2.8 Innovation Journey: Navigating Unknown Waters
2.8.1 Introduction
Product design and creation can been regarded as comprising an “innovation journey,” biased by unforeseen setbacks along the road. In fact, real and sustainable innovation success should rather be viewed as “by-products along the journey” than as end result. If one takes a closer look to the contingencies during such a journey, the retrospective attributions of success to certain approaches or persons will prove to be misleading; such rash “attributions reinforced top managers' belief that managing innovation is fundamentally a control problem when it should be viewed as one of orchestrating a highly complex, uncertain and probabilistic process” (Van de Ven et al., 1999, p. 59).
An innovation journey should be imagined as a journey into unknown waters or an uncharted river (Van de Ven et al., 1999, p, 212). This metaphor helps “to develop an empirically grounded model of the innovation journey that captures the messy and complex progressions” while travelling (pp. 212–213). Consequently, according to van de Ven and colleagues, “innovation managers are to go with the flow – although we can learn to maneuver the innovation journey, we cannot control it” (p. 213).
2.8.2 Method
Still, while conceiving innovation processes as uncertain open ended processes of more or less organized social action, one can identify certain patterns and a number of typical key components characterizing the journey and helping the actors to navigate along uncharted rivers. Van de Ven et al. (1999, pp. 23–25) suggest the following components (see Figure 2.8.1): During an initiation period, (1) an innovation project is (often quite slowly) put in motion, sometimes (2) triggered by a “shock,” and (3) project plans are developed, less as a journey map but rather to legitimate the project vis-à-vis corporate management. In the developmental period (4) the initial innovation idea proliferates into numerous variations, but soon (5) setbacks and mistakes are encountered “because plans go awry or unanticipated environmental events significantly alter the ground assumptions of the innovation.” Projects often end in vicious cycles, or (6) actors decide, often after power struggles, to change the criteria of success and failure. (7) Various innovation personnel join the project and leave it, experiencing euphoria and frustration, while (8) investors and top management accompany the process, serving as checks and balances on one another. (9) Interaction with other organizations can have a supportive or negative impact on the innovation project, while (10) wider sectorial infrastructures are being developed with competitors, government agencies, and others. During the implementation or termination period (11), innovation adoption occurs “by linking and integrating the ‘new’ with the ‘old’ or by reinventing the innovation to fit the local situation.” After implementation (12), investors and top management “make attributions about innovation success or failure. These attributions are often misdirected but significantly influence the fate of innovations” (Van de Ven et al., 1999, p. 24).
Figure 2.8.1 Key components of the innovation journey (Van de Ven et al., 1999, p. 25)
Regarding navigating innovation journeys by learning “to go with the flow,” this advice sounds somewhat humble and unambitious. Do innovation actors (managers, users, and policy makers) really have no serious chance to guide innovation projects toward desired targets? Rip (2010) suggests that actors interested in strategic interventions will be more successful if they understand the co-evolutionary nature of the overall process and its institutional environment: “At least, they can avoid being [un]productive, as would happen when using a command-and-control approach while technological innovations are following their own dynamics.”
2.8.3 Discussion about Innovation Journeys
In order to better understand the options and limitations for interventions in an innovation journey, it is useful to apply a heuristic offered by the school of evolutionary-economic analyses of technology dynamics.5 This was discussed in Section 2.7.4 but is worth repeating here. This heuristic is built on the findings of “innovation studies,” in particular on the seminal work of Nelson and Winter (1977, 1982), who observed different technological “regimes” characterized by longstanding specific “search strategies” of engineers, determining to some extent the development trajectory of a given regime. Rip and Kemp (1998) added to this the public and private strategies and policies of relevant actors: Technological innovation is socially constructed, including the governance of a regime.
As discussed in Section 2.7.4, scholars combined these conceptual elements into the heuristic of a “multilevel perspective” on sociotechnical transitions (e.g., Geels and Schot, 2007), characterized by niche innovations on a micro level, sociotechnical regimes on the meso level, and wider sociotechnical landscapes on the macro level. Studied with the help of this heuristic, one can see regime transitions (see Figure 2.8.1) that are spurred by promises and expectations about technological options and innovation (Van Lente, 1993). Actors anticipate and assess their options vis-à-vis changing regimes and create de facto new patterns governance triggering “irreversibilities” (Callon, 1991). In short, sociotechnical regimes are determining the leeway of actors to steer innovation processes, in other words the “governance” (e.g., Benz, 2007; Kuhlmann, 2001). In a stylized description of the innovation journey (see Figure 2.8.3), three types or clusters of governance activities can be distinguished where the innovation journey enters into a new phase because a trajectory with its own dynamics is started up: the build-up of a protected space, stepping out into the wider world, and sector-level changes (vertical dimension in Figure 2.8.3), each cutting across activities in scientific research, technological development and markets, regulation, and societal context (see the horizontal dimension in Figure 2.8.3). “Each phase has its own dynamics and the trajectory is not easy to modify. But just before ‘gelling,’ it is still possible to exert influence, while there is some assurance that a real difference will result because the intended shift becomes part of the trajectory” (Rip, 2010).
Figure 2.8.2 Xsens' MVN Biotech motion measurement system (left) and MTx motion tracker (right)
Figure 2.8.3 Mapping the innovation journey in context (Rip and Schot, 2002)
2.8.4 Example from Practice
An example of a successful innovation journey (actually several journeys) is provided by Xsens.6 Today Xsens is a leading developer and global supplier of 3D motion-tracking products based upon miniature inertial sensor technology. The company was founded in 2000 by two graduates of the University of Twente, the Netherlands. Inspired by the possibilities of tiny motion sensors for measurement of the performance of athletes, they specialized in sensor technologies and sensor fusion algorithms. In 2000 Xsens launched its first measurement unit, which was used for human motion measurement and industrial applications.
After more than 10 years of experience and several trips and setbacks along “uncharted rivers,” Xsens today is recognized for its motion-tracking and motion capture products with best-in-class performance, outstanding quality, and high ease of use. Clients of Xsens include Electronic Arts, NBC Universal, INAIL Prosthesis Center, Daimler, Saab, Kongsberg Defence Systems, and many other companies and institutes throughout the world. Xsens is working with many industry partners, including Autodesk, Sagem, and Siemens.
As an innovation actor, Xsens navigated through all three stylized phases of a journey: building up a protected space, stepping out into the wider world, and deling with sector-level changes: