Schweitzer Fiona, Rau Christiane, Gassmann Oliver, van den Hende Ellis
J Prod Innov Manage. 2015 Nov;32(6):847-860. doi: 10.1111/jpim.12269. Epub 2015 May 20.
This paper identifies technologically reflective individuals and demonstrates their ability to develop innovations that benefit society. Technological reflectiveness (TR) is the tendency to think about the societal impact of an innovation, and those who display this capability in public are individuals who participate in online idea competitions focused on technical solutions for social problems (such as General Electric's eco-challenge, the James Dyson Award, and the BOSCH Technology Horizon Award). However, technologically reflective individuals also reflect in private settings (e.g., when reading news updates), thus requiring a scale to identify them. This paper describes the systematic development of an easy-to-administer multi-item scale to measure an individual's level of TR. Applying the TR scale in an empirical study on a health monitoring system confirmed that individuals' degree of TR relates positively to their ability to generate (1) more new product features and uses, (2) features with higher levels of societal impact, and (3) features that are more elaborated. This scale allows firms seeking to implement co-creation in their new product development (NPD) process and sustainable solutions to identify such individuals. Thus, this paper indicates that companies wishing to introduce new technological products with a positive societal impact may profit from involving technologically reflective individuals in the NPD process.
本文识别了具有技术反思能力的个体，并展示了他们开发造福社会的创新成果的能力。技术反思（TR）是思考一项创新对社会影响的倾向，而那些在公开场合展现出这种能力的人，是参与专注于社会问题技术解决方案的在线创意竞赛的个体（如通用电气的生态挑战奖、詹姆斯·戴森奖和博世技术地平线奖）。然而，具有技术反思能力的个体也会在私下场合进行反思（例如阅读新闻更新时），因此需要一个量表来识别他们。本文描述了一个易于管理的多项目量表的系统开发过程，以衡量个体的技术反思水平。在一项关于健康监测系统的实证研究中应用该技术反思量表证实，个体的技术反思程度与他们产生以下内容的能力呈正相关：（1）更多新产品特性和用途；（2）具有更高社会影响水平的特性；（3）更详尽的特性。该量表使寻求在新产品开发（NPD）过程中实施共同创造及可持续解决方案的公司能够识别此类个体。因此，本文表明，希望推出具有积极社会影响的新技术产品的公司，可能会从让具有技术反思能力的个体参与新产品开发过程中受益。
