Hit, Miss, or Error? Predicting Errors in Design Decision Making for Radically Innovative Ideas Using Individual Attributes

Researchers and practitioners alike agree that for companies to survive and thrive they must develop and support radical innovation. However, these ideas are complex and risky, and not all succeed. Because of this, decision makers are often left to make hard decisions in terms of which ideas move on and which are abandoned. The goal of this paper was to provide pilot evidence to identify the impact of individual attributes on the effectiveness of decision making for radical innovation. Specifically, we sought to identify how individual personality and preferences for creativity impacted the likelihood of students selecting radical ideas using principles from signal detection theory (SDT). To do this, we used data from a previous studies’ of 2252 idea evaluations by student designers and classified these decisions based on SDT to see if we could predict the likelihood of occurrence based on individual attributes: hit (correct identification), miss (Type 1 Error), false alarm (Type II Error), and correct rejection. The results showed that lower levels of risk tolerance resulted in an increased likelihood that a hit occurred. On the other hand, higher levels of neuroticism and motivation resulted in an increased likelihood of a Type I error, or the likelihood that an individual would neglect a good idea that had a high chance of future success. Finally, increased risk tolerance and decreased motivation resulted in an increased likelihood that Type II error occurred, or that an individual would expend resources on an idea with limited likelihood of success. The results of this study can serve as empirical evidence on decision making in radical tasks and provide a basis for future investigations. In addition, these results provide a methodology for studying decision making in innovative design.