Vasundhara Jain
Theory based on the Vernon Cycle illustrates that the shift in comparative advantage and initial unsustained competitive advantage for a firm caused by technological innovation, erodes over time as after the initial production phases, global adaptation leads to erosion of the advantage from inventing the product/process. Following the Marx?Schumpeter model, innovation can be called as the long run economic change, what Schumpeter called ?development.? It is essential for ?system managers? to avoid the possibility of innovation activities from becoming constricted in self-reinforced path-dependency.
Networks, consequently, strongly help in the diffusion of an innovation, which is an essential part of the large economic changes. Phil Sorrell, a social hiking maestro in the UK, emphasizes that he never had to undertake any specific marketing strategy for his hiking app, as the user-base of his social website for hiking, adapted the new interactive media on positive suggestions from closely-knit hiking groups.
Image: Phil Sorrell – famous on blogs
Wider networks are increasingly being tapped for support in financing and technology development. Crowd-funding sites such as kickstarter.com and indigogo.com have brought in an innovation to the very process of innovation. They provide the necessary capital support for projects to start off. It is important to note the essence of such network-support infrastructure. Although Leonardo da Vinci is estimated to have designed the flying machine, it failed to take its flight due to lack of suitable building material, production skills and power source (Fagerberg, et al., 2006).
Image: Leonardo da Vinci’s design of the first flying machine
Firms, to avoid self-destructive path-dependency of intra-firm innovations, are increasingly adapting open innovation. The sixth-sense technology developed by Pranav Mistry (an IIT and MIT alumnus) makes use of such open networks. The open code has given way to a swarm of innovations, including Google glasses, which are said to be stemming out of this technology. It has been indicated that early innovators are marginal, and that they may be highly deviant (Granovetter, 1973). This could explain why the revolutionary sixth-sense technology has still not been adopted by the masses and not diffused entirely.
Image: Sixth Sense Technology
Disney seemed to have been going through the phase of redundancy, mentioned earlier, in terms of technology usage for movies before it tied up with Pixar which enthused fresh developments to Disney?s movie productions and eventually was taken over to enhance the pioneer?s resource base (Isaacson, 2011).
Besides infrastructure support and innovative capacity, information and knowledge are essential to the innovation process. Stick notes were actually developed by using a ?glue which did not work? (Trapp, 2008); Plastic surgeries were develop to cover the excessive injuries caused to people during World War I (Furness, 2012) and has now given birth to a new generation of cosmetic applications. World War II developed on this medical science by including techniques of rebuilding entire limbs, extensive skin grafts, microsurgery, etc. Surgeons who served in WWI established the American Association of Plastic Surgery in 1931, which remains the largest plastic surgery specialty organization in the world. According to a Market Research Report by IBIS World, the size of the US market for plastic surgeries stands at a staggering $13bn. This is an interesting example of how an entire industry saved itself from becoming obsolete, in an innovative manner of course! It is essential not only to have the information, but also the knowledge, understanding and vision of what to do with such information ? this, besides the network support and innovative capacity.
Vasundhara Jain?is currently pursuing Masters in Economics at the University of Warwick, UK. She has interned at the State Planning Commission MP, where she specifically studied how the banking system met the growth needs of the state. She has volunteered in different capacities at several NGO?s, including ones for development of underprivileged children, and for HIV+ and rehab-seeking residents. . Her further interests including traveling, writing and playing squash. She blogs at www.vasujain.com, and can be contacted at [email protected].
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