Handbook on Alternative Theories of Innovation

9781789902297 Edward Elgar Publishing

Edited by Benoît Godin, Full Professor, Institut National de la Recherche Scientifique, Montréal, Canada, Gérald Gaglio, Full Professor, University Côte d’Azur, France and Dominique Vinck, Professor, STS Lab, Institut des Sciences Sociales, University of Lausanne, Switzerland

Publication Date: 2021 ISBN: 978 1 78990 229 7 Extent: 432 pp

This insightful Handbook scrutinizes alternative concepts and approaches to the dominant economic or industrial theories of innovation. Providing an assessment of these alternatives, it questions the absence of these neglected types of innovation and suggests diverse theories.

This title contains one or more Open Access chapters.

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Critical Acclaim

Contributors

Contents

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This insightful Handbook scrutinizes alternative concepts and approaches to the dominant economic or industrial theories of innovation. Providing an assessment of these approaches, it questions the absence of these neglected types of innovation and suggests diverse theories.

International contributors provide a historical and critical analysis of all aspects of innovation, answering important questions such as ‘are we just reinventing the wheel?’. Examining concepts that have existed for over a decade, chapters provide clarity on answering this question and investigate whether progress is actually being made. Split into seven parts, starting with the visions of innovation and reviewing multiple approaches and types of innovation, as well as utilising case studies to illustrate theories, this timely book provides an excellent update to this field.

This Handbook will be an invaluable resource for scholars and researchers of business management and public policy as well as policy makers and stakeholders.

Critical Acclaim

‘This Handbook truly deserves its designation as such. It provides a comprehensive and multi-faceted overview of different conceptual meanings, theories, usages and interpretations of “innovation”. Far beyond the most familiar association with technology and industry, the reader is introduced to “social”, “responsible”, “sustainable”, “disruptive” and other variations of innovation, their respective rationales, theoretical underpinnings, philosophical and policy implications. This collection of contributions by well-respected authors is a fascinating and unique attempt to capture the many paths covered by “innovation” as a traveling concept.’
– Peter Weingart, Bielefeld University, Germany

Contributors

Contributors: Fayaz Ahmad Sheikh, Carolina Bagattolli, Riza Batista-Navarro, Vincent Blok, Frank Boons, Tiago Brandão, Céline Cholez, Darryl Cressman, Mónica Edwards-Schachter, Irwin Feller, Gérald Gaglio Benoît Godin, Markus Grillitsch, Teis Hansen, Alexandra Hausstein, Hemant Kumar, Brice Laurent, Stine Madsen, Giulio Perani, Boris Rähme, Cornelius Schubert, G.M. Peter Swann, Bastien Tavner, Pascale Trompette, Ulrich Ufer, Harro van Lente, Dominique Vinck, Lucien von Schomberg

Contents

Contents:

Introduction to the Handbook on Alternative Theories of Innovation 1
Benoît Godin, Gérald Gaglio and Dominique Vinck

PART I VISIONS OF INNOVATION
1 Innovation theology 11
Benoît Godin
2 Imaginaries of innovation 23
Harro van Lente

PART II THEORIZING INNOVATION IN THE TWENTIETH
CENTURY: THE FOUNDATIONS
3 Theories of innovation 38
Benoît Godin
4 Economic approaches to industrial technological innovation 59
Irwin Feller

PART III ALTERNATIVE APPROACHES TO INNOVATION
5 Mapping innovation diversity 79
Mónica Edwards-Schachter
6 Social innovation: contested understandings of social change 106
Cornelius Schubert
7 Sustainable innovation: analysing literature lineages 122
Frank Boons and Riza Batista-Navarro
8 Responsible innovation: challenging an alternative 135
Lucien von Schomberg

PART IV ALTERNATIVE TYPES OF INNOVATION
9 User-centred innovation: from innovative users to user centred programmes 148
Bastien Tavner
10 Open innovation: the open society and its entrepreneurial bias 162
Tiago Brandão
11 Disruptive innovation: an organizational strategy and a technological concept 182
Darryl Cressman
12 Common innovation: the oldest species of innovation? 197
G.M. Peter Swann
13 Grassroots innovation: mainstreaming the discourse of informal sector 212
Fayaz Ahmad Sheikh and Hemant Kumar
14 Frugal innovation: reaching an ‘empowered’ developing-countries end-user 233
Céline Cholez and Pascale Trompette

PART V SUPPORTING INNOVATION: REFRAMING THE INSTRUMENTS
15 X-innovation and international organizations narratives 252
Carolina Bagattolli
16 Transformative innovation policy: a novel approach? 276
Markus Grillitsch, Teis Hansen and Stine Madsen
17 Business innovation measurement: history and evolution 292
Giulio Perani

PART VI IMMUNE DISCIPLINES AND FORGOTTEN THEORIZATIONS
18 Religion and innovation: charting the territory 310
Boris Rähme
19 Anthropology of and for innovation 334
Ulrich Ufer and Alexandra Hausstein
20 Philosophical reflections on the concept of innovation 354
Vincent Blok

PART VII THEORIZING THE THEORIES
21 Ideology, engine or regime. Styles of critique and theories of innovation 369
Brice Laurent
22 Collateral innovation: renewing theory from case-studies 387
Gérald Gaglio and Dominique Vinck
Conclusion to the Handbook on Alternative Theories of Innovation 404
Gérald Gaglio, Dominique Vinck and Benoît Godin

Index