Innovation
Innovation studies
and

TOPIC OUTLINE
• Defining innovation
• Economic sociology of
innovation
• Innovation studies

DEFINING INNOVATION
• The transformation of an
existing state of things in order
to make something new

INNOVATION IS
PROCESSUAL
(Rogers, 2003)
• The identification of a need or a
problem that requires a solution
• The decision to carry out
research to find this solution
• The development of innovation
to give it a form & content that
meet the needs of target users

INNOVATION IS
PROCESSUAL
(Rogers, 2003)
• The marketing (production and
distribution) of product/service
that contains the innovation
• Its adoption and diffusion
• The consequences and changes
associated to the adoption of
innovation

PROCESS OF COMPANY
INNOVATION
• The input stage (initiating
research and innovation by
investing human and financial
resources)
• The throughput stage (the path
that the company must take to
transform input into output
through innovation)

PROCESS OF COMPANY
INNOVATION
• The output stage (results are
achieved; the fruits of
innovation in terms of new
products or services offered in
the market)
• Linear (direct current) vs.
Circular (alternating current)

INNOVATION IS
RELATIONAL
• Relative to time period
• Relative to context
• Innovation relies on the
contribution of social actors
(generation, implementation
and diffusion)

INNOVATION IS
DIFFERENT FROM
CHANGE
• Change is broader; intended &
unintended
• The doing of new things or the
doing of things that are already
being done in a new way
(Schumpeter 1947)

INNOVATION VS
INVENTION
• Invention means to conceive
new products or process.
• Innovation implies putting these
new ideas in practice for the
first time.
• ‘the inventor produces ideas,
the entrepreneur gets [new]
things done’ (Schumpeter 1947)

INNOVATION DOES NOT
ALWAYS BRING
POSITIVE RESULTS
• Approach innovation with a
neutral stance; open for critique
• Innovation is also subject to
failures that are technological,
social, economic)

ECONOMIC
INNOVATION
• Process of change that
introduces new economic and
regulatory elements: in the
needs that are met, goods and
services produced and modes of
production, distribution and
usage [not limited to
technological change]

ECONOMIC SOCIOLOGY
& INNOVATION
• The needs and actors it
considers are not only those of
the market
• Social and institutional factors
(in addition to economic) ae
found in each phase of the
process

TYPES OF INNOVATION
(Oslo Manual)
• Product innovation
• Process innovation
• Organizational innovation
• Marketing innovation

TYPES OF INNOVATION
(based on degree of newness)
• Incremental innovation
• Radical innovation
____________________________
• Architectural innovation
• Shifts in technological systems
& techno-economic paradigms

INNOVATION STUDIES
• Interdisciplinary in nature
• Focus is centered on the theme
of economic innovation
• Hosts a large community of
scholars
• Possesses shared intellectual
references and research centers

DEVIANCE
1. Deviance varies according
cultural norms.
2. People are deviant because
they are labeled as deviant
(location, audience, and the
individual committing the act)
3. Defining social norms as
social power