MAKING SENSE Ofinnovation

MAKING SENSE ofINNOVATION

Baccarani, Claudio1; Brunetti, Federico2; Giaretta, Elena3

1Business Administration Department, University of Verona, Verona, Italy,

2Business Administration Department, University of Verona, Verona, Italy,

3Business Administration Department, University of Verona, Verona, Italy,

Abstract

The aim of the study was to make sense of what is meant when the word Innovation is used, as reflected upon by a number of academics working in the field. The hypothesis was that there are general broadly shared components that make up this concept while there are others that are less widespread and can be regarded as collateral, but which are fundamental for the final results of the innovative processes.

The work was undertaken on the occasion of an Italian Conference on innovation. Fifty-two papers were presented and a random sample was taken of 50% of the authors. These were asked to indicate the first 5 words that best described the concept of innovation from their own point of view. The replies collected were 23, or 88% of the total sample.

The words were drawn up together into a list of 69 different words. The frequency of the words was then counted and an innovation cloud was constructed that showed their distribution in the minds of these researchers.The word list was subsequently analysed, with comments made on certain aspects. The terms collected from the sample were then arranged in conceptual categories so as to render them utilisable also from a managerial perspective.

The associations revealed have a specific value. They not only offer a better understanding of innovation phenomenon but also potentially in operative terms. This because there is possible utility for management wishing to act on the so-called “first words” on the basis of company innovation processes rather than simply trusting to the better-known conceptual guides generally available in the field of innovation.

Keywords:mental map, innovation, creativity, change, perceptions, management

Track No:18 The importance of non-technological innovation for long-term growth

Track No: 17 Creativity, innovation and global entrepreneurship

MAKING SENSE of INNOVATION

Abstract

The word list was subsequently analysed, with comments made on certain aspects. The terms collected from the sample were then arranged in conceptual categories so as to render them utilisable also from a managerial perspective.

The associations revealed have a specific value. They not only offer a better understanding of innovation phenomenon but also potentially in operative terms. This because there is possible utility for management wishing to act on the so-called “firstwords” on the basis of company innovation processes rather than simply trusting to the better-known conceptual guides generally available in the field of innovation.

Aims and Scope

On the occasion of a Conference on the relationship between innovation and the competitiveness of the firm, the perceptions of a sample of innovation experts were gathered to see whether any further lines of enquiry opened up beyond those ideas that usually come up in the academic literature.

Taking up the first five words to which each of the interviewees gave particular value in relation to innovation processes, we sought to give some meaning and to deepen the understanding of the concept and the process of innovation itself.

We thus examined the trends in the literature and went on to analyse the results obtained that could provide new perspectives for further development of the studies as well as food for managerial thought on ways of exploring “the new of innovation”.

Understanding Innovation: the Perspective from the Literature

Lexical distinctions, conceptual connections and illustrations and classifications

Even though the studies on the subject of innovation amount to an “emerging scientific field” (Fagerberg and Verspagen, 2009) that has developed only in recent times, the concept of innovation in enterprise has long attracted the interest of academics from different disciplines.

The understanding of what is meant by innovation is rooted in a terminological debate replete with lexical distinctions, conceptual connections and illustrations and classifications, beginning with the well-known works of Schumpeter (1934 and 1942) who was the first to concern himself with a differentiation between the termsinnovationand those such as inventionand discovery (see also Schmookler, 1966; Freeman, 1991). On this basis and by virtue of the ability innovation has to completely overturn the competitive structure of a whole industry he had attributed it with the characteristic of “creative destruction”, leading to a lively debate on the relationship between innovation and the entrepreneurial spirit (Drucker, 1985 and 2002).

At the level of conceptual connections, other themes put alongside entrepreneurial endeavour in relation to innovation have included its diffusionto potential users (Rogers, 1962 e 2003; Christensen, 1997) and more recently that of creativity (Baccarani, 2004; Pilotti, 2010) and of knowledge/learning (Winter, 1987; Nonaka, 1994), its fundamental resources.

In this last regard particular emphasis has been placed on the osmosis of knowledge from and towards external contexts, giving way to so-called open innovation (Chesbrough, 2003) or “collective innovation” (Malerba, 2000), where innovation is conceived of as a spatial and socialsystem (Lundvall, 1992; Van de Ven et al., 1999; Cooke et al., 2004) where innovation is a “collective achievement” (Van de Ven et al., 1999, p. 149) resulting from continuing interaction between different agents and organizations.

As well as as a system, innovation has also been represented as a process through which it is generated, diffused and implemented (Freeman, 1991; Edwards et al., 2005), a continuous oriterative process between invention and innovation where a single innovation is often the result of many interrelated innovations with different degree of innovativeness (Utterback and Abernathy, 1975; Kline and Rosenberg, 1986).

The concept of innovation has also been long examined according to the size of the company and in its relationship to R&D, giving rise to a breakdown in the forms of innovation (“science based innovation” and “innovation without research”) (see for this point Giaretta, 2013).

From the point of view of a definition, the scientific debate seems to have mainly favoured taxonomic approaches, classifying innovation by contrasting categories according, for example to its contents and to its intensity (the degree of novelty introduced by the innovation).

Regarding the contents, Schumpeter distinguished between five different types: new products, new methods of production, new sources of supply, exploitation of new markets and new ways to organizebusiness. In the literature, however, most of the focus has been on the distinction between administrative and technologicaland still more between product and process (Schmookler, 1966; Damanpour, 1991; Edquist et al., 2001). A somewhat similar distinction has been suggested by Henderson and Clark (1990) who distinguished between the components of a product (modular innovation) and the way these components are combined (architectural innovation).

As regards the intensity of the innovation, a distinction is made between radical and incremental (Ettlieet al., 1984; Dewar and Dutton, 1986; Koberget al., 2003), betweencontinuous and discontinuous (Bower and Christensen, 1985; Anderson and Tushman, 1990; Lyn et al., 1996), between revolutionary and evolutionary (Utterback, 1996), betweenminor and major (Downs and Mohr, 1976) and so on.

Other classifications have been made according to the effect exerted by the innovation on the competences of the company, giving rise to a distinction between competence enhancingand competence destroying (Anderson and Tushman, 1990), as well as according to the sources from which the innovation springs (science push/demand pull) (Schmookler, 1966; Nelson and Winter, 1977) or also according to the final customer’s perception of the value added by the innovation (sustaining/disruptive) (Christensen, 1997).

These and other classifications abound in the literature and are often, at least partially, overlapping. The differences they are based on are not in reality clear, a factor that has led to a certain amount of terminological confusion that has also affected the empirical investigations that have been carried out with these are their starting point (Garcia and Calantone, 2002).

The socio-cultural dimension of Innovation concept

To better understand the meaning of innovation some scholars have recently therefore proposed going beyond the traditional classifications with the emphasis on the various different individuals or social groups involved in the innovative process. (Danneels and Kleinschmidt, 2001; Kahn et al., 2003)

Emphasising the social and cultural aspect of innovation, an approach was taken by Weick (1995) that involved his treatment of “sense making” for interpreting data: “what the situation means is defined by who I become while dealing with it or what and who I represent” (Weick, 1995).

For some time the social dimension of innovation has been specifically brought to the attention of the literature, in the sense that “it is the perception of a social unit that decides its newness” (Zaltman et al. 1973). In this vein can for example be seen the notion that the radicalness is a perception of organizational members according to the amount of experience they have with the innovation they are developing (Green et al., 1995).

Among articles along these lines can be included that of Woolgar (1998) according to whom “some problems in our understanding of innovation can be addressed by thinking of innovation as a social process” (p. 441) and “whether or not (an) idea counts as new, necessarily depends on the social network involved” (p.442). This essentially sees technology as “congealed social relations” (p. 444) identified in “sets of identities, expectations, beliefs, value and language”, innovation is thus about changes in a network of social relations.

Among the admittedly small number of studies rooted in the social construction of innovation perspective the empirical investigations of Massa and Testa (2008)should be recalled. These aimed at investigating the different perspectives on innovation (starting from its definition) held by three main innovation stakeholders, identified as entrepreneurs, academics and policy makers.A quotefrom the investigation ,“delving into details of the different perspectives on innovation is not a mere academic game” (Massa and Testa, 2008, p. 394), speaks for itself while the fact it is the perspectives that deeply influences behaviour, in terms for example of innovation policy making and innovation practices inside companies and universities.

Another research adopting a social constructionist approach is that of Harrisson and Laberge (2002) who explored the process of diffusion of a socio-technical innovation among a firm’s workers. The article revealed “how innovation is constituted and the form it takes by following the chain of arguments and responses of the actors involved”. It was hypothesized that “innovation does not impose itself but is constructed through the interactions between members of an organization and the intermediaries that they introduce in order to legitimize the decision made” (p. 498). In this sense it can be included also Papadopulos (2012), whose study focuses on the dynamics of actor associations as they are manifested in the efficiency innovations in specimen turnaround times in a pathology unit of an English NHS hospital.

Other studies seem to confirm that the interpretations of the meanings of the term “innovation” are influenced by one’s perspective. Linton (2009), for example, examined the language of innovation in the academic literature and offered a framework to capture the complexity of the meaning of innovation that recognizes the important role of differences in perspective, often a source of confusion. Perren and Sapsed (2013), in turn, analysed the use of the term “innovation” in policy discourse over an extended period of modern British history in order to understand its changing meanings, where we can find evidence of a broadening of its definition.

That innovation may be variously perceived is also indicated by those contributions to the literature that have gathered the most diverse definitions of innovation in order to pinpoint the factors that have been focussed upon most. Those indicated include, in order of frequency, the following words (Denicolai, 2010): novelty, process, success, different typologies, entrepreneurial spirit, implementation, market, change, combination, knowledge, discipline, discontinuity, ideas, means, improvement, organisation and pre-existing routines.

To sum up, the multidisciplinary literature on the subject of innovation has addressed many aspects of innovation (Fagerberg, 2004; Garcia and Calantone, 2002; Fagerberg and Verspagen, 2009; Martin, 2012). At the semantic level however, the contributions seem to have tended towards the terminological distinctions, conceptual connections, the classifications and way the concept of innovation is actually represented (for example, as a process or as a system). We have found that rather less attention has been paid to the very meaning of it, starting from an analysis of its etimological significance (Varanini, 2006) and then on to a consideration of the evocative power of the term that reveals the archipelago of concepts around that form the roots of this formidable logical and practical construct.

Methodology

We set out with this study to better understand which concepts are linked to the term “Innovation” in the minds of a sample of experts. The sample was chosen at random from Italian academics and managers presenting a paper at the annual Conference of the journal“Sinergie” on the theme: “Innovation for the competitiveness of the enterprise” held in Ancona(Italy) in Octoberof 2013.

The paperssubmitted to the Conference numbered 52. This study took 50% of these on a random basis, asking the authors to indicate the 5 words that in their way of thinking best typified the concept of innovation. Words used in this way were taken as being central to the way that they felt about the process of innovation. To avoid rationalisation of their thoughts the interviewees were asked to indicate the words independently of the theme of their particular papers but rather on an instinctive basis, to thus reveal their immediate perceptions and not acquired knowledge and ideas.

There were two underlying hypotheses:

a)the enunciations could concentrate responses around certain generally shared associations, leaving only limited space for other less frequently expressed associations that could however amount to the “prime words” in relation to innovation;

b)the literature on the subject has focussed on certain threads over time that have only in part succeeded in grasping the variegated nature of the concept of innovation.

The response rate was decidedly high because 23 authors from 17 Italian universities working in the field of management studies formulated their replies in the time requested, being a percentage of around 88% of the number randomly selected.

From a List of Words to aConceptual Construct of Innovation

The words gathered in the preliminary process gave rise to a list as the first form of organisation of the data (Eco, 2009). There were 69 words, 19 of which expressed at least twice and 50 just once, for a total occurrence number of 112 (Table 1).

1)Creativity (11)

2)Change (9)

3)Future (4)

4)Ideas (4)

5) Development (3)

6)Evolution (3)

7)Progress (3)

8)Research (3)

9) Competition (2)

10)Competitiveness (2)

11) Culture (2)

12) Curiosity (2)

13) Freedom (2)

14)Growth (2)

15)Intelligence (2)

16)Invention (2)

17) Knowledge (2)

18) Openness(2)

19)Passion (2)

20) Air

21)Anticipation

22) Attractiveness

23)Audacity

24) Balance

25) Breaking-away

26) Challenge

27) Commitment

28)Communication

29) Consciousness

30)Context

31)Courage

32)Create

33) Customer satisfaction

34) Divergence

35) Dream

36) Experimentation

37) Exploration

38) Fear

39) Feeling

40)Heart

41)Identity

42)Imagination

43) Improvement

44)Inevitability

45)Integration

46)Labyrinth

47) Listening

48) Method

49) Milestone

50)Necessity

51)Nostalgia

51)Opportunity

53)Optimisation

54)Perspective

55)Rigor

56)Risk

57)Science

58) Sharing

59) Skill

60)Success

61) Surprise

62)Talent

63)Technology

64) Trial

65)Utility

66)Value

67)Vision

68) Wonder

69) Word

Table 1Words related to innovation by frequency (1)

(1)Our processing of the direct investigation. The words are shown in alphabetic order an in decreasing order of frequency with which they were cited. Where there are no brackets the word was cited only once. The sum of the values in brackets and single cases gives a total of 112 quotes.The worlds shown are 112 and not 115 as expressed by the sample because in 3 cases the concepts were so broad as not suitable for summary with one word or unequivocally.

The first two words mentioned, “Creativity” and“Change”,provide together around 18% of all occurrences. Summing “Future” and “Ideas”with the already cited, the first 4 words express 25% of the total of the returned words.Grouping the first 8 the percentage rises to around 36%. The sum of the words cited at least twice gives a percentage of around 55%,while the terms mentioned once alone express 45% of the cases that emerged.

Given that the interviewees had access to a very wide vocabulary since the choice was left entirely to them, the concentration as high as 18% around just two concepts, that is “Creativity” and “Change” cannot be a matter of chance and in a way confirms the hypothesis of a broad sharing of certain concepts.

It is also however the case that the words expressed just once, 45% of the cases, go well beyond what was hypothesised when the study was started, where the space expected for these was more restricted than proved in the actual findings. In this sense, since the perceptions gathered were from experts in the field, it can be inferred that a fertile area for study and analysis opens up that have not usually been considered in the area of innovation processes.

No longer looking at the cited words, whatever the number of references, but rather at those which are “missing”, that is those which logic might have led to an expectation of their use insofar as central to the literature on the subject, it is interesting to note that none of the twenty-three interviewed mentioned “Enterprise”, “Entrepreneur” or “Entrepreneurial spirit”. One explanation could be that all of them had taken for granted the link between Innovation and these terms, but it is very curious that of the 115 possibilities made available (23x5) no one called on the agent par excellence of the processes of innovation.