THE ROLE OF AMBIGUITY AND DISCREPANCY IN EARLY PHASES OF INNOVATION

DS 80-8 Proceedings of the 20th International Conference on Engineering Design (ICED 15) Vol 8: Innovation and Creativity, Milan, Italy, 27-30.07.15

Year: 2015
Editor: Christian Weber, Stephan Husung, Gaetano Cascini, Marco CantaMESsa, Dorian Marjanovic, Francesca Montagna
Author: Laursen, Linda Nhu; Tollestrup, Christian
Series: ICED
Institution: Aalborg University, Denmark
Section: Innovation and Creativity
Page(s): 081-090
ISBN: 978-1-904670-71-1
ISSN: 2220-4334

Abstract

Innovation literature mainly focuses on eliminating ambiguity and discrepancy from the early phases of innovation. This study questions this implicit assumption, as it may provide an oversimplified view on, how to attain proficiency. Instead of narrowly focusing on reducing ambiguity and discrepancy, we seek to understand if it might be there for a reason. Through a laboratory experiment, we propose ambiguity and discrepancy actually have a function in concept development. Accordingly the paper contributes with a better understanding of, the role ambiguity and discrepancy as triggers of sense making in conceptualisation in the early phases of innovation.

Keywords: Innovation, Conceptual Design, Design Methods, Ambiguity, Discrepancy

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