Teorie dell'Innovazione - concetti di base, Appunti di Sociologia

Scarica Teorie dell'Innovazione - concetti di base e più Appunti in PDF di Sociologia solo su Docsity! Innovation cultures and theories INNOVATION - definition “In an essential sense, innovation concerns the search for, and the discovery, experimentation, de- velopment, imitation and adoption of new products, new production processes and new organizational set ups” - Giovanni Dosi (economist) - With this quote Dosi focuses on industrial innova- tion, since he comes from the economic field. But from the design perspective, some information are missing about the production of new servi- ces. - Innovation is not just discovery or invention, it’s more complex: it’s a long process that involves imitation, adoptions, development etc. it’s not a matter of just finding something new. - It can be also behavioral change of the popula- tion or a policy driven innovation. 
 LEONARDO DA VINCI Was he an innovator or an inventor? He was both. He worked in Milan for the duke Ludovico il Moro, designing military and flying machines and other projects for different fields. Many of his ideas re- mained closed in his notebooks because they didn’t work or they were impractical. Most of them did not have impact on the society, they weren’t innovative, although they opened new perspectives —> an in- vention is not an innovation until it starts having an impact on society He invented the system of water channels in Milano (Navigli) and improved water locks systems. Those inventions had impact on economics, agricolture, city defense and city structure: they were used to ferry people and goods inside the city, but also for protection. They were an important factor in making the city one of the richest in Italy —> this make Leonardo an innovator: his inventions had conse- quences for centuries Jan Fagerber - These topics should be considered phenomena with a slight distinction: INVENTION: is the first occurrence of an idea for a new product or process INNOVATION: is the first attempt to carry it out into practice Sometimes invention and innovation are closely lin- ked, it’s hard to distinguish one from another. In many cases, however, there is a considerable time lag between the two —> an idea needs something else before becoming an innovation. In order to transform invention into innovation is needed: • an organization (usually an industry) capable of absorbing the invention and allow its diffu- sion. The scale is really important because we refer to mass production to have an impact; • a system of other innovations on inventions necessary for a large scale reproduction (es. miniaturization of microchips to develop smartphones); • an adequate economic and financial basis: fundings to scale the idea into something fea- sible; • a market willing to welcome it an therefore also a system of needs to which it can re- spond • time The main difference between an invention and inno- vation is that an INNOVATION has obtained social or economical relevance • not every innovation is based on an invention —> innovation arises from a mere rearrange- ment of known elements • Innovation is a process, therefore something that happens over a long period of time. It’s not immediate change but rather an addition of a series of small minor innovations PRODUCT / PROCESS INNOVATION PRODUCT INNOVATION: Refers to a change in the product, it can be an improvement in the perfor- mance of a product, or it can involve new features in a product. (es. dual camera iPhone X) • This asks consumers to spend more so it is preferred in expansionary moments of the economy, when people are richer, ready to buy new products, or substitute old product with new versions • It’s typical of younger industries in new sec- tors (es. augmented reality) • It mainly produces an increase of employment • It’s more easily imitated, the role of patents give the protection to not being copied. 1 PROCESS INNOVATION: process innovation invol- ves improvement in the process of producing the product; it includes improved logistics, better media planning or improved manufacturing process. • It aims at reducing process costs, therefore is preferred by companies during recessionary phases of economy, because in that time company are at loss and they have to reduce costs to survive. They can’t have higher prices because people don’t have money to spend. • It’s typical of consolidated industries (big in- dustries) in mature sectors. • It reduces employment (es. robots substitutes human workers that are fired) • Its not easily imitated because you have to enter the factory to imitate it which is difficult, usually is shared secretly within the compa- nies This dichotomy has limits: 1. It does not allow to grasp the process rele- vance of change and time —> There are pro- ducts that can be both process innovation and product innovation (es. machines used in industry) 2. It does not highlight the difference that arises from different analysis perspectives —> From the point of view of who invented it, products could be innovations, but for the user could become process innovation (es. Webex) 3. It hides the systemic nature of tech evolution —> Prod. innovation involves process inno- vation in order to be implemented. Innovation is normally a composition of process and product innovation. These concepts are freezing the frame of the whole movie. We cannot consider the whole process but just one moment in which we can make this distinc- tion. INCREMENTAL / RADICAL INNOVATION INCREMENTAL INNOVATION: • it concerns limited improvements —> exten- sion, reorganization, improvement, updating • It seeks to improve existing technologies to make them better, cheaper, faster (es. Hybrid cars) • From the social point of view, incremental in- novation has a greater impact than radical in- novation. RADICAL INNOVATION: • Focused on developing new products that produce profound changes in the world • Occurs with discontinuous events that happen only sometimes and are based on research in scientific labs • Changes completely the idea of something: es. hybrid cars do not change the use of cars radically, rather than autonomous cars that change completely the idea of cars, it could change the asset of the city, the behavior of people walking on the street. In technological environments it’s common to make this distinction based on the level of technology in- side the product. The limit of this understanding is that considers the content of emergent technology a factor of radical innovation, but it’s not correct. Often this doesn’t have any social change. TECHNOLOGY PUSH / MARKET PULL IN- NOVATIONS It concerns what triggers the innovation TECHNOLOGY PUSH: when a scientific discovery or a technological discovery triggers it. • Innovation often arises when new materials appear on the scene and enables new ideas. When it is thought that it was a technological development (or a scientific discovery) that triggered the change, and subsequently, thanks to its intrinsic qualities imposed itself in the market. • There are scholars that claim that innovation is the main trigger of innovation • es. Synthetic fabric: it innovated fashion but also for example the fire departments • ex. The internet MARKET PULL: market driven or demand driven innovation. • Innovation comes from needs that arise in so- ciety that pull the technological system and new products. The manifestation of new needs induces the technological industrial sy- stem to do research in a certain direction • There are scholars that believe that innovation comes mostly from the market • Demand pull: is more correct. Demand is of- ten triggered by decisions made by policy makers (governments or institutions) that work on regulamentations There’s a broad discussion between those who be- lieve in these two trends, especially in economics. Some are more deterministic: “innovation has one single source”. But instead innovation is the result of multiple factors that influence the technological development and researches, there isn’t a linear force. es. Covid-19 vaccine —> it’s an example of market pull innovation. However it could not be possible for the industrial sector to develop a new vaccine so quickly if there hadn’t been incredible scientific developments in the past twenty years. The new development was possible thanks to the development in the pharma industry. But it repre- sents the final step of a long process that was technology pushed. 2