7/30/2019 Abstract On Marketing Of Ideas.pdf

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Name:Kunu Debi Daniel

Course: Academic & Business English

Abstract: A Case Study Of The Idea Market

The use of idea markets refers to the practice of combining an online suggestion-box with idea-

evaluation by the use of a virtual stock market. Here, the ideas and suggestions are floated on an

internal stock market, within an organization or another group of stakeholders. All the participants

in the stock market are handed an amount ofplay money, which they can use to invest in the

ideas and suggestions in the market.

The share price in ideas is determined by the demand. Therefore, the more people want to invest in

an idea, the higher the share price. This means that participants who spot a popular idea early will

stand to make more profit on his or her investment, an incentive to keep evaluating new ideas as

they are shared. But, the question posed in this thesis is how such markets can impact innovation in

companies.

A possible structural impediment to idea markets is the market mechanism. While market

mechanism is efficient for aggregating dispersed knowledge and information, it might not be

effective if participants show speculator behaviour such as described in Keynesian Beauty Contests

(Keynes, 1936). Surprisingly, it is found that a minority of participants following the speculator type

behaviour may help market efficiency without compromising the evaluation of quality of ideas.

Idea markets are claimed to represent a method for aggregating the collective intelligence and

wisdom ofcrowds from large groups of people. Therefore the concept of collective intelligence is

explored in theory and in practice in idea markets. By opening up to the philosophically rooted

knowledge managements, idea markets are observed to have commensurate qualities with some

types of collective intelligence.

A final and more pragmatic proposition that is explored, is whether or not idea markets act as a

catalyst for creativity, knowledge sharing - in other words innovation in companies. Idea markets are

evaluated on the basis of a check-list comprising of 8 factors that stimulate creativity in intranets in

organizations, and is found to affirm those factors.

Based on the findings, the outline for a new model for innovation management is proposed. The

model encompasses the use of crowd sourcing and abductive thinking. It is suggested that abalanced idea market can act as a metric for said passion.

Crowd sourcing by the means of an idea market can help lessen the importance of positive and

inductive justification of idea processing, leading to a more intuitive method where tacit knowledge

can flow into the decision making in innovation management thus paving the way for abductive

reasoning which is thought to lead to more radical and disruptive innovation. At the same time, the

market as an aggregation mechanism can lead more efficient knowledge management and

decentralized innovation in and around organizations.