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| title | chunk | source | category | tags | date_saved | instance |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Innovation | 2/7 | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Innovation | reference | science, encyclopedia | 2026-05-05T07:11:34.249179+00:00 | kb-cron |
One framework proposed by Clayton Christensen draws a distinction between sustaining and disruptive innovations. Sustaining innovation is the improvement of a product or service based on the known needs of current customers (e.g. faster microprocessors, flat screen televisions). Disruptive innovation in contrast refers to a process by which a new product or service creates a new market (e.g. transistor radio, free crowdsourced encyclopedia, etc.), eventually displacing established competitors. According to Christensen, disruptive innovations are critical to long-term success in business. Disruptive innovation is often enabled by disruptive technology. Marco Iansiti and Karim R. Lakhani define foundational technology as having the potential to create new foundations for global technology systems over the longer term. Foundational technology tends to transform business operating models as entirely new business models emerge over many years, with gradual and steady adoption of the innovation leading to waves of technological and institutional change that gain momentum more slowly. The advent of the packet-switched communication protocol TCP/IP—originally introduced in 1972 to support a single use case for United States Department of Defense electronic communication (email), and which gained widespread adoption only in the mid-1990s with the advent of the World Wide Web—is a foundational technology.
=== Four types of innovation model === Another framework was suggested by Henderson and Clark. They divide innovation into four types;
Radical innovation: "establishes a new dominant design and, hence, a new set of core design concepts embodied in components that are linked together in a new architecture." (p. 11) Incremental innovation: "refines and extends an established design. Improvement occurs in individual components, but the underlying core design concepts, and the links between them, remain the same." (p. 11) Architectural innovation: "innovation that changes only the relationships between them [the core design concepts]" (p. 12) Modular Innovation: "innovation that changes only the core design concepts of a technology" (p. 12) While Henderson and Clark as well as Christensen talk about technical innovation there are other kinds of innovation as well, such as service innovation and organizational innovation.
=== Non-economic innovation === As distinct from business-centric views of innovation concentrating on generating profit for a firm, other types of innovation include: social innovation, religious innovation, sustainable innovation (or green innovation), and responsible innovation.
=== Open innovation === One type of innovation that has been the focus of recent literature is open innovation or "crowd sourcing." Open innovation refers to the use of individuals outside of an organizational context who have no expertise in a given area to solve complex problems.
=== User innovation === Similar to open innovation, user innovation occurs when companies rely on users of their goods and services to come up with, help to develop, and even help to implement new ideas.
== History ==
Innovation must be understood in the historical setting in which its processes were and are taking place.
=== Ancient world === The first full-length discussion about innovation was published by the Greek philosopher and historian Xenophon (430–355 BCE). He viewed the concept as multifaceted and connected it to political action. The word for innovation that he uses, kainotomia, had previously occurred in two plays by Aristophanes (c. 446 – c. 386 BCE). Plato (died c. 348 BCE) discussed innovation in his Laws dialogue and was not very fond of the concept. He was skeptical to it both in culture (dancing and art) and in education (he did not believe in introducing new games and toys to the kids). Aristotle (384–322 BCE) did not like organizational innovations: he believed that all possible forms of organization had been discovered. Before the 4th century in Rome, the words novitas and res nova / nova res were used with either negative or positive judgment on the innovator. This concept meant "renewing" and was incorporated into the new Latin verb word innovo ("I renew" or "I restore") in the centuries that followed. The Vulgate version of the Bible (late 4th century CE) used the word in spiritual as well as political contexts. It also appeared in poetry, mainly with spiritual connotations, but was also connected to political, material and cultural aspects.
=== Early modern period === Machiavelli's The Prince (1513) discusses innovation in a political setting. Machiavelli portrays it as a strategy that a Prince may employ in order to cope with a constantly changing world as well as the corruption within it. In The Prince innovation is described as introducing change in government: new laws and new institutions; Machiavelli's later book The Discourses (1528) characterises innovation as imitation, as a return to the original that has been corrupted by people and by time. Thus for Machiavelli innovation came with positive connotations. This is however an exception in the usage of the concept of innovation from the 16th century and onward. No innovator from the renaissance until the late 19th century ever thought of applying the word innovator upon themselves, it was a word used to attack enemies. From the 1400s through the 1600s, the concept of innovation was pejorative – the term was an early-modern synonym for "rebellion", "revolt" and "heresy". In the 1800s people promoting capitalism saw socialism as an innovation and spent a lot of energy working against it. For instance, Goldwin Smith (1823-1910) saw the spread of social innovations as an attack on money and banks. These social innovations were socialism, communism, nationalization, cooperative associations.