Toward a Relational View of Innovation: Learning from the Past and the Future

• In Event: 413 - Section on Organizations, Occupations and Work Refereed Roundtable Session. Table 01. Culture and Organizations
  In Refereed Roundtable 100min: Table 07. Innovation

Abstract

When innovation-related activities are examined in isolation or in a piecemeal fashion explanations of success are often disjointed and limited in scope. Current scholarship that recognizes the stages of innovation (i.e., invention, development, and implementation) are interdependent, however, presume outcomes at one stage are dependent on preceding stages when in fact the boundaries between the stages are fluid and products in different stages may coevolve. I draw on insights from relational sociology to develop a relational view of innovation. A relational view of innovation suggests that feedback between any stages of innovation may occur regardless of whether they precede one another and activities at different stages may have reciprocal effects. Interviews with industry informants elucidate the fluidity that exists between all of the innovation stages. Regression results based on a sample of 113 large biopharmaceutical firms demonstrate that successful product invention has a positive and statistically significant effect on product development, which in turn is a positive, significant predictor of product implementation. The key finding from the regression analysis, however, is that product development generates positive feedback for product implementation and vice versa. The reciprocity between stages provides compelling evidence for the importance of viewing innovation through the lens of relational theory.

Author

• Eric C. Dahlin, Brigham Young University