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Analogical Thinking (analogical + thinking)

Distribution by Scientific Domains

Humanities and Social Sciences	50%

Selected Abstracts

Opening up the Solution Space: The Role of Analogical Thinking for Breakthrough Product Innovation

CREATIVITY AND INNOVATION MANAGEMENT, Issue 2 2008
Oliver Gassmann
The purpose of this paper is to investigate the approach of analogical thinking for product innovation. We collected data on projects from four engineering firms where analogical thinking was successfully applied for the development of breakthrough innovations. Results show that abstracting the problem by in-depth technical and contextual analysis is pivotal when searching for analogical solutions. Furthermore, the chances of identifying highly novel analogous solutions are increased if the problem is abstracted to the level of its structural similarities to other settings. We also found that the identification of structural similarities is supported when firms not only rely on the cognitive abilities of the individual but also employ an active search based on abstract search terms. Based on these insights, we propose a process model for the development of product innovations by means of analogical thinking. [source]

1. THE DEFINING CHARACTER OF CHINESE HISTORICAL THINKING1

HISTORY AND THEORY, Issue 2 2007
CHUN-CHIEH HUANG
ABSTRACT Imbued with profound historical consciousness, the Chinese people are Homo historiens in every sense of the term. To be human in China, to a very large extent, is to be historical, which means to live up to the paradigmatic past. Therefore, historical thinking in traditional China is moral thinking. The Chinese historico-moral thinking centers around the notion of Dao, a notion that connotes both Heavenly principle and human norm. In view of its practical orientation, Chinese historical thinking is, on the one hand, concrete thinking and, on the other, analogical thinking. Thinking concretely and analogically, the Chinese people are able to communicate with the past and to extrapolate meanings from history. In this way, historical experience in China becomes a library in which modern readers may engage in creative dialogues with the past. [source]

Ambiguity and Remembrance: Individual and Collective Memory in Finland

AMERICAN ETHNOLOGIST, Issue 3 2000
Karen Armstrong
In this article, I explore the complicated relationship between individual experience and national events, the way this relationship is narrated, and how individual memory becomes part of a collective memory. By looking at memoirs written by the descendants of Thomas Rantalainen, and focusing on personal correspondence, I show how the contents of letters written 60 years ago relate to events in Finland's history that are still being discussed today. In the narrative practices of the correspondence, the individuals themselves ,through the use of a narrative We,mmerge their personal experiences with those of the community. Two themes in the letters,war and family life,illustrate how the processes of replication and analogical thinking work in bringing the past into the present. [Finland, history and analogical thinking, personal correspondence, domestic life] [source]