Attributive Idea Evaluation: A New Idea Evaluation Method for Corporate Open Innovation Communities

This article introduces a new idea evaluation method, named “Attributive Idea Evaluation” (AIE), for corporate open innovation communities. AIE aims on the contextual integration of all employees’ knowledge and is based on twenty attributes. Assigning these attributes to ideas facilitates intuitive evaluations. Ranking different ideas is enabled by enclosing corresponding numerical values, correlating to success potential. The method generated convincing results when utilized to evaluate innovation ideas within a large German service company, fulfilling most of the requirements for evaluating ideas in early phases of the innovation management process. Additional discussions with the participants and an expert interview confirmed AIE’s utility, usability, and reliability.