Creative ambivalence: implementing need-solution pairs in household 3D printing

Abstract

Household sector innovators often create solutions to address their own personal needs, but while need-solution pairs can have important functions in creativity and design, the solutions that are initially devised as part of a working prototype are likely to be imperfect. This presents an adoption-related puzzle that revolves around how an imperfect solution created to meet a unique personal need can subsequently be used by others. I develop a multilevel model to propose that creative ambivalence is an in-between state for describing how mixed emotions, which capture reflective accounts in the creation of need-solution pairs, can influence implementation. Using Thingiverse, a longitudinal dataset of designers in an online community, the designers' own reflective accounts and commentaries on their creative work, I find that creative ambivalence encourages implementation and that creative ambivalence at a personal level positively increases the implementation of need-solution pairs in the production of household products, whereas ambivalence at an artefact level reveals no influence. In addition, solution adoption in follow-on design derivatives accentuates the effect of creative ambivalence on implementation, so that the positive relationship between creative ambivalence and implementation is stronger when solution adoption is high. The multilevel model and results offer important theoretical contributions to research on affect and creativity and lead userness and practical implications for identifying lead users in online communities.