The technological origins of radical inventions

Abstract

a b s t r a c tThis paper aims to trace down the origins of radical inventions. In spite of many theoretical discussions on the effect of radical inventions, the specific nature of radical inventions has received much less attention in the theoretical and empirical literature. We try to fill that void by an empirical investigation into the specific origins of radical inventions. We explore this issue by a close examination of 157 individual patents, which are selected from a pool of more than 300,000 patents. In contrast to the conventional wisdom that radical inventions are based less on existing knowledge, we find that they are to a higher degree based on existing knowledge than non-radical inventions. A further result that follows from our analysis is that radical inventions are induced by the recombination over more knowledge domains. The combination of knowledge from domains that might usually not be connected seems to deliver more radical inventions.

Does incremental and radical innovation performance depend on different types of knowledge accumulation capabilities and organizational size?

“…This may also explain why firms exposed to the same amount of external knowledge flows might not derive equal innovation performance (Camisón and Forés, 2011;Escribano et al, 2009). In addition to external knowledge absorption, firms need to develop their internal knowledge creation capability in order to rapidly (Schoenmakers and Duysters, 2010) distribute, combine and apply current and newly acquired external knowledge to develop radical innovation performance. In this vein, the results of the empirical analyzis demonstrate that firms which also develop and combine their internal and external knowledge accumulation capabilities obtain greater radical innovation performance, according to the comparison of fits and psychometric properties uncovered by the theoretical models tested.…”

“…Thus, the larger the knowledge base used to obtain an innovation and the more diverse the sources it comes from and the relationships between the different types of integrated knowledge, the more difficult it will be to imitate (Rivkin, 2001) and the more radical the innovation performance will be. Schoenmakers andDuysters (2010: 1057) conclude, "Firms that are quick in understanding the possibilities that emergent technologies possess, and that therefore are able to combine this knowledge with mature and well understood knowledge, might be better at delivering radical inventions". In a similar vein, Knoppen et al (2011) point out that increased innovation performance within a relational context implies the increasing importance of interorganizational learning-where the outcome of learning depends upon the interaction with partners-and the subsequent connection with intra-organizational learning.…”

Radical innovation in strategic partnerships: A framework for analysis

“…The proposed contributions are twofold. First, radical innovation is a topic of great importance to academia and practitioners which lacks conceptual frameworks (Schoenmakers & Duyster 2010).…”

“…The decision to select partners represents an essential strategic choice directly linked to the performance of innovative, technology-intensive partnerships (Hoang andRothaermel 2005, Movery et al 1998). Yet, a deep understanding is still lacking about how value is created in the partnerships pursuing breakthrough innovations and how partner attributes influence this process (Schoenmakers & Duyster 2010, Weber & Weber 2007. This paper proposes a conceptual model structuring the phenomenon of a radical innovation partnership and examining partner attributes linked to its performance.…”

Business mating: when start-ups get it right

“…We acknowledged that panels might have the disadvantage of ex post confounding the economic impact of an invention with its technological radicalness if they are familiar with the invention or its market success, and arguably more "objective" patent citation methods might have been useful. However, the patents in our cases do not use backward citations that are comparable with patents in the US, which are the basis of the studies that advocate such patent measures (see, for example, Ahuja and Lampert, 2001), and, secondly, these patents are rather recent in time so forward citation (see, for example, Schoenmakers and Duysters, 2010) is not a relevant method either. Panels have the advantage of face validity; they constitute a direct and qualitative method concerned with how the invention appears.…”