The Language of Abduction in Choosing Innovation
DS 73-1 Proceedings of the 2nd International Conference on Design Creativity Volume 1
                        Year: 2012
                        Editor: Duffy, A.; Nagai, Y.; Taura, T.
                        Author: Dong, A.; Mounarath, R.; Lovallo, D.
                        Section: Cognition II
                        Page(s): 179-188
                        
Abstract
The selection of an innovation project to take forward for product development, is a complex, strategic, managerial decision which shares one key part with concept ideation and evaluation in design: assessing creativity. This problem is especially pronounced for products that do not yet exist or have never been mass-marketed. In this paper, we go beyond the question of how to select or identify the most creative project to consider the following: How can this decision be affected by forms of logical reasoning? Through a qualitative content analysis of committees selecting an innovation project to take forward, we show how forms of logical reasoning have an impact on the assessment of creativity and can alter the characterization of whether a project is creative or not.
Keywords: decision-making, logical reasoning, innovation management