Perspectives on Innovation Processes

Abstract

Innovation is often thought of as an outcome. In this chapter, we review the literatures on innovation processes pertaining to the invention, development, and implementation of ideas. In particular, we explore how these processes unfold within firms, across multi-party networks, and within communities. Moreover, we identify four different kinds of complexities associated with innovation processes that we label as evolutionary, relational, temporal, and cultural complexities. While one approach is to manage or control such complexities, we draw attention to literatures that suggest that it is far more productive to harness these complexities for sustaining ongoing innovation. We conclude the chapter by highlighting some areas for future research.

Acknowledgements

We thank Royston Greenwood and Sarah Kaplan for their inputs on an earlier version of the chapter. We also thank Joel Gehman, Peter Karnoe, and Arun Kumaraswamy for their ongoing discussions with us on innovation processes.

Notes

In the domains of business and economics, more than 7000 articles have been published with the term innovation in the title since 1956 (start of the Social Science Citation Index). The percentage of articles published each year with the term innovation in the title has been steadily increasing, climbing to over 2.5% (i.e. 690 articles) in 2012.

Hardin used the analogy of a herd of cows grazing on a patch of grass (the commons) to illustrate this problem—the commons collapses if the grass is consumed at a rate higher than at which it is regenerated. Similarly, within such communities, members may withhold their best efforts to contribute ideas while extracting benefits, thereby degrading the commons. Such degradation is all the more likely to occur when community members compete for scarce resources including customers (Baldwin & Clark, 2006).

The specific moments are problematization, interessement, enrollment, and mobilization (Callon, 1986). Problemitization is the framing of the innovation situation in such a way that it becomes an “obligatory passage point” for different actors. Interessement is the way in which the identities and roles of the different actors involved are defined and stabilized. Enrollment refers to the negotiations involved in the acceptance and stabilization of these different identities and roles. And, mobilization refers to widespread acceptance of the innovation, by even those who were not actively involved in the initial stages.