WHAT MAKES YOU THINK DIFFERENTLY? THE ROLE OF STIMULI IN THE INTERPLAY BETWEEN CREATIVE LOGICS AND PROBLEM FRAMING

In a fast-changing society, where new challenges emerge and organizations face unprecedented complex situations, it is extremely important to understand how to frame ill-defined problems. Problem framing is the act of transforming ill-defined problems into problem representations – i.e., one’s interpretations of the central features of the problem. Many studies have implicitly described problem framing as an analytical process. However, framing ill-defined problems is not a linear process. In fact, it is a messy, creative process that leverages the creative cognition of individuals and the interaction with stimuli from the external environment. Hence, the role of creative cognition in problem framing is still unclear. Similarly, research in problem framing still needs to unpack the interactions between the creative cognition of individuals and the stimuli from the external context. With a qualitative experiment this study investigates the role of creative cognition in problem framing by analyzing the problem representations resulting from different creative logics. Then, the study analyses the interaction of two types of stimuli – informational and sensory – with creative logics in problem framing. For our analysis, we triangulated the participants' outcomes, performances, and the transcript of their conversations. In analyzing the results, the study contributes to both theory of creative logics and the influence of stimuli in the process of reframing. Moreover, the research highlights four natures of interaction between creative logics and stimuli: (i) ameliorative sabotage, (ii) sparring enrichment, (iii) surrealist inspiration, and (iv) metaphoric detailing.