MANAGERIAL REJECTION OF CREATIVE IDEAS FROM EXTERNAL SOURCES AND INTERVENTIONS

Organizations desire creative ideas from employees. However, they often overlook and fail to properly recognize such ideas when employees bring them from external sources because of the not-invented-here (NIH) syndrome-defined as a profound negative attitude toward knowledge that is considered 'external.' Drawing from the theories of managerial risk and risk perception, we contend that managers tend to reject highly novel ideas if they originate from sources external (but not internal sources) to their organization because they perceive these ideas to be riskier. In two different lab studies, we show this negative attitude toward external novel ideas and a potential way to mitigate such attitudes. We also discuss theoretical and practical implications.