Food for thought: How curiosity externalization is fostered through organizational identity

Abstract

Curiosity has increasingly been deemed to hold pivotal influence over the ventures founders create. While this growing body of knowledge has helped us understand the origins of a venture, what is less well understood is the process by which individual curiosity gets externalized to the organizational level. Yet, the externalization of curiosity has been recognized as central for rallying organizational members behind innovation initiatives. To understand how curiosity externalizes and thereby translates into a venture’s collective property, we conducted an in-depth case study of Rasmus Munk and his two Michelin-starred restaurant Alchemist. Our empirically grounded process model draws attention to the pivotal role identity mechanisms assume in externalizing curiosity in a venture: Promoting originality through de-familiarizing the familiar at the individual level is counter-balanced by familiarizing the unfamiliar into a coherent venture story at the organizational level.