TECHNISCHE UNIVERSITÄT MÜNCHEN Fakultät für Informatik Lehrstuhl für Wirtschaftsinformatik (I 17) Univ.-Prof. Dr. Helmut Krcmar What Gets an Idea Included? The Impact of Group Dynamics on Idea Inclusion in Team Meetings Tobias Schlachtbauer, M.Sc. Vollständiger Abdruck der von der Fakultät für Informatik der Technischen Universität München zur Erlangung des akademischen Grades eines Doktors der Naturwissenschaften (Dr. rer. nat.) genehmigten Dissertation. Vorsitzender: Prof. Dr. Florian Matthes Prüfer der Dissertation: 1. Prof. Dr. Helmut Krcmar 2. Prof. Dr. Michael Schermann Die Dissertation wurde am 24.05.2018 bei der Technischen Universität München eingereicht und durch die Fakultät für Informatik am 26.09.2018 angenommen. Abstract I Abstract Motivation: Working in teams on solving complex tasks, including software development or service design, is common in today’s organizations. All these tasks require some creativity. This is especially true if the creation of innovative solutions to a problem is required. On the one hand, research findings suggest that teams are preferable to individuals for solving problems because the diverse points of view might spark more creative solutions. On the other hand, groups are found being prone to detrimental behaviors like groupthink or choosing not the best design. The disadvantages of groups are often attributed to misunderstandings due to the divers disciplinary or cultural background of the team members. Yet, other issues might be at play that leads to situations in which a team does not realize the full potential of the individual team members. Research Method: Our study combines ethnographic observation with grounded theory to investigate how proposed solutions for an assigned design problem evolve over the course of a project. A central aspect of our investigation is the analysis of group-related reasons for the inclusion of a team member’s suggested ideas. Results: Overall, it is found that a variety of group dynamics affect whether suggested ideas are kept or discarded. Our observations include dynamics in relation to the rhetoric strategies of team members (i.e., repeated mentioning and soliciting support), the influence of higher status persons on a team’s decisions (i.e., referring to authority) as well as the team’s approaches regarding the shared use of the media that contains the final design (i.e., controlling the media). In addition, we theorized that the four dimensions (1) inertia, (2) authoritative source, (3) media and (4) time affect whether an idea is included or not. Research Implications: Using grounded theory methods and ethnographic observations this thesis looked in-depth what factors facilitate idea inclusion in a team’s work meetings. Irrespective of considerations of an idea’s actual value or quality, we found that individual behaviors and group dynamics have a decisive influence on whether an idea is included in the result or not. Practical Implications: This work only develops hypotheses of what affects the final outcome of a design team. Yet, it suggests that efforts for improving individual creativity might not be as effective as efforts for managing group dynamics in determining the feasibility and uniqueness of a group design. Originality: Our study lends further support to research, which shows that group dynamics affect idea elaboration in teams. In addition, based on our observation of the team members’ verbal and non-verbal behaviors, we theorized that four dimensions affect idea inclusion. Furthermore, instead of using interviews we conducted an ethnographic observation study using audio and video recordings of actual instances of teams working together. Moreover, we investigated the creative work of functional teams that tackled a relevant assigned design problem in the domain of information systems research, i.e., the design and development of new mobile services. Keywords: Group dynamics, innovation, idea elaboration, grounded theory, ethnography II Table of Contents Table of Contents Abstract ....................................................................................................................................... I Table of Contents ....................................................................................................................... II List of Figures .......................................................................................................................... VI List of Tables .......................................................................................................................... VII List of Abbreviations and Acronyms .................................................................................... VIII 1. Introduction ......................................................................................................................... 1 1.1 Motivation and Relevance ............................................................................................ 1 1.2 Objectives and Research Questions .............................................................................. 3 1.3 Structure of the Thesis .................................................................................................. 6 2. Research Methodology ....................................................................................................... 8 2.1 Explaining Grounded Theory ....................................................................................... 8 2.2 Why Grounded Theory is a Useful Method in Information Systems Research ......... 19 2.3 Why we Use a Grounded Theory Research Approach ............................................... 20 2.4 How we Use the Grounded Theory Research Approach ............................................ 21 2.5 Summary ..................................................................................................................... 23 3. Conceptual Basis ............................................................................................................... 24 3.1 Ideas and Creativity .................................................................................................... 24 3.2 Innovation, Symbol Systems and Distributed Cognition ............................................ 27 3.3 Project Teams and Meetings ....................................................................................... 28 3.4 Group Dynamics ......................................................................................................... 31 3.5 Summary ..................................................................................................................... 32 4. Literature Review .............................................................................................................. 33 4.1 Approach and Scope ................................................................................................... 33 4.2 Social Influences on Individuals and Groups ............................................................. 34 4.3 Small Group Research regarding Creative Work in Groups ...................................... 35 4.4 Research Gap and Originality of this Thesis .............................................................. 41 5. Research Approach ........................................................................................................... 44 5.1 Methods ....................................................................................................................... 44 5.1.1 Ethnography ......................................................................................................... 44 5.1.2 Interaction Analysis ............................................................................................. 45 5.1.3 Pros and Cons of using Video Data and Video Analysis ..................................... 46 5.2 Research Setting .......................................................................................................... 49 5.2.1 Background Information on the Research Setting ............................................... 50 5.2.2 Similarities and Differences between Company and Student Projects ................ 53 5.3 Sample and Case Selection ......................................................................................... 54 5.3.1 Sample Selection .................................................................................................. 54 5.3.2 Case Selection ...................................................................................................... 56 5.4 Descriptions of the Investigated Case ......................................................................... 57 5.4.1 Goal, Challenge and Requested Deliverables ...................................................... 58 5.4.2 The Project Teams ............................................................................................... 59 5.4.2.1 Characteristics of Team 1: A2B .................................................................... 61 Table of Contents III 5.4.2.2 Characteristics of Team 2: TripAssistant ...................................................... 63 5.4.2.3 Characteristics of Team 3: Tripster ............................................................... 65 5.4.2.4 Distribution of the Personal Attributes at the Team-Level ........................... 68 5.4.3 The Teaching Team ............................................................................................. 70 5.4.4 The Corporate Partner: RE’FLEKT GmbH ........................................................