Conceptual combination: a semantic framework for innovation

An underestimated but pervasive aspect of innovation is its semantic creativity. Innovation is tangled with the generation of new meanings and new representations of familiar objects or processes. This paper explores semantic innovation arguing as a combination of pre-existing conceptual structures. First we shed light on the level at which innovative semantic combinations unfold, that is the conceptual level. Second the paper provides an in depth analysis of the dynamics of conceptual combinations, examining the processes underlying it: similarity detection, selective mapping and search for coherence. Our analysis of a rich set of cases opens up the complex architecture of conceptual combination and shows that, given its conceptual nature, semantic innovations shift among different level of abstraction (products, processes and business model)s and thus can be transferred to entirely different sets of activity. The paper provides a theoretical framework to understand the dynamics of semantic innovation and a contribution to the debate on innovation as knowledge combination in managerial and economic literature

Wiring knowledge domains. Metaphors and knowledge combination in a multi-disciplinary field

In the process of combining distant domains of knowledge, metaphors play a privileged role in constructing a shared understanding and in coordinating multiple actors with different background, language and practices. Yet they are still relatively under-investigated, in particular their dynamic interplay with individual cognition and action along the knowledge creation process. Through the case study of a neuroscience research project over a eight-year period, we reconstruct the role that metaphors play in defining conceptually the object of research, interfacing and coordinating different bodies of knowledge, and informing actual practices of laboratory experimentation and technology development. We show how metaphors develop and change over the different phases of the project, responding to the new puzzles they contribute to create and to the changing composition of the network of actors involved. We offer some insight on the emergence of such metaphors and their dynamics in processes of knowledge combination

Technology transfer offices as boundary spanners in the pre-spin-off process: the case of a hybrid model

Over the past decades, universities have increasingly become ambidextrous organizations reconciling scientific and commercial missions. In order to manage this ambidexterity, technology transfer offices (TTOs) were established in most universities. This paper studies a specific, often implemented, but rather understudied type of TTO, namely a hybrid TTO model uniting centralized and decentralized levels. Employing a qualitative research design, we examine how and why the two TTO levels engage in diverse boundary spanning activities to help nascent spin-off companies move through the pre-spin-off process. Our research identifies differences in the types of boundary spanning activities that centralized and decentralized TTOs perform and in the parties they engage with. We find geographical, technological and organizational proximity to be important antecedents of the TTOs’ engagement in external and internal boundary spanning activities. These results have important implications for both academics and practitioners interested in university technology transfer through spin-off creation