Creative Synthesis, Patchworking, and Static Evaluation: How Different Modes of Collective Idea Elaboration Shape Team Exploratory Innovation

While the importance of teams for innovation and entrepreneurship is well acknowledged, research shows that teams often struggle to generate or select ideas effectively. However, research suggests that teams’ strengths show in idea elaboration, that is, in collectively developing ideas further. Yet despite its apparent relevance, this crucial phase in the idea journey remains understudied, particularly the interactions that drive successful elaboration in exploratory innovation. This study examines how entrepreneurial teams elaborate ideas through their interactions and how different modes of collective idea elaboration shape the creative output. Through qualitative video analysis of 79 entrepreneurial teams during a 60-minute exploratory innovation task, we identified four distinct modes of collective idea elaboration. Creative synthesis transforms ideas through collective reasoning, while patchworking aggregates ideas through parallel individual reasoning. Static evaluation involves judgment without development, and (expedited) closure reflects minimal collective engagement with both team and content. We characterize these modes along two analytical dimensions, engagement intensity (deep versus superficial) and engagement orientation (developmental versus evaluative), and develop a theoretical model highlighting their dynamic and situated nature. By taking a dialogical perspective, we show when and why these dimensions of engagement shift throughout the creative work process and shape an idea’s trajectory. Our findings contribute to the literature on team creativity and innovation.