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The fog of innovation: Innovativeness and deviance in developing new clinical testing equipment

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  • Höyssä, Maria
  • Hyysalo, Sampsa

Abstract

Even when innovators know they are working with a potential breakthrough innovation, they face formidable difficulties in assessing the exact ways it will be innovative as well as deviant in regard to extant systems, business and practices. This finding emerges from our case study that spans the 40-year history of an ongoing and by now potentially radical innovation in automated and miniaturized liquid processing. We analyze the changes in the system-to-be and its relationship to its future contexts throughout this period and show how the developers were able to reliably predict technical compatibility, the outcome, the interface points and effects towards the intended environment only some distance ahead. This 'fog of innovation' presents a management challenge not duly met by instruments available in innovation literature.

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  • Höyssä, Maria & Hyysalo, Sampsa, 2009. "The fog of innovation: Innovativeness and deviance in developing new clinical testing equipment," Research Policy, Elsevier, vol. 38(6), pages 984-993, July.
    • Handle: RePEc:eee:respol:v:38:y:2009:i:6:p:984-993
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    References listed on IDEAS

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    Cited by:

    1. Marine Agogué & Pascal Le Masson & Douglas K. Robinson, 2012. "Orphan innovation, or when path-creation goes stale: a design framework to characterize path-dependence in real time," Post-Print hal-00707372, HAL.
    2. Paul Hong & Stephen K. Callaway & Soon W. Hong, 2016. "Open network innovation in the age of complexity: case for small and medium enterprises," International Journal of Business Innovation and Research, Inderscience Enterprises Ltd, vol. 10(1), pages 65-86.
    3. Southern, Jen & Ellis, Rebecca & Ferrario, Maria Angela & McNally, Ruth & Dillon, Rod & Simm, Will & Whittle, Jon, 2014. "Imaginative labour and relationships of care: Co-designing prototypes with vulnerable communities," Technological Forecasting and Social Change, Elsevier, vol. 84(C), pages 131-142.
    4. repec:hal:wpaper:hal-00707372 is not listed on IDEAS
    5. Bonnin Roca, Jaime & O'Sullivan, Eoin, 2020. "Seeking coherence between barriers to manufacturing technology adoption and innovation policy," International Journal of Production Economics, Elsevier, vol. 230(C).

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