No full-text available
To read the full-text of this research,
you can request a copy directly from the authors.
Opening up the Innovation Process
Abstract
An organization's ability to create, retrieve, and use knowledge to innovate is a critical strategic asset. Until recently, most textbooks on business and product development argued that managers should keep their new ideas to themselves and protect knowledge from getting into competitors' hands. Seeking, developing, and protecting knowledge is a costly endeavour. Moreover, apart from being expensive, the process of turning new knowledge into useful and well-protected innovations often slows the speed of development and increases costs. In this chapter, alternative strategies for innovation, in which sharing and cooperation play a critical part, are discussed. In particular, we address the involvement of users in opening up the innovation process which, in turn, offers participating actors some useful strategies for product development. Four archetypal strategies are identified and classified according to type of user involvement and the organizational level at which cooperation with external sources of knowledge takes place.
While talking about successful entrepreneurship and value addition within an enterprise through innovation, one could comprehend that the innovation paradigm has been shifted from simple introduction of new thoughts and products to accumulation of diversified actions, actors, and agents along the process. Furthermore, when the innovation process is not being constrained within the closed nature of it, the process takes many forms during its evolution. Innovations have been seen as closed innovation or open innovation, depending on its nature of action, but contemporary world may have seen many forms of innovation, such as technological innovation, products/service innovation, process/production innovation, operational/management/organizational innovation, business model innovation, or disruptive innovation, though often they are robustly interrelated.
Adoption of innovation strategies in entrepreneurship is an age old phenomenon, but inclusion of open innovation or collaborative innovation strategies in the business processes is a newly evolved concept. By far, most research reveals that the majority of successful global ventures are adopting open innovation strategies in their business proceedings. However, despite their contribution to entrepreneurship and national economy, the small and medium scale enterprises (SMEs) are well below the expectation level in terms of acquiring this newly emerged trend of doing business. Moreover, not much research is being conducted to investigate SMEs potencies, expectations, delivery channels and intricacies around the adoption, nourishment and dissemination of open innovation strategies. This research proposes a contextual framework leading to an operational framework to explore the lifecycle of open innovation strategy management activities focusing technology transfer (inbounds or outwards). It discusses a few issues on future research in empowering SMEs through utilization of open innovation strategies.
While talking about successful entrepreneurship and value addition within an enterprise through innovation, one could realize that the innovation paradigm has been shifted from simple introduction of new ideas and products to accumulation of diversified actions, actors and agents along the process. Furthermore, when the innovation process is not being restricted within the closed nature of it, the process takes many forms during its evolution. Innovations have been seen as closed innovation or open innovation, depending on its nature of action, but contemporary world may have seen many forms of innovation, such as technological innovation, products/service innovation, process/production innovation, operational/management/organizational innovation, business model innovation or disruptive innovation, though often they are strongly interrelated. Definition of innovation has also adopted many transformations along the path, incorporating innovations within the products, process or service of an enterprise to organizational, marketing, or external entities and relations. Nature and scope of agents and actors even varies widely within the innovation dynamics, when the open innovation techniques are being applied to enterprises, designated as the small and medium enterprises (SMEs). Researching in this paradigm, one has to look for some underlying issues that should be attended through responding to research questions as the research continues. Among many of the fundamental questions on innovation advancement for SMEs development there are a few, how to acquire precise information on the flow-chart of their business operations, gain knowledge on specific parameters of their business processes, utilize existing potential capacities to extend their knowledge towards successful innovation acquisition and dissemination, and extend their knowledge platform through various capacity development initiatives. They aggregate further, when issues of opportunities and challenges are being researched along the path of SME development through open innovation. Rationale of this research is to ascertain diverse aspects of opportunities and challenges surrounding the open innovation processes, and design action plans to empower SMEs in reaching out to the grass roots communities utilizing open innovation strategies. Primary focus of this research is to enable SMEs in finding out their innovation potentiality and empower them through various capacity development initiatives. However, the specific focus will adhere to adaptable technology transfer through open innovation. Along the route to justify the research potential and validate the research hypotheses (whether this research will add any economic value or knowledge gain), this study will conduct extensive literature review on various patterns of open innovation (crowdsourcing or collaborative), investigate case studies to learn about intricate issues surrounding their operational strategies (conducted by European Commission, OECD and similar institutions) and conduct surveys among selected SMEs (email, web based, egroups) in several phases. Research design includes formulation of strategies to resolve acquired research questions; collection and recording of the evidences obtained from the literature review or case studies or surveys; processing and analyzing gathered data and their appropriate interpretations; and publication of results. Analysis will include both qualitative (descriptive and exploratory) and quantitative (inferential statistics) methods.
Adoption of innovation strategies in entrepreneurship is an age old phenomenon, but inclusion of open innovation or collaborative innovation strategies in the business processes is a newly evolved concept. By far, most research reveals that the majority of successful global ventures are adopting open innovation strategies in their business proceedings. However, despite their contribution to entrepreneurship and national economy, the small and medium scale enterprises (SMEs) are well below the expectation level in terms of acquiring this newly emerged trend of doing business. Moreover, not much research is being conducted to investigate SMEs potencies, expectations, delivery channels and intricacies around the adoption, nourishment and dissemination of open innovation strategies. This research proposes a contextual framework leading to an operational framework to explore the lifecycle of open innovation strategy management activities focusing technology transfer (inbounds or outwards). It discusses a few issues on future research in empowering SMEs through utilization of open innovation strategies.
The purpose of this study is to provide the knowledge to understand and the skills to manage innovation at the operational and strategic levels. It integrates the management of market, technological and organizational change to improve the competitiveness of firms and effectiveness of other organizations. The analysis suggests that it is no longer sufficient to focus on a single dimension of innovation, as technological, market, and organizational change interact. Instead of following the ‘one best way' school of management, this study identifies the links between the structures and processes that support innovation. One way of developing technologies, products, and processes by firms involves venturing outside their existing core competencies. Firms establish internal corporate ventures (ICVs) in order to exploit underutilized resources in new ways; to introduce competitive pressure on to internal suppliers; to divest non-core activities; to satisfy managers' ambitions; to spread the risk and cost of producst development; to combat cyclical demands of mainstream activities; and to diversify the business. However, firms may also establish ICVs in order to grow new businesses based on new technologies, products, or markets. A new corporate venture requires a clear business plan and an intrapreneur who must raise the finance, as well as manage the development and the growth of the businees. Such an intrapreneur should resemble a traditional entrepreneur in a high level of motivation and need for autonomy. However, unlike their counterparts, intrapreneurs also need to have good political and social skills in order to deal with internal politics and bureaucracy. Firms that are consistently successful at corporate venturing are characterized by four factors: (1) in assessing failed ventures, they draw a distinction between bad decisions and bad luck; (2) they measure progress of ventures against agreed milestones, and change the direction if necessary; (3) if a venture is not successful, they terminate it, rather than making further investments; and (4) they perceive venturing as a learning process, and learn from both failures and successes. The present study examines the nature of innovative small firms and the issues particular to their creation, management, and growth. Focuses on a subset of small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) which are based on new technologies, and differ from other SMEs because they are usually established by highly qualified personnel, require large amounts of capital, and face greater technical and market risk. While new independent ventures and corporate ventures have similar requirements concerning management and organization, certain differences exist. While corporate entrepreneurs have the advantage of the financial, technical, and marketing resources of the parent firm, they must seek high levels of affiliation and need great social skills in order to deal with internal politics and bureaucracy. Their independent counterparts, on the other hand, must raise finance and develop functional expertise, but have the advantage of independence and managerial and technical autonomy. (AT)
The motives of 141 contributors to a large Open Source Software (OSS) project (the Linux kernel) was explored with an Internet-based questionnaire study. Measured factors were both derived from discussions within the Linux community as well as from models from social sciences. Participants’ engagement was particularly determined by their identification as a Linux developer, by pragmatic motives to improve own software, and by their tolerance of time investments. Moreover, some of the software development was accomplished by teams. Activities in these teams were particularly determined by participants’ evaluation of the team goals as well as by their perceived indispensability and self-efficacy.
Many companies perceive research and development (R&D) as somewhat fuzzy, involving high uncertainty, with unclear rate of return, and troublesome to manage. On the other hand, companies that succeed at commercializing new technology in a rapid and precise manner achieve possibilities of attaining a greater market share, premium prices and dominant designs, leading to a much sharper competitive edge.The perspective on managing R&D processes has changed over the years, moving from a technology-centered model to a more interaction-focused view. This paper deals with management of research and development (R&D), with focus on synthesizing five generations of R&D processes and combining those with related management responses as well as with examples of managerial approaches – all within a described company context. The choice of combining these three categories represents a dynamic and nuanced picture improving the understanding of R&D management contingencies.A sixth generation of R&D has also been elaborated, one generation re-focusing the research part connecting to loosely tied multi-technology research networks. The bases for this new set of approaches are a broader multi-technology base for high-tech products and a more distributed technology-sourcing structure. The `Bluetooth' case study, originating within Ericsson, has been used to exemplify the roots and ideas of the sixth generation of R&D. The Bluetooth case represents a joint cross-industrial, open intellectual property-based, effort in developing and bringing a new technology to the market by utilizing the resources from more than one thousand companies.Properly managing R&D processes has long been a matter of debate and considered a troublesome area with no simple answers; ranging from an Achilles' heel in some firms to the sole basis of competition for others, many of the differences have contributed to R&D management issues [Product Development Performance, Harvard Business School Press, 1991, p. 1; Developing Products in Half the Time, Van Nostrand Reinhold, New York, 1991, p. 170]. By properly managing R&D processes, companies can reach an increase in lead-time precision, increased quality of final products, and reduced development cost. Overall, companies' competitive advantage can be strengthened as placed efforts are managed in a leaner manner and more aligned with overall business strategy.
In this paper, we argue that the ability of a firm to recognize the value of new, external information, assimilate it, and apply it to commercial ends is critical to its innovative capabilities. We label this capability a firm's absorptive capacity and suggest that it is largely a function of the firm's level of prior related knowledge. The discussion focuses first on the cognitive basis for an individual's absorptive capacity including, in particular, prior related knowledge and diversity of background. We then characterize the factors that influence absorptive capacity at the organizational level, how an organization's absorptive capacity differs from that of its individual members, and the role of diversity of expertise within an organization. We argue that the development of absorptive capacity, and, in turn, innovative performance are history- or path-dependent and argue how lack of investment in an area of expertise early on may foreclose the future development of a technical capability in that area. We formulate a model of firm investment in research and development (R&D), in which R&D contributes to a firm's absorptive capacity, and test predictions relating a firm's investment in R&D to the knowledge underlying technical change within an industry. Discussion focuses on the implications of absorptive capacity for the analysis of other related innovative activities, including basic research, the adoption and diffusion of innovations, and decisions to participate in cooperative R&D ventures.
In an economy founded on innovation and change, one of the premier challenges of management is to design more flexible organizations. For many executives, a single metaphor has come to embody this managerial challenge and to capture the kind of organization they want to create: the "corporation without boundaries." According to Larry Hirschhorn and Thomas Gilmore of the Wharton Center for Applied Research, managers are right to break down the boundaries that make organizations rigid and unresponsive. But they are wrong if they think that doing so eliminates the need for boundaries altogether. Once the traditional boundaries of hierarchy, function, and geography disappear, a new set of boundaries becomes important. These new boundaries are more psychological than organizational. They aren't drawn on a company's organizational chart but in the minds of its managers and employees. And instead of being reflected in a company's structure, they must be "enacted" over and over again in a manager's relationships with bosses, subordinates, and peers. In this article, Hirschhorn and Gilmore provide a guide to the boundaries that matter in the "boundaryless" company. They explain how these new boundaries are essential for both managers and employees in coping with the demands of flexible work. They describe the typical mistakes that managers make in their boundary relationships. And they show how executives can become effective boundary managers by paying attention to a source of data they have often overlooked in the past: their own gut feelings about work and the people with whom they do it.
Recently, a "lead user" concept has been proposed for new product development in fields subject to rapid change (von Hippel [von Hippel, E. 1986. Lead users: A source of novel product concepts. Management Sci. 32 791--805.]). In this paper we integrate market research within this lead user methodology and report a test of it in the rapidly evolving field of computer-aided systems for the design of printed circuit boards (PC-CAD). In the test, lead users were successfully identified and proved to have unique and useful data regarding both new product needs and solutions responsive to those needs. New product concepts generated on the basis of lead user data were found to be strongly preferred by a representative sample of PC-CAD users. We discuss strengths and weaknesses of this first empirical test of the lead user methodology, and suggest directions for future research.
A summary is presented of the current state of the art and recent trends in software engineering economics. It provides an overview of economic analysis techniques and their applicability to software engineering and management. It surveys the field of software cost estimation, including the major estimation techniques available, the state of the art in algorithmic cost models, and the outstanding research issues in software cost estimation.
The success of the Linux operating system has demonstrated the viability of open-source software, an alternative form of software development that challenges traditional assumptions about software markets. Understanding why developers participate in open-source projects is crucial for assessing the impact of open-source software. Their motivations fall into two broad categories: internal factors (e.g., intrinsic motivation, altruism) and external rewards (e.g., expected future returns, personal needs). The results of a survey administered to open-source programmers are summarized.
Why might firms be regarded as astutely managed at one point, yet subsequently lose their positions of industry leadership when faced with technological change? We present a model, grounded in a study of the world disk drive industry, that charts the process through which the demands of a firm's customers shape the allocation of resources in technological innovation—a model that links theories of resource dependence and resource allocation. We show that established firms led the industry in developing technologies of every sort—even radical ones—whenever the technologies addressed existing customers' needs. The same firms failed to develop simpler technologies that initially were only useful in emerging markets, because impetus coalesces behind, and resources are allocated to, programs targeting powerful customers. Projects targeted at technologies for which no customers yet exist languish for lack of impetus and resources. Because the rate of technical progress can exceed the performance demanded in a market, technologies which initially can only be used in emerging markets later can invade mainstream ones, carrying entrant firms to victory over established companies.
This paper addresses innovations based on open source or non-proprietary knowledge. Viewed through the lens of private property theory, such agency appears to be a true anomaly. However, by a further turn of the theoretical kaleidoscope, we will show that there may be perfectly justifiable reasons for not regarding open source innovations as anomalies. The paper is based on three sectorial and generic cases of open source innovation, which is an offspring of contemporary theory made possible by combining elements of the model of private agency with those of the model of collective agency. In closing, the paper addresses implications for further research, practitioners and other policy-makers.
Within the field of information systems, user involvement generally refers to participation in the systems development process by potential users of their representatives and is measured as a set of behaviors or activities that such individuals perform. This article argues for a separation of the constructs of user participation (a set of behaviors or activities performed by users in the system development process) and user involvement (a subjective psychological state reflecting the importance and personal relevance of a system to the user). Such a distinction is not only more consistent with conceptualizations of involvement found in other disciplines, but it also leads to a number of new and interesting hypotheses. These hypotheses promise a richer theoretical network that describes the role and importance of participation and involvement in the implementation process.
Annotationnewline newline Annotation.newline newline Annotation
It has been empirically observed that ‘under‐standing user need’ and ‘good internal and external communications’ are factors which discriminate strongly between commercially successful industrial product and process innovations and those that fail. The research reported in this paper examines how the innovating firm achieves desirable levels of these factors through multiple and continuous interaction with the user throughout the innovation process.
In the sample of thirty‐four medical equipment innovations from eleven companies, twenty six (76 per cent) were developed through multiple and continuous interaction, resulting in twenty two (65 per cent) of these being successful.
There appear to be two major reasons for this high level of interaction: (1) the requirement that any equipment that is to be potentially introduced into clinical use first needs clinical assessment and trial; and (2) the ‘state of the art’ clinical and diagnostic knowledge resides in the user. A special relationship is, therefore, needed between the clinical advisory and trial team on the one hand and the manufacturer on the other.
The introduction to this paper reviews the findings of other work in the examination of the role of the user in the innovation process. Details of the sample, the methods of sample selection and classification of the data follow in section 2. The results of the research are summarised in section 3. These detail the nature of the medical equipment innovation process, identifying in particular the high level of interaction between the user, intermediaries and the manufacturer, resulting in good communications and understanding of user need. Section 4 attempts to determine the significance of these results for the effective management of innovation and suggest areas for further research.
With sincere thanks to Eric von Hippel and Nana Admadjaja, the many innovators who gave graciously of their time, and my wonderful family and friends. Responsibility for all views expressed lies with the author.
The micro-processes (small-scale tasks performed byindividuals and groups) that generate innovation are considered in order todetermine which conditions are best for the cultivation of innovations.Adynamic model of innovation is offered which reflects the innovation process asuncertain, knowledge-intensive, controversial and boundless. The model connectsthe four primary tasks of the innovation process to the social patterns andstructures that foster those tasks.These tasks include idea generation,coalition building, idea realization (prototype production), and diffusion(commercialization of the product). Following in-depth discussions of each of the four tasks, it is argued thatclose structural connections between potential innovators and users is integralto the innovation process, as are structural connections between the innovationitself and the organizations that will circulate and commercialize theproduct.Interorganizational ties and organization-environment connectionsfacilitate and enrich the innovation process.(SAA)
Innovation development, production, distribution and consumption networks can be built up horizontally—with actors consisting
only of innovation users (more precisely, “user/self-manufacturers”). Some open source software projects are examples of such
networks, and examples can be found in the case of physical products as well. In this article, we discuss three conditions
under which user innovation networks can function entirely independently of manufacturers. We then explore related empirical
evidence, and conclude that conditions favorable to horizontal user innovation networks are often present in the economy.
This paper analyzes the relationship between process innovation and learning by doing in the semiconductor industry where improvements in manufacturing yield are a catalyst for dynamic cost reductions. In contrast to most previous studies of learning by doing, the learning curve is shown here to be the product of deliberate activities intended to improve yields and reduce costs, rather than the incidental byproduct of production volume. Since some of the knowledge acquired through learning by doing during new process development is specific to the production environment where the process is developed, some knowledge is effectively lost when a new process is transferred to manufacturing. We find that dedicated process development facilities, geographic proximity between development and manufacturing facilities, and the duplication of equipment between development and manufacturing facilities are all significant in improving performance in introducing new technologies. Once in manufacturing, new processes are shown to disrupt the ongoing learning activities of existing processes by drawing away scarce engineering resources to "debug" the new processes.
User involvement in the design of computer-based information systems is enthusiastically endorsed in the prescriptive literature. However determining when and how much, or even if, user involvement is appropriate are questions that have received inadequate research attention. In this paper research that examines the link between user involvement and indicators of system success is reviewed. The authors find that much of the existing research is poorly grounded in theory and methodologically flawed; as a result, the benefits of user involvement have not been convincingly demonstrated. Until higher quality studies are completed intuition, experience, and unsubstantiated prescriptions will remain the practitioner's best guide to the determination of appropriate levels and types of user involvement; these will generally suggest that user involvement is appropriate for unstructured problems or when user acceptance is important.
In order to foster higher quality integrated research and to increase understanding of the user involvement-system success relationship, the authors present the following: a conceptual framework into which previous research has been mapped that can provide direction to future efforts; a review of existing measures of user involvement and system success; a set of variables that have been proposed as potentially impacting the relationship between user involvement and system success.
The paper analyzes the incentives of individual programmers and of commercial companies to participate in open source projects. While these incentives are in our opinion well accounted for by the economic paradigm, much empirical and theoretical work is still needed to answer the many interesting questions suggested by the open source movement.
This study contributes to our understanding of the innovation process by bringing attention to and investigating the process by which innovators outside of firms obtain innovation-related resources and assistance. This study is the first to explicitly examine how user-innovators gather the information and assistance they need to develop their ideas and how they share and diffuse the resulting innovations. Specifically, this exploratory study analyzes the context within which individuals who belong to voluntary special-interest communities develop sports-related consumer product innovations. We find that these individuals often prototype novel sports-related products and that they receive assistance in developing their innovations from fellow community members. We find that innovation-related information and assistance, as well as the innovations themselves, are freely shared within these communities. The nature of these voluntary communities, and the “institutional” structure supporting innovation and free sharing of innovations is likely to be of interest to innovation researchers and managers both within and beyond this product arena.
Computer platforms provide an integrated architecture of hardware and software standards as a basis for developing complementary assets. The most successful platforms were owned by proprietary sponsors that controlled platform evolution and appropriated associated rewards.Responding to the Internet and open source systems, three traditional vendors of proprietary platforms experimented with hybrid strategies which attempted to combine the advantages of open source software while retaining control and differentiation. Such hybrid standards strategies reflect the competing imperatives for adoption and appropriability, and suggest the conditions under which such strategies may be preferable to either the purely open or purely proprietary alternatives.
Conventional market research methods do not work well in the instance of many industrial goods and services, and yet, accurate understanding of user need is essential for successful product innovation. Cornelius Herstatt and Eric von Hippel report on a successful field application of a “lead user” method for developing concepts for needed new products. This method is built around the idea that the richest understanding of needed new products is held by just a few users. It is possible to identify these “lead users” and then draw them into a process of joint development of new product concepts with manufacturer personnel. In the application described, the lead user method was found to be much faster than traditional ways of identifying promising new product concepts as well as less costly. It also was judged to provide better outcomes by the firm participating in the case. The article includes practical detail on the steps that were used to implement the method at Hilti AG, a leading manufacturer of products and materials used in construction.
Manufacturers customarily provide only a few product variants to address the average needs of users in the major segments of markets they serve. When user needs are highly heterogeneous, this approach leaves many seriously dissatisfied. One solution is to enable users to modify products on their own using “innovation toolkits.” We explore the effectiveness of this solution in an empirical study of Apache security software. We find high heterogeneity of need in that field, and also find that users modifying their own software to be significantly more satisfied than non-innovating users. We propose that the “user toolkits” solution will be useful in many markets characterized by heterogeneous demand.
This paper describes the process of user-centred design as it has been developed over the past 25 years at the Faculty of Industrial Design Engineering of Delft University of Technology. It focuses on the methods for extracting design oriented information from and about the prospective users in the early phases of idea generation, and evaluation of the process Conference presented at the 13th International Ergonomics Association Triennial Congress, IEA'97. This was held in Tampere, Finland, June 29-July 4, 1997. The Congress was hosted by the Nordic Ergonomics Society and the Finnish Ergonomics Society
Among the most widely cited books in the social sciences, The External Control of Organizations has long been required reading for any student of organization studies. The book, reissued on its 25th anniversary as part of the Stanford Business Classics series, includes a new preface written by Jeffrey Pfeffer, which examines the legacy of this influential work in current research and its relationship to other theories. The External Control of Organizations explores how external constraints affect organizations and provides insights for designing and managing organizations to mitigate these constraints. All organizations are dependent on the environment for their survival. As the authors contend, âit is the fact of the organizationâs dependence on the environment that makes the external constraint and control of organizational behavior both possible and almost inevitable.â Organizations can either try to change their environments through political means or form interorganizational relationships to control or absorb uncertainty. This seminal book established the resource dependence approach that has informed so many other important organization theories.
Innovation is rapidly becoming democratized. Users, aided by improvements in computer and communications technology, increasingly can develop their own new products and services. These innovating users—both individuals and firms—often freely share their innovations with others, creating user-innovation communities and a rich intellectual commons. In Democratizing Innovation, Eric von Hippel looks closely at this emerging system of user-centered innovation. He explains why and when users find it profitable to develop new products and services for themselves, and why it often pays users to reveal their innovations freely for the use of all. The trend toward democratized innovation can be seen in software and information products—most notably in the free and open-source software movement—but also in physical products. Von Hippel's many examples of user innovation in action range from surgical equipment to surfboards to software security features. He shows that product and service development is concentrated among "lead users," who are ahead on marketplace trends and whose innovations are often commercially attractive. Von Hippel argues that manufacturers should redesign their innovation processes and that they should systematically seek out innovations developed by users. He points to businesses—the custom semiconductor industry is one example—that have learned to assist user-innovators by providing them with toolkits for developing new products. User innovation has a positive impact on social welfare, and von Hippel proposes that government policies, including R&D subsidies and tax credits, should be realigned to eliminate biases against it. The goal of a democratized user-centered innovation system, says von Hippel, is well worth striving for. An electronic version of this book is available under a Creative Commons license.
To solve a problem, needed information and problem-solving capabilities must be brought together. Often the information used in technical problem solving is costly to acquire, transfer, and use in a new location—is, in our terms, “sticky.” In this paper we explore the impact of information stickiness on the locus of innovation-related problem solving. We find, first, that when sticky information needed by problem solvers is held at one site only, problem solving will be carried out at that locus, other things being equal. Second, when more than one locus of sticky information is called upon by problem solvers, the locus of problem solving may iterate among these sites as problem solving proceeds. When the costs of such iteration are high, then, third, problems that draw upon multiple sites of sticky information will sometimes be “task partitioned” into subproblems that each draw on only one such locus, and/or, fourth, investments will be made to reduce the stickiness of information at some locations.
Information stickiness appears to affect a number of issues of importance to researchers and practitioners. Among these are patterns in the diffusion of information, the specialization of firms, the locus of innovation, and the nature of problems selected by problem solvers.
We show that the length of compulsory education has a causal impact on regional labour mobility. The analysis is based on a quasi-exogenous staged Norwegian school reform, and register data on the whole population. Based on the results, we conclude that part of the US-Europe difference, as well as the European North-South difference in labour mobility, is likely to be due to differences in levels of education in the respective regions.
The process of developing technology through open discussion has been called collective invention. Open source software projects have this form. This paper documents two earlier episodes of collective invention and proposes a general model based on search theory. One episode was the development of mass production steel in the U.S. (1866-1885), and the second with early personal computers (1975-1985). Technical people openly discussed and shared these developing technologies between firms. Collective invention episodes begin with an invention or a change in legal restrictions. Hobbyists and startup firms experiment with practical methods of production and share their results through a social network whose members gradually form a new industry. The network itself may disappear if the firms then keep their R&D secret. A model of an innovation search can describe this process if it is expanded to include independent hobbyists and consultants as well as profit-seeking firms.
In this paper we suggest that historical studies of technology can help us to account for some, perplexing (at least for traditional economic reasoning) features of open source software development. When looked in historical perspective, open source software seems to be a particular case of what Robert Allen has termed "collective invention". We explore the interpretive value of this historical parallel in detail, comparing open source software with two remarkable episodes of nineteenth century technical advances. Keywords: Open source software -- Collective Invention -- Blast Furnaces -- Steam engines -- Intellectual Property Rights Contact author: Alessandro Nuvolari, ECIS (Eindhoven Centre for Innovation Studies), Faculty of Technology Management, Eindhoven University of Technology, P.O. Box 513, 5600 MB, The Netherlands. E-mail: a.nuvolari@tm.tue.nl I would like to thank Nick von Tunzelmann, Richard Nelson, Bart Verspagen, Stefano Brusoni and Roberto Fontana for useful comments on a previous draft of this paper . Of course, controversial opinions and remaining errors are entirely my own. 1.
IBM's open-source stance. CNET News.com, http://news.com.com/Commentary:+IBM's+open-source+stance
- T Schadler
Schadler,
T.,
2003,
IBM's
open-source
stance.
CNET
News.com,
http://news.com.com/Commentary:+IBM's+open-source+stance/2009-1069_3-
981484.html.
A measure of perfection: the history of Brown & Sharpe, Excerpts from an address to the Newcomen Society of England
- H D Sharpe
Sharpe, H. D., 1949, A measure of perfection: the history of Brown & Sharpe, Excerpts from
an address to the Newcomen Society of England.
The user in the driver's seat, Password -Philips Research technology magazine
- C Breisford
Breisford, C., 2005, The user in the driver's seat, Password -Philips Research technology
magazine, 22: 14-17.
Open innovation -mere praksis, mindre buzz. Fremtidsorientering
- M K Petersen
Petersen, M. K., 2005, Open innovation -mere praksis, mindre buzz. Fremtidsorientering, 1.
User-centred design of smart products The Era of Open Innovation
- R D Buurman
Buurman, R. D., 1997, User-centred design of smart products, Ergonomics 40(10): 1159.
Chesbrough, H. W., 2003, The Era of Open Innovation, MIT Sloan Management Review
44(3): 35-41.
Early American Mechanics -Robbins and Lawrence Shop
- J W Roe
Roe, J. W., 1914, Early American Mechanics -Robbins and Lawrence Shop, American
Machinist, 41.
IBM's open-source stance
- N Rosenberg
Rosenberg, N., 1976, Perspectives on Technology. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Schadler,
T.,
2003,
IBM's
open-source
stance.
CNET
News.com,
http://news.com.com/Commentary:+IBM's+open-source+stance/2009-1069_3-981484.html.