Supporting innovation processes using material artefacts: Comparing the use of LEGO bricks and moderation cards as boundary objects

Various collaborative innovation methods are increasingly used in strategy development and the implementation of organizational challenges. The aim of applying them is to involve different agents of an organization and support them in generating new ideas in a joint effort. For this research, an experimental field study was conducted in the course of an innovation workshop for 80 top managers in the public sector using a quantitative questionnaire and an ethnographic observation. A novel workshop format was designed using different materials to support the beginning of this innovation process. The groups used either traditional workshop materials, that is, moderation cards (small sheets of colored paper), or novel workshop materials, that is, LEGO bricks. Our results show that both materials significantly influenced the human experience in the workshop. The use of LEGO bricks was perceived as more enjoy-able, active, and inspiring than the use of moderation cards. However, the perceived group outcome using moderation cards was rated higher than that working with LEGO bricks. We discuss how using novel workshop materials changes the experience of an innovation workshop, but we also highlight that additional factors, including translation effects, trained facilitators, and specific innovation phases, must be considered to outperform the use of traditional materials.

Various collaborative innovation methods are increasingly used in strategy development and the implementation of organizational challenges. The aim of applying them is to involve different agents of an organization and support them in generating new ideas in a joint effort. For this research, an experimental field study was conducted in the course of an innovation workshop for 80 top managers in the public sector using a quantitative questionnaire and an ethnographic observation. A novel workshop format was designed using different materials to support the beginning of this innovation process. The groups used either traditional workshop materials, that is, moderation cards (small sheets of colored paper), or novel workshop materials, that is, LEGO bricks. Our results show that both materials significantly influenced the human experience in the workshop. The use of LEGO bricks was perceived as more enjoyable, active, and inspiring than the use of moderation cards. However, the perceived group outcome using moderation cards was rated higher than that working with LEGO bricks. We discuss how using novel workshop materials changes the experience of an innovation workshop, but we also highlight that additional factors, including translation effects, trained facilitators, and specific innovation phases, must be considered to outperform the use of traditional materials.

K E Y W O R D S
cognition, innovation process, LEGO bricks, LEGO serious play, moderation cards, organizational change, strategy making, workshop materials 1 | INTRODUCTION Societal changes like digitalization require continuously innovative strategies to do justice to the social and digital transformation of our fast-paced and complex society. Such strategies are often the result of the collaborative interaction of multiple stakeholders (Sørensen & Torfing, 2016), which empowers complex innovation processes (Caccamo, 2020;Roberts, 2000). However, bringing together individuals with different personal preferences and backgrounds can make the process of innovating strategies challenging if they insist on holding onto their own points of view rather than jointly exploring new ideas for an organization (Lempiälä & Vanharanta, 2018). The question of how people can actually innovate in a joint effort is raised. Roos et al. (2004) pointedly described a traditional strategy meeting as a group of people sitting around a table, having conversations, using documents, and suppressing emotions in favor of cognitive elements. They concluded that '… the overall lesson for managers is that if you are striving for innovative strategy content, then start by innovating your strategy process ' (p. 565). They proposed to improve the innovation process by introducing unconventional workshop materials such as LEGO bricks as socio-material elements (Orlikowski & Scott, 2008).
There is a plethora of definitions and perspectives on what innovation is (e.g., Baregheh et al., 2009;Fagerberg, 2006;Kahn, 2018;Schumpeter, 1934;Tidd, 2006;Tidd & Bessant, 2009). According to their extensive literature review, Baregheh et al. (2009) proposed the following definition: 'Innovation is the multi-stage process whereby organizations transform ideas into new/improved products, service or processes, in order to advance, compete and differentiate themselves successfully in their marketplace ' (p. 1334). More specifically, we understand innovation as a dynamic capability of an organization (Schoemaker et al., 2018;Teece et al., 2016) realized as a socioepistemic process that is embedded in a material environment. This implies that innovation is intrinsically social and epistemological. On the one hand, it is about creating novel knowledge (Wöhler & Reinhardt, 2021). On the other hand, as shown by many studies (e.g., Fagerberg, 2006;O'Connor & McDermott, 2004;Tidd & Bessant, 2009), innovation has increasingly become a social process as the world has evolved to be more complex and interdisciplinary: In most cases, it is the result of well-orchestrated teams, formal but mostly informal social networks, and interactions, as well as processes of intense collaboration and a tradition of prior knowledge (Weisberg, 1993).
Hence, innovation increasingly results from a team of humans cooperating in order to negotiate and co-create meaning and new perspectives as well as novel knowledge. As we show in theoretical detail in the following section, these processes of conversations between team members can be supported by making use of material objects, such as, in our case, moderation cards or LEGO bricks. These boundary objects, which Star and Griesemer (1989) defined as '… objects which are both plastic enough to adapt to local needs and constraints …, yet robust enough to maintain a common identity' (p. 393), are used as mediators and enablers for these socio-epistemic processes.
Although a high diversity of possible approaches to innovation and innovation methodologies exists (Baregheh et al., 2009;Kahn, 2018), one can identify a pattern of stages or phases that can be found in almost all types of innovation independently, whether it is a stage-gate process (Cooper, 2014), an innovation process driven by design thinking (e.g., Brown, 2009), or an open innovation process (Chesbrough et al., 2006). In one way or another, most innovation processes comprise a phase of (1) creation and discovery, (2) development and prototyping, (3) delivery and, in certain cases, (4) some kind of feedback loop to restart a new circle of innovation. Each of these stages requires different knowledge processes, social interactions, process/workshop formats, and potentially supportive and enabling materials.
Although different workshop materials for experience-based learning processes are used in creativity and innovation workshops, for example, using design thinking (Hölzle & Rhinow, 2019;Johansson-Sköldberg et al., 2013;Primus & Sonnenburg, 2018), the '… research on the influence of objects on creativity has largely been overlooked' (Chen et al., 2020, p. 481). Thus, the aim of this study is to investigate two different workshop materials in the first phase of an innovation process as part of an experimental field study focusing on (1) the perception and experience of the usage, (2) the perceived mutual understanding between group members and (3) the selfassessed outcome of the individuals in a group. For this purpose, an innovation workshop for top managers from the City of Vienna was conducted. The overall goal of the workshop was to innovate the digital open data strategy of the city as part of the ongoing transdisciplinary project 'Governmental Laboratory'. In the workshop, participants conducted group innovation tasks either with moderation cards, that is, small, rectangular pieces of colored paper that can be written on and pinned to metaplan boards and are traditionally used in workshops, or LEGO bricks, that is, small, colorful plastic interlocking building blocks that were originally designed for children's play, as novel workshop materials (see Figure 1).
In addition to comparing the use of these two material objects (moderation cards vs. LEGO bricks), in this paper we are interested in the following question: Assuming that an innovation process comprises a series of socio-epistemic processes, to what extent can they be supported by these material artefacts in a conducive way?
In the next section, relevant theories and selected empirical studies are outlined regarding the use of different workshop materials, especially LEGO bricks. Then, the methods are described and, subsequently, quantitative and qualitative results are summarized. Finally, the results are discussed with regard to theoretical contributions and further research questions, and practical implications for how similar workshops can be conducted in the future are highlighted.  Roos et al. (2004), the process of developing innovative strategies is constrained by the media and mode used. The media comprises all documents and materials used (e.g., PowerPoint slides, documents, Post-it Notes, moderation cards and LEGO bricks), and the mode includes the human experience during the interaction (e.g., thinking, analyzing, reflecting, playfully exploring). In the mid-1990s, researchers conducted studies to investigate these constraints both theoretically and practically and initiated an applied research project in collaboration with the International Institute for Management Development in Switzerland and the LEGO Group. LEGO, a family-owned enterprise, experienced the impact of the first indications of a digitized world, which led to a decrease in sales after steady growth (Kristiansen & Rasmussen, 2014). Although LEGO's business strategy focused on creativity and imaginative toys for children, the company had to admit that their strategy meetings were rather unimaginative and non-innovative regarding their digital strategies.
The idea that they could use their own product as a novel medium for their strategy meetings was born. Instead of two-dimensional and text-based artefacts like documents that are traditionally used in such meetings, they introduced LEGO bricks as three-dimensional, tactile artefacts to enable participants to construct physical representations of their ideas and concepts (Roos & Victor, 2018).
A founding philosophy in the use of LEGO bricks is the idea that '… participants can unlock their creative thinking through play and "thinking with objects"' (Wengel et al., 2021, p. 10). This assumption is based on Papert's theory of learning called 'constructionism' (Harel & Papert, 1991). The basic idea of constructionism is 'learning by making' and is based on Papert's observations that the learner 'is guided by the work as it proceeds rather than staying with a preestablished plan' (Harel & Papert, 1991, p. 6). According to Papert's theory, learning and thinking are situated and are not detached from the learner's context or personal goals. A very similar approach that emphasizes 'thinking through making' can be found in Ingold (2013), who was inspired by the ecological psychology of Gibson (see Withagen & Kamp, 2018). According to Ingold (2013), most cognitive theories of creativity are based on a 'hylomorphic' approach, that is, novel ideas originate in the mind at the beginning of a creative process. The physical body imposes this novel form on the material, and, as a result, the material (i.e., the artefact created) embodies the original idea. Consequently, the idea and the constructed object are isomorphic, that is, the original idea is manifested in the shape of the physical object/material. Contrary to these traditional views on creativity, Ingold described the creation of a new object as an ongoing interaction between the crafter and the material. The object responds to the action of its maker, who reacts to this response with a new action, and the process continues in a feedback loop of mutually influencing each other. From this perspective, novel objects are not created by an isolated and form-giving mind; instead, they emerge in a process of mutual form-giving and form-receiving as the mind interacts with its artefact (Chen et al., 2020;Orlikowski & Scott, 2008).
These theoretical positions stress the notion that physically externalizing ideas encourages an exploratory mode of thought and creation as opposed to following and executing a pre-existing plan.

| The 4E approach to cognition
In a broader context, in this paper, we propose to approach our work from the still fairly recent cognitive perspective on innovation (Sund et al., 2018). The activities described in our workshop design are closely related to what, in the field of cognitive science, is called the 4E approach to cognition. This is a relatively new approach where '4E' denotes an embodied, embedded, extended, and enactive approach to cognition (e.g., Chemero, 2013;Clark, 2008;Menary, 2010;Newen et al., 2018;Rowlands, 2010;Varela et al., 2016). In short, this means that (1) cognition always involves the body and is not limited to the functions of the brain ('embodied'). Furthermore, (2) every cognitive system is embedded in its external environment at all times and interacts with it ('embedded'), and (3) cognition itself extends to this environment; in other words, the external environment is part of and constitutive of cognitive processes ('extended'). Finally, (4) cognitive systems do not only interact with their environments via their cognitive/neural processes and bodies; they actively engage with and cocreate both their (internal and external) environments and themselves as living organisms in a closed feedback loop. Hence, they shape their environment, and thereby, their cognition and experiences are shaped by the environment by being closely coupled with it ('enactive'). This is in stark contrast to earlier approaches to cognition (e.g., Clark, 2001;Friedenberg & Silverman, 2012) that have focused on understanding it as an information process manipulating and operating on abstract representations of the external world or as a process of neural activities and changes in the neural architecture driven only by the brain.
For the context of our study, these '4Es' play a major role as they describe how cognitive systems interact with their environment by creating artefacts (e.g., using LEGO objects) and utilizing them as tools for supporting their own cognitive activities as well as sense-making and creative processes. As suggested by Ingold (2013), cognitive systems are using the artefacts not only to externalize their knowledge but also to learn from them and make sense of them for their own cognitive processes. By enacting their (built material) environment, they engage in a co-creative process in which both their creativity and the latent 'creative potential' of the materials used (e.g., possible ways to connect bricks and potential emerging shapes) enter into a process of co-shaping each other and inspiring the creative agent. Beyond this, it is not a single cognitive system that is involved in such an activity but a whole group of systems interacting with each other and their artefacts, leading to a process of participatory sense-making (Jaegher & Paolo, 2007) and co-creation.
According to Ingold (2013), this process of co-shaping can be characterized as an activity of mutual form-making and form-taking in which both the cognitive and creative agents and the environment and artefacts are engaged in a process of creating novelty. Material engagement theory suggests that '… there can be no a priori separation between what is 'out there' and 'in here' with respect to the boundaries of skin and skull. The skin cannot act as a barrier between the mind and the material world'; instead, '… it lies in the ability of the brain to connect, to attend, to respond, to attune, and relate to the world using its extraordinary plasticity and sensitivity. In other words, brain operations are inseparable from those of the rest of the body and its surrounding relevant environment' (Malafouris, 2019, p. 5f). The entire process is a 'socio-epistemic-material' practice of cognitive becoming in which the mind transforms and moves together with, as well as following, its environment. Schön (1992) pointed in a similar direction when he described design processes as reflective conversations with the material. The material artefacts being co-created act as boundary objects functioning as mediators and objects of sense-making for the participating cognitive agents (Star, 1989). They have 'interpretive flexibility' (Caccamo, 2020;Star, 2010) so that their meaning has to be negotiated, perspectives have to be changed, and, in the course of these conversations and material interactions with these artefacts, novelty might emerge.

| LEGO bricks in contrast to a conventional workshop material
Using LEGO bricks as a novel workshop material, Roos and Victor (1999) expected to transform the mode of operation from a purely cognitive activity into an exploratory and multidimensional mode of material socio-epistemic engagement with the environment in the format of serious play: Cognitive, emotional, and social aspects, as well as bodily interactions with the environment, are integrated to address and support complex issues such as strategy and innovation processes. In this context, play is understood as the ability to create new solutions in an exploratory, playful, and imaginative way that is crucial to ideate, innovate, and develop future scenarios (Roth et al., 2015;Statler et al., 2011). In this sense, play is not used as pure amusement, i.e., 'frivolous play', but rather as the purpose and structure of a philosophical dialogue following Plato's 'serious play' (in Greek, spoudaious paidzein; see Roos et al., 2004). It emphasizes an exploratory mode that enables autotelic behaviour in which participants experience a sense of curiosity that may even lead to a highly creative mental state (Nakamura & Csikszentmihalyi, 2014). The developed method was, accordingly, named LEGO ® SERIOUS PLAY ® (LSP) as a facilitated meeting, communication, and creative problem-solving process.
In the context of LSP, the use of LEGO bricks is not about making a physical representation of what something looks like but about building a metaphorical model that can aid in presenting a story to the group (Bab & Eriksen, 2014). These models should help participants to construct new knowledge as well as to share meaning, support collaboration, and reach a shared understanding (Geithner & Menzel, 2016;Roos & Victor, 1999). Making and exchanging representations of one's knowledge and understanding enables others to anticipate distinct ways of understanding. Once these personal representations of knowledge, ideas, and perspectives are made available for communication, a basis for mutual understanding emerges (Boland & Tenkasi, 1995).
LSP has drawn attention to using unconventional materials for workshops and has recently gained traction as an increasing number of studies have attempted to analyze its potential benefits (Roos & Victor, 2018). Empirical evidence supports the claim of the positive effects of using LEGO bricks and serious play in relation to idea development (Ashton & Giddings, 2018), greater creativity (Harn & Hsiao, 2018), and better academic performance (Hussain et al., 2006).
In the study by Bulmer (2011), participants agreed that the LSP method created a playful environment in which to interact with their team and that the workshop helped them discover more about the other participants' knowledge. Bulmer also found that teams using LEGO bricks demonstrated improved team performance in the context of innovation compared to teams that did not use them. Similarly, Cherapanukorn and Jintapitak (2017) found that their use created a fun and relaxed atmosphere that enabled LSP workshop participants to share their ideas and express their thoughts.
Nevertheless, theories on more-conventional workshop materials should not be underestimated. Dove et al. (2018) investigated the use of 3M Post-it notes with design teams and analyzed this material in terms of possible cognitive benefits. Based on Dix and Gongora (2011), they described four specific functions of design materials as externalizations of thoughts and feelings: (1) informational: to communicate ideas to reach a similar understanding; (2) formational: to form an idea through the act of writing it down in contrast to merely representing an existing idea; (3) transformational: to augment thinking and interacting with the externalized ideas, for example, when modifying a given note; and (4) transcendental: to group and structure the ideas, which can lead to new insights. These functions are very similar to the characteristics attributed to LSP as described above. In light of these theoretical considerations, the question raised is whether LEGO bricks do, indeed, contribute new qualities to a workshop or merely share the benign properties of a whole range of established workshop materials.

| DEVELOPMENT OF HYPOTHESES
Although various studies have supported the positive effects of using LEGO bricks, they are, to some extent, limited. In several studies, the participants were mostly students, and consequently, the results are not easily comparable to senior managers who are socialized in their organizations and familiar with different ways of working (e.g., Dann, 2018;Geithner & Menzel, 2016;James, 2015). While other studies have investigated stakeholders and managers, they used mostly small sample sizes and, thus, have focused on qualitative methods without testing hypotheses (e.g., Fletcher et al., 2016;Grienitz & Schmidt, 2012;Wengel et al., 2016). Therefore, most studies do not have a design that allows for comparing the use of LEGO bricks with other workshop materials in a quantitative manner. Based on the previous theoretical discussion and earlier empirical studies, three hypotheses were formulated for the present empirical study.
Perception and experience: The use of a novel workshop material, i.e., LEGO bricks, changes the experience from a purely cognitive interaction to a more playful exploration (Roos & Victor, 1999); thereby, the evolving mode of serious play integrates, in addition to cognitive interactions, emotional and social aspects of collaboration.
Various studies have highlighted the positive atmosphere of workshops that use LEGO bricks (Gridley, 2018), and Nerantzi (2018) even described LSP workshops as an 'affective experience' (p. 294). In summary, using LEGO bricks seems to have an effect on positive emotions. In contrast, the use of a traditional workshop material, i.e., moderation cards, does not necessarily have such an effect on the perceptions and experiences of participants. Accordingly, the following hypothesis is formulated: H1. Participants perceive and experience the use of LEGO bricks with more positive emotions than they do with the use of moderation cards.
Mutual understanding: Referring to Roos et al. (2004), it appears that the medium is also able to influence the way in which group members interact with objects and with each other. Thus, it is conceivable that, depending on the material used to represent personal knowledge and ideas, there may be differences in the development of a mutual understanding (Boland & Tenkasi, 1995). In the context of the first phases of innovation processes, initial ideas are exchanged that may not yet be developed as definite concepts. Based on tacit knowledge, preliminary visions and the potential for new possibilities need to be discussed. The use of LEGO bricks enables a metaphorical representation of such ideas that can better express implicit knowledge and the first fragile ideas than single words written on cards.
Thus, according to the current literature, LEGO bricks, as a threedimensional and tactile material, seem to contribute to a better understanding of one another's tacit knowledge compared to twodimensional and text-based materials such as documents (Geithner & Menzel, 2016;Roos & Nilsson, 2020;Wengel et al., 2021). Therefore, in the current study, it is hypothesized that the use of LEGO bricks will lead to better mutual understanding in the first phase of innovation processes than will the use of moderation cards.
H2. The perceived mutual understanding of group members is higher in the condition with LEGO bricks than in the condition with moderation cards.
Perceived group outcome: From a constructivist perspective (Harel & Papert, 1991), learning is situated and supported by physically constructed ideas. Likewise, Ingold (2013) described the cognitive approach of making new objects and emphasized that new ideas emerge while interacting with these objects. The use of LEGO bricks might, therefore, support the creation of ideas (Gauntlett, 2018), and several empirical studies have shown increased innovative performance using LEGO bricks (Ashton & Giddings, 2018;Harn & Hsiao, 2018;Hussain et al., 2006). For example, Brown and Collins (2018) described workshops with students using LEGO bricks and found that this material fostered their creative and playful exploration within the complex and solitary experience of PhD research.
Also, Bulmer (2011) reported a greater innovative performance for teams using LEGO bricks compared to teams that did not use these artefacts. Accordingly, the following hypothesis will be tested: H3. The group outcome is perceived as more valuable in the condition with LEGO bricks than in the condition with moderation cards.

| RESEARCH METHOD
In the present work, an innovation workshop with top managers was conducted in order to study the workshop material in the field. In contrast to research conducted in a laboratory, such real-world settings can introduce confounding variables that are beyond the control of the researchers (Podsakoff & Podsakoff, 2019). This could lead to reduced reliability and replicability of the results, but the benefit is a higher ecological validity of the empirical data, which is still lacking in this applied research area. In order to consider potential difficulties, a quantitative questionnaire was complemented by an ethnographic observation to further enrich our data qualitatively, as suggested for sociomaterial-based studies (Moura & Bispo, 2020). Each table was prepared for the participants, and one facilitator led the process. All 10 facilitators (six researchers and four public-service staff) conducted a short preworkshop training and were briefed by the main facilitator, one of the researchers who is also a certified LSP facilitator. The facilitators were given worksheets comprising a detailed schedule and guidelines, including the exact questions they were to pose to their groups. Due to limited time resources, a rigorous schedule was developed. The workshop lasted 3 hours, including presentations, collaborative innovation processes, and the development of measures (see Table A1). This study focuses on the first part of the collaborative innovation process, which lasted 1 hour and in which three iterations took place. In the first iteration, the facilitators asked for the partici- Following the core process of LSP according to Kristiansen and Rasmussen (2014), every iteration consisted of a short introduction to the topic followed by a specific question for the group. Subsequently, all participants had 5 minutes to independently write their answers on moderation cards or to build a model with LEGO bricks, depending on which material was available at their

| Questionnaire
Directly following the empirical phase of the collaborative innovation process, all participants completed a questionnaire that included semantic differential and multi-item as well as single-item scales as described below. For the semantic differential scale, the measurements ranged from 1 (a left-side adjective is well-matched, e.g., 'enjoyable') to 7 (a right-side adjective is well-matched, e.g., 'boring'), and for the focal constructs, seven-point Likert-type scales ranging from 1 (strongly disagree) to 7 (strongly agree) were used. The internal consistency (Cronbach's α) was calculated for all the scales developed in the questionnaire.
The study included three dependent variables according to the formulated hypotheses. Regarding the first hypothesis, a semantic differential scale was used to assess how the participants perceived and experienced the workshop material. They were asked to spontaneously evaluate the material using 13 adjectives paired with their respective antonyms that were presented in the questionnaire. The selection of adjectives was partly oriented to insights from userexperience studies to capture the perceived hedonic and pragmatic qualities of the workshop methods (e.g., Hassenzahl, 2018). Two main factors were extracted using principal component analysis and used for hypothesis testing. Their Cronbach's α was .81 and .72.
Regarding the second hypothesis, the group members' perceived mutual understanding was captured with a four-item scale with Cronbach's α of .93. The statements on the scale addressed perceived mutual understanding by asking whether the participant felt understood by the others or was able to understand the others (e.g., 'With the method used, I was able to communicate my point of view to the other group members'; 'The other group members were able to communicate their point of view to me, thanks to the method used') (see Table A2).
To test the third hypothesis, the group members' evaluations of the perceived group outcome were assessed with a four-item scale with Cronbach's α of .79. Self-perceived measures of the group outcome instead of performance-based measures were chosen because self-perceived measurements can provide more insights (Hocevar, 1981;Zhou et al., 2008) as creative behaviours are goaloriented and intentional (Shalley, 1991).
Moreover, the questionnaire covered items on the perceived quality of the group discussion process, measured with a seven-item scale with a Cronbach's α of .72, and additional questions (single items) were posed to assess the perceived group climate and discussion as well as satisfaction with the method and the facilitator's moderation. counts' (Goodall, 1989, p. xv), the aim was to consider as many 'things' as possible; therefore, none of the previously mentioned hypotheses were applied.

| Ethnographic observations
Participating ethnographically means being immersed in the informants' realities for a certain amount of time and observing, listening, questioning, and '… in fact, collecting whatever data is available to throw light on the issues that are the focus of the research' (Hammersley & Atkinson, 2007, p. 1). The applied observer role, according to Bernard (2006), signifies that the researcher follows the informants and notes their behaviours. Interaction with the informants occurs as situations allow it. The result of this ethnographic observation is an observation protocol that will be reflected in the discussion.

| RESULTS
First, the results of the questionnaire and the statistical analyses regarding the three main hypotheses are reported. Subsequently, the ethnographic observation protocol is presented in a condensed form, and the observations that were not connected to the research question are omitted.

| Questionnaire
In total, 50 participants filled out the questionnaire completely, 23 persons in the condition with moderation cards (male: 13; female: 10) and 27 persons in the condition of LEGO bricks (male: 19; female: 8); 80% of the participants were between 41 and 60 years old.
According to the first hypothesis, it is assumed that participants perceive and experience the use of LEGO bricks in a way that differs from how they perceive and experience moderation cards. To test this hypothesis, a semantic differential scale was used to measure the participants' attitudes towards the material used. On a seven-point rating scale, participants rated their perceptions and experiences using contrasting adjectives (e.g., 'classical' vs. 'creative'). In Figure 2, the mean values of the two kinds of workshop materials show the perceived quality.
The largest difference was observed between the adjectives well- Three main factors with initial eigenvalues above one were identified, and they explained 32%, 25% and 11% of the variance (see Table 1). The first factor was labelled 'playful' and comprised the items enjoyable, interesting, pleasant, active, and inspiring. The second factor was labelled 'serious' and comprised the items serious, well-known, organized, and factual. The third factor comprised only the item complex and was, therefore, excluded from further analysis.
The numbers in Table 1  The items bad/good, classical/creative, and superficial/deep were also excluded as each had high loadings on more than one factor.
However, regarding the excluded items, two interesting observations were made. First, the item creative had a high factor loading on the first factor, 'playful', and its opposite item, classical, loaded high on the second factor, 'serious', and was, therefore, not included as one of the main factors. Second, the item good loaded high on both factors, which means both factors can contribute to a generally positive evaluation of a method.
We computed composite scores for each of the remaining two factors ('playful' and 'serious') based on the mean of the items, which had their primary loadings on each factor. The scores were close to a normal distribution and had high internal consistency (see Table 2). According to the second and third hypotheses, the perceived mutual understanding differs depending on the workshop material used (H2), and the outcomes of the groups using LEGO bricks are perceived as more valuable than those of the groups using moderation cards (H3). The main variables were assessed for normality of distribution separately in each group using the Shapiro-Wilk test (see Table A2). Depending on the result, the unpaired Student's t-test or Mann-Whitney U test was used to compare the difference between conditions. The assumption for the Mann-Whitney U test of nonnormal distributions was also tested in a similar manner. Whenever the test statistics were significant, the analysis was complemented by a Holm-Bonferroni multiple comparison post-test.
The second hypothesis could not be confirmed  Table 3.
T A B L E 2 Descriptive statistics for the two factors of the semantic differential

| Perception and experience of the material
In relation to our first hypothesis regarding the extent to which managers perceive and experience the workshop material, differences between the use of LEGO bricks and moderation cards could be found. The main factor 'playful' (consisting of the items enjoyable, interesting, pleasant, active, and inspiring) had a slightly higher primary loading for participants who used LEGO bricks. The main factor 'serious' (consisting of the items serious, well-known, organized, and factual) had a far higher loading for participants who used moderation cards. The two factors were equally evaluated as 'good' (compared to 'bad'), showing that both have characteristics that can be desirable for creativity and innovation workshops. However, the item 'creative' had a high loading on the factor 'playful', and its opposite, 'classical', loaded high on the factor 'serious'. These results demonstrate the different experiences of managers and are consistent with the qualitative findings, in which a friendlier atmosphere and more laughter were observed at the tables where LEGO bricks were used. Similar to Roos et al. (2004), our findings support that the medium has an effect on the mode, that is, the use of the socio-material workshop elements significantly influences the human experience in the workshop. This playful experience can support an open atmosphere in which to collaboratively imagine new scenarios, create innovative solutions, and develop and adapt strategies (Celestine & Yeo, 2021;Roos & Victor, 1999).
In the ethnographic study, it was observed that having something haptic and playful in their hands engages people and builds interpersonal connections. In this case, the participants were familiar with LEGO bricks, but the bricks were offered in an unexpected environment and with a different purpose. As derived from overheard conversations, it seemed that, for most of them, this was the first time they had used LEGO bricks in a professional context. Before the workshop started, there was uncertainty as to how well the managers would receive the use of workshop materials of any kind. Nevertheless, the observation showed that all workshop materials were used appropriately and according to the aim of the workshop. However, the LEGO bricks received more attention than the moderation cards from the moment the participants arrived until the moment they left the workshop. The atmosphere at the tables where LEGO bricks were used appeared to be friendlier: There was a more amicable tone in these conversations, participants laughed together, and they seemed curious to learn about the LEGO constructions created by other group members.

| Required factors for effective implementations
Regarding the second and third hypotheses, the scales of mutual understanding and the evaluation of the outcome were both rated highly. However, for mutual understanding, no significant differences could be found and the material did not have a significant effect on this scale. In contrast to the third formulated hypothesis, the rating for the moderation cards was, in fact, even significantly higher than the bricks regarding the perceived group outcome. Based on the theories underlying the use of LEGO bricks or similar haptic materials (Harel & Papert, 1991;Ingold, 2013;Malafouris, 2019;Newen et al., 2018), we had expected to find a more positive rating of the outcome of the workshop in the LEGO groups than in the moderation card groups, as well as a more positive rating of perceived mutual understanding. Why did we not find these expected benefits of LEGO bricks? We must once again emphasize that, while we investigated different workshop materials using the LSP core process, we did not conduct a full LSP workshop. LEGO bricks seem to provide a good basis for a playful mode, but additional factors are required for effective implementation. appear to be essential to guide participants through the process and support them to build models and formulate metaphors (Dann, 2018;Kristiansen & Rasmussen, 2014;Wengel et al., 2021). As described above, translating ideas into a different medium may have a positive effect on the experience of interacting and generating new ideas; nevertheless, a retranslation for organizational compatibility may be of particular importance and should be guided by a facilitator.
Embedding in innovation phases. Following our initial perspective on innovation as a socio-epistemic process, the experiences from our workshop design add an important element: material objects play a major role as mediators and enablers for such processes. While material objects, such as moderation cards, are commonly used for externalizing the participants' knowledge and, thereby, making it available and accessible to other members of the team, we suggest going one step further and extending the role of material objects. As shown in our theoretical considerations of 4E cognition, material engagement theory, and boundary objects, such objects may play a key role in the processes of creating knowledge, negotiating and creating meaning, developing new perspectives and exploring future potentials. The use of LEGO bricks in such workshop settings has proved particularly fertile for these kinds of socio-epistemic processes (Patrício et al., 2018;Zenk et al., 2018).

| Future research
In future studies, innovation phases in which different socio-material workshop elements are used could be analyzed separately to investigate the extent to which they support specific tasks. In laboratory experiments, it would be possible to use systematic observations and the think-aloud method to uncover thinking processes during interactions with physical objects. Additionally, external judgments could be used to clearly measure the outcome of the group tasks, which we did not include in our study. Individual differences should also be considered regarding how to create and interact with such objects. It might well be that participants tend to prefer different cognitive strategies, for example, they attempt to find ideas without interacting with the material and then attempt to convey these ideas with LEGO bricks.
Others might interact with them from the beginning and successively create new ideas in the way Ingold (2013)

| CONCLUSION
In a volatile, uncertain, complex and ambiguous (VUCA) world (Baran & Woznyj, 2021;Bennett & Lemoine, 2014), it has become critical not only to respond to the increasing rates of change, uncertainty, and complexity of the market but also to develop the capacities to proactively shape it in innovative ways. In order to address these challenges of an uncertain future, completely new skills and methods (OECD, 2018;Peschl, 2019b;Teece et al., 2016) such as the approaches discussed in this paper are necessary. Moreover, the complexity of organizations has increased as well. As a result, it is no longer sufficient to employ a single long-term strategy that is developed by individual managers; rather, the expertise and collaboration of different perspectives are needed to develop creative and innovative strategies that can be adapted to constantly changing environments.
For this purpose, seeing one's own organization with fresh eyes and from different perspectives is indispensable. One strategy for supporting this endeavour is to change the constraints of creativity and innovation workshops, for example, by using different sociomaterial workshop elements in order to collaboratively generate and discover new ideas.

| Theoretical implications
One key insight from our study is that it is not (only) the creativity of a single cognitive agent or group of cognitive agents that is responsible for generating novelty or innovation. As shown by Ingold (2014) and Peschl (2019a), creativity is a process of 'undergoing', that is, the environment plays a central role as a source of creativity and novelty.
It is not so much our own creative act but our 'submission' and openness (Ingold, 2013(Ingold, , 2014 to the environment that produces novelty in an emergent process of constant interaction and mutual form-giving/ shaping and form-taking apart from our social interactions. We are enacting novelty or innovation in close cooperation with our environment. The environment (e.g., a specific configuration of LEGO bricks) offers both 'interpretive flexibility' or richness in interpretation (Star, 2010) and a high level of potentiality to be changed or transformed (e.g., a reconfiguration of LEGO bricks).
Such objects (e.g., LEGO bricks) not only offer different meanings to different participants or trigger different perspectives in them; they also actively engage the participants in a process of participatory sense-making (Jaegher & Paolo, 2007) and 'thinking through doing' (Malafouris, 2019). They shape our minds by being shaped by our environments/artefacts (themselves being the results of our cognitive activities) in a circular creative process. The LEGO setting in our study employs exactly these mechanisms for an innovation process. Our results demonstrate that the LEGO bricks setting particularly support the development of alternative perspectives, the reinterpretation of a specific question or problem, and the exploration of possibilities in a playful manner, as well as the discovery and creation of new solutions to problems. More generally, the bricks seem to support divergent thinking more than convergent thinking (Patrício et al., 2018;Zenk et al., 2018). Hence, the LEGO setting seems to be more appropriate, especially for the phases of ideation, creation, and discovery in an innovation phase. Therefore, several studies (e.g., BenMahmoud-Jouini & Midler, 2020;Houde & Hill, 1997;Yu et al., 2018) suggest that such an approach might be useful for an initial phase of innovation and design processes (Primus & Sonnenburg, 2018). For convergent thinking that is more apparent in the final phases of an innovation process, moderation cards may be beneficial to structure and for fully comprehending the outcome of a workshop.

| Managerial implications
In our study, we used LEGO bricks as an unconventional workshop material compared to moderation cards as a traditional material. At the beginning of the workshop, it was observed that managers were skeptical about using 'children's toys', but once they started using the LEGO bricks, curiosity prevailed, and they immersed themselves in the process. As we were able to show, the use of LEGO bricks was perceived as more enjoyable, active, and inspiring than the use of moderation cards. However, the perceived group outcome using moderation cards was rated higher than that using LEGO bricks.