Innovation is the lifeblood of successful businesses. “Moving fast and breaking things” can provide rapid access to new advances and great potential rewards. However, with innovation often comes uncertainty, and the consequences of product failure can be severe. Clever managers and regulators try to balance these inherent risks and benefits. It is a difficult task, and undesirable outcomes are […]
Many corporations exhort their employees to think outside the box without clarifying the nature of the box or its limits. Entrepreneurs and incubators focus on product innovation and try to develop a “better” product/ service/ app to get an edge. Business schools offer resources to develop the product or the app, have pitch contests to pick the best one, […]
The production of knowledge is often perceived to be the archetype of a cognitively demanding activity that requires some form of innate or natural ability (talent). PhD physicists are reported to have an average IQ in the neighborhood of 140. Yet, there has been little systematic study on the extent to which talented individuals become knowledge producers (or not), […]
Between 25 and 28 July 2018, I had the opportunity to participate in a rich learning expedition called #hackingday2018. It consisted of a set of visits and reflexive discussions about Boston’s academic, entrepreneurial and innovative eco-system. We followed a protocol combining planned and improvised visits going along with the flow of discussions and questions of the event itself (see the […]
The Trump administration is considering measures to restrict Chinese citizens from performing sensitive research at American universities and research institutions. The boycott appears to be motivated by fears that Chinese researchers may be carrying out espionage activities and handing over sensitive US discoveries to the Chinese government.
The exact details of the restrictions are still under discussion but they would […]
University workers contribute not only through research and teaching activities, but may also start successful high-technology companies (e.g., Google and Genentech) and create valuable intellectual property (e.g., the Hepatitis B vaccine and the pain medication Lyrica). Moreover, universities can be important foundations for local innovation clusters, such as Silicon Valley (Bresnahan et al., 2001).
Several European countries, observing the growth […]
Randomised controlled trials (RCTs) are generally viewed as the foundational experimental method of the social and medical sciences. Economists depend on them, for certain questions, as their most valued method. Yet RCTs are not flawless. In my study, “Why all randomised controlled trials produce biased results”, I argue that RCTs are not able to establish precise causal effects of an […]
Addressing the grand challenges of the future is impossible without widened participation in social innovation. If so, it makes a great deal of sense to consciously nurture the skill sets that enable successful social innovation by diverse individuals and teams. However, what exactly are these skills?
Social innovation skills – unchartered waters
Surprising as it is, social innovation skills have hitherto […]
There is a lot of talk about the future of work with developments such as AI, telecommuting, and the gig economy making headlines. Techno-utopianists fantasize about a future where manual labour is obsolete; economic innovators dream of the transformative nature of a basic minimum wage; and, entrepreneurs promote new workplace models. Such changes propel us into a future with […]
The principle of lean innovation — fail early, fail cheap and learn fast — is gaining momentum in large companies. Gartner estimates that by 2021, more than 50 per cent of established corporations will be leveraging lean startup techniques at the business level to increase the pace and success of business transformation This is even more pressing in research-intensive […]
Einstein’s theory of relativity was criticized in 1931 in a book titled ‘100 authors against Einstein’. He replied that if they were right, one author would have been enough. This is an extreme example of the perils of peer review when dealing with brilliant researchers at the cutting edge of science. It is of vital importance right now to […]
Organisations are being implored to “innovate or perish” but that is easier said than done. One of the challenges of innovation in organisations is ensuring that the quest for innovation is balanced between improving existing offerings where the company has a strategic advantage (known as exploitation), whilst also striving for the big, new ideas that prove game-changers (exploration). The […]
What organisational conditions nurture creativity and promote innovation? Steve Jobs—whose track record suggests that he could have answered this question authoritatively—asserted once that “killing good ideas” is “a hallmark of great companies.” Bob Sutton relates the incident as part of an argument that, while the ability to generate good ideas obviously is important, focus and discipline in deciding which […]
The concept of disruptive innovation has captured the attention of executives around the world. As explained by Clayton Christensen, a disruptive innovation is initially seen as unattractive by mainstream customers and by the leading firms who serve those customers. Eventually, however, those firms lose their leadership positions to new entrants who are willing to develop and improve the innovation […]
Policymaking often creates unintended consequences. But can disruptive innovation actually be spurred by President Donald Trump’s version of protectionism? Using the language of disruptive innovation, we observe that the long-term negative consequences of isolationism are actually an acceleration of US companies losing their own industries. Perhaps not even protectionism is what it used to be.
When it comes to economic […]
Despite having different professions, the entrepreneur Steve Jobs and the film director Lars von Trier have one thing in common: they are both notorious for their outbursts of anger or irritation and for bringing about shifts in mood between disturbance and enthusiasm. Far from being a coincidence, this appears to be a result of their extraordinarily creative and innovative […]
Flasks, by Republica, under a CC0 licence
Of all the new technologies that have emerged since the Second World War, biotechnology is notable in the extent to which US-based firms, having taken the lead at the start, continue to dominate the world market. Why has it been so difficult for other countries to catch up?
Biotechnology in this context refers to […]
We grow up learning about great inventions and scientific discoveries in history. Chances are, it won’t take you more than a few seconds to name the discoverer of penicillin, the formulator of the theory of evolution by natural selection, or the inventor of the telephone. These “lone geniuses” changed history through their individual brilliance, creativity, and tenacity. Right?
Not exactly. For […]
Our research explores how venture capitalists (VCs) and chief executive officers (CEOs) jointly affect the risk-taking behaviour of a startup — manifested through innovation novelty over the new venture’s different life stages. We show that VCs behave differently for each stage. They generally encourage startups to take high risk by pursuing novel innovations early on. In later stages, VCs […]
Innovation is the adoption of an idea or behaviour pertaining to a product, service device system, policy or programme that is new to the adopting organisation. Innovation has been recognised as a significant aspect of corporate survival. This has become particularly apparent in recent years as firms are increasingly operating in highly competitive markets where technologies are constantly developing, […]
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