Business Commons^™

Prototypes As Identity Markers: The Double-Edged Role Of Prototypes In Multidisciplinary Innovation Teams, Clio Dosi, Elisa Mattarelli, Matteo Vignoli

Faculty Research, Scholarly, and Creative Activity

Prototypes play a powerful role in facilitating the work of multidisciplinary innovation teams, but if not properly managed, they may inhibit innovation processes. This paper inquires into the tensions that exist around the use of prototypes in multidisciplinary teams. We studied the relationship between work identities (related to teams and subgroups within teams) and prototypes with a field study of a multidisciplinary team in an emergency department, in charge of redesigning the layout of the unit. Results show that different values of subgroup identities are reflected in the solutions devised by the team. These values become salient through the prototype; …