I can do that alone…or not? How idea generators juggle between the pros and cons of teamwork

• Published date: 01 February 2018
• DOI: http://doi.org/10.1002/smj.2696
• Date: 01 February 2018

RESEARCH ARTICLE

I can do that alone…or not? How idea generators

juggle between the pros and cons of teamwork

Dirk Deichmann

1

| Michael Jensen

2

1

Department of Technology and Operations

Management, Rotterdam School of Management,

Erasmus University, Rotterdam, The Netherlands

2

Strategy Area, Stephen M. Ross School of

Business, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor,

Michigan

Correspondence

Dirk Deichmann, Rotterdam School of

Management, Erasmus University, Burgemeester

Oudlaan 50, Rotterdam, 3062 PA, The

Netherlands.

E-mail: ddeichmann@rsm.nl

Research summary:The advantages of working with a

team to develop an idea are well established, but surpris-

ingly, little is known about why some idea generators

ignore these advantages by developing their ideas alone.

To answer this question, we study two important trade-

offs. First, working with a team provides access to addi-

tional resources but also leads to increased coordination

costs. Second, sharing the risks and costs of developing

an idea necessitates sharing the potential rewards of a

successful idea. We use unique data on idea generators

and their submission of ideas to an innovation program in

a large European company between 1996 and 2008 to

show how the two different trade-offs affect the decision

of idea generators to collaborate with a team.

Managerial summary:Organizations usually form teams

to develop and execute innovative ideas. When people

have the choice, however, will they also form a team or

will they develop ideas alone? By studying idea genera-

tors and their voluntary submissions of breakthrough

ideas to an innovation program, we find that the success

rate is much higher for team ideas. Although teamwork

has important benefits, idea generators will often develop

incremental ideas alone and only accept increased coordi-

nation costs for developing radical ideas—this is even

more so when they have prior team experiences. More-

over, only when idea generators were successful before

and—even more so—when they developed that idea

alone, will they be more open to sharing the rewards and

risks of developing another idea with a team.

KEYWORDS

corporate entrepreneurship, employee innovation, idea

generation, radical innovation, teams

Received: 4 March 2016 Revised: 5 August 2017 Accepted: 9 August 2017 Published on: 23 October 2017

DOI: 10.1002/smj.2696

This is an open access article under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits use, distribution

and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.

© 2017 The Authors. Strategic Management Journal published by John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

458 wileyonlinelibrary.com/journal/smj Strat Mgmt J. 2018;39:458–475.

1|INTRODUCTION

By tapping into the creative potential of their employees, firms may create the mechanisms that

encourage breakthrough innovation and strategic renewal (Ahuja & Lampert, 2001; Baumann &

Stieglitz, 2014). Indeed, the voluntary contributions of new product and process ideas by employees

are potentially important sources of competitive advantage (Birkinshaw, 1997; Burgelman, 1983,

1991). When employees develop new ideas, creating informal teams to work on the ideas is a pow-

erful way to ensure their success. Despite drawbacks such as increased coordination costs and

diminished motivation (Marks, Mathieu, & Zaccaro, 2001; Seers, 1989; Staats, Milkman, & Fox,

2012), working in informal teams allows idea generators to tap into the diverse expertise and knowl-

edge of other people to develop the idea and address potential weaknesses (Harvey, 2014; Kurtz-

berg & Amabile, 2001; Singh & Fleming, 2010). Because new innovations often are met with

resistance (Baer, 2010; Mueller, Melwani, & Goncalo, 2012), collaborating with other people also

gives idea generators more persuasion and leverage to overcome initial resistance to adopting their

new ideas (Lechner & Floyd, 2012). Although the advantages of working with a team to develop an

idea are well established, we know surprisingly little about why some people ignore these advan-

tages and develop their ideas alone. To answer this question, we focus on two important trade-offs:

Working with a team provides access to additional resources, but also leads to increased coordina-

tion costs (Marks et al., 2001; Seers, 1989; Staats et al., 2012), and sharing the risks and costs of

developing an idea necessitates sharing the potential rewards of a successful idea (Gomez-Mejia,

Welbourne, & Wiseman, 2000).

For the trade-off between access to resources and increased coordination, we argue that the deci-

sion to work with a team is related to the radicalness of the nascent idea. Organizations usually form

teams for the task to further develop and execute ideas—whether these ideas are radical or not

(Marks et al., 2001; Mathieu, Maynard, Rapp, & Gilson, 2008; Mesmer-Magnus & DeChurch,

2009). We suggest that idea generators themselves are more likely to form a team when the idea is

radical because the development of such an idea requires access to more resources, knowledge, and

skills. For less radical ideas, however, idea generators are more likely to develop these ideas alone

because the disadvantage of increased coordination cost outweighs the potential advantages of work-

ing with a team. We further propose that idea generators’earlier team experience is positively asso-

ciated with the decision to develop radical ideas with a team. For the trade-off between sharing the

risks and sharing the rewards with a team, we argue that, given the small chance of scoring a suc-

cess, those idea generators who did develop a successful idea will subsequently be more likely to

spread the risks of idea development by collaborating with other people. Prior idea success will also

increase the likelihood that the idea generator is a more attractive partner for others. We argue,

finally, that the quality signal of prior success is particularly powerful when the idea generator

developed the earlier idea alone. The idea generator is likely to be sought out more by others which

increases the probability that he or she will develop a next idea with a team.

Following idea generators over time as they generate, develop, and submit ideas to the innova-

tion program, our study makes two contributions to research on teams and innovation. First, while

working with teams is often seen as an important mechanism to spur innovation in organizations

(Perry-Smith & Shalley, 2014; Sutton & Hargadon, 1997; Woodman, Sawyer, & Griffin, 1993), less

research examines whether employees actually concur with this view, and given the choice, prefer

working in teams to working alone. Focusing on the trade-offs that people make when deciding to

develop an idea with a team or not therefore deepens our understanding of the drivers and con-

straints of collaborative idea development (Hargadon & Bechky, 2006). By studying the dynamics

of idea development in an organization, we find that idea generators who generated a less radical

DEICHMANN AND JENSEN 459