What kind of innovations do we need to secure our future?
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Author(s)
Witt, Ulrich
Griffith University Author(s)
Year published
2016
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The question of what kind of innovations can secure our future is in this paper put in perspective with the unknown risks which innovations may imply. Innovations sometimes turn out to cause severe negative externalities after they have successfully passed the market test. In such cases, the social costs that are revealed only later may result in substantial welfare losses. Obviously, innovations of this kind are the opposite of what is needed. Can the knowledge flows related to innovation processes be strategically arranged in such a way that these externality risks are minimized? The options to be reviewed relate to the ...
View more >The question of what kind of innovations can secure our future is in this paper put in perspective with the unknown risks which innovations may imply. Innovations sometimes turn out to cause severe negative externalities after they have successfully passed the market test. In such cases, the social costs that are revealed only later may result in substantial welfare losses. Obviously, innovations of this kind are the opposite of what is needed. Can the knowledge flows related to innovation processes be strategically arranged in such a way that these externality risks are minimized? The options to be reviewed relate to the debate on open vs. closed innovation processes initiated in management science. The paper briefly discusses several aspects of this debate and introduces a model of self-organizing belief formation which reflects the conditions of open vs. closed innovation processes. On this basis it is shown that a conflict arises between arrangements fostering an early discovery of negative externalities of innovations and the incentives potential innovators have to pursue innovative activities.
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View more >The question of what kind of innovations can secure our future is in this paper put in perspective with the unknown risks which innovations may imply. Innovations sometimes turn out to cause severe negative externalities after they have successfully passed the market test. In such cases, the social costs that are revealed only later may result in substantial welfare losses. Obviously, innovations of this kind are the opposite of what is needed. Can the knowledge flows related to innovation processes be strategically arranged in such a way that these externality risks are minimized? The options to be reviewed relate to the debate on open vs. closed innovation processes initiated in management science. The paper briefly discusses several aspects of this debate and introduces a model of self-organizing belief formation which reflects the conditions of open vs. closed innovation processes. On this basis it is shown that a conflict arises between arrangements fostering an early discovery of negative externalities of innovations and the incentives potential innovators have to pursue innovative activities.
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Journal Title
Journal of Open Innovation: Technology, Market, and Complexity
Volume
2
Copyright Statement
© The Author(s) 2016. This article is distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons license, and indicate if changes were made.
Subject
Economic Theory not elsewhere classified
Other Technology
Other Commerce, Management, Tourism and Services