ENTREPRENEURSHIP

See discussions, stats, and author profiles for this publication at: https://www.researchgate.net/publication/315955229

You don’t have to be an entrepreneur to be entrepreneurial: The unique role of

imaginativeness in new venture ideation

Article  in  Business Horizons · April 2017

DOI: 10.1016/j.bushor.2017.03.002

CITATIONS

3 READS

619

2 authors:

Jeffery S. McMullen

Indiana University Bloomington

82 PUBLICATIONS   4,827 CITATIONS   

SEE PROFILE

Alex Kier

Washington State University

8 PUBLICATIONS   16 CITATIONS   

SEE PROFILE

All content following this page was uploaded by Jeffery S. McMullen on 25 September 2017.

The user has requested enhancement of the downloaded file.

BUSHOR-1374; No. of Pages 8

You don’t have to be an entrepreneur to be entrepreneurial: The unique role of imaginativeness in new venture ideation

Jeffery S. McMullen *, Alexander S. Kier

Kelley School of Business, Indiana University, 1309 E. Tenth Street, Bloomington, IN 47405, U.S.A.

Business Horizons (2017) xxx, xxx—xxx

Available online at www.sciencedirect.com

ScienceDirect www.elsevier.com/locate/bushor

KEYWORDS Entrepreneurship creativity; Imaginativeness; Ideation; New startup ideas; Entrepreneurial ideas

Abstract Bestsellers like The Lean Startup and Business Model Generation have suggested that ideation–—the generation and selection of ideas–—is important to new venture creation; yet, little empirical research on the topic has been conducted. Using a creative problem solving approach, we developed and tested a new scale that found imaginativeness predicts new venture ideation over and above the effects of the usual suspects of attitude, knowledge, and evaluation. Imaginativeness is an ideational skill that combines task-relevant knowledge in three distinct domains– —creative, social, and practical–—with the latent ability of imagination. In this article, we explain why a new scale was needed, why imaginativeness appears to be especially useful to individuals who lack entrepreneurial experience, and how imaginativeness enables just about anyone to generate and select new venture ideas with the proficiency of a habitual entrepreneur. © 2017 Kelley School of Business, Indiana University. Published by Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

1. Entrepreneurs and new venture ideation

Coming up with a million-dollar idea is difficult, much less several of them. That is why we stand in awe of people like Joy Mangano, inventor of the Miracle Mop, founder of Ingenious Designs, and

* Corresponding author E-mail addresses: [email protected] (J.S. McMullen),

[email protected] (A.A. Kier)

0007-6813/$ — see front matter © 2017 Kelley School of Business, I http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.bushor.2017.03.002

inspiration for the movie Joy starring Jennifer Law- rence. Like an entrepreneurial cliché, Mangano used her own savings and investments from family and friends in 1990 to develop her first invention, the Miracle Mop, a self-wringing plastic mop with a head made from a continuous loop of 300 feet of cotton that could easily be wrung out without get- ting the user’s hands wet. After selling 18,000 mops in less than half an hour on QVC, Mangano incorpo- rated her business and eventually sold it to the parent company of the Home Shopping Network

ndiana University. Published by Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

BUSHOR-1374; No. of Pages 8

2 J.S. McMullen, A.S. Kier

in 1999. By 2000, Mangano’s company was selling $10 million worth of Miracle Mops a year. As impres- sive as that is, however, it pales in comparison to the fact that the Miracle Mop is but one of over 100 patents held by Joy Mangano. When asked to explain her secret for generating so many successful new product ideas, Mangano simply states (Konig, 2001):

I think my products have been successful be- cause they have mass appeal . . . I’m just like everybody else out there. I’m a mom, I work, I have a house to clean, things to organize. We all have certain needs, and I address them.

It is hard to look at individuals like Joy Mangano and not believe that they have something the rest of us do not. Successful entrepreneurs, like Mangano, simply appear to possess an entrepreneurial imagination that eludes most. Yet, anyone who leads a business–—regardless of whether they founded it, helped build it, or have just begun to assume responsibility for it–—knows that new ideas are essential to its continued relevance in an ever- changing, competitive landscape. Ideas are the lifeblood of innovation, and innovation is necessary for the creation of new ventures by individuals both within and outside of existing firms. Therefore, it is no surprise that the term entrepreneurial common- ly is used to describe individuals who are innovative or creative in a commercial setting. Indeed, most people think that entrepreneurs are especially skilled at coming up with ideas for new businesses, but whether this is true and why is far from clear.

Explanations of new venture ideation–—the gen- eration and selection of new venture ideas–—are relatively new in academic literature, but prior research has emphasized the role of knowledge (Shane, 2000), experience (Davidsson & Honig, 2003), and motivation (McMullen & Shepherd, 2006) in opportunity identification and entrepre- neurial action. In addition, these same predictors have been identified as important for creative prob- lem solving. For instance, mathematician and creativity researcher Ruth Noller proposed that creativity is a function of attitude, knowledge, imagination, and evaluation (Isaksen, Dorval, & Treffinger, 2011), wherein attitude loosely refers to the notion that creativity increases with effort. Creativity also is expected to increase with knowl- edge, which encompasses general human capital of education, and with evaluation, which refers to the judgment that accompanies the specific human capital of experience.

The world, however, is full of highly motivated, educated, and experienced adults who no one would credit with being creative. Why? Because

they lack imagination. Without imagination, the recipe for creativity lacks its secret sauce: the catalytic element that makes new connections and combinations possible. Conversely, ask any 5th grade teacher whether his/her students lack imagination and they will scoff. Then, inquire as to whether any of the students’ novel ideas are useful, and you will likely receive the same reac- tion. Why? Because children often lack the knowl- edge and evaluation skills to screen good ideas from the wild hares. Thus, creative problem solving–—like that exercised in new venture ideation–—requires all four ingredients: effort, knowledge, imagination, and evaluation. Of these four ingredients, however, only imagination has yet to receive substantial scholarly attention. We sought to examine whether entrepreneurs are better than others at generating good ideas for new ventures; and if so, why? Are they more imaginative or do they merely possess the knowledge, experience, or motivation that others lack?

2. Criteria for developing an imaginativeness scale

Fortunately, measures of motivation (effort), gen- eral human capital (knowledge), and specific human capital (evaluation) have long lined the pages of research in both creativity and entrepreneurship and have been used in myriad ways to examine new venture creation. The same cannot be said of imagination, a latent ability that manifests as an ideational skill relevant to a specific task such as new venture creation. Therefore, to tackle the questions of whether entrepreneurs outperform the general population at the creative process of new venture ideation and whether any possible differences can be attributed to imagination, we had to create a scale of ideational skill that was capable of measuring the imaginativeness of both entrepreneurs and the general population.

This new scale needed to measure more than the imaginativeness that people often ascribe to indi- viduals with high levels of creativity or to individu- als with highly creative styles (Kirton, 1976). Creative imaginativeness is what comes to mind when people hear terms such as ‘creative’ or ‘in- novative.’ Imaginativeness is domain specific and can be developed with deliberate practice. For example, individuals can enhance their creative imaginativeness by going for quantity, deferring judgment, going for novelty, thinking laterally, and using a host of other creativity-enhancing tools (Brown, 2009; De Bono, 2015). These actions are

BUSHOR-1374; No. of Pages 8

The unique role of imaginativeness in new venture ideation 3

known to facilitate new idea generation. For exam- ple, brainstorming is one such technique intended to enhance idea generation, but not necessarily idea pursuit. To the degree that more ideas increase the probability of creating a high-quality idea, brainstorming can contribute to the production of better ideas but only if the individual or team also possesses the ability to screen and select quality ideas, effectively separating the wheat from the chaff.

Creative imaginativeness is important for gener- ating new solutions to problems, but creative prob- lem solving encompasses more than just brainstorming. Our scale also needed to capture the social imaginativeness that people use to infer others’ beliefs and desires. As mentioned by Joy Mangano, entrepreneurs often rely on social infer- ences to detect unmet needs, to identify obstacles preventing fulfillment of others’ needs, and to ensure that the innovations overcoming these ob- stacles appeal to others.

Like creative imaginativeness, individuals can en- hance their social imaginativeness. This comes from deliberately seeking to take others’ perspectives, putting oneself into another’s shoes, and engaging in mental simulation of another’s position (Goldman, 2006). This is different from asking others what their preferences are regarding a prototype or idea. In- stead, the act involves a mental simulation of asking oneself how you would feel about the product if you were the other person. This form of mentalism is used regularly to infer others’ preferences and beliefs and can be sharpened greatly with knowledge about the other. For example, people often exhibit greater empathic accuracy with their spouse, children, pa- rents, or close friends than they do with a perfect stranger (Ickes, 1997). Demographics and psycho- graphics are often meant or collected to facilitate such social inferences.

Social imaginativeness might be expected to contribute to both idea generation and selection by making entrepreneurs aware of others’ needs, wants, and problems/obstacles that prevent satis- faction of these preferences. This should facilitate idea generation by identifying more problems in need of a solution and therefore more stimuli to trigger creative effort (McMullen, 2010). Social imaginativeness may also contribute to idea selec- tion by helping entrepreneurs edit these ideas– —culling those ideas one believes others will not like–—by considering it from their vantage point (McMullen, 2015).

Finally, we needed the scale to measure the practical imaginativeness that people use to devel- op and implement new ideas. Successful execution requires people to imagine the future in order to

anticipate and adapt to potential obstacles, often before these obstacles have a chance to material- ize.

Individuals can enhance their practical imagina- tiveness through deliberate effort. This comes from activities such as planning, forecasting, budgeting, projecting, and simply thinking things through. This is where conjectures, hypotheticals, and counter- factual thinking thrive. Practical imaginativeness should greatly facilitate idea selection, but the experience it draws on and the risk it identifies also likely introduce a psychological voice of judgment that can inhibit idea generation (McMullen, 2015). More experience can provide more reasons as to why things will not work. If creativity is indeed a function of attitude, knowledge, imagination, and evaluation as previously suggested (Isaksen et al., 2011), then practical imaginativeness is the dimen- sion of imagination most inextricably linked to knowledge and evaluation.

Consideration of these needs led us to develop a scale capable of predicting new venture ideational skill, defined as the ability to effectively generate and select new venture ideas. This ideational skill is enabled bythree individual capabilities–—innovation, social inference, and project management–—that are engendered by three dimensions of the imagination as it is applied to the new venture ideation process: (1) creative imaginativeness, (2) social imaginative- ness, and (3) practical imaginativeness. Each repre- sents a cognitive skill that combines imagination with the knowledge needed to apply this imagination to the task of new venture ideation.

We have portrayed creative imaginativeness pri- marily as encouraging idea generation, practical imaginativeness primarily as facilitating idea selec- tion, and social imaginativeness as contributing to both. However, counterclaims are possible. For ex- ample, more experience–—which facilitates practical imaginativeness–—can also generate more raw mate- rials from which to draw when engaging in creative imaginativeness. This suggests that practical imagi- nativeness might be useful in idea generation (but less so than creative imaginativeness). Similarly, there is reason to question whether creative versus social imaginativeness is more important in idea generation or whether practical versus social imagi- nativeness is more important in idea selection.

All three forms of imaginativeness can be deliber- ate, such that they require attention and cognitive effort. Attention is a limited resource, such that allocation of it toward idea generation is likely to come at the expense of idea selection, or vice versa. Because social imaginativeness appears to divide its attention between tasks, whereas creative imagina- tiveness allocates it primarily to idea generation and

BUSHOR-1374; No. of Pages 8

4 J.S. McMullen, A.S. Kier

practical imaginativeness primarily to idea selection, it would appear that social imaginativeness may be at a relative disadvantage compared to either. This would make its effect on idea generation or selection weaker than its more focused counterparts. Thus, questions remained about the relative importance of each form of imaginativeness in predicting new ven- ture idea generation and selection–—questions we sought to answer.

Finally, we assumed that imaginativeness is a skill that is comprised of both the tacit knowledge of experience and the latent ability of imagination. Because entrepreneurs presumably have more expe- rience with new ventures, one might expect them to exhibit higher ideational skill because they have undergone the new venture creation process before. Because new venture creation does not necessarily require habitual ideation, however, non-entrepre- neurs with heavy domain knowledge of customers via interactions with coworkers, friends, hobbyists, clubs, or fellow enthusiasts may actually exhibit greater social imaginativeness than many successful entrepreneurs who may have been little more than one-hit wonders. Designers might experience some- thing similarwith creative imaginativeness or project managers with practical imaginativeness.

Consequently, it remained unclear whether en- trepreneurial experience necessarily translated in- to greater ideational skill in general. Did it enhance attitude, knowledge, evaluation, or imagination; and, if so, how–—through creative, social, or practi- cal imaginativeness, all three, or some combination thereof? In other words, did entrepreneurial expe- rience make individuals better at new venture idea generation and selection? Was it because it en- hanced their imaginativeness? Might someone high in imaginativeness but low in experience still ex- hibit this same new venture ideational skill?

3. Discoveries from our research

Equipped with the new scale, we asked participants (233 entrepreneurs and 273 non-entrepreneurs [i.e., individuals who had never before attempted a start- up]) to generate new venture ideas based off a common technology. We found no statistically signif- icant differences between entrepreneurs and non- entrepreneurs in terms of their effort, knowledge, or evaluation. However, we did find that entrepreneurs (as compared to non-entrepreneurs) had higher lev- els of all three forms of imaginativeness.

Contrary to expectation, we found that entre- preneurs generated significantly fewer new venture ideas than non-entrepreneurs. However, these

ideas were of higher quality than those of non- entrepreneurs (although the difference was not statistically remarkable).

Next, we took a closer look at the relationship between imaginativeness and new venture ideation to gain a better understanding of our results. Over and above the effects of effort, knowledge, and evaluation, we found that imaginativeness is posi- tively and significantly associated with new venture idea generation and new venture idea selection. Specifically, creative imaginativeness and social imaginativeness predict higher levels of new ven- ture idea generation but not new venture idea selection. Conversely, practical imaginativeness predicts higher levels of new venture idea selection but not new venture idea generation. Additionally, all three forms of imaginativeness explain a signifi- cant amount of variance in new venture idea gen- eration, but creative imaginativeness plays a more important role than practical imaginativeness. As for new venture idea selection, all three forms of imaginativeness explain a significant amount of variance, but practical imaginativeness plays a more important role than either creative imagina- tiveness or social imaginativeness.

Thus, we had a puzzling dilemma on our hands. Generally speaking, we found that imaginativeness and new venture ideation were positively related, and that entrepreneurs had significantly higher lev- els of imaginativeness than non-entrepreneurs. Therefore, shouldn’t entrepreneurs generate sig- nificantly more new venture ideas? Yet, the results of our study were clearly suggesting otherwise: entrepreneurs were generating significantly fewer new venture ideas than non-entrepreneurs. There is, however, an important difference between gen- erating ideas and generating good ideas. When we looked to idea selection, differences between en- trepreneurs and non-entrepreneurs vanished.

This prompted us to examine whether and how the various relationships between each form of imaginativeness and new venture idea generation or new venture idea selection depended on en- trepreneurial experience. What we discovered was a rather intricate story.

3.1. Entrepreneurial experience and new venture idea generation

Entrepreneurs exhibit higher creative, social, and practical imaginativeness than non-entrepreneurs, and both creative and social imaginativeness exhib- it a positive relationship with new venture idea generation. However, only the relationship between social imaginativeness and new venture idea gener- ation depends on entrepreneurial experience.

BUSHOR-1374; No. of Pages 8

The unique role of imaginativeness in new venture ideation 5

Moreover, this positive relationship is weakened by entrepreneurial experience. Thus, entrepreneurial experience appears to suppress the positive effect that social imaginativeness has on idea generation, possibly providing a form of unconscious editing in which ideas are dismissed as unfeasible, undesir- able, or unviable before they ever reach the page. This may result from an automatic mental simula- tion of possible stakeholder responses to new ideas learned from entrepreneurial experience (McMullen, 2015). No such suppression occurs for non-entrepreneurs, who lack this entrepreneurial experience. Moreover, because non-entrepreneurs start at a relative disadvantage in terms of their level of social imaginativeness, they are likely to enjoy an increase in new venture idea generation associated with increasing levels of social imagina- tiveness. Consequently, increases in social imagina- tiveness appear to facilitate idea generation for entrepreneurs and non-entrepreneurs alike but pre- mature editing may simply negate these benefits for entrepreneurs, such that non-entrepreneurs end up generating more new venture ideas than entrepre- neurs.

3.2. Entrepreneurial experience and new venture idea selection

Unlike with new venture idea generation, only practical imaginativeness exhibits a positive rela- tionship with new venture idea selection. Moreover, we find that the relationship between practical imaginativeness and new venture idea selection depends on entrepreneurial experience, such that the discerning effects of practical imaginativeness on new venture idea selection are stronger among entrepreneurs than non-entrepreneurs.

At first, creative and social imaginativeness did not appear to have a relationship with new venture idea selection. But on closer examination, we found that both creative and social imaginativeness are related to new venture idea selection once one distinguishes entrepreneurs from non-entrepre- neurs. New venture idea selection is positively related to both creative imaginativeness and social imaginativeness for non-entrepreneurs, but for en- trepreneurs, idea selection is negatively related to creative and social imaginativeness. Therefore, when these populations are combined, no relation- ship is found.

3.3. Entrepreneurial experience and imaginativeness

What is it about entrepreneurial experience that might explain such different patterns between

these forms of imaginativeness and idea selection? Could it be that, on average, the imaginativeness of entrepreneurs is close to optimal levels for new venture idea generation and selection such that more imaginativeness for the entrepreneurs leads to no performance enhancement in the selection of new venture ideas? Compare this to non-entrepre- neurs, who appear to experience a relative defi- ciency in ideational skill owing to a lack of entrepreneurial experience, a deficiency overcome by increases in imaginativeness. Eventually, these non-entrepreneurs approximate entrepreneurs in selecting quality ideas and actually surpass entre- preneurs in their ideational skill of generating new venture ideas.

It seems that entrepreneurial experience is in- deed valuable in ideational skill, but more because of what it points to than what it is. In other words, we find that imaginativeness is the ideational skill that improves new venture idea generation and selection. Exercising this imaginativeness is the substance of entrepreneurial experience such that entrepreneurial experience appears to be a proxy indicating that an individual has learned the idea- tional skill of using creative imaginativeness and social imaginativeness to select quality new venture ideas. Creative and social imaginativeness may fa- cilitate the divergent thinking needed to expand the opportunity set and the convergent thinking needed to cull these ideas to those of the greatest quality whenever individuals do not have the luxury of drawing on past entrepreneurial experience. Without a cache of task-relevant memories to draw upon, the non-entrepreneur must instead try to think things through with the help of his or her imagination. Conversely, an entrepreneur may al- ready possess the cognitive schema needed to screen an idea effectively, and increases in creative and social imaginativeness would merely introduce additional noise to the decision-making process.

Regardless of explanation, our research suggests that even if individuals lack entrepreneurial expe- rience, they may have the capability of generating new venture ideas and selecting those ideas of the highest quality at levels that approach or even surpass entrepreneurs–—as long as these individuals have the creative, social, and practical imagina- tiveness to generate and select ideas.

4. Putting our discoveries to work for your organization

Do you or your employees need to generate and select quality, new venture ideas but lack entrepre-

BUSHOR-1374; No. of Pages 8

Table 1. The Imaginativeness Scale*

Creative Imaginativeness (a = .93)

1. I consider myself to be inventive.

2. I consider myself to be innovative.

3. I demonstrate originality in my work.

4. I like to create original work.

5. People say that I am artistic.

6. Being creative is a large part of who I am.

Social Imaginativeness (a = .92)

1. It is easy for me to see things from the other person’s point of view.

2. I always make an effort to see the world through other people’s eyes.

3. It is easy for me to understand why people feel the way they do.

4. I have a good sense for what other people are feeling.

5. I can read people’s emotions just from their facial expressions.

6. I am good at reading people.

Practical Imaginativeness (a = .89)

1. I tend to be good at project management.

2. I can picture what the bottleneck of a system will be.

3. Before I face a new situation, I picture the issues I may encounter and plan accordingly.

4. I see connections between seemingly unrelated pieces of information.

5. Forming mental images helps me solve problems.

6. I extrapolate existing methods to solve new problems.

*Source: Kier (2016)

6 J.S. McMullen, A.S. Kier

neurial experience? If so, all is not lost. How imagi- native are you, and in what ways? If you have sufficient creative and social imaginativeness, you and your team may have the ideational skill needed to generate even more new venture ideas than a habitual entrepreneur. If you have sufficient prac- tical imaginativeness, you and your team may not have the ideational skill to select quality new ven- ture ideas as well as someone with entrepreneurial experience, but most likely you can approximate their performance level. Therefore, what prescrip- tive advice do our discoveries offer individuals (within and outside of existing companies) who are interested in new venture ideation? We offer three recommendations.

4.1. Use our scale

First, use our scale (see Table 1) to get a sense of your baseline imaginativeness. How imaginative are you and in what ways? Are you empathically gifted: capable of reading other people, facile at taking their perspective, and somehow able to put yourself in their shoes in such a way that you seem to know others’ beliefs, desires, and intentions better than most people? Are you a creative rock star for whom everything reminds you of some analogy or meta- phor and who seems to make new connections at will to generate a seemingly endless stream of novel combinations? Perhaps practical imaginativeness is your forte, giving you impeccable judgment and the ability to think things through to foresee a bottle- neck or anticipate problems before others can even wrap their minds around the challenge.

4.2. Rely on others with complementary skills

Second, rely on others with complementary skills. Are your imaginative weaknesses compensated by the imaginative strengths of your team members? For instance, if you are particularly good at the convergent thinking indicative of practical imagi- nativeness but are empathically or innovatively challenged, then it might be best to select a team member who is particularly good at generating new venture ideas. You do not have to be everything to everyone. Others can generate a pool of ideas to fill the opportunity set and then step off as you and others gifted at idea screening exercise your own unique ideational skills.

4.3. Develop your ideational skills

Third, deliberately develop your ideational skills. Imagination may be a latent ability, but imagina-

tiveness is a skill, and skills can be developed. How to develop these forms of imaginativeness depends largely on whether they are primarily concerned with the divergent thinking used to expand the opportunity set that one is contemplating or wheth- er they are primarily interested in the convergent thinking that is used to narrow this set to the best alternatives within it.

5. Tools and techniques for enhancing imaginativeness

Founder of the creativity tool brainstorming, Alex Osborn pointed out that convergence and diver- gence are similar to the accelerator and brake pedals in a car. Divergent thinking is the accelera- tor, making the most of the horsepower and engine. Convergent thinking is the brake, applying judg- ment to evaluate ideas. Like braking, it ensures

BUSHOR-1374; No. of Pages 8

The unique role of imaginativeness in new venture ideation 7

that we do not overshoot our goal. Frequently alternating between these two pedals does not provide for the smoothest ride. The same is true for thinking. What maximizes production of idea generation does not necessarily ensure that the best ideas will be selected and implemented. Converse- ly, what facilitates selection can actually suppress creativity if ideas have not already been generated.

The creativity literature has identified at least four principles that individuals can use to encourage divergent thinking: (1) defer judgment, (2) go for quantity, (3) make connections, and (4) seek novel- ty. Each of these principles seeks to suppress eval- uation, at least temporarily. Evaluation has its place, but that place comes after the ideas have been generated. For instance, ‘defer judgment’ seeks to temporarily suspend one’s evaluation. Parnes and Meadow (1959) showed that participants instructed to suspend judgment and not to evaluate their ideas as they were creating them generated twice as many good ideas as participants instructed to come up with good ideas. ‘Good ideas’ suggested the need to evaluate. Similarly, ‘go for quantity’ taps into attitude in hope of playing the probability card. The more ideas one can generate, the greater the odds that one of them may be good. Thus, “when it comes to idea generation, quantity is the most predictable path to quality” (Grant, 2016, p. 37). Simonton (1988), for example, showed that Nobel Prize winners typically publish twice as many papers as nonwinners. Likewise, studies have shown that, on average, it takes about 3,000 initial ideas to get to that one successful new product or service (Brown, 2009). ‘Make connections’ is argu- ably the effort of allowing the imagination to work at combining the raw materials of knowledge. These raw materials are old ideas. For example, advertising executive Jack Foster (2007) suggested that a new idea is nothing more or less than a combination of old ideas. Finally, ‘seek novelty’ may best be recognized as brainstorming, Alex Os- born’s classic technique grounded in the notion that it is easier to tame down a wild idea than it is to invigorate a weak one (Osborn, 1967).

Just as these four principles of divergent thinking seek to unleash the imagination by dialing down the judgment of evaluation and increasing the effort individuals expend to combine knowledge into new ideas, creativity research also offers four principles for enhancing convergent thinking: (1) use affirma- tive judgment, (2) keep novelty alive, (3) check your objectives, and (4) stay focused.

‘Use affirmative judgment’ seeks to avoid pre- mature criticism by tapping into techniques such as ‘yes and’ instead of ‘yes but.’ ‘Yes and’ is a conver- gent thinking technique that acknowledges an

idea’s shortcomings, but then redirects this criti- cism from momentum-killing evaluation to momen- tum-enhancing improvement by requiring critics to generate solutions that may be capable of overcom- ing problems with the idea. ‘Keep novelty alive’ is similar. It seeks to ensure that one’s attitude is open to wild ideas and the purpose of dreaming big, even while engaged in critical evaluation. ‘Check your objectives’ ensures that the idea is tested against the criteria that make the idea useful and appropri- ate. Finally, ‘stay focused’ acknowledges the chal- lenge of making an interesting, novel idea into a great solution and seeks to ensure that the best alternatives are selected and developed. Each of these techniques is intended to improve idea selec- tion by keeping evaluation from running roughshod over creativity and ensuring that imagination re- mains active in the screening process.

One thing that all of these principles for enhanc- ing divergent and convergent thinking share is a narrow focus on improving creative imaginative- ness. Our research confirms that creative imagina- tiveness is important for new venture ideation, but so is social imaginativeness. Social imaginativeness also can be deliberately improved.

Research has shown, for instance, that asking participants to take another’s perspective can en- hance the ability to recognize needs and the prob- lems that must be overcome to better satisfy those needs. Such problems are often the source of en- trepreneurial opportunities (McMullen, 2010, 2015).

Not all exercises in improving mentalism have been shown to improve ideation equally, however (Epley, 2014). For instance, encouraging one to empathize can lead the self to become confused with the other such that participants have been shown to sacrifice their position on behalf of the other in a zero-sum game, whereas encouraging one to take another’s perspective has enabled the same cognitive simulation of another’s position without the participant confusing the target’s position with his own. Thus, cognitive perspective taking appears to be a superior technique to affective empathizing in strategic negotiation (Galinsky, Maddux, Gilin, & White, 2008). Therefore, in attempting to identify potential entrepreneurial opportunities, it may be wiser to employ perspective taking as opposed to empathy when seeking to understand others’ prob- lems or when generating or selecting ideas likely to appeal to them. In the future, researchers and practitioners may also want to examine whether techniques used to develop mentalizing–—such as those used to combat autism (Ickes, 1997)–—may also be adapted to a business setting.

Finally, our research shows that practical imagi- nativeness plays an important role in the selection

BUSHOR-1374; No. of Pages 8

8 J.S. McMullen, A.S. Kier

View puView pu

of quality new venture ideas. As with social imagi- nativeness, these skills have largely been over- looked by the creativity literature. However, they have been studied by scholars of expert problem solving and project management. For instance, research on the problem solving of experts shows that they tend to identify the key bottleneck issue and focus on resolving it before turning attention to other aspects of a complex problem (Newell & Simon, 1972). Similarly, the Project Management Body of Knowledge (PMBOK) is full of frameworks and techniques that encourage project managers to anticipate problems in risk management (Duncan, 1996). Indeed, Dulewicz and Higgs (2005) looked at the predictors of effective project managers; in- cluded among these is vision and imagination where the individual is described as (p. 111):

Imaginative and innovative in all aspects of one’s work. Establishes sound priorities for future work. Clear vision of the future direction of the [organization] to meet business imper- atives. Foresees the impact of changes on one’s vision that reflect implementation issues and business realities.

Thus, practical imaginativeness is essential to proj- ect management, including new venture creation.

In conclusion, we hope that in recounting our research journey into the unique role of imaginative- ness in new venture ideation, we have shown that one does not need to be an entrepreneur to be entrepre- neurial, but one does have to exhibit imaginativeness to generate and select high-quality new venture ideas. Knowledge, evaluation, and the right attitude are indeed important for creative problem solving, but they alone cannot work. Indeed, they also require the catalytic agent of imagination to ignite the crea- tive reaction necessary to generate new venture ideas and cull those ideas to the best alternatives.

References

Brown, T. (2009). Change by design. New York: Harper Business. Davidsson, P., & Honig, B. (2003). The role of social and human

capital among nascent entrepreneurs. Journal of Business Venturing, 18(3), 301—331.

blication statsblication stats

De Bono, E. (2015). Serious creativity. New York: Harper Busi- ness.

Dulewicz, V., & Higgs, M. (2005). Assessing leadership styles and organisational context. Journal of Managerial Psychology, 20 (2), 105—123.

Duncan, W. R. (1996). A guide to the project management body of knowledge. Newtown Square, PA: Project Management Institute.

Epley, N. (2014). Mindwise. New York: Alfred A Knopf. Foster, J. (2007). How to get ideas. San Francisco: Berrett-

Koehler Publishers. Galinsky, A. D., Maddux, W. W., Gilin, D., & White, J. B. (2008).

Why it pays to get inside the head of your opponent: The differential effects of perspective taking and empathy in negotiations. Psychological Science, 19(4), 378—384.

Goldman, A. I. (2006). Simulating minds. New York: Oxford University Press.

Grant, A. M. (2016). Originals. New York: Viking. Ickes, W. J. (Ed.). (1997). Empathic accuracy. New York: Guilford

Press. Isaksen, S. G., Dorval, K. B., & Treffinger, D. J. (2011). Creative

approaches to problem solving. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage Publications.

Kier, A. S. (2016). Measuring imagination in new venture idea- tion. In Academy of Management Proceedings (Vol. 2016, No. 1, p. 11466). Briarcliff Manor, NY: Academy of Management.

Kirton, M. (1976). Adaptors and innovators: A description and measure. Journal of Applied Psychology, 61(5), 622—629.

Konig, S. (2001, February 11). Cleaning up in business, with a mop. The New York Times. Available at http://www.nytimes. com/2001/02/11/nyregion/ cleaning-up-in-business-with-a-mop.html

McMullen, J. S. (2010). Perspective taking and the heterogeneity of the entrepreneurial imagination. In R. Koppl, S. Horwitz, & P. Desrochers (Eds.), Advances in Austrian economics (pp. 113—144). Bingley, UK: Emerald Group Publishing Limited.

McMullen, J. S. (2015). Entrepreneurial judgment as empathic accuracy: A sequential decision-making approach to en- trepreneurial action. Journal of Institutional Economics, 11(3), 651—681.

McMullen, J. S., & Shepherd, D. A. (2006). Entrepreneurial action and the role of uncertainty in the theory of the entrepreneur. Academy of Management Review, 31(1), 132—152.

Newell, A., & Simon, H. A. (1972). Human problem solving. Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice-Hall.

Osborn, A. F. (1967). Applied imagination. New York: Scribner. Parnes, S. J., & Meadow, A. (1959). Effects of “brainstorming”

instructions on creative problem solving by trained and un- trained subjects. Journal of Educational Psychology, 50(4), 171—176.

Shane, S. (2000). Prior knowledge and the discovery of entrepre- neurial opportunities. Organization Science, 11(4), 448—469.

Simonton, D. K. (1988). Scientific genius. Cambridge, UK: Cam- bridge University Press.