Overcoming the Bias Against Novelty

Novelty is a crucial element in achieving innovation in organizations (Woodman, Sawyer, & Griffin, 1993). However, in the past two decades, creativity and innovation researchers have established that not only is it challenging to identify novelty, but individuals also face biases that hinder the acceptance of novelty (Mueller, Melwani, & Goncalo, 2012; Perry-Smith & Mannucci, 2017; Zhou, Wang, Bavato, Tasselli, & Wu, 2019). Despite the odds stacked against perceiving and implementing novelty, individuals such as Art Fry, and organizations such as Tesla, are still observed to be capable of developing novel ideas into successful innovations. An important question thus arises: are there positive factors can serve to help overcome the biases against novelty? To address this issue, scholars in recent years have started to examine what could positively influence the acceptance of novel ideas (Berg, 2019; Mueller, Wakslak & Krishnan, 2014; Zhou, Wang, Song, Wu, 2017). Such research provides theoretical and practical implications to organizations on how they should organize to successfully select and implement novel ideas. It also provides guidance to creative individuals on what they can do to increase the extent to which their novel ideas are valued by others. This symposium seeks to present five lines of research on the bias against novelty. We start with a theoretical paper that highlights the importance of framing to overcoming the bias against novelty. Then, we delve into four lines of empirical research examining how framing of the idea, creators’ incentive structure, evaluators’ experience of magic, and creators’ epistemic motivation can be used to help reduce the bias against novelty. The four empirical papers focus on different contexts and perspectives across different stages of the idea journey. A wide range of outcome variables is also examined, including support for crowdfunding projects, generation and selection of novel ideas, and creativity perception. The variety of contexts, factors, and outcomes discussed in the papers will facilitate the discussion in conducting empirical research and developing new theories for overcoming the bias against novelty. Noisy and Biased: Evaluating Creativity Presenter: Wayne Johnson; Cornell SC Johnson College of Business Presenter: Devon Proudfoot; Cornell U. Considering Others’ Needs Increases Innovation Adoption Intention Presenter: Yidan Yin; U. of Southern California -Marshall School of Business Presenter: Jennifer Mueller; U. of San Diego Presenter: Vish Krishnan; - A Time for Carrots and a Time for Sticks: Examining the Effects of Incentive Framing on Creativity Presenter: Ahmet Sezer; Bocconi School of Management Presenter: Cedric Gutierrez; Bocconi U. Presenter: Pier Vittorio Mannucci; Bocconi U. The Effects of Magic on Creative Idea Perception Presenter: Velvetina Siu Ching Lim; UCL School of Management Presenter: Verena Krause; UCL School of Management Blinded in Love: When and Why Idea Attachment Leads to Biases in Early-Phase Idea Evaluation Presenter: Eric Yuge Lou; INSEAD Presenter: Ella Miron-Spektor; INSEAD Presenter: Nadav Klein; INSEAD