The power of provisionality: an experimental evaluation of idea appearance in online knowledge creation

The software known as creativity support systems (CSS) have become a critical catalyst of the knowledge creation process. Nonaka and Konno integrated CSS into wider knowledge management processes with the concept of ba. Ba are shared spaces in which relationships between knowledge and individuals can develop. This study finds that minor changes to the appearance of icons users interact with in CSS impact user knowledge creation dialogue. Under laboratory conditions, this study uses a 2×2 factorial experiment to investigate the impact of icon and typeface appearance on the idea generation processes of 37 pairs of active managers within a synchronous CSS. Participants used icons which differed on their appearance of finishedness to enter ideas into a shared working space. Some icons looked like rough first drafts, others looked perfectly complete and refined. Participants initial ideas were equally unripe but the icons created different levels of perceived finishedness (PF). Participant ideas were also displayed on-screen using a typeface which was either easy or difficult to cognitively process. Icon PF and typeface processing difficulty level had a crossover interaction effect. A low PF icon and an easy-to-process typeface resulted in more original ideas. Conversely, a high PF icon and a difficult-to-process typeface resulted in less original ideas. These findings and their implications are discussed in terms of enabling spaces, or ba, semantic memory, and difficulty of information processing.