The Creative Process: The Effects of Group Memory on Individual Idea Generation

Abstract:

To compete in today’s rapidly paced business environment, many companies are increasingly relying on their employees to generate creative solutions to business problems. Specifically, through the use of idea-generation techniques, business owners hope to promote creative idea generation by their employees. Several leading corporations (and, concomitantly, researchers) have become interested in the use of group support systems (GSS) to enhance idea generation. A key component of the GSS-based idea-generation process is group memory, a repository of ideas created by users of GSS. Group memory provides stimuli, in the fonn of ideas, to the individuals using the software. This study seeks to better understand the manner in which the contents of the group memory influence the type of ideas generated by individuals in the group. We report the results of a laboratory experiment that investigated whether the stimuli contained within a GSS group memory (i.e., ideas) systematically influenced the extent of paradigm shift represented in the ideas generated by individuals. A GSS simulator designed for this study was used to allow for the manipulation ofthe stimuli in the group memory. The results suggest that individuals tend to generate ideas that match the paradigm-relatedness of ideas provided to them as stimulation.

Key Words and Phrases:

• brainstorming
• creativity
• group memory
• group support systems
• idea generation

Additional information

Notes on contributors

John W. Satzinger

John W. Satzinger is an Associate Professor in the CIS Department of Southwest Missouri State University. He holds a Ph.D. in MIS from the Claremont Graduate University and was an Assistant Professor of MIS at the University of Georgia from 1991 to 1996. Dr. Satzinger has published articles on user interface design, group support systems, and end-user training in journals such as Journal of Management Information Systems, Database, Accounting, Management, and Information Technologies, and Information Systems Management. He is also coauthor of The Object-Oriented Approach.

Monica J. Garfield

Monica J. Garfield is a Ph.D. student in the Department of Management at the University of Georgia. She has a bachelor’s degree in cognitive science from Vassar College, and an M.B.A. and a masters of science in MIS from Boston University. She has published articles in Information Systems Research, Journal of Strategic Information Systems, and Information Systems Management. Her current research interests focus on knowledge creation at both the macro (state and national infrastructure and telemedicine policy) and micro (individual idea generation and creative problem solving) levels.

Murli Nagasundaram

Murli Nagasundaram is Assistant Professor of Computer Infonnation Systems in the College of Business at Boise State University. He has a bachelor’s degree in engineering from the University of Madras, an M.B.A. from the Indian Institute of Management, Calcutta, and a Ph.D. in MIS from the University of Georgia. He has several years of managerial and entrepreneurial experience in the infonnation technology and services industry. He helped found Collaborative Technologies Corporation and designed a group support system called VisionQuest. His research and teaching interests include group support systems, creativity and creative problem solving, organizational teamwork and collaboration, and telecommunications and the Internet.