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This chapter attempts to elucidate the important role that divergent thinking plays in organizational creativity, innovation, and change. We define brainstorming as a systematized method of divergent thinking, review this literature, and advocate for the strategic use of brainstorming to enhance creativity and innovation. We identify contradictory findings in the research literature that have led practitioners and researchers to disregard brainstorming techniques. We suggest that cultural forces embedded in organizations may prevent divergent thinking and brainstorming from becoming established normative organizational processes, thus hampering organizations’ potential for change and innovation. The chapter closes by putting divergent thinking and brainstorming in perspective and provides guidelines for its use.

This paper aims to discuss the application of Big Data analytics to the brainstorming session in the current auditing standards.

The authors review the literature related to fraud, brainstorming sessions and Big Data, and propose a model that auditors can follow during the brainstorming sessions by applying Big Data analytics at different steps.

The existing audit practice aimed at identifying the fraud risk factors needs enhancement, due to the inefficient use of unstructured data. The brainstorming session provides a useful setting for such concern as it draws on collective wisdom and encourages idea generation. The integration of Big Data analytics into brainstorming can broaden the information size, strengthen the results from analytical procedures and facilitate auditors’ communication. In the model proposed, an audit team can use Big Data tools at every step of the brainstorming process, including initial data collection, data integration, fraud indicator identification, group meetings, conclusions and documentation.

The proposed model can both address the current issues contained in brainstorming (e.g. low-quality discussions and production blocking) and improve the overall effectiveness of fraud detection.

The purpose of this paper is to present and discuss a technique called the Nominal Group Technique (NGT) for possible use in the types of market research or management research where it is desirable to generate as many ideas as possible.

The benefits of the NGT were researched in a literature review. After this, qualitative research among research practitioners who have used the technique in Australia was conducted. One focus group of five researchers and three in‐depth interviews were conducted. Some of these responses are presented verbatim, in this paper, to order to illustrate the positive evaluations of the technique by researchers.

The research practitioners in this research were generally very positive about the NGT as a technique for idea generation. The conclusion from the research reported on in this paper is that the use of techniques such as Brainstorming, and the NGT have very beneficial roles to play in management and market research.

Brainstorming techniques and the NGT are discussed as fruitful methods for use in market research. The productive role of silence in idea generation research is also commented on.

Results from the literature review and the original research were compared, and were found to have a high level of congruence. This has implications for research practitioners because while many researchers are aware of Brainstorming techniques, fewer are aware of the potential of the NGT in market research.

Among the many different methods used to generate new product ideas, group brainstorming has been one of the most popular. However, brainstorming has fallen into disfavor with many practitioners and researchers on the basis of such factors as the necessity for a skilled group leader, the potential for conflicts among members which can disrupt the process, and the possibility of one or more members dominating the discussion. Brainwriting, which is the silent, written generation of ideas by a group, is proposed as an alternative to brainstorming. Six different group brainiwriting techniques are described and suggestions given for the most appropriate use of each. It is concluded that both brainwriting and brainstorming will be useful in different situations and should be viewed as supplemental rather than primary sources of new product ideas. Furthermore, it is noted that idea generation is only part of the process. The best ideas in the world will be of little value if they are not implemented successfully.

Addresses the vital issue of effective meetings in today′s organizations. Compares and contrasts the differences between using traditional brainstorming and electronic brain‐storming (EBS) in meetings. An analysis of EBS and its uses will furnish organizations with an insight of this powerful technology. Groups usually meet in order to generate ideas, to share information, and to initiate action. These group meetings may not always be effective. Frequently the discussion will bypass the focal points of the meetings or members will be apprehensive as to how other members will perceive their ideas. Recommends that organizations utilize EBS, for this technology can improve group effectiveness and communication.

Much of the idea exchange and evaluation that are part of the creative process occur in groups. It is often presumed that groups facilitate these processes, but much research indicates that groups often hinder effective exchange of ideas and that they may not facilitate their evaluation. We summarize the factors that limit the potential of groups in these domains and use the cognitive–social–motivational model (Paulus & Brown, 2003, 2007) to highlight the conditions under which group creativity is enhanced. In particular, we focus on the conditions under which groups can actually outperform similar size sets of individuals and thus provide evidence for synergy in creative groups.

The purpose of this paper is to investigate how the brainstorming component of Statement of Auditing Standards (SAS) No. 99 influences decision aid use and reliance, and the effectiveness of fraud risk assessment.

The research framework links the influences of the fraud assessment setting and decision aid reliance. The hypotheses are tested in an experiment with two manipulated factors: setting (group or individual) and decision aid (provided or not provided).

The results of the study provide insight on how the brainstorming impacts fraud risk assessment, decision aid use and decision aid reliance. The results show that groups using a decision aid with fraud risk factors demonstrate superior decision quality and effectiveness even with lower decision aid reliance.

The influence of the setting (group or individual) on the fraud evaluation and detection is highlighted.

This paper will be informative for auditors and firms involved in designing an efficient and effective fraud risk assessment.

This paper integrates the fraud risk assessment and decision aid literature to evaluate decision quality and effectiveness of group fraud risk assessment.

Explains the advantages and disadvantages of the various approaches that are now being used in today’s society for group decision making. Groups are everywhere in our society, and learning more about them and how to work better in them can enhance the quality of each person’s life. Explains in detail five of the most widely used techniques: brainstorming, brainwriting, buzz sessions, quality circles, and nominal group technique. Points out the advantages and disadvantages of each approach with a view to reducing failures in implementing techniques as a result of lack of knowledge. The article will be useful for anyone involved in groups, e.g. managers or people wishing to improve their skills.

Social loafing is described in the literature as a frequent problem reducing individuals' performance when working in groups. This paper aims to utilize the social identity approach and proposes that under conditions of heightened group salience social loafing can be reduced and turned into social laboring (i.e. increased performance).

Two experimental studies are conducted to examine the impact of participant's group membership salience on task performance. In Study 1, school teachers work either in coactive or in collective working conditions on brainstorming tasks. In Study 2, participants perform both a brainstorming task and a motor task.

The results show social laboring effects. As predicted, participants in the high salient group conditions outperform participants in the low salient group conditions and the coactive individual condition.

The results indicate that rather than individuating group members or tasks to overcome social loafing, managers can increase group performance by focusing on group members' perceptions of their groups as important and salient.

The studies presented in this paper show that social identity theory and self categorization theory can fruitfully be applied to the field of group performance. The message of these studies for applied settings is that collective work in groups must not necessarily negatively impact performance, i.e. social loafing. By heightening the salience of group memberships groups can even outperform coactively working individuals.

The key objective of the study is to understand the best processes that are currently used in managing talent in Australian higher education (AHE) and design a quantitative measurement of talent management processes (TMPs) for the higher education (HE) sector.

The three qualitative multi-method studies that are commonly used in empirical studies, namely, brainstorming, focus group discussions and semi-structured individual interviews were considered. Twenty-three individuals from six Australian universities participated in this study.

The qualitative study explored three key themes and ten subthemes of TMPs that are used in AHE. These were: (1) talent attraction, (2) talent development and (3) talent retention.

This study only targeted one country (Australia) and one sector (HE).

This study offers three major contributions as follows: theoretical, practical and policy aspects. Theoretically, the study provides a value-add to Talent Management (TM) theory through designing a guide (conceptual model) of TMPs for the HE sector. Practically, it collects original qualitative data regarding TM in the HE domain. From a policy point of view, this study adds more debate around adding new ideas to Australian education strategic plans for HE.

This study has a unique methodology because of strengthening the effect of an in-depth case study. For instance, two different techniques were used for data analysis for the same research objective as follows: (1) both manual methods and content analysis software (NVivo 11) and (2) the three-stage approach. Using these techniques for the same purpose in one study can provide greater flexibility to examine the relationship between theory and data.