How Expert Consultation Affects Creativity: The Role of Expert Input in Early Stage Innovation

Authors

  • Paria Mahjoobi University of Amsterdam, Faculty of Science, Amsterdam, the Netherlands
  • Darren Darius Tan Jia Wei ESADE Business School, Ramon Llull University, Barcelona, Spain
  • Mar Rincón Sarrias Polytechnic University of Valencia, Faculty of Aerospace and Industrial Design Engineering, Valencia, Spain
  • Teodor Neagoe Delft University of Technology, Faculty of Electrical Engineering, Mathematics & Computer Science, Delft, the Netherlands
  • Lennart Hubbers Delft University of Technology, Faculty of Aerospace Engineering, Delft, the Netherlands

DOI:

https://doi.org/10.23726/cij.2025.1787

Keywords:

creativity, expert consultation, multidisciplinary team, innovation, ideation

Abstract

Whether contact with domain experts enhances or constrains creativity at the start of innovation projects is widely debated. Guidance in many innovation programmes advises teams to avoid experts during initial ideation to limit anchoring and conformity, yet empirical evidence at the team level is limited. This exploratory study investigates how early exposure to experts influences idea generation in multidisciplinary teams participating in the CERN IdeaSquare Summer School. Drawing on qualitative reflections from 15 of 25 participants, the study examines how expert guidance affected the novelty, feasibility, and evolution of team ideas. Findings suggest that expert input can both enhance creativity, by providing technical knowledge that clarifies opportunities and constraints, and introduce bias by anchoring ideas to familiar solutions. Teams with diverse disciplinary backgrounds appeared better able to integrate expert insights without losing originality, suggesting that team composition moderates the impact of early guidance. Although limited by sample size, the findings provide preliminary insights into designing collaborative ideation processes and inform future research on optimizing expert engagement in early-stage innovation.

References

Amabile, T. M. (1988). A model of creativity and innovation in organizations. Research in Organizational Behavior, 10, 123–167.

Anderson, N. R., Potočnik, K., & Zhou, J. (2014). Innovation and creativity in organizations: A state-of-the-science review. Journal of Management, 40(5), 1297–1333.

Braun, V., & Clarke, V. (2006). Using thematic analysis in psychology. Qualitative Research in Psychology, 3(2), 77–101. https://doi.org/10.1191/1478088706qp063oa

Duncker, K. (1945). On problem solving. Psychological Monographs, 58(5), i–113.

Ericsson, K. A. (2006). The influence of experience and deliberate practice on the development of superior expert performance. The Cambridge Handbook of Expertise and Expert Performance, 38, 683-703

Gick, M. L., & Holyoak, K. J. (1983). “Schema induction and analogical transfer.” Cognitive Psychology, 15(1), 1-38.

Horner, A. J., & Henson, R. N. (2008). Priming, response learning, and repetition suppression. Neuropsychologia, 46(7), 1979–1991.

Jansson, D. G., & Smith, S. M. (1991). Design fixation. Design Studies, 12(1), 3–11.

Lu, J. G., Akinola, M., & Mason, M. F. (2017). Switching on creativity: Task switching can increase creativity by reducing cognitive fixation. Organizational Behavior and Human Decision Processes, 139, 63–75.

Mieg, H. A. (2001). The Social Psychology of Expertise: Case Studies in Research, Professional Domains, and Expert Roles. Psychology Press.

Myers, E. (2023). Anchoring bias and adjustment heuristic: Definition and examples. Simply Psychology. https://www.simplypsychology.org/anchoring-bias.html

Newell, A., & Simon, H. A. (1972). Human Problem Solving. Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice-Hall.

Scheerer, M. (1963). Problem-solving. Scientific American, 208(4), 118–128.

Smith, S. M., Ward, T. B., & Schumacher, J. S. (1993). Constraining effects of examples in a creative generation task. Memory & Cognition, 21(6), 837–845.

Van Knippenberg, D. (2017). Team Innovation. Annual Review of Organizational Psychology and Organizational Behavior, 4, 211-233. https://doi.org/10.1146/annurev-orgpsych-032516-113240

Downloads

Published

2025-12-31

How to Cite

Mahjoobi, P., Darius Tan Jia Wei, D., Rincón Sarrias, M., Neagoe, T., & Hubbers, L. (2025). How Expert Consultation Affects Creativity: The Role of Expert Input in Early Stage Innovation. CERN IdeaSquare Journal of Experimental Innovation, 9(3), 21–27. https://doi.org/10.23726/cij.2025.1787

Issue

Vol. 9 No. 3 (2025)

Section

Original Articles

Categories

License

Copyright (c) 2025 Paria Mahjoobi, Darren Darius Tan Jia Wei, Teodor Neagoe, Rincón Sarrias, Lennart Hubbers

Creative Commons License

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.

Authors who publish with this journal agree to the following terms:

  • Authors retain copyright and grant the journal right of first publication with the work simultaneously licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution License that allows others to share the work with an acknowledgement of the work's authorship and initial publication in this journal.
  • Authors are able to enter into separate, additional contractual arrangements for the non-exclusive distribution of the journal's published version of the work (e.g., post it to an institutional repository or publish it in a book), with an acknowledgement of its initial publication in this journal.
  • Authors are permitted and encouraged to post their work online (e.g., in institutional repositories or on their website) prior to and during the submission process, as it can lead to productive exchanges, as well as earlier and greater citation of published work (See The Effect of Open Access).