Are social innovation paradigms incommensurable?

This paper calls attention to the problematic use of the concept of social innovation which remains undefined despite its proliferation throughout academic and policy discourses. Extant research has thus far failed to capture the socio-political contentions which surround social innovation. This paper therefore draws upon the work of Thomas Kuhn and conducts a paradigmatic analysis of the field of social innovation which identifies two emerging schools: one technocratic, the other democratic. The paper identifies some of the key thinkers in each paradigm and explains how the struggle between these two paradigms reveals itself to be part of a broader conflict between neoliberalism and it opponents and concludes by arguing that future research focused upon local contextualised struggles will reveal which paradigm is in the ascendancy

Evolving Innovation Paradigms and the Global Intellectual Property Regime

Since the negotiation of the Agreement on Trade-Related Aspects of Intellectual Property (TRIPS) in 1994, the innovative landscape has undergone dramatic changes due to technological advances in fields such as biotechnology, nanotechnology, and digital communications and computation. The increasing potential for user innovation, and open and collaborative innovation has brought an explosion of innovative activity that does not fit into the sales-oriented, mass market model which underlies the global intellectual property regime. In this Article, I argue that the debate over global governance of innovation should be expanded to account more fully for the implications of these changes. For the most part, criticisms of TRIPS have focused on its failure to account adequately for current needs for access to the fruits of innovative activity. In particular, critics have focused on the agreement\u27s failure to balance urgent public health needs appropriately against the marginal boost to pharmaceutical innovation supplied by patent protection in developing countries. Here I take a different (though complementary) tack, focusing on the ways in which TRIPS and related agreements enshrine an unduly narrow approach to innovation itself. An adequate global governance system for innovation must take account of the diversity and dynamism of modes of innovation. I propose a re-imagining of the World Intellectual Property Organization as a broader-based innovation policy organization and a global administrative law approach to accommodate evolving modes of innovation

Are Social Innovation Paradigms Incommensurable?

This paper calls attention to the problematic use of the concept of social innovation which remains undefined despite its proliferation throughout academic and policy discourses. Extant research has thus far failed to capture the socio-political contentions which surround social innovation. This paper therefore draws upon the work of Thomas Kuhn and conducts a paradigmatic analysis of the field of social innovation which identifies two emerging schools: one technocratic, the other democratic. The paper identifies some of the key thinkers in each paradigm and explains how the struggle between these two paradigms reveals itself to be part of a broader conflict between neoliberalism and it opponents and concludes by arguing that future research focused upon local contextualised struggles will reveal which paradigm is in the ascendancy

Are Social Innovation Paradigms Incommensurable?

This paper calls attention to the problematic use of the concept of social innovation which remains undefined despite its proliferation throughout academic and policy discourses. Extant research has thus far failed to capture the socio-political contentions which surround social innovation. This paper therefore draws upon the work of Thomas Kuhn and conducts a paradigmatic analysis of the field of social innovation which identifies two emerging schools: one technocratic, the other democratic. The paper identifies some of the key thinkers in each paradigm and explains how the struggle between these two paradigms reveals itself to be part of a broader conflict between neoliberalism and it opponents and concludes by arguing that future research focused upon local contextualised struggles will reveal which paradigm is in the ascendancy

Innovation System Policies in Less Successful Developing countries: The case of Thailand

The issue of the rationale for public intervention under the systems of innovation perspective has recently received an increasing attention among scholars and practitioners. However, with few exceptions, this literature has been based on the analysis of innovation policies and innovation systems in the industrialized countries neglecting almost completely the specific policy dilemmas arising from weak and fragmented innovation systems that characterize developing countries. In the last few years, a growing number of developing countries have adopted the system of innovation approach officially in their innovation policy. Yet, there has not been an adequate attempt to systematically analyze how (and if) this has been done in practice. This paper attempts to shed some light on this issue by analyzing the innovation policy of Thailand. The paper suggests that while innovation system approach might have been officially adopted by a government, the practice follows old innovation paradigms and hardly addresses the profound systemic problems of the Thai innovation system.Keywords: innovation policies; systems of innovation approach; less successful developing countries; public intervention; Thailand.

Book Review

Book Review: Construction InnovationOrstavik, F., Dainty, A.R.J. and Abbott, C., Eds. (2015). Construction Innovation. West Sussex: WILEY Blackwell. 224 pages. ISBN: 978-1-118-65553-5

Innovation in the service economy: novelty in solutions

Recent studies show that firms in the knowledge economy develop new services as well as new products, thus providing solutions, experiences and creating value with, as well as for, their customers (Prahalad & Ramaswarmy, 2004). The paper briefly reviews literatures on multiple forms of innovation, including innovation in services. Characteristics of firms undertaking innovation in services are identified and implications for the management of innovation and propositions for future research are developed

Confidentiala "Mode 3" Systems Approach for Knowledge Creation, Diffusion and Use: Towards a 21st Century Fractal Innovation Ecosystem. ACES Working Paper (Report) No. 4, 2007

"Mode 3" allows and emphasizes the co-existence and co-evolution of different knowledge and innovation paradigms: the competitiveness and superiority of a knowledge system is highly determined by its adaptive capacity to combine and integrate different knowledge and innovation modes via co-evolution, co-specialization and coopetition [sic] of knowledge stock and flow dynamics. What results is an emerging fractal knowledge and innovation ecosystem, well-configured for the knowledge economy and society. The intrinsic litmus test of the capacity of such an ecosystem to survive and prosper in the context of continually glocalizing [sic] and intensifying competition represents the ultimate competitiveness benchmark with regards to the robustness and quality of the ecosystem's knowledge and innovation architecture and topology

Innovation Gaming: An Immersive Experience Environment Enabling Co-creation

A number of existing innovation paradigms and design approaches such as Open Innovation (Chesbrough, 2003), User Experience (Hassenzahl & Tractinsky, 2006) and User-Centred Design (Von Hippel, 2005), as well as User-Centred Open Innovation Ecosystems (Pallot, 2009a) are promoting distributed collaboration among organisations and user communities. However, project stakeholders are mainly trained for improving their individual skills through learning experience (i.e. practical exercises, role playing game) rather than getting a live user experience through immersive environments (e.g. Virtual Reality, Serious Games) that could unleash their creativity potential. This chapter introduces the findings of a study on serious gaming, which discusses various aspects of games and explores a number of issues related to the use of innovation games for enabling user co-creation in the context of collaborative innovation and experiential Living Labs

Open Innovation as a Route to Value in Cloud Computing

Both the cloud computing and open innovation paradigms represent recent phenomenon and as such many unanswered questions still persist. Indeed cloud computing’s full innovation potential may only be fully realised through an open innovation approach. In responding to this research gap we propose a new value creation framework which is based on a review of the literature on cloud computing, innovation, open innovation and value. Taking the framework layer by layer, this paper describes the innovation potential across components capable of offering value to organisations. The main contribution of this paper lies in proposing a framework that seeks to identify best route(s) to value, thus providing a visual mapping to enable organisations determine which cloud computing components, implementations, solutions and innovation approach is most suitable for value attainment