System group idealogue approach to innovation: scientific basis and practitioner guidelines

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to present the scientific basis and to give practitioner guidelines for the system group “Idealogue” approach to innovation. Design/methodology/approach – The logic of the system group “Idealogue” (idea‐dialogue) is to create a behavioural simulation “model” of the whole market system of interest. In this model, face‐to‐face communication among functional, disciplinary and hierarchal normally differentiated actors are used to perform various system simulations among problems and ideas and, at the same time, the real change process is started. Findings – Research findings show that the system group were in agreement on much more than what earlier rational experts perceived in the same situations and, moreover, the group agreed in other and unexpected new and successful dimensions. Research limitations/implications – The findings are shown experimentally in action research projects and empirically by longitudinal follow‐up studies. Practical implications – The approach, which comprehends the entire process of innovation and change, is mainly aimed for the commercially “vague” human dimension of technology. Originality/value – Projects in which the group dynamic approach successfully was applied has been conducted in many action research and industrially related change situations at an organizational, regional, state and market level. This includes technological, organizational and administrative domains of the systems with successful and worldwide spread product and process innovations.