The aim of this paper was to explore approaches used by companies to support idea development. This is of interest because creative ideas meet more resistance and reluctance towards their implementation and idea development can improve the quality of an idea and thereby increase the ideas chance of adoption. Despite this, little research has focused on ways a company can go about supporting idea development. An exploratory approach was chosen in order to gather information about companies’ ways of working. Respondents from seven companies were interviewed, and two different views of idea development were identified: either as a way to propel an idea forward, or as a prerequisite for good decision-making. Also three constituting elements of idea development were identified (i.e. conceptualization, contextualization and co-evolution) and supporting mechanisms used by companies to target each of them is listed. These constituting elements of idea development are believed to be valuable to both practice and theory as they provide a valuable framework and capture the challenge of idea development in practice.