Introduction

Abstract

Lateral thinking is an organization-wide approach to scanning for new inputs, materials, influences, and product technologies currently being applied in one field that can offer new product ideas in another. This concept relates to environmental scanning, organizational assimilation, and application, along with absorptive capacity. Lateral thinking could be described as being sensitive to more social influences, casting a wider net, considering more things in different ways, and absorbing a range of inputs from areas such as fashion, auto racing, food, movies. Firms practicing this approach are sensitive to the possibility that new technologies and radical innovations often arrive from outside normal sources. As Jim Olver points out in his essay in this volume, “Tackling wicked problems requires the ability to examine situations from multiple and novel perspectives, to empathize, to engage in lateral thinking.” This is often what is happening with interdisciplinary approaches – ideas in another field are brought in to enrich one's own discipline.

Citation

Swan, S. and Zou, S. (2012), "Introduction", Swan, K.S. and Zou, S. (Ed.) Interdisciplinary Approaches to Product Design, Innovation, & Branding in International Marketing (Advances in International Marketing, Vol. 23), Emerald Group Publishing Limited, Leeds, pp. xiii-xx. https://doi.org/10.1108/S1474-7979(2012)0000023004