Exploring the role of homophily in innovation jam: A case study

In this paper social networks analysis techniques and regression model are used to conduct an exploratory analysis on how homophily influences ideation activity in an organizational ideation jam. A business unit within a Sweden-based global company has been selected in order to investigate our research question. Our findings document that self-organized ideation networks exhibit a tendency towards collaborative homophily, expressed in terms of similarity in participants’ attributes. Specifically, we found that most active people in posting ideas are also the most active in commenting on the ideas contributed by others. In addition, our results highlight that gender and belonging to the same organizational unit have an impact on the activity to post ideas and comments during the jam. Our results provide valuable input for innovation theory and for the management of ideation jams within organizations.