Toward Better Solutions: An Analysis of the Ideation Literature in Light of Bounded Ideation Theory

Bounded ideation theory (BIT) proposes that the relationship between idea quantity and quality is limited by participant ability, scarcity of attention resources, mental and physical exhaustion, understanding of the problem, goal congruence, and the openness of solution space. A meta-analysis of ideation research published at the Hawaii International Conference on Systems Sciences (HICSS) from 1995 to 2011 is conducted to map interventions and findings to the propositions of BIT. The majority of research has focused on the attention, goal-congruency and understanding boundaries. Results demonstrate that certain interventions produce significant gains in the quantity of ideas produced but that more attention needs to be given to the good or high quality ideas that these interventions produce. Implications for future research, including the potential of hybrid interventions, are discussed.