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Need-solution pair recognition by household sector individuals: Evidence, and a cognitive mechanism explanation
Name
1-s2.0-S0048733320301463-main.pdf
Description
Published version
Size
5.11 MB
Format
Adobe PDF
Checksum (MD5)
fce7c1c449cf0ea81b3737f122c99afc
Author(s)
Stock-Homburg, Ruth M
Heald, Shannon LM
Holthaus, Christian
Gillert, Nils Lennart
Hippel, Eric von
Date Issued
2021
Journal
Research Policy
Publisher
Elsevier BV
Version
Final published version
Abstract
© 2020 The Author(s) Problem-solving by everyday individuals is thought to occur as a two-step process. First, an individual identifies or formulates a problem, followed by entering into a subsequent search to find the best solution. Here, however, we consider an alternative process that everyday individuals may use for solution finding first theorized by von Hippel and von Krogh (2016). Specifically, von Hippel and von Krogh proposed that everyday individuals may sometimes discover a solution and the need it satisfies simultaneously without the need for apriori problem formation, a cognitive process they called “need-solution pair recognition”. Utilizing a rich literature from psychology and neuroscience, we propose that seemingly spontaneous discoveries found by need-solution pair recognition are natural products of the object recognition system and its underlying mechanisms. This view asserts that on encountering an object and reasoning how it might be used (i.e. functional object understanding), an individual's perception of an object may culminate in recognizing the object as a solution, and in some cases, as a solution to a problem previously unknown to him or her, thus bypassing formal problem-formulation and active solution searching entirely. To empirically test this view, we manipulated the ability of everyday individuals to functionally reason about objects while we examined the spontaneous occurrence of solutions found by either need-solution pair recognition or traditional problem-first problem-solving. Consistent with our hypothesized mechanism, our results indicate that need-solution pair recognition occurs more frequently when constraints on functional object understanding are reduced. That is, we found that needsolution pair discoveries outpaced solutions found from traditional problem solving, in environments with unfamiliar objects, where participants were not directed to solve specific problems. Our results provide clear evidence that everyday individuals in the household sector do not always innovate through traditional problem-solving processes, but instead may arrive at solutions as they recognize and reason about objects. Implications for research and practice in household innovation, and for innovation more generally are considered.
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Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International license
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DOI of Published Version
10.1016/J.RESPOL.2020.104068
