• Businesses inadvertently influence the ideas they receive from external contributors.
• Contributors pick up on signals that suggest which ideas are more likely to be chosen.
• This leads to a narrow set of more similar ideas; a trade-off between fit and variety.

Sometimes we might not realise we’re stuck in our comfort zones: choosing the same food at a restaurant, the same drink at a bar, the same holiday destinations. Repeating the same behaviours over and over, potentially missing out on new experiences, unaware of something new that we might like even more.

Businesses can be the same: constantly relying on the same ideas or solutions they’ve always used. This can happen when conducting internal searches; turning to employees and individuals within the organisation for ideas.

Employees will rely on current knowledge; concepts and ideas they’ve come up with based on experience, perhaps inspired by past ideas or what they know from working with the organisation. While efficient, relying on familiar knowledge could lead to highly similar, convergent ideas.

This is where external search shows benefits. Turning to individuals outside of an organisation for ideas, such as consumers and the general public, allows for the exploration of new, diverse knowledge and concepts.

The value of diverse perspectives

Businesses are increasingly espousing the benefit of diverse ideas. Recognising the value of diverse ideas in driving innovation and achieving competitive advantage, more and more are calling for individuals to share unique solutions to problems or ways to move the company forward that might not have been considered before, fuelled by the understanding that diverse perspectives can lead to more creative problem-solving and better decision-making.

This not only enhances the potential for new and innovative products and services, but also helps in better understanding and serving a diverse customer base, particularly if businesses are turning to consumers for these ideas.

However, despite craving idea diversity, and turning to external contributors for this exact reason, could it be that businesses are unintentionally discouraging diversity?

Unintentional decisions

According to new research, that’s exactly what they’re doing. Businesses are influencing the ideas they receive from external contributors, behaving in a way which unintentionally signals to contributors the ideas they like. This leads to a narrow set of nondiverse ideas.

Professor Linus Dahlander from ESMT Berlin, alongside Professor Henning Piezunka and PhD candidate Sanghyun Park from INSEAD, analysed 1.44 million ideas to understand how organisations unknowingly shape the ideas they receive.

Data came from organisations asking website visitors – the external contributors – how they could improve their websites before choosing which ideas to use. Contributors could constantly submit ideas, vote, and comment on other contributors’ ideas while the organisation decides which ideas to select or reject. Chosen ideas were also publicly visible for all external contributors to see.

The findings show that organisations would consistently select similar ideas. As time went on, since the chosen ideas were visible, contributors started altering their ideas to match company preferences. Contributors were attempting to increase the chances of their suggestions being picked, leading to ideas with less variety in the process.

Diminished motivation

Being able to see which ideas were selected and rejected also had a demotivating effect on some, as those who believed their ideas wouldn’t be chosen stopped suggesting at all. Although this increased the relevance of ideas, diversity subsequently decreased.

The researchers also found that idea diversity increased when new contributors, who would be less aware of past organisational choices, made suggestions. Increased diversity of ideas was also observed after established contributors, those influenced by earlier selections, stopped suggesting.

And when contributors interacted more with each other, attention to a company’s preferences heightened, also causing an increase in similar ideas.

Professor Dahlander explains, “That the outcome of external search is a narrower set of ideas than typically portrayed is neither good nor bad – but points to a trade-off between fit and variety. Organisations may seek and benefit from ideas that are a close fit with their interests

“But greater fit comes with costs: organisations are less likely to find ideas that diverge from what they have previously done, as organisations unintentionally diminish the imagination of external contributors.”

Making organisations more aware of bias

As interactions among external contributors direct their attention toward existing ideas and away from novel ones, managers seeking diverse ideas may benefit from limiting interactions amongst external contributors. Reducing the visibility of ideas selected could also prevent contributors from being influenced by what they think companies want.

Although they might not have been deliberately discouraging contributors from sharing diverse ideas, organisations should be more aware of how their selections and visible behaviour are influencing the ideas they receive from contributors – particularly if they’re turning to external contributors in the hope they receive more diverse ideas.

Don’t be afraid to step outside your business comfort zone and accept new ideas – they might just hold the solution to a problem you’ve been struggling with.

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