constructed. The value of something must thus be interpreted and negotiated. Practice-based approaches (e.g., Schatzki et al., 2001), on the other hand, assume that the value of an object is neither objectively given nor simply a question of subjective interpretation and judgement (e.g., Lamont, 2012); rather, it is constituted in practices of valuation. In the practice-based and, more broadly, pragmatist tradition, value is not taken as a noun, but as a verb, as an act of valuing (Berthoin Antal et al., 2015; Hutter & Stark, 2015; Kornberger, 2017). In his seminal work Theory of Valuation, John Dewey (1939) suggests that a subject’s or object’s value is constituted in ongoing practices of valuation. Situated actors ascribe value to objects and thereby ‘make things valuable’ (Kornberger et al., 2015). Typically, the ascription of value is contested. Valuation is a fundamental human process that happens in all spheres of life. In interactions, we consciously or unconsciously ascribe value to others and are ascribed value by others; particularly in organisational contexts, practices and processes of valuation are often mediated by specific devices (e.g., tools, instruments and technologies of quantifying, measuring, classifying, labelling, ordering, etc.).

In the field of financial and economic evaluation, a number of techniques and procedures for determining the value and cost-effectiveness of investments in product innovation and R&D have been developed. Classical techniques including ROI, discounted cash flow, and market capitalisation and finance methods such as net present value analyses (NPV) provide signals to firms about the commercial viability of R&D projects (e.g., Dziallas & Blind, 2019; Simons, 2001; Vernon et al., 2009). While such devices provide information and influence decisions, they are often seen as neutral instruments that simply represent existing realities. In contrast, practice-based approaches study these technologies in social and organisational contexts in which they act as constitutive technologies. As such, they ascribe value while also, to a certain degree, constituting what they value (or devalue). Espeland and Sauder (2007), for example, have shown how rankings (in their case, in higher education) use quantification as a means for making objects (in this case, law schools) measurable and comparable (and thereby ascribe value to them). A ‘good’ or ‘bad’ school in this sense is not something that is ‘discovered’ by the ranking and subsequently represented in a neutral way; instead, it is an outcome or product of the specific categories that are used to describe them and the instruments and tools of measurement. These instruments (necessarily) are themselves the product of a social process of making them, which (necessarily) implies value judgements and choices.

Representing objects (e.g., schools) in terms of numbers or in a ranking is thus not a neutral description of a pre-existing reality but rather a performative act that influences, shapes and, to a certain degree, even makes what it allegedly describes. Since the position in a ranking will have consequences for those who are ranked and classified, there is what Espeland and Sauder (2007) have called ‘reactivity’. People as (potentially) reflexive beings respond and react in many different ways to efforts to study and measure, classify or evaluate them. They may confirm or resist the ranking, adapt or modify their behaviour, or engage in ‘gaming the rankings’, which entails manipulating rules and numbers, managing appearances, etc. Thus, measures (as ascriptions of value) may have important effects on the subjects and social reality they describe. They can work as self-fulfilling prophecies (e.g., by influencing the perception of external audiences, influencing the responses to surveys, distributing resources, encouraging the measured to become more like what rankings measure, etc.) and thereby realise the assumptions that are embedded in the measurement tools. The classical example is a bank that is ascribed a negative value (e.g., described or labelled as insolvent or near bankrupt), which will, in effect, become bankrupt if customers behave as if this were true (Merton, 1948).

Arriving at similar insights from a different angle, Hansen (2015) has discussed the role of ‘numerical operations’ in the production of specific forms of transparency. Quantifying methods and numerical operations are often assumed to (ideally) work as ‘engines of discovery’, providing access to reality by helping to ‘find out the facts’ behind or beneath the surface. They are often attributed ‘the quality of providing transparency in the sense of insight and true knowledge’ (Hansen, 2015, p. 204). For Hansen, the idea of unmediated access to a pre-given reality is illusionary (see also Hansen et al., 2015). Numerical operations such as quantifying, measuring, counting, etc., do not simply provide a transparent window to the world, but produce a specific version of the world. Numbers, and information more generally, are not something that is given and simply needs to be ‘discovered’ or ‘collected’; rather, numbers (and facts) are made or produced, relying on socio-material practices and networks as well as socio-technical infrastructures. When the processes and practices that go or went into the making of the numbers are rendered invisible or are forgotten, they appear as (pre-given) facts (rather than value-laden constructions). Hansen and Flyverbom (2015) therefore suggest investigating ‘the complex work of human actors and technologies that goes into producing that which appears to us as ‘transparent’ (Hansen & Flyverbom, 2015, p. 873).

Similar phenomena appear in the digital context, where mediating devices are often shaped by algorithms. While these are often understood in technical terms and described as a ‘set of instructions used to solve a well-defined problem’ (Introna, 2016, p. 21), they are embedded in social practices and ‘feed into people’s lives, shaping what they know, who they know, what they discover, and what they experience’ (Beer, 2017, p. 6). In digital contexts, algorithms are used for sorting data and material, or for turning disorganised data into manageable outputs through rules (Flyverbom & Madsen, 2015). Calculating, coding, classifying, filtering, finding, optimising, ranking, rating, routing, scheduling, searching, sorting, storing, and verifying are typical tasks performed by algorithms (cf. Orlikowski & Scott, 2015). As such, they are ‘profoundly performative’ (Kitchin, 2017, p. 18), i.e., they do things and organise the process of producing reality as they select, filter and frame information, creating facticity. Values are not external to an algorithm but are ‘folded’ into it (Introna, 2016).

Algorithms are inherently value-laden procedures in which assumptions are encoded (e.g., assumptions about what makes an idea ‘valuable’). They cannot be divorced from the context in which they are used and the conditions under which they are developed and deployed. As Kitchin (2017) puts it, ‘creating an algorithm unfolds in context through processes such as trial and error, play, collaboration, discussion and negotiation’ (Kitchin, 2017, p. 18). At the same time, algorithms are also socially productive. An algorithm, for example, that is designed to ‘find’ or ‘discover’ (calculate, fix, define, etc.) the ‘value’ (or ‘innovativeness’) of certain ideas (contributions, etc.) selects and filters data (such as creative ideas) based on specific assumptions about what makes data and ideas ‘valuable’ and for whom. In Hacking’s (2007) terms, we can say that algorithms that are designed as ‘engines of discovery’ (for ‘finding’, e.g., a solution, the value of something) are and work at the same time as ‘engines of making up’. They generate objects of knowledge that in turn influence and shape the world (see also Orlikowski, 2015).

While algorithmic practices, and digital practices more generally, often work as technologies of closure by excluding participants from practices of valuation and making information appear ‘robust and definitive’ (Espeland & Sauder, 2007, p. 17; Weiskopf & Hansen, 2023), they can also play a crucial role as facilitators of innovation and creativity, with digital voting gaining prominence for decision-making (Orlikowski & Scott, 2015). In terms of openness, they offer novel forms of generating ideas, fostering, for example, information flows (Pentland, 2015).

More generally, while the process of valuation relies on a complex socio-technical infrastructure and (necessarily) implies decisions and value judgements, the contingency of the construction might disappear. Decisions and practical politics that made them possible may disappear from sight and memory. ‘Once a system is in place, the practical politics of these decisions are often forgotten, literally buried in archives (when records are kept at all) or built into software or the sizes and composition of things’ (Bowker & Star, 2000, p. 45). The absorption of contingency through technical systems makes arbitrary constructions appear as facticity. Information appears as ‘more robust and definitive’ (Espeland & Sauder, 2007, p. 17), providing the ‘evidence’ for rational decisions. In the following empirical analysis, we want to unpack the often overlooked valuation practices underlying such ‘rational’ decisions in the context of valuation spaces in pharmaceutical innovation processes.

Materials and methods

Field and case

The pharmaceutical industry, renowned for its research-intensive nature, thrives on generating ideas amidst considerable uncertainty (Styhre & Sundgren, 2011). This sector comprises a select number of large multinational corporations and an expanding array of smaller firms. Despite the emergence of open innovation models (Fabrizio & DiMinin, 2008), the industry is profoundly shaped by regulations and intellectual property rights (IPR), particularly patents restricting open forms of innovating (Dutfield, 2009; Heller, 2010; Silbey, 2014). The industry faces pressures to innovate and adopt evidence-based, data-driven decision-making processes (Styhre & Sundgren, 2011). Consequently, there is an increasing trend towards external knowledge integration (Khanna, 2012), experimentation with innovative organisational forms (Dougherty, 2007), and opening up innovation to explore novel idea-generation avenues (Gassmann et al., 2018).

Internally, competing institutional demands in pharmaceutical firms increase their complexity (Vogelgsang, 2022), leading to new forms of organising. The quest for innovation involves leveraging digital technologies to enhance judgements, improve decisions, and achieve transparency (Albu & Flyverbom, 2016; Lindebaum et al., 2020). These digital spaces and intentionally designed environments aim to mitigate ‘human’ biases (Aadland et al., 2018; Berg, 2016; Mueller et al., 2012; Reitzig & Sorenson, 2013) while facilitating the organisation and categorisation of ideas. Yet, these efforts often yield unintended effects, as this case study will demonstrate.

Collaborative and experimental spaces play a pivotal role in pharmaceutical R&D, particularly in front-end research (Otto et al., 2021). Criticism of closed drug development approaches (Boldrin & Levine, 2013; Dutfield, 2009) highlights market exclusivity as a hindrance to social justice, public health (Sonderholm, 2014), and innovation and creativity (Geradin et al., 2011). Evolving research practices in pharmaceutical R&D, shaped by advancements in molecular biology and genetic engineering (Dutfield, 2009), underscore a transformative shift in recent decades.

This study delves into the spaces and practices of valuation within pharmaceutical R&D, focusing on a major pharmaceutical firm during a period of crisis, when the imperative to generate and develop new ideas intensifies (cf. Steyer & Gilbert, 2013). During our observation, the business segment under scrutiny faced an economic downturn, as conveyed by an interviewee: We know that in economic terms, we are in the S-curve. Somewhere on the plateau (…) when we look at the patent landscape, much of it is plastered (…) to get to the point: [name of the firm] is not doing well (Interview Ideation Manager). In response to this crisis, the firm implemented new spaces and practices of valuation, reshaping its innovation process.

The spatial dimension of creativity and social dynamics evolving within creative spaces were of interest in prior studies, exploring collaborative environments and examining variations in users, size, governance, property, and mission (Montanari et al., 2021). This encompasses various spaces such as ‘coworking spaces’ (Spreitzer et al., 2015), ‘creative labs’ (Schmidt & Brinks, 2017), shared ‘artist studios’ from the 1970s (Zukin, 1989), and ‘experimental spaces’ (Otto et al., 2021), as well as ‘interstitial spaces’ such as small clubs pivotal for Silicon Valley’s history (Furnari, 2014) or small-scale venues (Giuffre, 2013). In Vienna, venues such as coffeehouses served as hubs for discussion among scholars, artists, and individuals from various backgrounds including lower classes (Oldenburg, 1989). These ‘third places’, distinct from home (‘first place’) and the workplace (‘second place’) (cf. Oldenburg, 1989), foster community building, the development of creative endeavours, and learning (cf. Zangerle, 2023). Evolving into more structured forms, especially within organisations, they represent a socio-cognitive model for capitalism amid changing work conditions (Montanari et al., 2021).

These spaces are considered to foster creativity and innovation by facilitating collaboration among individuals with different backgrounds (Bouncken & Reuschl, 2018) and nurturing community (Spreitzer et al., 2015) through interaction and idea exchange. They serve as an infrastructure for relationship building for sustained creativity (Montanari et al., 2021). However, physical proximity does not guarantee fruitful interaction; potential collaborators in purpose-built buildings might intentionally avoid each other (Irving et al., 2019). When mutual understanding falters, interactions can hinder the potential benefits of collaboration (Cramton, 2001). Therefore, scrutinising the micro-level dynamics and the role of valuation within such settings is crucial.

Data

The first author collected data from two business locations of a pharmaceutical firm in Switzerland and Germany over a period of four working days (35 hours) in September 2018. Back in 2018, during the phase of data collection, the authors had an intuition that intentionally created valuation spaces and the role of digital devices in times of crisis are becoming increasingly important. In the case under study, intentionally created valuation spaces were a response to an ‘internal’ economic crisis of the firm. In a similar vein, external events (e.g., COVID-19, wars affecting the global economy, etc.) force firms to adapt and legitimise their innovation processes. Hence, how firms respond to shocks in times of crisis in innovation processes is increasingly important.

The identified ‘valuation spaces’ (see Table 2) were particularly relevant in the working life of the employees, including scientists, legal professionals and ideation managers in the big pharma sector. Within these settings, conversations on what is relevant and worthy of pursuit typically take centre stage. The first author therefore observed activities in valuation spaces such as R&D meetings and the ‘Idea and Innovation Management Software’ package. This software is a product developed and operated by a third-party provider and adapted and configured specifically for the company’s purposes in collaboration with the pharmaceutical company. An Ideation Team of the pharmaceutical company decides on the software’s timeframe and specific use. In addition, interviews were conducted with participants in these spaces both during and after the observation period. Informal conversations with individuals actively engaged in the innovation process and the valuation processes (e.g., during coffee or lunch breaks) enriched the data. Additionally, the first author conducted ten semi-structured face-to-face interviews in German, specifically focusing on the innovation process (Table 1). Subsequent email correspondence with one interview partner and interviews via Skype provided further clarification and insights. To systematically analyse the collected data, the first author employed content analysis techniques (Lueger, 2010), involving inductive and deductive coding. The transcription and analysis of interviews were conducted using oTranscribe and MAXQDA software. Pursuing an explorative approach, the different valuation sites and valuation practices (Table 3) emerged to be very relevant. Going back and forth between literature and data, we arrived at the following core coding categories:

• Spaces of valuation: R&D meetings, Barracuda Bowl, Piranha Pond, ‘Idea and Innovation Management Software’, informal spaces (which are relevant but not the focus of the analysis).

• Qualities of spaces of valuation: physical/digital, open/closed, formal/less formal.

• Stages of innovation: idea generation, idea elaboration, idea championing.

• Valuation Practices: ordering (including scoring and ranking), clustering, crowd voting, sorting in/out (filtering), comparing.

Table 1. Case study database.

Interviews	Ten semi-structured interviews with legal professionals, scientists and managers involved in the innovation process in the firm
Observations	Thirty-five hours of participant observation of the everyday working life of those observed

Table 2. Spaces of valuation.

Phase	I. Idea generation	II. Idea elaboration	III. Idea championing
Valuation space	R&D meetings	Barracuda Bowl	Piranha Pond
Description	Scientists with diverse backgrounds (but also IP professionals) generate and select ideas for further pursuit by describing and explicating them	A committee consisting of representatives of different departments who evaluate ideas, provide coaching for idea elaboration and pre-select ideas	A committee consisting of members of the Senior Management, who select ideas for their development
Qualities	Physical space, closed setting, less formalised	Physical space, rather closed and formalised	Physical space, closed and formalised setting
Space across phases	Digital technology, rather open setting, formalised. Description and qualities: ‘Idea and Innovation Management Software’ provides a platform aiming at collecting, storing, inducing, evaluating, further clarifying and developing ideas submitted by the crowds. It is a digital space, rather open and formalised setting.

Table 3. Practices of valuation.

Activities, empirical example, observation	Valuation Practices
The Barracuda Bowl ranks and compares the ideas based on criteria such as the portfolio fit, maturity, patentability, economic use and inventiveness of ideas.	Ordering (Scoring, ranking)
The Idea and Innovation Management Software package clusters ideas, aiming at facilitating the decision-making of the Barracudas and Piranhas. Thereby, ideas are systematically pre-clustered and sorted by the software’s algorithms.	(Algorithmic) Clustering
Crowd-voting occurs in the form of digital applauding (comparable to ‘Facebook likes’). The crowd thereby evaluates the ideas submitted to the software.	Crowd Voting
Scientists and patent professionals evaluate ideas in R&D meetings according to patent criteria, thereby sorting and filtering ideas.	Sorting in/out (Filtering)
The Piranhas compare the ideas in regard to their development stage and inventiveness.	Comparing
The Piranhas gave awards and funding for the idea’s development, as well as applause points to the scientists.	Honoring

Analytical framework and data analysis

Drawing on Perry-Smith and Mannucci’s (2017) conceptualisation of the ‘idea journey’, we establish a connection between the identified spaces of valuation and distinct stages of innovation. Pursuing a process perspective on innovation (see also Ibert & Müller, 2015), Perry-Smith and Mannucci (2017), four key stages of the ‘idea journey’ can be delineated: idea generation, elaboration, championing, and implementation (Perry-Smith & Mannucci, 2017). In the initial stage, actors engage in generating, selecting and articulating the most promising idea. The subsequent stage focuses on evaluating the idea’s potential as well as refining and developing it further (Perry-Smith & Mannucci, 2017, p. 57). The third stage is characterised by the ‘active promotion of the novel idea’, with the goal of securing approval to advance the idea, thus garnering the necessary resources in terms of funding, talent, and political support for its implementation (Perry-Smith & Mannucci, 2017, p. 57). Perry-Smith and Mannucci (2017, p. 57) also emphasise the intricate interplay of patent-related valuation throughout these different stages (see also Dobusch et al., 2021). Based on this analytical scheme, we structured the data based on the following steps.

First, we identified and explored spaces of valuation. The observed spaces of valuation in this case vary in the degree of openness (Splitter et al., 2023) concerning actors, topics and purposes, as well as whether they manifest as physical or digital spaces and whether they involve more formal or informal forms of valuation. In physical spaces, actors engage in face-to-face interactions, while digital environments facilitate mediated interactions through digital devices (Table 2). In 2018, the R&D department’s ‘Innovation Impulse’ working group initiated the implementation of novel valuation spaces – the Barracuda Bowl and the Piranha Pond. While the Barracuda Bowl is a committee consisting of representatives (such as the heads of R&D and business) and experts in the scientific field of the idea, the Piranha Pond is a group of selected powerful organisational actors including members from the Senior Management in their specific role as idea selectors. The goal of identifying valuation spaces is not to compile an exhaustive list but rather to underscore the prevalence of both intentional digital and physical valuation spaces throughout the journey. In the subsequent analysis, the aim is to discern the practices unfolding within these spaces.

As a second next step, we identified valuation practices within those spaces. For analytical purposes, we distinguish between relatively closed (e.g., Barracuda Pond) and open (e.g., idea-soliciting platforms) spaces as well as between different valuation practices (e.g., crowd voting). In this context, openness/closedness pertains to temporal considerations regarding participants/actors, purposes, and topics (Dobusch et al., 2017).

Making ideas valuable in pharmaceutical R&D

The valuation of scientific ideas in pharmaceutical R&D throughout the process takes place in rather closed spaces that are temporarily opened up. This primarily serves to make decisions on what counts as valuable, without overlooking possibly inventive developments within the firm, by temporarily asking the crowd – the employees within the company – to share their ideas. In the following, we will identify which qualities occur and are predominant in the respective phases of the process to illustrate the dynamic interplay of open and closed valuation practices.

Closing up valuation in idea generation

Valuation in the first stage of the journey typically takes place in everyday interactions between the scientists in the labs, both formally and informally, such as in the discussion of laboratory experiments or in coffee breaks or hallways. Within closed R&D meetings, scientists with diverse backgrounds, but also other actor groups such as IP professionals (e.g., the ‘patent champion’), discuss concrete ideas and rank them collaboratively according to the future potential and quality by drawing on their data and patent-related criteria (novelty, non-obviousness, and usefulness) to decide on the ideas for further pursuit. Through ‘patent training’, the scientists are sensitised for patent-related valuation, including ‘Patent Harvesting Workshops’ or ‘Workaround IP Workshops’ aiming at recognising patent-related criteria in evaluating scientific ideas in mostly target-oriented, directed innovation, as is typically the case in the pharmaceutical industry. This training is ‘[…] aimed very much at achieving directed innovation. That is, there is a concrete problem and based on this specific problem, ideation is then conducted’ (Interview Ideation Manager). Closing up valuation hence serves to build an exclusive space and atmosphere, which allows the selected to build a sense of importance of their work and exclusiveness of their role and focus on concrete problems. Different logics typically merge, as the above example shows, by introducing scientists to patent-related logics, thereby making ideas and potential products valuable already in very early stages of innovation, or even before R&D actually starts.

Temporarily opening up valuation on the journey

The idea and innovation management software collects, organises, and evaluates ideas along the journey. The software is accessible for all employees in the firm with access to the internal network, who are encouraged to actively use the system in order to improve the innovation process. Specifically, they should not only openly submit scientific ideas but should also evaluate ideas submitted by others by commenting on the idea for further clarification and voting for submitted ideas through ‘digital applauding’, thereby attributing value to an idea. Digital voting through applauding using the software allows the employees to evaluate ideas submitted to the software; this approach ensures the inclusion of a wide range of evaluators, as an interview quote illustrates: ‘[…] because I do not want anyone feeling left out, that’s important to me’ (Interview Ideation Manager). Hence, the tool should not only foster a sense of inclusiveness and togetherness within the firm but should also allow ideas to be gathered in an efficient and effective manner. This temporary openness towards crowds of employees within the firm as idea submitters and evaluators should ensure that all of the firm’s expertise is exploited, as the following quote, arguing that the software should remain, indicates:

We are really open and free to include anybody, because ultimately none of us know if anyone, I’ll just take the example of IT, if someone in private is not an extreme IT nerd, […] and that could be precisely that valuable source. (Interview Ideation Manager)

Digital applauding as a valuation practice does mark an idea as valuable. The applause points serve as incentives for the idea submitters since those points can be changed into cash by the idea submitter. Applauding serves to make the submitters visible, increasing their status within the firm and building a way of crowd evaluation, comparable with ‘Facebook likes’.

Cooking ideas in the Barracuda Bowl

Once ideas are identified and evaluated in both closed and open settings, they are concretised and judged in very closed spaces by strict judges with different backgrounds. The ‘Barracuda Bowl’, the committee consisting of representatives (such as the heads of R&D and business) and experts in the scientific field of the idea, select and further elaborate the ideas in collaboration with submitters. The Barracudas give advice, feedback, and coaching on potential adaptations to the idea submitters. The feedback refers to how to best present, market and sell the idea. In the face-to-face encounter between the scientists and Barracudas, the ideas are rehearsed and presented by the submitters. Thereby, the involved actors focus on the potential futures of the idea related to possible next research steps, also envisioning the role of the potential product on the market. Prior to the feedback sessions, the Barracudas rank the ideas submitted according to criteria such as portfolio fit, patentability, stage of maturation and inventiveness. In a rather closed sense, ideas are further systematically pre-clustered and thereby sorted by the Idea and Innovation Management Software algorithms:

There was a pre-clustering of the submitted ideas not based on quality but on subject area. Because there were quite a few inputs for process improvement, there was a lot in regard to product improvement, and […] less, some really disruptive ideas that were really completely different to anything else before. (Interview Ideation Manager)

Hence, the submitted ideas were organised and sorted around topics and forms of inventions (processes invention, products inventions or disruptive inventions). Valuation practices in this phase ensure the idea submitters ‘hang in there’ (Interview Scientist) and that the development of ideas is directed towards marketability. The Barracudas planned to temporarily open up valuation and include community responses for the evaluation and pre-selection of the ideas in order to increase the acceptance for an idea within the firm. In addition to rankings and clustering, praising and honouring the idea submitters in the coaching sessions shape this stage of the journey. Hence, again, a sense of exclusiveness of the idea submitters is built by creating a competitive atmosphere.

Closed idea championing in the Piranha Pond

Scientific ideas are finally selected for their development and honoured by the ‘Piranhas’. From 38 initial idea submissions, around 10 made it to the Piranha Pond. The Piranhas, which is a group of selected powerful organisational actors including members from the Senior Management in their specific role as idea selectors, in this case decided on the winning idea behind closed doors. This very exclusive setting ‘led to indignation within R&D’ because, as one ideation manager explained, ‘why the idea was selected was insufficiently explained’ to the idea submitters (Interview Ideation Manager). With the valuation criteria ‘maturity’ and ‘inventiveness’ of the idea, the Piranhas compare ideas with regard to their development stage and quality. A gadget won the challenge, described as a rather simple and user-friendly application, close to ‘customer wishes’ but, in the scientific sense, ‘not a very valuable invention’, as one scientist explains. The winning scientists received awards and funding for the idea’s development, as well as applause points. At the time of the interviews, not least due to the criticism of the lack of justification for their decisions, the Piranhas considered also using crowd voting to support their decisions and achieve higher acceptance. To some degree, this illustrates how outcomes of closed valuation practices lack acceptance from other stakeholder groups.

Discussion and conclusion

Building upon participant observation and interviews with key actors involved in the innovation process in a big pharmaceutical firm, we explored the process of how ideas are made valuable by practices and spaces of valuation throughout various stages of the innovation process. Only at the very end of a highly organised series of valuation spaces was a tiny subset of remaining ideas given the chance to become an actual product, ready to enter yet another valuation space – the market.

Our findings show how practices such as ranking, scoring, clustering, and voting unfolded in spaces of valuation characterised by various forms of openness and closedness. In our case, ideas are evaluated and selected for further development in consciously, deliberately, and intentionally designed spaces, comprising R&D meetings, the Barracuda Bowl and the Piranha Pond. These spaces can be understood as guiding the attention (see also Brielmaier & Friesl, 2023) of participants with rather closed qualities that allow only a selected number of participants to decide on what counts as valuable. Ideation software with rather open qualities complements these rather closed forms, as it allows the process of valuation to be temporarily opened up, inviting a ‘crowd’ (Dobusch & Kapeller, 2018) – the workers within the firm – to actively participate in suggesting and evaluating ideas (e.g., by digital applauding, or voting).

Applying a process perspective (cf. Dobusch et al., 2021; Schuessler et al., 2021) on valuation allows us to outline valuation as dynamic: valuation shifts from closed groups at the outline, to the crowds in middle phases, to closed spaces with the advancement of ideas. The interplay of opening (e.g., crowd voting, honouring in the form of digital applauding) and closing forms of valuation (e.g., rankings in exclusive groups with selected members, digital pre-clustering of ideas through algorithms) finally constitutes an idea’s or product’s ascribed value.

Theoretically, in line with prior conceptualisations of creativity and value (Amabile, 1996; Melchior, 2021; Schaefer, 2023), our analysis demonstrates that valuation is at the core of the creative process. However, in empirical creativity research, value and valuation practices have hardly played a role (Schaefer, 2023) so far (for an exception, see Melchior, 2021). More specifically, we show that valuation is not only observable at the front end of an R&D process or in distinct phases, as suggested by Perry-Smith and Mannucci (2017), but occurs in all phases of the innovation process. Similar to organising copresence in creative collaboration (Schiemer et al., 2023), and meaning and identity in collective (digital) environments (Hondros et al., 2023), the valuation is structured and organised by practices in valuation spaces. While Schiemer et al. (2023) explore how co-presence in creative processes is organised, we highlight the importance of opening and closing mechanisms in organising co-presence in the valuation process, particularly regarding the legitimacy of valuation outcomes.

Considering that the valuation process is intentionally organised in ‘valuation spaces’ rather than occurring randomly, questions regarding opening or closing need to be addressed (Dobusch & Dobusch, 2019). Within those spaces, actors are strategically and consciously selected (or not) – i.e., included or excluded – which subsequently affects the legitimacy of the ideas and products that are made valuable. This redirects conversations in creativity as it shifts the focus from looking at ‘novelty’ (Cattani et al., 2017) to including ‘value’ and related questions. Hence, we argue that processes, practices and spaces of valuation as well as latent and informal forms of valuation deserve more attention in subsequent research on creative processes.

Second, we add to our understanding of valuation processes in general (e.g., Beckert & Aspers, 2011; Helgesson & Muniesa, 2013; Kornberger et al., 2015) by introducing openness and closure as key qualities of valuation practices and spaces. In our case, evaluating actors are partly strategically selected and, specifically in the case of crowd evaluations, openly invited and left to self-select (Friesl et al., 2023) into the process. While valuation in rather closed valuation spaces enables efficient decision-making, it can undermine the legitimacy of an idea or invention. Open forms of valuation (e.g., crowd voting) have the potential to legitimise a creative artefact and support its wider acceptance, as long as the efforts of the crowds are honoured. Overall, the case shows how valuation is shaped by varying degrees of openness and closedness. Drawing on struggles and dilemmas identified in previous studies on opening strategic processes (e.g., Hautz et al., 2017), we may be able to more systematically understand the impact on related valuation practices over time and how these are performed in digital and physical settings.

As a side note, our study illustrates how the introduction of novel valuation spaces can be a reaction to a period of crisis. This case illustrates that especially in times of crises, firms reinvent strategies and reorganise the ways in which ideas, processes and products are evaluated (Steyer & Gilbert, 2013). In practical terms, we show how temporarily opening up innovation, thereby including international and also external actors, can help firms respond to crises.

As usual, the limitations of a study indicate potential areas for future research. While this study predominantly focused on formally organised valuation spaces, subsequent research could shift the focus to informally emerging valuation spaces. Moreover, zooming in on tensions between different actor groups and struggles over legitimacy in valuation may be a fruitful avenue to better account for power dynamics in valuation spaces. Finally, our case further indicates the importance of mediators – such as software providers – in transferring valuation within and across organisations, not least because our findings indicate that digital technologies increasingly shape the process of (de)valuation that makes up ‘innovative ideas’ as objects of knowledge and contention.

Overall, our study shows that managing the process of innovation and valuation is not a linear and technical process of fixing and defining solutions but rather a dynamic process in which balancing opening and closing practices remains an ongoing challenge. The deliberate organising of valuation spaces and the respective use of digital technologies affords new forms of including or excluding actors in the innovation and valuation process, thereby provoking responses and shaping creative processes as continuous valuation exercises.

Acknowledgments

The authors thank the anonymous reviewers and Nelson Phillips, the editor-in-chief. Earlier versions of this paper were presented in the research unit “Organized Creativity” at Freie Universität Berlin, at the European Group for Organizational Studies Colloquium (in 2019 and 2021), at the Spring School “Organized Creativity” (in 2019). The authors are grateful for the feedback received in these contexts.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Correction Statement

This article has been corrected with minor changes. These changes do not impact the academic content of the article.

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by German Research Foundation (DFG) funding for the Research Unit “Organized Creativity” [Grant FOR 2161] as well as by the Austrian Science Fund (FWF) [10.55776/I4884]. This work was supported by the University of Innsbruck, and the Vienna University of Economics and Business.