Do decision-makers prefer ideas on which they have personally worked?

This article aims to determine whether the IKEA effect (i.e., the effect of pure effort) changes decision-maker’s opinion about a start-up business project. This quantitative study uses non-parametric rank-based tests (Mann-Whitney-Wilcoxon and Kruskal-Wallis) to determine whether experimental manipulations change respondents’ opinions statistically significantly. The research sample consists of 259 participants. The consensus from the literature review is that the IKEA effect influences the evaluation of tangible and intangible objects alike. However, the results of the two experiments described in this paper suggest that the sheer effort involved does not statistically significantly change the opinion of a start-up business project. However, all things being equal, prior exposure to a start-up project does have a statistically significant positive effect on decision-makers’ opinion on that project. The main conclusion from this study is that the IKEA effect does not seem to impact the perceived attractiveness of intangible objects if we carefully distinguish between the I-designed-it-myself effect and the IKEA effect. This could help map the cognitive biases that distort decision-makers’ judgments –especially in areas where the evaluation of business projects under conditions of data scarcity is common (such as seed-stage investments). The article highlights a theoretical distinction between the IDIM and the IKEA effect that seems to be missing in many articles in this area of research. It also addresses the research gap regarding the impact of the IKEA effect on the liking of intangible objects.