I Have an Idea: A Qualitative Study of Display of Individual Idea Ownership During Group Brainstorming

This study investigates displays of ownership over individual ideas on sticky notes in group brainstorming. Ownership of one’s own idea is an issue that most of us are familiar with when generating ideas in a team. We tend to think of an idea we produce as our idea and thus refer to the idea as something belonging to ourselves. However, in collaborative idea generation sessions, such as brainstorming, the aim is to transform the individual ideas into refined and complete ideas – and most important - shared ideas. To come closer to understanding the role of idea ownership, ten groups of university students engaged in facilitated brainstorming sessions were studied. The analysis shows that idea ownership is present in the brainstorming sessions, but given the way in which the participants’ orientations to the rules of brainstorming, expressed idea ownership does not cause internal conflict in the group or influence the course of ideation in a specific direction.