Leaving the Beaten Tracks in Creative Work – A Design Theory for Systems that Support Convergent and Divergent Thinking

Abstract

Existing k nowledge i s a vital prerequisite f or creativity. I t p rovides a c entral s ource of inspiration for n ew ideas and determines the p athways a vailable f or c reative p roblem solving. N otwithstanding i ts indisputable r ole, knowledge may also compromise creativity. The human mind is prone to reproduce what it is used to, and the provision of e xplicit knowledge c onstitutes a p otential inhibitor o f imagination. H ence, I T s ystems supporting creative work h ave to s upport creative individuals by e xtending their personal k nowledge while, at the same time, p reventing them f rom merely walking down beaten tracks. In t his a rticle, grounded i n t heory on human cognition a nd literature on creativity s upport, w e p ropose a d esign theory for I T s ystems that support b oth convergent and divergent thinking, that is, the central cognitive processes in creative work. We provide details on a p rototypical implementation, d iscuss an i llustrative c ase from the c reative i ndustries in or der to demonstrate the d esign's applicability, and o utline plans for a n e mpirical e valuation of t he proposed design theory.

Copy, Transform, Combine: Exploring the Remix as a Form of Innovation

“…IT is well suited to play a key role in knowledge management, as technology allows for knowledge or ideas to be stored, managed, shared, and reused (Markus, 2001;Shneiderman, 2007;von Krogh, 2012). To foster creativity, information systems need to support users in extending their personal knowledge (Müller-Wienbergen et al, 2011). Hewett (2005), for instance, considered the problem of designing a creative problemsolving environment by conceptualizing a virtual workbench based on concepts from psychology.…”

“…Furthermore, although prior work has considered the design of platforms for idea generation (Leimeister et al, 2009), research regarding information systems as enablers of knowledge reuse remains sparse (Couger et al, 1993;Sambamurthy and Subramani, 2005;Mitchell and Subramani, 2010). This lack of scholarly knowledge stands in sharp contrast to the evident potential of IT artifacts to support users' creativity (Markus, 2001;Huysman and Wulf, 2006;Aragon et al, 2009;Müller-Wienbergen et al, 2011).…”

A literature review on individual creativity support systems

“…Creativity support systems have been proposed that provide specific knowledge about the task (Kletke et al, 2001), access digital libraries and the Web (Shneiderman, 2002) and support the search of relevant information (Greene, 2002;Herring, Jones, & Bailey, 2009;Hewett, 2005 (Mueller-Wienbergen et al, 2011) In addition to these theoretical arguments, there are also empirical studies focused on the information finding. Some researchers use a process guide that contains the information finding step (Elam & Mead, 1990;Marakas & Elam, 1997).…”

“…Creativity support systems can be classified into group creativity support systems and individual creativity support systems, supporting groups and individuals, respectively (Mueller-Wienbergen, Mueller, Seidel, & Becker, 2011). A recent review by Gabriel et al (2016) is focused on empirical studies in group creativity support systems.…”

“…In reality, these approaches are not mutually exclusive: creativity support systems can use multiple approaches. However, the third approach, using creativity enhancement techniques, is dominant in individual creativity support systems (Malaga, 2000;Mueller-Wienbergen et al, 2011). Somewhat similarly, it is argued that there are three levels of computer support for creative work: the secretarial level when computer is used as an electronic blackboard, the framework-paradigm level when computer provides frameworks and examples to guide users, and the generative level when computer can generate ideas (Chen, 1999;Young, 1987).…”