Challenging the Innovation Paradigm

Karl-Erik Sveiby, Pernilla Gripenberg, Beata Segercrantz

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2012
• ISBN:
  9781136324529
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Business
• Subtopic: Management
• Index: Business

Innovation is almost always seen as a "good thing". Challenging the Innovation Paradigm is a critical analysis of the innovation frenzy and contemporary innovation research. The one-sided focus on desirable effects of innovation misses many opportunities to reduce the undesirable consequences. Authors in this book show how systemic effects outside the innovating firms reduce the net benefits of innovation for individual employees, customers, as well as for society as a whole - also the innovators' own organizations.

This book analyzes the dominant discourses that construct and reconstruct the assumptions and one-sidedness of contemporary innovation research (generally known as the pro-innovation bias) by focusing on consequences of innovation, distinguishing between intended and unintended as well as desirable and undesirable consequences. Contributors illustrate how both the discourses of innovation and the consequences of innovation permeate all levels of society: in policy discourse, in academic discourse, in research funding, in national innovation systems, in the financial sector, in organizational and work contexts, and in environmental pollution. The volume offers a critical, multidisciplinary, and multinational perspective on the topic, with authors from diverse academic fields examining and making comparisons between a variety of national contexts.

1 Challenging the Innovation Paradigm

The Prevailing Pro-Innovation Bias

Pernilla Gripenberg, Karl-Erik Sveiby and Beata Segercrantz

Currently innovation is not only seen as a key driver of organizational success but as vital for organizational survival. At a societal level, innovation is perceived as one of the key drivers of economic growth—growth that leads to national wealth and prosperity—and therefore innovation is currently often regarded as the ultimate solution to present welfare related problems in the West (see for example, Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD), 2010). As a result, there is a constant strive to innovate, particularly in Western societies. Perhaps surprisingly, whereas innovation is one of the most commonly mentioned concepts in social science, unintended undesirable consequences of innovation are rarely studied. On the other hand, it is perhaps not surprising as it is typically taken for granted that ‘innovation is always good’ and this assumption remains widely accepted and unquestioned. In his review of innovation literature 25 years ago, Rogers (1983) noticed that only 0.2% of innovation research articles addressed consequences of innovation. To follow up this study, we conducted a study including a literature review of all articles in the EBSCO database (see chapter 4) with innovation in the title and that study undesirable consequences. Although ‘innovation’ hits reach hundreds of thousands, refining searches into ‘negative or undesirable consequences’ decreases the hits radically. The study found only 26 articles on unintended and undesirable consequences of innovation; 1 per 1,000, a proportion that has not changed since the 1960s.

And still today, the study of consequences thus seems to be marginalized across all main areas of the rapidly emerging scientific field of innovation. Fagerberg and Verspagen (2009) summarize the three main areas of this field of research: the role of innovation on long-term economic growth, the contexts of innovation, and the national systems of innovation. Typically studies within these different areas of innovation research treat innovation as the dependent variable, whereas studies investigating innovation as the independent variable are uncommon (Anderson, De Dreu, & Nijstad, 2004). Accordingly, the study of consequences and unintended and undesirable consequences of innovation in particular are rare.

Innovation research seems to be built on a dominant assumption that ‘innovation is good’ regardless of the consequences. This is also known as the ‘pro-innovation bias’ (Abrahamson, 1991; Kimberly, 1981; Rogers, 1983). This bias limits the ability of decision makers and change agents to anticipate unintended and undesirable consequences. A way to understand how the bias is continuously reinforced is by considering how ‘innovation’ is socially constructed on various levels of society: How is innovation talked and written about by various authorities, such as, policy makers, funding bodies, and researchers? What assumptions constitute discourses of innovation? What are the consequences of these assumptions for how innovation research is conducted and focused? It seems important to go beyond the pro-innovation bias and current dominant discourses and ask why and how certain understandings of innovation are constructed and maintained, what the implications are, and how excluded or silenced voices can be promoted in the research field of innovation. These are questions that this book addresses.

The pro-innovation bias has already been recognized and discussed since the 1970s (Downs & Mohr, 1976; Kimberly, 1981; Rogers, 1983; Rogers & Shoemaker, 1971; Van de Ven, 1986; Zaltman, Duncan, & Holbeck, 1973). Both Kimberly (1981) and Rogers (1983) agree that one of the reasons for this ‘one-sidedness’ of innovation research is historical: Innovations have had such positive outcomes on economic growth in the U.S. after World War II that other possible outcomes have remained marginal and thus received little attention. Moreover, this bias is still with us and reflects the current state of innovation research. Research, which builds on the assumption that innovation primarily has positive results, seeks to define situations where innovation occurs and where and how innovations spread more easily and quickly. A further focus is put on what characteristics distinguish innovative individuals, groups, or organizations from less innovative ones. An implicit assumption that research should promote innovation also seems to prevail.

New ideas that are not perceived as useful are often seen as mistakes and thus disregarded rather than seen as failed innovations worthy of further consideration in terms of, for example, why they failed (Van de Ven, 1986). The same disinterest prevails in ‘anti-diffusion’ efforts, for example, to prevent the diffusion of ‘bad’ innovations such as drugs or cigarettes (Rogers, 1983) and ‘exnovation’: the rejection or discontinuance of an innovation (Kimberly, 1981). This disinterest by innovation researchers in what happens after an innovation is diffused and implemented (especially if it fails) can be taken as a general indication of the prevailing one-sidedness of the innovation literature (Downs & Mohr, 1976; Kimberly, 1981; Van de Ven, Angle, & Poole, 2000, p. 13).

The book thus attempts to bridge the prevailing separation of discourses on desirable and undesirable consequences of innovation. More specifically, undesirable consequences of innovation can potentially follow from all types of innovation. These consequences are to some (unknown) degree studied in disciplines such as biology, medicine, environmental studies, and sustainable development, and theories are constructed within perspectives drawing on sociology, critical management studies (CMS), science and technology studies (STS), and so on. Innovation research, however, seems to have implicitly isolated itself from considering them (with notable exceptions, such as the special issue in Technology Analysis & Strategic Management, 2000, vol. 12, no. 3). The separation of discourses in this manner can have severe implications, as is further explicated in chapter 4.

In light of the issues previously raised, the field of innovation research is in need of both theoretical and methodological development. Undesirable consequences of innovation are notoriously complex, multifaceted, and multilevel, and they transcend artificially created scientific boundaries. They require multidisciplinary research and cross-boundary dialogue. They are difficult, but not impossible, to study.

AIM OF THE BOOK: CHALLENGING CONTEMPORARY INNOVATION RESEARCH

The aim of this book is to challenge contemporary innovation research by problematizing its underlying assumptions and promoting a more nuanced way of considering the consequences of innovation. The questions we pose are: How is ‘innovation’ and its underlying assumptions constructed; what are the consequences of these; and what does this mean for society? As the book is a first attempt at this kind of research, we can only scratch the surface of this topic, and have thus chosen three focus themes to study more in-depth. The first is to explore a variety of national and supranational discourses on innovation; the second is to illustrate the systemic nature of innovation and its possible acceleration through cases; and the third is to explore unintended consequences of innovation in particular contexts.

The book thus contributes to our understanding of how the dominant discourse of innovation is constructed and reconstructed at different levels of society—a necessary prerequisite for deconstructing these debates. As the book focuses on the consequences of innovation, it provides illustrations of how both the discourse of innovation and the consequences of innovation permeate all levels of society.

The book both reflects on and attempts to answer the following questions:

1. How is innovation discursively constructed? What consequences does this have on, for example, inclusion and exclusion, ethical considerations, and the overall ability of change agents (policy makers, innovators, funders, researchers, entrepreneurs, etc.) to consider unintended and unanticipated consequences of innovation? In particular the book looks into the following areas:

• academic and policy discourses of innovation (Chapter 2)

• the ‘origins’ and the development of innovation as a contested category over time (Chapter 3)

• the current state of research on unintended and unanticipated consequences of innovation (Chapter 4)

2. Given the systemic nature of innovation, is the speed of innovation accelerating in contemporary society, and what are the consequences? What kinds of counterforces are there to the innovation frenzy? The following questions are posed:

• Is the speed of innovation accelerating, and what are the potential consequences of acceleration? (Chapter 5)

• How does radical and accelerating innovation affect society in terms of risks, for example, in the context of the financial sector? (Chapter 6)

• There are weak signals of decelerating innovation in a few areas. What are these, and what can we learn from them? (Chapter 7)

3. What are the unintended consequences of innovation on society? The following questions are explored:

• How are negative consequences included in organizational models of innovation? (Chapter 8)

• How do rapid and increasingly formalized processes of innovation affect ICT experts in the ever-restructuring software industry? (Chapter 9)

• How does negative consequences affect human well-being, for example, in the organizational and work context, and what indirect consequences may follow from these? ()

• How do negative consequences affect the environment, for example, in the case of CO₂ emissions? (Chapter 11)

DEFINING INNOVATION AND CONSEQUENCES OF INNOVATION

On various occasions in the course of this project we have been asked what exactly we mean by ‘innovation.’ It is a valid, but difficult question to answer, as we are interested in how ‘innovation’ is constructed (that is, defined and not defined by others) and consequences of innovations that are not commonly associated or even regarded as innovation (that is, undesirable consequences). This section briefly discusses the term ‘innovation’ and what it may mean in mainstream innovation research. The section continues to briefly outline a summarizing framework of the theoretical foundations on consequences of innovation that inspired us to undertake the project that this book is a result of. It may not be the theoretical foundation for all the individual chapters in this volume, but it is a part of the common ground from where the project started in early 2009.

Rogers (1983, p. 11) defines innovation as ‘an idea, practice, or object that is perceived as new by an individual or other unit of adoption.’ Similarly, Van de Ven (1986, p. 591) defines innovation as: ‘ … a new idea, which may be a recombination of old ideas, a scheme that challenges the present order, a formula, or a unique approach which is perceived as new by the individuals involved.’ An innovation can thus be new to one person and old news for someone else, as it takes time for innovations to be communicated and spread through a social system (Rogers, 1983). In accordance, Kline and Rosenberg (cited in Fagerberg, 2006, p. 5) emphasize that innovations should not be treated as well-defined, homogenous things ‘that could be identified as entering the economy at a precise date.’ Further, innovations go through drastic changes during their life span that may totally transform their significance in society. Thus the term ‘innovation’ not only lacks specific definition, but is also fluid: innovations cannot be specified in time, and they may be in constant transformation. They are also often the result of a long process involving many interrelated innovations (Fagerberg, 2006).

An example can be found in Ahmed and Shepherd’s recent textbook Innovation Management (2010, p. 5), where they discern a number of characteristics in the multiple meanings given to innovation. Innovation can be understood as: creation, diffusion and learning, an event, a trajectory, change (incremental or radical), (firm-level) process, and context (region, nation, etc.) level process. Further, innovation can be seen as a value-adding process as well as an outcome. Ahmed and Shepherd also recognize the problem of newness in that, as an example in product innovation, an innovation can be new to the world, new to a firm, a new product line extension, a product improvement, or a product repositioning. A distinction between invention and innovation is also sometimes made so that invention stands for the generation of a new idea, whereas innovation stands for the fruitful commercialization/exploitation/market capitalization of that idea (for example, Ahmed & Shepherd, 2010).

The OECD provides its own definition in the Oslo Manual for collecting and interpreting innovation data on a national basis. Innovation is here defined as the implementation of a new or significantly improved product (good or service), or process, a new marketing method, or a new organizational method in business practices, workplace organization, or external relations.

‘By definition, all innovation must contain a degree of novelty. The Oslo Manual distinguishes three types of novelty: an innovation can be new to the firm, new to the market or new to the world. The first concept covers the diffusion of an existing innovation to a firm—the innovation may have already been implemented by other firms, but it is new to the firm. Innovations are new to the market when the firm is the first to introduce the innovation on its market. An innovation is new to the world when the firm is the first to introduce the innovation for all markets and industries’ (OECD and Eurostat, 2005, in Organisation for Economic Co-Operation and Development, 2010).

In the beginning of this project, we were interested in innovation research as a research field. We therefore needed quite a different approach than the previous definitions to establish what counts as innovation research. Our definition was then simply to regard research articles that have the word ‘innovation’ in the title, abstract, or key words as ‘innovation research.’ Subsequently, authors that have written such an article count as an ‘innovation researcher.’ In other words, we left it to the authors in the field to do the defining. This distinction of course leaves out research that, for example, is considering severe, long-term consequences of innovation, such as climate change or nuclear waste disposal, as this research rarely links back to problematize the original innovation per se.

This is precisely one of the key points we want to highlight in this book: that discourses on innovation and on consequences have been dangerously separated. That is, those who innovate and support innovation do not necessarily see the need to take responsibility for or even consider the consequences. Four theories that consider the consequences and particularly the unintended consequences of innovation inspired us in the initiation of the research project that produced this book: economic theory (Schumpeter, 1939; Smith, 1789), communication theory (Diffusion of Innovation) (Rogers, 1983), Merton’s (193...

Table of contents

• Cover Page
• Half Title Page
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Contents
• List of Figures
• List of Tables
• Series Editor Introduction
• Preface
• 1 Challenging the Innovation Paradigm The Prevailing Pro-Innovation Bias
• Part I Problematizing Innovation
• Part II Understanding the Systemic Nature of Innovation
• Part III Exploring Unintended Consequences of Innovation
• Contributors
• Author Index
• Subject Index