David Scheaf describes the factors that affect an organization's decision to adopt or reject a new idea.
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Often a product or service will be a great idea for one company, but not for another. David Sheaf, Assistant Professor of Entrepreneurship and Corporate Innovation found three factors that underpin attractiveness for members making decisions on new ideas.
“We were trying to figure out how two people could look at a new product idea and come to drastically different conclusions about why it was attractive for me and my firm and the other person say that is not attractive to me or my firm. And the first group we found was gain estimation. This is simply someone looking at a new product idea and making an assessment of what they could gain if they were to pursue. And then we found that there was a second category called loss estimation. What do I stand to lose? If we were to pursue the new product idea and it fail. The third was perceived feasibility. How likely is it for me and my firm to actually transform the idea into manifest product and how much am I interested in turning the idea into manifest product and how much would I like or enjoy doing the process of the work?”
Scheaf says, they developed an evaluation tool that ranks why for members like or dislike a new idea. The consistency of the metric gets to the root of the member's decision.
“Our study summarizes 49 different factors that research has said is important for individuals, evaluations of opportunities and the four core constructs. And after empirical investigations, we find that really what underpins attractiveness is three factors, including gain estimation loss, estimation of perceived feasibility. And, we introduce a validated and reliable measure to get at those psychological assessments.”
“Business Review” is a production of Livingston and Mackay and the Hankamer School of Business at Baylor University.