Innovation Management, Innovation

Ecosystems and Humanitarian

Innovation
Literature Review for the Humanitarian Innovation Ecosystem
Research Project
June 2014

This document is an output from a project funded by UK aid from

the UK Department for International Development (DFID). The
views expressed are not necessarily those of DFID.

This literature review was prepared by John Bessant, Ben Ramalingam, Howard
Rush, Nick Marshall, Kurt Hoffman and Bill Gray.

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Executive Summary

Innovation matters. In the business world this is a clear imperative – if we don’t change
what we offer the world (products, services) and the ways we create and deliver them
(process innovation) then we may not be in business for long. Innovation is often
presented as a survival issue and this provides a powerful metaphor to focus attention
on the need to manage innovation and to update our capabilities to do so on a
continuing basis.

But of course there are situations – at the heart of the humanitarian sector’s concerns –
where we really are talking about life and death and where change really is a survival
imperative. That makes consideration of innovation in this sector an urgent challenge –
and one which drives concern to learn from experience about how to repeat the
innovation trick. How can we best organise to enable innovation to happen and what are
the roles for key actors – donors, agencies, and most importantly users – in this
emerging innovation ecosystem?

There is a very extensive literature on innovation management with the earliest papers
dating back to around 1910. Given our focus on ecosystem approaches to innovation, the
strategy we have taken in this literature review is to move from some basic concepts on
innovation management to an understanding of current best practice and then on to
new approaches that are emerging in the context of a changing technological and market
landscape.

In the historical overview, presented in section 1, we explore how the process can be
organised and managed in a conscious fashion and how individuals and organisations
can learn and develop such capability. Although the literature under review is extensive,
it can also be characterised by an evolving understanding and sophistication in the
conceptual and practical models describing how innovation takes place. The review
charts the progress from simple linear models based upon knowledge push or needs
pull, through to more complex conceptualisations of the process which have been built
upon numerous empirical studies of those factors which have been identified as
affecting success and failure. The newer models emphasise the linkages occurring
between the organisation and geographically dispersed external actors, with whom
interactions often take place within networked environments typically labelled as
innovation systems or ecosystems.

Section 2 sets out core concepts in innovation management in more detail. As a result of
having an extensive body of both theoretical and empirical research at our disposal,
innovation management has become a subject that can be taught. In this section we
focus on the stable body of knowledge on which innovation management courses and
textbooks are based. Included are descriptions and explanations of how the process of
innovation takes place, the role of creativity within a spectrum of novelty, the role of
entrepreneurship and multiple actor interactions, as well as the importance of those
factors influencing the diffusion of innovation.

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Having looked at the core themes in innovation management, which have emerged as a
stable knowledge base on which to organise and manage, section 3 presents the new
frontiers in the literature and practice. The field is one where the routines, or the
patterns of behaviour, accepted as best practice are constantly being adapted and
redefined in the face of a changing technological and social environment. In this section
we explore a number of the key cutting-edge issues in innovation management that are
especially relevant to humanitarian aid: open innovation, user-linked innovation,
innovation systems and ecosystems, and public sector/social innovation. We also cover
more briefly a number of other complementary approaches. As the sheer volume of this
literature presents any review such as this one with what some might call a wood for the
trees problem, at the end of section 3 we present a contingency model to help readers
more readily navigate the diverse and extensive literature.

In section 4 we explore the emergence of thinking and practices in humanitarian

innovation, where the literature begins almost a century later than innovation
management. We look in particular at how different innovation processes have been
documented and what this says about the nature of the innovation ecosystem in the
sector. We note that there has been a steady evolution of innovation practices within
the sector and that technology is now viewed as having a central role to play in
humanitarian aid preparedness and relief. The review also flags some of the tensions
being expressed in the literature between, for example, top-down and emergent
innovation, as well as between open and closed approaches, and the role of the private
sector.

We conclude by drawing out potential lessons and challenges for the Humanitarian Aid
sector drawn from the mainstream literature around innovation management, and
particularly the potential for novel approaches that focus on systemic concepts. The
challenges identified include the development of a core capacity, the need for
ambidexterity, the role of entrepreneurs, the potential for user-led and open innovation,
as well as the need to balance risk, reward and reliability within the incentives systems
and structures embedded in the sector.

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Table of Contents
1. Innovation management: a historical overview ........................................................... 1
2. Core concepts in innovation management ..................................................................... 3
2.1: Innovation is a process not an event. ....................................................................... 3
2.2: Innovation management as a learning process. .................................................... 3
2.3: Innovation as a spectrum of novelty. ........................................................................ 4
2.4: Multiple pathways through the innovation space................................................. 4
2.5: Creativity and problem solving as a core discipline............................................. 4
2.6: Innovation as entrepreneurship. ............................................................................... 5
2.7: Innovations are path dependent................................................................................ 5
2.8: Innovation as a multi-actor process. ........................................................................ 6
2.9: Diffusion of innovation. ................................................................................................ 7
3. Challenges along the Innovation Management Frontier ............................................ 8
3.1: Open innovation (OI). ................................................................................................... 8
3.2: User-linked innovation (UI). ..................................................................................... 10
3.3 Innovation systems and ecosystems. ....................................................................... 12
3.4: Disruptive and discontinuous innovation. ........................................................... 15
3.5: Public and social innovation. .................................................................................... 16
(a) Public sector innovation. ................................................................................................................ 16
(b) Social Innovation ................................................................................................................................ 17
3.6: Complementary approaches. ................................................................................... 19
3.6.1: Design thinking............................................................................................................................... 19
3.6.2: New entrepreneurship approaches. .................................................................................... 19
3.6.3: Platform and complex project systems............................................................................. 19
3.6.4: Service innovation. ....................................................................................................................... 20
3.6.5: Inclusive innovation. ................................................................................................................... 20
3.6.6: Networked innovation................................................................................................................ 20
3.7: Navigating diverse models: the innovation management matrix................... 21
4. Humanitarian innovation: An overview ....................................................................... 24
4.1: Overview of the literature. ........................................................................................ 24
4.2 ALNAP study and HIF approach to innovation management. ........................... 24
4.3: A slowly growing general literature. ...................................................................... 25
4.4: Sector-specific reviews and case studies. .............................................................. 26
4.5: Emerging trends in humanitarian innovation. .................................................... 27
4.5.1: Steady evolution of innovation practices. ........................................................................ 27
4.5.2: Technology viewed as prime enabler. ................................................................................ 27
4.5.3: Tension between top-down and emergent innovation. ............................................ 27
4.5.4: Tension between open and closed approaches. ............................................................ 28
4.5.5: Growing interest in role of private sector. ....................................................................... 28
5. Bringing innovation management to humanitarian aid: key challenges from the
literature ..................................................................................................................................... 29
5.1: The core capacity challenge. ..................................................................................... 29
5.2: The ambidexterity challenge. ................................................................................... 29
5.3: The entrepreneurship challenge. ............................................................................ 31
5.4: The user challenge. ...................................................................................................... 31
5.5: The open innovation challenge. ............................................................................... 32
5.6: The incentives and structures challenge. .............................................................. 32
5.7: The ecosystem challenge. .......................................................................................... 32
6. Emerging conclusions ......................................................................................................... 33

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References .................................................................................................................................. 34

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1. Innovation management: a historical overview

The focus of this literature review1 is not on innovations themselves but rather on the ways in
which the process of creating value (commercial and/or social) from ideas and knowledge
takes place. In particular, we are interested in how the process can be organised and managed
in a conscious fashion and how individuals and organisations can learn and develop such
capability. The field is now quite mature, some of the earliest articles dealing with the subject
having appeared around the turn of the 20th century.

The innovation management literature can be characterised not only in terms of its huge
volume but also by an evolving understanding and sophistication in the conceptual and
practical models describing how innovation takes place. Early models were driven by a
concern to spend R&D investments better or to avoid costly market failures and these studies
tended to use simple linear models of the process (e.g., (Sherwin and Isenson 1967; Isenson
1968). Typically these could be seen as versions of knowledge push or need pull and they
prompted extensive debate around the relative importance of these sources and the
implications of this for managing the process. In the 1970s a number of influential studies
began to explore other influential factors affecting success and failure, using different
methodologies but pointing to the same underlying messages (Langrish, Gibbons et al. 1972;
Robertson 1974; Rothwell 1977; Freeman and Soete 1997).

The field also began to open up in terms of specialised interest areas such as the challenges
facing small and medium-sized enterprises or the role of innovation policy as a framework for
supporting the process by external actors in government and elsewhere (Rothwell and
Zegveld 1981). A key field of study is understanding how innovations diffuse across
populations began to emerge as an area of relevance (Rogers and Shoemaker 1971). At the
same time the parallel field of entrepreneurship began to emerge, focusing on the challenge of
small-business start-ups and new venture creation, and drawing on seminal ideas from
Schumpeter (2006).

Contributions came from many disciplines, including sociology, psychology, organisation

theory, engineering and economics. At the same time a number of practitioner-based
approaches and the emergence of a toolkit of approaches can be seen – for example, around
creativity techniques (Rickards 1988), forecasting (Whiston 1979), project planning and

1 The approach we took to generating this literature review consisted of an extensive search across
published books and academic articles dealing with the core themes of innovation with special
reference to the humanitarian system. Grey literature in the form of working papers and unpublished
reports from researchers in the field have also been included. However, whilst we recognise that there
is an extensive range of material also available on the Web and in various blogs we chose not to include
them primarily because of the difficulty of separating anecdote and opinion from more solid evidence-
based reporting. That said we were helped considerably by examining these blogs for signposts to
relevant published literature and for assistance in identifying key themes which are being explored
further via interviews and case studies as part of our wider activities in the mapping the Humanitarian
Innovation System project.

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appraisal (Dinsmore 1993), inter-group communication (Lawrence and Lorsch 1967), and
R&D strategy (Adler 1989).

The 1980s saw a convergence around innovation studies with considerable expansion in the
number of specialised courses dealing with the subject (Bell, Bessant et al. 1992). Textbooks
and resources from around this time stress an increasing number of actors working within the
innovation space and interacting to create value. Important themes began to emerge from this
richer understanding; for example, the role of users in the innovation process (Von Hippel
1988), the relevance of demanding customers helping to shape and pull innovations through
(Rothwell and Gardiner 1983), the key influences of different sector patterns (Pavitt 1984),
and diffusion as an interactive shaping process (Rosenberg 1982).

The emphasis was increasingly on the importance of innovation strategies, and learning to
build innovation capability within and across organisations. In particular, the idea of routines
became prominent: these were seen as patterns of behaviour that are learned and become
embedded as structures, procedures and mechanisms to enable innovation to take place
(Nelson and Winter 1982).

The discussion of innovation also focused around the impact of major new technologies,
particularly in the information and communications field (Miles, Rush et al. 1988). Some
writers argued that these represented major shifts in the techno-economic paradigm and
would lead to significant changes in economic and social spheres (Freeman and Perez 1989).
Associated with this was an important strand of thinking about technological trajectories and
the bandwagon effect where new fields acquired a dominant logic which shaped innovation
search behaviour (Dosi 1982).

The 1990s saw growing interest in differences between firms in terms of their approaches and
the idea that external context (e.g., sector or geographical location) and internal management
played complementary roles in shaping innovation strategies and management (Pavitt 1990;
Nelson 1991). Interactivity, from the picking up signals about potential innovation threats
and opportunities, through implementation and into wider scale adoption and diffusion, began
to be seen as interactive processes with multiple actors involved. Rothwell offers an extensive
review of this early phase in thinking about innovation, identifying five generations of mental
models, from simple linear views to increasing complex, systemic and geographically
dispersed ones (Rothwell 1992).

Section 2 sets out core concepts in innovation management in more detail, while section 3
presents the new frontiers in the literature and practice. The sheer volume of this literature
presents any review such as this one with what some might call a wood for the trees problem.
As the end of section 3 we will present an approach to help readers more readily navigate the
diverse and extensive literature (see 3.7).

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2. Core concepts in innovation management

Building on this body of extensive research, innovation management is now a subject which
can be taught and there is a stable body of knowledge around such courses and textbooks
(Goffin and Pfeiffer 2001; Schilling 2005; Goffin and Mitchell 2010; Trott 2011; Tidd and
Bessant 2013). Relevant core concepts include the following:

2.1: Innovation is a process not an event.

There are many similar models of the innovation journey, and representations of the key
stages and different management challenges associated with them (Van de Ven 1999). As
shown in Figure 1, typical stages in this process/journey are:

 Search
 Select
 Implement
 Capture value

This process is shaped and influenced by key contextual factors such as:

 Strategic direction and targeting

 Enabling and supportive organisations

Figure 1: The Innovation Process. Source: Tidd and Bessant (2013)

2.2: Innovation management as a learning process.

Learning to innovate is achieved by building behavioural routines, and then embedding them
in structures, procedures, policies. These are viewed as ways of carrying out the innovation
process and repeating it (Nelson and Winter 1982; Pentland and Rueter 1994; Bessant 2002;
Pavitt 2002; Zollo and Winter 2002). The processes through which organisations learn are
varied; they include learning by doing, learning by collaborating, learning from interaction
with users, learning through failure, learning through using (the learning curve effect),

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learning by exporting, etc.,(Arrow 1962; Bell and Scott-Kemmis 1990; Levin 1993; Fleck 1994;
Kim 1997; Figuereido 2001). All offer opportunities for capturing and embedding behavioural
patterns – routines – which enable innovation to be organised, managed and repeated.

From this discussion emerged the concept of innovation as dynamic capability: mobilising
resources and processes in support of innovation but also having the ability to reconfigure
them in a changing environment (Teece and Pisano 1994; Zollo and Winter 2002; Teece 2009).

Closely linked to this was the notion of absorptive capacity: the ability of an organisation to
find and make use of new external knowledge to create innovations (Cohen and Levinthal
1990; Zahra and George 2002. Todorova and Durisin 2007). Absorptive capability is
something which is learned and built up over time, essentially acquiring and embedding the
routines which constitute an innovation management capability (Pavitt 1990; Bell and Pavitt
1993; Phelps, Adams et al. 2007; Rush, Bessant et al. 2007).

2.3: Innovation as a spectrum of novelty.

The spectrum of innovations typically runs from incremental to radical. Most innovation is
viewed as incremental in nature and has its impact through accumulation (Enos 1962;
Hollander 1965; Figuereido 2001). Radical innovation is higher risk and requires different
approaches to search and selection (Leifer, McDermott et al. 2000). A major challenge is
striking a balance between exploit and explore: these terms illustrate the differences in search
behaviour, selection approaches and organising for implementation around do better
(incremental) and do different (radical) (Burns and Stalker 1961; March 1991; Leifer,
McDermott et al. 2000; Benner and Tushman 2003; Gassman, Widenmayer et al. 2012;
Nicholas, Ledwith et al. 2013).

2.4: Multiple pathways through the innovation space.

Following Schumpeter’s original discussion there are many ways in which value can be
created through innovation, ranging from new offerings, processes, supply chain
reconfiguration, etc. (Tuff 2011). We can think of an innovation space (Francis and Bessant
2006) with core dimensions around what we offer the world (product innovation), how we
create and deliver that offering (process innovation), where we target and deliver that
innovation (position innovation) and the underlying mental models that govern our approach
(paradigm innovation).

These multiple pathways are important because they move attention from products (what an
organisation offers the world) and processes (how it creates and delivers those offerings) to
other ways in which innovation can create value and other groups for whom this can take
place. Innovation strategy becomes a search through the innovation space (Kim and
Mauborgne 2005), with a range of possible directions in which to explore.

2.5: Creativity and problem solving as a core discipline.

Creativity and problem solving need to be applied in a systematic fashion rather than the light
bulb/ genius model that typifies many innovation anecdotes. Innovation needs to be seen as
an organised process, applying focused creativity (Kelley, Littman et al. 2001). Many
representations see this process as a mixture of divergent, explorative cycles interspersed

4
with convergent integrative ones (Kelley 2005). Different stages in the process require
different approaches; see, for example, the concept of the innovation value chain (Birkinshaw
and Hansen 2007).

2.6: Innovation as entrepreneurship.

Innovative behaviour is often associated with entrepreneurship (Drucker 1985). Although
there is an extensive literature on this subject, until recently much of this focused on start-ups
and small business (Burns 2011) and not on innovation per se.

Understanding entrepreneurs and how they enact the innovation process has been an
important stream in the literature and moves us away from the lone instinctive inventor and
towards a learned set of skills and process (Drucker 1985; Shane 2003; Bessant and Tidd
2011). Models of the entrepreneurial process are essentially similar to the generic innovation
journey set out in 3.1, with key stages typically being:

 Opportunity recognition (either via discovery or creation)

 Assembling resources
 Developing the venture
 Capturing value

The emphasis is placed upon learning and feedback: a process of discovery, probe and learn
rather than grand strategy (Sarasvathy 2008). Entrepreneurs learn to operate in uncertain
environments by flexibility, tolerance of ambiguity, adaptability and equifinality (multiple
pathways to the same goal). Prototyping and learning via interaction around experiments is a
core feature of innovation entrepreneurship, and multiple fast failures are characteristic of the
behaviour that generate viable solutions (Ries 2011; Blank 2013).

Recently there has also been considerable focus on intrapreneurs – the internal entrepreneurs
within organisations who help to renew organisations (Buckland, Hatcher et al. 2003; Shane
2003; Schumpeter 2006; Burns 2008; Sarasvathy 2008). Corporate entrepreneurship of this
kind is becoming a central means by which established or mature organisations create new
directions and enable radical innovation (Kanter 1997; Pinchot 1999; O'Connor, Leifer et al.
2008). A number of notable examples are widely used as examples such as 3M, Corning and
more recently Google (Gundling 2000; Graham and Shuldiner 2001; Iyer and Davenport 2008).

Another growing field of relevance is social entrepreneurship where the emphasis is on

creating social value rather than, or as well as, commercial value (Ellis 2010; Murray, Caulier-
Grice et al. 2010; Gruber and Fauchart 2011).

2.7: Innovations are path dependent.

The trajectories of innovation in any given sector tend to be profoundly shaped by the
pathways laid down by early pioneers who, knowingly or unwittingly, created a dominant
design in the innovation space (Abernathy and Utterback 1975; Dosi 1982; Utterback 1994).
Abernathy and Utterback’s influential model of the innovation life cycle suggests there are
different phases of innovation, each of which is associated with different types of activity.

5
In the early stages of a particular innovation space, in the fluid phase, there is considerable
experimentation around different possible innovation configurations. Much of this activity
leads to failure but eventually there is convergence around a dominant design which becomes
the standard that others work with and the variant which achieves widespread adoption.

In the transitional phase emphasis shifts towards process innovation, trying to stabilise
around the dominant design and developing processes which can produce it reliably and to
cost targets. Finally there is a phase associated with maturity in which emphasis is on
incremental improvement innovation around that dominant design, establishing a trajectory
which may persist for extended periods before some new trigger (e.g., new technology, new
market configuration, etc.) ushers in a new fluid phase. This sets up the conditions under
which entrepreneurs working at the edge can disrupt industries and challenge existing
incumbents (Christensen 1997; Augsdorfer, Bessant et al. 2013).

The challenge of path dependent technological trajectories is that while they both provide a
guide and focus for innovation strategies, the dominant designs that result can also act as a
constraint on exploration for radical alternatives. Established organisations are well-suited to
incremental improvements and some limited exploration in this space but there are powerful
internal resistances which can inhibit the search for radical innovation (Bessant, Von Stamm
et al. 2011).

As an illustration, Henry Ford, was a comparative latecomer to the emerging automobile

industry but whose Model T and accompanying manufacturing process became the dominant
design in America and Europe, and persisted through until the 1980s when Japanese lean
manufacturing techniques offered radical new options and brought about a new wave of
experimentation and change.

2.8: Innovation as a multi-actor process.

While individual entrepreneurs, inventors, scientists, engineers, or designers certainly have an
important part to play, the study of innovation has progressively recognised the numerous
people and organisations typically involved in the process. Innovation is necessarily a multi-
party activity. Even the lone entrepreneur seeking to get a new idea to market is unlikely to
be able to do this entirely on their own. They will usually rely on others for financial backing,
specialist knowledge of technologies, equipment, distribution and marketing, legal advice.
Ultimately, they will depend on their prospective users and customers to complete the
innovation process by actually using the product, service, or process that has been developed.
Innovation, therefore, necessarily depends on a complex network of actors and activities.

There have been growing attempts to understand different aspects of these networks as a
central determining factor of successful innovation processes (Lundvall 1990; Nelson 1993).
Early discussion of national innovation systems looked at key relationships such as those
between firms and government, finance and education (Freeman 1991; Lopez-Martinez and
Piccaluga 2000). Also of interest were emergent models of local and regional innovation
systems and their connection to economic geography via clusters and collective efficiency
(Cooke 2001; Howells and Bessant 2012). The concept of focal or keystone firms and
managed networks have become important in our understanding of innovation systems, as

6
are notions of platforms and ecosystems (Miller, Hobday et al. 1995; Gawer and Cusumano
2002; Davies and Hobday 2005; Durst and Poutanen 2013). This aspect is covered in more
detail in section 3 on new frontiers in innovation management.

2.9: Diffusion of innovation.

Innovation only has real impact when it can be scaled across a population of users.
Understanding of adoption and diffusion has been a focus of study for a long time but is now
an increasingly important part of the picture. Diffusion studies cover different types of
innovation. These include product innovation where marketing studies have revealed a lot
about buyer behaviour and influences on the process (Kotler 2003), and process innovation
where adoption of new farming methods as an example shows the influences such as social
flows of knowledge (Griliches 1957). Everett Rogers carried out pioneering work in mapping
this field and identified a widely used framework for analysis and action. Unbeknownst to
many in the aid world, his original work was funded by USAID, and examined adoption of
agricultural innovations in developing countries. His core model framed diffusion as being
based on a process of communication and influence, in which a mix of factors influencing the
adoption decision of different actors. These factors form a checklist with which to think about
and configure innovations for effective diffusion. Key elements are:

 innovation characteristics (relative advantage, complexity, observability,

trialability and compatibility)
 innovator characteristics (who is trying to introduce the change)
 adopter characteristics (typically distributed across a population in terms of
readiness to take on new ideas)
 environmental/contextual characteristics

Change management offers another key strand of literature in this space, exploring the
challenge of planning for successful adoption of internal process changes (Smith and Tranfield
1990; French and Bell 1995). These studies repeatedly highlight the importance of engaging
users early and actively in order to secure acceptance and adoption. The literature includes
extensive work on take up of new processes and methods and acceptance of new technologies
(e.g., Preece 1995). This has been a key theme running through discussion of socio-technical
systems, through participative design and to current understanding of user involvement in
design of systems which will actually be used (Trist and Bamforth 1951; Mumford 1979).

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3. Challenges along the Innovation Management Frontier

So far we have looked at the core themes in innovation management which have emerged as a
stable knowledge base on which to organise and manage. But the field is one where the
routines, or the patterns of behaviour, accepted as best practice are constantly being adapted
and redefined in the face of a changing technological and social environment. For example the
innovation recipe books for 1980 are different to those we might find today because we now
have a vast networking capability round knowledge flows across the Internet and a changed
social organisation enabled by this. 2

In this section we explore in some depth a number of the key cutting-edge issues in innovation
management that are especially relevant to humanitarian aid: open innovation, user-linked
innovation, innovation systems and ecosystems, and public sector/social innovation. We also
cover more briefly a number of other complementary approaches.

3.1: Open innovation (OI).

This refers to the rapid acceleration of an established trend around distributed sources of
knowledge; innovation has always been a multi-player game (Carter and Williams 1957).
However, a combination of increased activity (estimates suggest close to $1.2 trillion is spent
every year on R&D around the world), coupled with increased connectivity, has fundamentally
changed the landscape (Dahlander and Gann 2008; Snow, Strauss et al. 2009). The
phenomenon was labelled open innovation by Chesbrough (2003) but many organisations had
already begun experimenting in this space; e.g., Procter and Gamble began to re-engineer their
global R&D around 1999 under the banner Connect and Develop (Lafley and Charan 2008).

The past ten years have seen an explosion of experimentation around how to work in a
knowledge-rich environment where even the largest organisation has to recognise that not all
the smart guys work for us (quote?). This has focused on ways on enabling knowledge flow
into and out from the organisation rather than the more static picture of knowledge creation,
accumulation and deployment (Bessant and Venables 2008).

There has been significant growth in using internet-enabled approaches for enabling OI; e.g.,
innovation markets like InnoCentive.com and NineSigma (Lakhani and Jeppesen 2007),
innovation crowdsourcing (Brabham 2008; Schenk and Guittard 2011), innovation
communities like those operating across smart phone platforms (Dahlander and Wallin 2006;
Dahlander and Magnusson 2008), and innovation collaboration via online toolkits for mass
customisation (Moser and Piller 2006; Piller 2006; Reichwald and Piller 2006). Examples
include the Android operating system in mobile devices, Mozilla as a community developed
browser, Linux as an operating system and Propellerhead, an online community of enthusiasts
working on music software. Sites like Qirky and Ponoko allow users developing ideas and

2It is, of course, important to recognise that whilst there is an industry of consultants and others
generating new labels for emerging trends, much of the underlying innovation management discussion
reflects long-established debates around strategy and implementation. We have tried in this section to
highlight major trajectories which are reshaping the innovation agenda driven by significant shifts in
the technological, economic and special landscape rather than the fads and fashions in popular
management literature.

8
designs using 3-D printing and related technologies to share and co-create ideas, whilst for
children Lego has pioneered co-creation using sites like Lego factory and now Lego Cusuo.

Importantly these have been increasingly deployed in a social innovation context; e.g., in
crowdsourcing ideas across a community of patients and carers in the healthcare field
(Bessant, Moeslein et al. 2012) or in improving public health (Brabham, Ribisi et al. 2014). For
example GemeinsamfurdieSeltene is a platform developed in Germany to allow patients and
carers of those with rare diseases (often neglected by mainstream health services because
they are rare) to share experiences, ideas, treatments, etc.

Innovation contests represent another area of expansion. The original idea of offering a prize
to anyone who could solve an innovation challenge is not new; John Harrison’s chronometer
and the invention of margarine both owe their genesis to such contests. The difference is that
today they can be quickly and easily organised; they enable both richness and reach in
innovation sourcing (Evans and Wurster 2000). With the rapid expansion of their use has
come a growing maturity around the capabilities needed to manage them well and the
purposes to which they are helpful (Ebner, Leimeister et al. 2009). Such models have been
deployed in the social and third sector innovation arena; e.g., NESTA has several active
challenges (www.nesta.org) and the Humanitarian Innovation Fund is running one across the
InnoCentive platform. DFID’s work with IDEO.org and OpenIDEO on the Amplify programme
takes a similar approach, crowdsouricng ideas across an open innovation platform.

A key challenge in open innovation is around how to make connections; e.g., via a growing
number of brokerage models (Hargadon and Sutton 1997). Building on ideas about the flow
of knowledge and role of structural holes in such networks (Burt 1992), a variety of online and
offline attempts have been made to facilitate better linkages. (See, for example,
www.100%open.com or www.theinnovationexchange.com) A recent study (which explores
different models in detail) suggested that in 2013 the market for such brokerage services in
open innovation was worth €2.7bn and is likely to double in size by 2015 (Piller and Diener
2013).

One important aspect of open innovation is its ability to increase the potential for knowledge
flow to new sites as well as sourcing knowledge from further afield. Numerous examples exist
of recombinant innovation (Hargadon 2003) in which knowledge already well-established in
one area or sector can have considerable impact in a different and often distant one; such
cross sectoral learning usually also requires brokerage mechanisms (Burt 2005). The
difficulty for many organisations is that they are locked into existing knowledge networks and
changing these involves a discontinuity (Henderson and Clark 1990; Kaplan, Murray et al.
2003). The challenge is to find, form and enable new networks to perform whilst
simultaneously loosening ties in existing ones (Birkinshaw, Bessant et al. 2007).

This pattern of improving knowledge flow and management is also an issue across large and
geographically dispersed organisations. Internal boundary spanning mechanisms are an
important focal area, following Allen’s seminal work (Allen 1977) and there is a resurgence of
interest in communities of practice (Wenger 1999; Brown and Duguid 2000), gatekeepers,
secondment and other mechanisms, and the role of employees as connectors out into wider
networks (Fleming and Waguespack 2007).

9
Intellectual property management also becomes a key challenge in an environment in which
the key shift is from knowledge creation, ownership and protection and towards more
emphasis on knowledge flows and trading (Bessant and Venables 2008).

A related strand of open innovation is the resurgence of interest in employees as a source of

innovation. Models of the suggestion scheme can be traced back to the 14th century and there
is considerable evidence to support their impact, especially on productivity via sustained
incremental process innovation (Imai 1987; Boer, Berger et al. 1999; Bessant 2003; Schroeder
and Robinson 2004). However sustaining high involvement of employees in innovation
requires careful investment in systems and structures to support such behaviours. Open
innovation has renewed interest in employees as a source of knowledge and ideas and online
communities, innovation contests and other mechanisms open up new ways to foster internal
entrepreneurship (Fairbank and Williams 2001; Kleinbaum and Tushman 2008). Employees
are also seen as a source of networks linking inside to outside (Whelan, Parise et al. 2011).

The idea of crowdsourcing ideas has spread to other innovation resources and in particular to
new models for raising venture capital for new start-ups (Schwienbacher and Larraide 2011;
Mollick 2013). Peer-to-peer lending (and increasingly donation) via sites like Kickstarter and
www.catapult.org not only opens up new channels but also changes the basis on which
evaluation of innovation takes place, exploiting the wisdom of crowds effect (Surowecki 2004).
In many cases evaluation emerges simply on the basis of popularity – the assumption being
that funds flow to the best ideas. On other sites there are opportunities for additional expert
evaluation, for comments and co-development of ideas and for repeated filter cycles which
gradually eliminate outlier ideas and focus on the more popular.

With the maturing of OI as a concept have come attempts to develop maturity models against
which to assess OI capability (Lichtenthaler, Hoegl et al. 2011). On the practitioner side
various tools are now offered to help assess and deploy open innovation approaches to
augment innovation capability (Muller, Hutchins et al. 2012).

3.2: User-linked innovation (UI).

For a long time user-led innovation was recognised as a source of innovation and numerous
examples exist, particularly in sectors like farming and medical instruments where user ideas
have provided prototypes which are then taken up and improved upon for widespread
diffusion (Von Hippel 1986; Von Hippel 1988). Importantly, such users have both a high
incentive to innovate (they want the functionality of the new idea) and they are tolerant of
imperfections (willing to accept prototypes and then help improve on them). They represent
not only a powerful source of innovations but, because the ideas originate from within the
user’s context and community, they increase the potential for widespread adoption and
diffusion by ensuring compatibility (Rogers 2003).

Recent trends, especially around social networking and internet-enabled communications

have accelerated this trend and the importance of user innovators; one UK study suggests that
a high proportion of hidden innovation by users actually takes place (NESTA 2010). Examples
like Linux, Wikipedia, Mozilla, Apache and Propellerhead (Dahlander and Wallin 2006) serve

10
as reminders of the considerable potential of user communities as a source of innovation and
rapid diffusion and improvement. The convergence of this user led desire for creation,
coupled with enabling technologies in design and manufacture, have led to a growing
movement towards mass customisation and co-creation with users (Pine 1993; Salvador, de
Holan et al. 2009). Von Hippel (2005) captures the spirit of this shift as well as providing a
theoretical underpinning and some practical tools to work in this space.

Part of this discussion has focused on communities as a source of latent ideas and on novel
mechanisms (e.g., netnography) to access these (Bartl 2007). A wide range of organisations
are engaging with users to co-create product and service ideas (e.g., Lego, Adidas, Self) and
this approach is also being explored in the business-to-business marketplace (Reichwald,
Moeslein et al. 2007; Neyer, Doll et al. 2008). These models are also finding increasing
application in the field of social and public sector innovation in areas such as healthcare
(Pickles, Hide et al. 2008; Bason 2011; Kuenne, Moeslein et al. 2013). Tools for enabling
higher levels of user participation are increasingly available and framework methodologies
such as design thinking are increasingly seen as relevant (Mulgan 2007; NESTA 2011; NESTA
2014).

With the growing interest in this field have come some emergent patterns amongst user
innovators. For example Flowers (2014) suggest three characteristic types of user-innovation
value creation: spontaneous, orchestrated or managed.
Spontaneous UI occurs when user activity around a product, service (or their
combination) leads to novel outcomes. The value may be in the form of ideation for
future versions of a commercially produced item, modifications or extensions to the
item, or new uses that lay beyond the intentions of the original design.
Exceptionally, some users will spontaneously create their own entirely novel
product or service. The key challenge for innovation management is knowing how
firms should react and whether there is any benefit in seeking to transition such
user activity to an orchestrated or managed mode.
Orchestrated UI occurs when a firm seeks to influence the innovative behaviour of users
so as to channel their creative energies into an outcome that will generate
(economic, promotional, or reputational) value for the firm. Orchestration takes
the form of activities that seek to harness the cognitive surpluses to generate value,
but where the final outcomes tend to be less controllable and defined than in
managed UI (e.g., opening up, or closing, product architecture in order to encourage
or influence innovative user activity). The key challenge for innovation
management in this context is to predict the direction in which firms should seek to
orchestrate user activity, how they should react to unexpected developments, and if
there is any benefit in seeking to transition such user activity to a managed mode.
Managed UI occurs when a firm directly manages the innovative behaviour of users in
order to channel their creative energies into an outcome that will generate value for
the firm. Again, such value may be economic, promotional or reputational. In this
context firms will seek to build a managed framework around user activity that
feeds directly into their (i.e., the firms’) own value streams. For example the
German car components company Webasto works with a selected panel of lead

11
 users to generate, evaluate and co-develop ideas which form the basis for new
concepts in sun roof and related accessories.

3.3 Innovation systems and ecosystems.

A number of frameworks have been developed in an effort to reflect and understand the sheer
complexity of innovation processes, with many sharing in a common focus on the systemic
qualities of innovation. This is evident, for example, in the suggestion that innovation is
shaped in important ways by the national context in which it takes place (Freeman, 1987;
Lundvall, 1992; Nelson, 1993; Patel and Pavitt, 1994). Studies of national innovation systems
(NIS) emphasise the multiple linkages between different actors and institutions. As
summarised by the OECD (1997):

Innovation and technical progress are the result of a complex set of relationships
among actors producing, distributing and applying various kinds of knowledge. The
innovation performance of a country depends to a large extent on how these actors
relate to each other as elements of a collective system of knowledge creation and use
as well as the technologies they use. These actors are primarily private enterprises,
universities and public research institutes and the people within them. (p. 7)

The concept of NIS was an important milestone in the growing challenge to simplistic linear
input-output models of innovation that effectively black-boxed the innovation process by
ignoring the detailed interactions between the actors involved. However, it quickly becomes
clear that the national level is not the only geographical scale at which such interactions occur.
Working at a finer level of granularity, there are those who have identified regional patterns in
innovative activity, highlighting the role of more localised clusters of activities, actors and
institutions (e.g. Cooke, 2001; Markusen, 1996). At the same time, it is obvious that the web of
interactions involved in innovation are not constrained by national boundaries, with the
production, flows, and use of knowledge taking on a decidedly transnational and even global
character. Consequently, rather than making assumptions at the outset about the appropriate
geographical scale to focus on, it is preferable to follow the specific interactions of any
particular innovation system regardless of where they take place. Since innovation systems
are necessarily constituted by the activities and interactions of those involved, determining
the landscape and boundaries of any given system is largely an empirical matter of mapping
what is there. Influencing and developing innovation systems, however, also requires an
understanding of the dynamics of the system which is more often addressed within the
literature on ecosystems.

While sharing a similar systemic orientation to the NIS literature, the ecosystem concept can
be distinguished by its use of analogies drawn between socio-economic and biological
ecosystems (Lansiti and Levien, 2004; Moore, 1993, 1996). According to Moore (1993), a key
feature of any ecosystem is co-evolution. Thus, in the case of a business ecosystem, the
activities of any single organisation cannot be considered in isolation. They are caught up in a
whole network of interdependencies, whereby change in one part of the system can have far-
reaching, and often unexpected effects, in other parts of the system. In this interlinked
environment, companies co-evolve capabilities around a new innovation: they work

12
cooperatively and competitively to support new products, satisfy customer needs, and eventually
incorporate the next round of innovations (Moore, 1993, p. 76). Also, just as natural
ecosystems are structured around different roles and functions, so too are innovation
ecosystems. This is typically based on some degree of co-specialisation whereby firms and
other organisations engage in different, yet complementary activities (Zahra and Nambisan,
2012). However, this interdependent specialisation can work both to support and constrain
innovation. For example, Adner and Kapoor (2010) have shown how innovation challenges
either upstream or downstream from a focal firm can act as a bottleneck in value creation.

It is here that the innovation ecosystems metaphor begins to part company with its biological
counterpart because there is scope for actors intentionally to shape the strategy and direction
of the system. As Moore (1993) has argued:

... it's precisely in the role of conscious direction that a strictly biological metaphor
is no longer useful. Business communities, unlike biological communities of co-
evolving organisms, are social systems. And social systems are made up of real
people who make decisions; the larger patterns are made up by a complex network
of choices, which depend, at least in part, on what participants are aware of. (pp.
85-86)

Of course, the complexity and nonlinearity of ecosystem interactions means there are
limitations to such conscious direction. In addition, the capacity of actors within the
ecosystem to influence it is not evenly distributed. In particular, the innovation ecosystems
literature often highlights the central role of a core firm or keystone player that plays a
dominant part in orchestrating the activities of the system, typically by shaping the structure
of incentives and risks (e.g. Lansiti and Levien, 2004; Moore, 1996; Nambisan and Sawhney,
2011). There are close parallels here with the study of business model innovation and so-
called platform strategies (Gawer and Cusumano, 2002, 2013; Lambert and Davidson, 2012).
The latter are concerned with the formation of shared architectures that create the
opportunity for multiple complementary innovations. Gawer and Cusumano (2013) define
external or industry platforms as:

... products, services, or technologies developed by one or more firms, and which
serve as foundations upon which a larger number of firms can build further
complementary innovations and potentially generate network effects. There is a
similarity to internal platforms in that industry platforms provide a foundation of
reusable common components or technologies, but they differ in that this
foundation is open to external firm. (p. 420)

They go on to point out similarities between an industry platform and a dominant design, both
of which establish standards that influence the expected form and characteristics of a family of
products (Abernathy and Utterback, 1978). However, they also suggest differences between
the concepts. While a dominant design tends to emerge as a result of relatively undirected
evolutionary dynamics, industry platforms are subject to more purposeful decision making.
This contrast between more emergent and strategically directed industrial configurations has
been picked up in the innovation ecosystems literature. Zahra and Nambisan (2012), for
example, have identified four different types of ecosystem that reflect some of the current

13
changes in the innovation landscape. These indicate quite different distributions of roles and
activities, with varying implications for the nature of strategic management within each
ecosystem. The four models are as follows:

1) Orchestra - This is equivalent to a platform strategy whereby a keystone

player establishes a shared architecture around which the activities of
different specialist firms can be orchestrated. Examples of keystone players
include Microsoft and Google. The keystone company plays an important
role in shaping the overall ecosystem.

2) Creative Bazaar - In this ecosystem, a focal company searches for, integrates,

and exploits external technologies, products, and ideas, potentially drawn
from across the entire global marketplace or bazaar. In this case, the
dominant firm is still strategically directed in leveraging external knowledge,
but it has less control over the activities of the myriad other firms that make
up the ecosystem.

3) Jam Central - The third ecosystem model is more organic and emergent than
the previous two. It involves horizontal collaboration between independent
entities seeking to develop opportunities in a radically new field that is often
quite separate, and potentially disruptive, for existing ecosystems. These
collaborations have an improvisational character, with relatively
decentralised forms of governance.

4) MOD Station - This ecosystem is similar to, and may coexist with, the
platform approach of the Orchestra model. In this case, a dominant firm
provides a product or platform architecture around which modding
communities of innovators coalesce. Although the keystone firm may adopt
different stances towards these external communities, some seeking to
control their activities more than others (e.g. the alternative ways that
Google and Apple have structured platforms for mobile app development),
the modding communities are not subject to close control and evolve along
their own trajectories and according to their own institutional logics.

There is obviously a degree of stylisation in these models and they are by no means exhaustive
of the ways that innovation ecosystems can be configured. However, they do suggest how
different distributions of roles and activities, as well as power, knowledge, and resources,
throughout the ecosystem can have important implications for its shape and evolution. It is
also important to consider these models from a dynamic perspective. One of the criticisms
levelled at some of the NIS literature has been the tendency for rather static analyses of the
overall innovation system, despite looking at the detailed dynamics of knowledge flows within
the system. The notion of an innovation ecosystem, in contrast, directs attention not only to
the internal structure and operation of the system, but also its evolution through time, as well
as in relation to other ecosystems. Moore (1993) argued that innovation ecosystems develop
through a series of stages that, just like biological ecosystems, tend to reflect a progressive
movement from lower to higher levels of structure and organisation. He named these stages:
birth, expansion, leadership, self-renewal (or death). This indicates a common pathway for the

14
development of an ecosystem from the initial emergence of competing niche innovations, to
their selection and expansion into wider markets, maturity and stabilisation with incremental
improvements, and then either their renewal or obsolescence and replacement by alternative
innovations. If Moore (1993) is correct in suggesting that innovation ecosystems tend to
become more structured and stabilised over time, then one of the challenges for firms
operating within this environment is how to manage the benefits of ecosystem involvement at
the same time as recognising the dangers of lock-in and stagnation (c.f. Christensen, 1997).

3.4: Disruptive and discontinuous innovation.

A significant challenge to existing incumbents is when shifts of triggers in the environment
demand or offer radically different responses to the dominant. Such triggers may be the
emergence of new technologies or markets (Utterback and Acee 2005; Christensen, Anthony
et al. 2007; Augsdorfer, Bessant et al. 2013), new competitors, or shifts in the regulatory
context. Their key characteristic is that they shift the pattern from steady state innovation to a
period of discontinuity in which new responses often involving new actors or networks play a
role.

Disruptive innovation is a term originally coined by Clayton Christensen and it occurs when
new signals at the fringe of existing markets or technology spaces suggest radically new
directions. These are often taken up by non-traditional actors: established incumbents are
often slow to respond because of the path dependency and lock in associated with their
existing value networks.

In response, incumbents tend to reinforce their innovation routines (behaviour patterns) and
the signals they receive from within their existing networks support this (Prahalad 2004; Day
and Schoemaker 2006).

Disruption occurs when these two trajectories collide, with the new players working from the
fringe destabilising the existing market conditions and creating a new basis within which
innovation takes place. Such conditions favour the new entrants and pose significant
challenges for established players; a good example is the way in which low cost airlines
changed the market for short-haul flying. The early players worked at the fringes of the
mainstream effectively learning a new approach based on meeting the needs of a peripheral
potential market of people who did not yet fly. Learning and developing responses to meet
their needs then opened up the possibility to spread the model to challenge the existing airline
market on the basis of simpler and significantly lower cost propositions.

This highlights the underlying problem of established cognitive frames and the role of
knowledge networks in maintaining these frames, and avoiding cognitive dissonance. All
organisations make sense of the world in terms of models and assumptions which shape what
they do, what they pay attention to, and why. These mental models focus attention on key
technologies, competitors, markets, and so on, but in the process set up the risk that the
organisations can be blind to other stimuli not consistent with those models (Kaplan, Murray
et al. 2003). The example of Polaroid is a case in point; although they were very early to spot
the technological shift around digital imaging they were unable to adapt their view of the
world to see the different market and application space which was opening up (Tripsas and

15
Gavetti 2000).

Linked to this are the issues associated with what Henderson and Clark (1990) termed
architectural and component innovation). Organisations construct knowledge networks to
provide technological and market information and these represent important channels along
which innovation can be developed. However, when changes in the environment change the
interrelationship between knowledge sets – what they term an architectural shift – then the
old knowledge networks are no longer relevant and may even get in the way of building new
ones to carry new signals supporting the new architecture.

Evidence suggests that established organisations find it difficult to shift their mind-sets or the
underlying knowledge architecture. Disruptive innovation represents a major field of study
and a key implication is that established organisations need to retain or develop capacity for
corporate entrepreneurship – for search and operation in the fluid state (Tushman and
O'Reilly 1996). The difficulty for established players is the need to let go and reinvent
themselves via new; what is known as finding, forming and performing challenges
(Birkinshaw, Bessant et al. 2007).

The problems faced by incumbents in doing this present fundamental challenges to their
culture and routines (Christensen 1997). There is an extensive discussion of the difficulties
which established organisations find themselves in when confronted by discontinuity. As
noted, this can arise from the emergence of new technologies, new markets, new regulatory
frameworks, etc., but the effect is the same in that the old established routines for innovation
management fail to work. The problem is compounded because the tendency is to reinforce
the old routines rather than search for new ones – for example, redoubling efforts to get close
to existing customers when the challenge is actually to find ways to engage with those in a
newly emerging market with very different characteristics.

Christensen set up the challenge for established incumbents as the innovator’s dilemma but of
course this represents a time of opportunity for new entrants who do not have the
organisational or cognitive baggage which might impede their developing new routines. The
literature has an extensive exploration of the challenge of ambidexterity and, in particular, the
need for internal entrepreneurship, different structural arrangements for corporate
entrepreneurship and different parallel routines associated with this (Tushman and O'Reilly
1996; Birkinshaw and Gibson 2004). There are major challenges involved in resolving these
tensions and the literature around corporate entrepreneurship explores the ways in which
such venture groups search, select and implement and how these often conflict with the
mainstream.

3.5: Public and social innovation.

(a) Public sector innovation.

In the private sector, the need to implement new products, processes or organisational
methods is often viewed as a survival imperative – innovate or fail. It is interesting to contrast
this with the findings of a recent report by Su Maddock (Maddock 2008) on public-sector
innovation:

16
 for years, officials’ speeches have talked about the need for creativity,
entrepreneurialism and innovation in public services, and there are plenty of
innovative people working in departments and agencies. But despite the talk,
innovation is very rarely taken seriously. There are few people in the public sector
whose job it is to find innovations or to fund them, grow them, assess them and
spread them about. Innovation has had nothing like the focused attention paid to
performance management. And, unlike in the private sector, very few people get to
the top because of innovations they have pioneered. (p. 4)

This suggests that public-sector innovation cannot really be described as a survival imperative,
as in the corporate sector – in fact, it has traditionally been seen as, at best, an optional extra.
The same report suggests a lack of individual capacities, attention and incentives for
innovation in the public sector.

The need for innovation in the public sector is clear but there are problems attached to its
execution. As Hartley (2005) points out the challenge is in balancing not only risk and reward
as in the private sector but also in maintaining reliability as public services must be
dependable. This sets up an innate bias towards playing safe and reduces the incentive to take
risks, which is a problem compounded by the fact that many public sector innovations are
highly visible and the consequences of failure can be career limiting.

Hartley also makes the point that public sector innovation takes place in a highly contested
space; unlike the pattern in business where there is often a dominant strategic logic, public
sector innovation involves multiple actors with different perspectives.

Despite these limitations there is growing interest and activity in the public sector innovation
space; Bason and Bekkers provide rich accounts of different approaches in a variety of public
sectors and across several countries (Bason 2011; Bekkers, Edelenbos et al. 2011). Bason’s
book also highlights the role which a catalytic agency (in his case Mindlab, established by the
Danish ministries of Taxation, Economic Affairs and Employment) can play in mobilising and
enabling such innovation across a broad front. Albury (2004) and colleagues have looked at
the potential in a number of UK sectors as well as addressing some of the core issues around
diffusion and scalability. This is a theme picked up by Hartley and Downe (2007) who
examined the role of beacon councils as innovation leaders highlighting new pathways for
innovation which had the potential to become dominant designs. Research for the
Sunningdale Institute suggested that there are multiple models for the innovation process
within the health sector rather than a one size fits all approach, and within these models there
exists considerable scope for mobilizing innovation (Bessant, Richards et al. 2010). Research
by NESTA suggests that the toolkit; for public service innovation needs to draw upon methods
which work with users and in particular emphasizes techniques drawn from the world of
service design (NESTA 2014).

(b) Social Innovation

Social innovation – innovation for the greater good – has a long tradition, with examples
dating back to some of the great social reformers. For example, in the UK the strong Quaker
values held by key entrepreneurial figures like George Cadbury led to innovations in social

17
housing, community development and education as well as in the factories which they
organized and managed (Hirst 2002). As Mulgan and colleagues (2007) point out:

The great wave of industrialisation and urbanisation in the nineteenth century was
accompanied by an extraordinary upsurge of social enterprise and innovation:
mutual self-help, microcredit, building societies, cooperatives, trade.

The tradition continues with a growing recognition of the importance of social

entrepreneurship and an understanding of the underlying business models which can support
the generation of sufficient returns to make a social enterprise sustainable in the long term
(Murray, Caulier-Grice et al. 2010). A key characteristic of social innovations is that they are
primarily motivated by the goal of meeting a social need, and that the innovation is
predominantly diffused through third-sector organisations whose purposes are social (Mulgan,
et al., 2007). An understanding of social innovation broadens the motivations for innovation
beyond profit and public service – social innovation can be driven by goals such as equity,
rights and the alleviation of suffering.

Infrastructure investments (like the Big Society Capital fund in the UK and specialist venture
funds like Acumen in the USA) provide an alternative source of capital, and co-ordinating
agencies (e.g, the Young Foundation) provide further support for the mobilisation and
institutionalisation of social innovation. The literature on entrepreneurship increasingly
recognises the motivational and identity characteristics behind social entrepreneurs and their
desire to make a difference rather than a fortune (Gruber and Fauchart 2011).

That social innovation takes place is well-documented; of more significance is a focus on the
nature of innovation which emerges from this process. Ramalingam and colleagues (2010)
suggest that social innovation involves three specific elements:

 Social innovations are usually new combinations or hybrids of existing elements,

rather than being wholly new in themselves.

 Implementing them involves cutting across organisational, sectoral or

disciplinary boundaries. They create new social relationships between
previously separate individuals and groups, contributing to the diffusion and
embedding of the innovation, and increasing potential for further innovations.

 Social innovation is seen as building on the inherent capacities of individuals and

communities, which makes the notion of open innovation especially relevant.

This process is arguably long established in the social sector, but without conscious efforts to
establish innovation intermediaries and networking mechanisms to support identification,
scale-up and dissemination of innovations. Leading proponents of public- and social-sector
innovation have argued that it should become a core activity in these sectors (Mulgan and
Albury, 2003; NAO, 2000). They also recognise that, in the absence of the profit motive, it is
essential to provide other incentives for innovation.

18
3.6: Complementary approaches.

3.6.1: Design thinking.

Although design methods date back many decades there has been a resurgence of interest in
these approaches, driven in part by the growing profile of design in companies like Apple
(Gregory 1975; Corfield 1979; Bessant, Neely et al. 2006). Importantly design thinking is an
approach rather than something specifically linked to product design and the tools and
methods are of particular relevance in engaging stakeholders at an early stage and in working
with them to explore prototypes. This has value in developing innovations which have user
perspectives built in and thus stand a better chance of widespread adoption and diffusion.

Studies of design thinking range from the theoretical (Verganti 2009) through to the
technique-oriented accounts by design practitioners (Kelley, Littman et al. 2001) and into the
world of users where these approaches have been of value (Von Stamm 2003; Brown 2009). A
key theme in this is working with users and tools like ethnography, empathic design,
prototyping and storyboarding are important additions to the front-end innovation
management toolkit.

Once again such approaches have been widely applied outside the commercial sector (Bate
and Robert 2006; Bevan, Robert et al. 2007), in public services and in social innovation
(Mulgan 2007; Murray, Caulier-Grice et al. 2010). Of relevance is the concern in such activities
to aim for wider scaling of innovations. The model offered by Robin Murray and colleagues,
for example, has multiple stages which include prompts, inspiration and diagnosis, proposals
and ideas, prototypes and pilots, sustaining, scaling and diffusion, systemic change.

3.6.2: New entrepreneurship approaches.

Entrepreneurship is increasingly being seen as involving learned skills, rather than being
personality or trait-based. This has led to an expansion of courses on entrepreneurship and
the development of a robust toolkit to support such learning, which has been called scaffolding
(Shane 2003). Whereas the focus used to be on the Business Plan this is increasingly seen as a
static device which relies on being able to assemble information ahead of what is an uncertain
development process along technological and market fronts. Instead emphasis is shifting to
considering the process of planning – for example by using business models as a narrative
structure for engaging and prototyping (Osterwalder and Pigneur 2010). Approaches like the
lean start-ups and similar structured methodologies help to make explicit the underlying
approach and process for working in uncertain environments (Ries 2011) via rapid
experimentation and learning. Key tools and terms emerging from this space include the
notion of agility, fast failure, minimum viable product, pivots and scrums. All of them describe
tools and approaches which lend themselves to planned fast experimentation allowing
exploration of novel ideas whilst minimising unnecessary risks. Many of these ideas are being
taken up in the wide discussion surrounding social entrepreneurship.

3.6.3: Platform and complex project systems.

Large-scale innovation activities such as major construction projects or the roll out of mobile
communication networks involve multiple players and require co-ordination of innovation as
well as physical inputs where multiple actors converge around a core problem and operate in
symbiosis. The project becomes the unit of analysis rather than product, and there is a shift
towards providing solutions to problems rather than pushing products (Davies 1997; Davies

19
and Hobday 2005). As such activities depend on creating and managing systems of interacting
players so the role of systems integrator and the tools and methods associated with working
at this level become important (Miller, Hobday et al. 1995). This approach is also becoming
relevant as organisations seek to build and sustain platforms. This might be internal
architectures which allow multiple generations of products, or external (such as the i-Phone
or Android) where the platform requires the creation and management of a system of
interacting players (Gawer and Cusumano 2002).

3.6.4: Service innovation.

The service sector has been explored for some time in innovation studies (Barras 1986).
However it is growing in importance as researchers explore the extent to which such
innovation is similar to, or different from, that associated with products. One particular
dimension is the role of users; whilst some back office service innovation is analogous to
process innovation elsewhere the main difference in innovation in service offering is the key
role played by the customer/user in the process. The literature on service innovation draws
close links with user-led innovation and the ideas of co-creation as well as to the concept of
outcome oriented innovation, described as what jobs people need to have done and products
as tangible services (Ulnwick 2005).

Research on service innovation has begun to explore the economic impact it has via global
value chains on development and growth (Meliciani and Savona 2014) .

3.6.5: Inclusive innovation.

New terminology has been adopted for a range of inclusive innovation activities with various
names such as frugal, grassroots, jugaad, bottom of pyramid (BoP) innovation, all of which have
some degree of roots back in appropriate technology and intermediate technology
(Schumacher 1973; Prahalad 2006; NESTA 2012; Radjou, Prabhu et al. 2012). The challenge
around designing for, with and by users opens up significant new possibilities for not only
finding solutions to problems but also in ensuring those solutions are compatible with the
local context and have a higher chance of successful diffusion (Smith, Fressoli et al. 2013). At
the same time the systematic use of techniques such as those around lean thinking can be
applied to the challenging new context of emerging economies where income levels are low
and infrastructure weak and poorly developed (George, McGahan et al. 2012; Sonne
2012). Examples include radical improvements in healthcare productivity through applying
techniques like target costing, process mapping and cellular production (Crisp 2010).

Innovations developed in this context not only have relevance for their immediate community;
they may also have the potential for what has been termed innovation blowback and reverse
innovation, where lessons learned in these contexts can have implications and possibly
disruptive effects back in developed economies (Seely Brown and Hagel 2005; Govindarajan,
Trimble et al. 2012).

3.6.6: Networked innovation.

Increasingly there is use of systems language and the recognition that the locus of operation
and control may move from the individual enterprise (20th century model) to the distributed
network, orchestrated and co-ordinated by key players. Examples exist around supply chain
governance (Dyer and Nobeoka 2000), complex product systems integrators, platform
orchestrators and ecosystem managers (Gereffi 1994; Gann and Salter 2000; Gawer and

20
Cusumano 2002). An important part of this discussion is that with the shift away from the
individual firm as the central organising agency so questions emerge of who shapes the
architecture, who controls the system, how can it be shaped and co-ordinated? This connects
with our earlier detailed discussion around ecosystems for innovation and raises some
important policy issues for external actors, whether governments, agencies, or NGOs, in terms
of the roles they can play in convening, co-ordinating and developing such systems.

3.7: Navigating diverse models: the innovation management matrix.

Many readers may at this stage be feeling rather overwhelmed with the diversity of models.
For heuristic purposes, we present here a commonly used tool developed by the authors to
navigate these disparate models: the innovation management matrix (figure 2) which is
defined by two axes. The vertical is the degree of novelty involved, running from incremental
(doing what we do but better) through to radical innovation (doing something completely
different). The horizontal is a measure of environmental complexity, defined as the number of
elements in the environment and their interaction, running from simple to complex.

This is, of course, a massive simplification but it helps organise our understanding of relevant
routines – behaviour patterns which become embedded in structures, processes, etc. – and the
ways in which we approach innovation management under different conditions. In particular
it provides a contingency model for managing innovation; it is not that any approach is right or
wrong but rather that there are different approaches required to deal with the different kinds
of challenges identified in the matrix. Its role is thus to help us deal with the wood and trees
problem identified in section 1 and to better conceptualise and map the different strands of
innovation management.

Figure 2: A contingency model for innovation management

21
Zone 1 (bottom left) of this model is a simple environment, typified by predictable trajectories,
known competitors, well-understood markets, established technological sources, etc.
Innovation here is about exploit and favours established incumbents since it brings well-oiled
experience and leverages prior knowledge. It plays on well-established routines and exploits
strong ties within existing networks; it is predominantly about incremental improvement
innovation.

Zone 2 (top left) is exploring within this broad frame, pushing the trajectory but not jumping
off it. Innovation here involves calculated risks, bigger investments in learning and spreading
the search net more widely but it also still assumes that core framework conditions do not
change. Examples here might be Intel building a next generation chip, GSK finding a new
blockbuster drug, or Microsoft pioneering a new move in operating systems. Innovation here
is closer to radical but still within a bounded frame.

By contrast Zones 3 and 4 (right hand side) are characterised by complexity – interactions and
secondary effects resulting from these interactions. They are less prone to managed and
planned innovation because they represent evolving situations which bring in new elements –
new stakeholders, new technologies, different market constituencies, etc. In general working
in this space is less about predictability and planned innovation and more about exploration
and experiment. In short it requires much more of an entrepreneurial orientation.

The key differences between the two sides are around the need for entrepreneurial mind-set
and behaviours on the right hand side and the importance of systematic and organised
approaches on the left. Not surprisingly if the same organisation is trying to exhibit both kinds
of behaviour it can result in considerable tensions – the ambidexterity challenge discussed by
several writers.

Zones 3 and 4 correspond to the fluid state where many things are possible, multiple
experiments are involved and there are many failures which can lead to learning. There is a
gradual emergence of a dominant design which can then be refined and provide a stable
innovation which can then diffuse. In complexity theory terms this corresponds to the
identification of an attractor basin and the subsequent process of emergence is one of
feedback and amplification around this core node. It is a process of co-evolution amongst the
elements in the interaction.

Innovations which begin here and emerge as dominant designs can move leftwards towards a
stable state. For example in the case of low cost airlines, complexity came from the challenge
of bringing in new elements – people who didn’t fly - and adding them to the mix. The fluid
state involved considerable experimentation around a different configuration, mixing all the
ingredients around flying, planes, passengers, processes. Eventually this stabilised to a core
business model which looks very different and which emerges as a result of extensive learning
with a new market.

So innovation in such complex environments is not the result of a master plan but rather an
emergence channelled by active entrepreneurs working in the space. The emerging new
toolkit of lean start-up is relevant here based on equipping entrepreneurs for learning fast

22
with new markets, experimenting, failing and testing, deploying minimum viable products,
pivoting and hunting towards stable and viable options.

In the next section we look at the literature which specifically deals with the question of
humanitarian innovation and emerging themes in this space.

23
4. Humanitarian innovation: An overview

4.1: Overview of the literature.3

The humanitarian sector is a relative newcomer to innovation, in terms of both practices and
literature. There were no publications focused on the subject until 2009, making humanitarian
innovation literature around a century younger than the overall innovation management field.
The paucity of quality research is perhaps best illustrated through the systematic literature
searches conducted for this review. Of the two major journals which include a focus on
international humanitarian aid, one, Disasters, cites the term innovation 145 times, of which 13
related to specific innovations, and 10 of these related to innovations in disaster preparedness.
The other, the Journal of Humanitarian Assistance, has only 10 instances, of which 2 relate to
specific innovations. Neither journal had any instances of the term innovation management.
There has been a rise in newer titles focusing on specific issues, such as the Journal of
Humanitarian Logistics and Supply Chain Management, where the term innovation is much
more commonly used. On the innovations side, the terms humanitarian and disasters have
periodic flashes of interest, most notably after Haiti, when MIT’s Innovations journal ran a
dedicated special issue on the challenges of recovery and the role of innovation entrepreneurs
in areas such as banking and infrastructure (Auerswald and Quadir, 2010).

4.2 ALNAP study and HIF approach to innovation management.

Work that specifically focuses on using frameworks and concepts from mainstream innovation
management to think about humanitarian aid effectiveness is very small indeed, numbering
less than about ten pieces of work in total. In a formative study published in 2009, ALNAP
drew on the notion of different stages of innovation and different types of innovation
(Ramalingam, Scriven and Foley, 2009). That study picked up on five distinct cases of
innovation, and analysed them in terms of how the ideas progressed from recognition through
to diffusion, making it the first systematic assessment of innovation management in the sector.
The study closed with a framework for humanitarian innovation that showed that innovation
forms and processes were embedded in three supporting areas (see figure 3):

 Capacities, including of innovation entrepreneurs and leaders; field and

operational staff; researchers and evaluators, and external experts, including
the private sector;
 Relationships, including with affected populations, within aid agencies,
between international and national actors, with researchers and academics,
with the private sector, and between operational agencies;
 Contextual factors relating to the sector, including culture of risk, financing,
codes and standards and incentives.

The study showed that for the five case studies, the turning point in innovation management
involved not just a series of windows of opportunity for a new idea or practice, but also

3This review does not include a comprehensive description of the innovation related activities being
undertaken by various UN agencies and other humanitarian aid donors and NGOs as these are well
documented in Betts and Bloom (2014). Furthermore, it is a prime example of a field in which there are
numerous active blogs. As explained in footnote 1, while we did scan this literature a decision was
taken that they fell outside the scope of this review.

24
serious constraints on the existing standard operating procedures, so that there was little
choice but for a new approach to be attempted. This embryonic view of the humanitarian
innovation system provides a precursor for the present study, in that the focus is now to
understand how these diverse elements get mobilised in support of the core innovation
management process.

The Humanitarian Innovation Fund which was one of the key outcomes of the 2009 ALNAP
study took the key ideas of innovation processes and attempted to make them concrete by the
provision of structured finance for different stages of a range of on-going innovation processes.
Supported largely by DFID, it remains the most sustained attempt to bring innovation
management into the sector as a whole. However, as is clear from a recent review (Willits-
King, 2014), the current focus on financing innovation processes may be necessary but not
sufficient for strengthening the overall innovation ecosystem.

4.3: A slowly growing general literature.

Since the 2009 study, there have been a handful of general reviews that have explored
different aspects innovation management per se. The University of Oxford’s Humanitarian
Innovation Project (OxHIP) has published a review of the nature of innovation (Betts and
Bloom, 2013). This highlights the need for more bottom-up, user driven innovation especially
amongst refugee groups. OxHIP (2014) also has a work-in-progress review of the progress of
humanitarian innovation policies and practices, with an emphasis on the state of the art, and
an overview of organisational approaches to innovation.

There have also been some influential reviews of humanitarian aid which include a focus on
innovation. By far the most prominent has been the Humanitarian Emergency Response
Review led by Lord Paddy Ashdown of the UK Government’s aid efforts (HMG, 2011). This
contained a dedicated chapter and recommendations on innovations, and directly led to
DFID’s evidence and innovation strategy (DFID, 2012). More recently, UNOCHA focused on
digital innovation in their 2013 flagship review of global humanitarian aid, which imagines
how a world of increasingly informed, connected and self-reliant communities will affect the
delivery of humanitarian aid. Its conclusions suggest a fundamental shift in power from capital
and headquarters to the people [that] aid agencies aim to assist. (UNOCHA, 2013) Though a
new generation of technologies was seen as vital, what was also important was the shift in aid
agencies themselves: If aid organisations are willing to listen, learn and encourage innovation
on the front lines, they can play a critical role in building a more inclusive and more effective
humanitarian system.

25
 Figure 3: An emerging framework for humanitarian innovation. Source: ALNAP (2009)

4.4: Sector-specific reviews and case studies.

There have been numerous sector-specific reviews of innovation and R&D. Most notable have
been the MSF review of medical innovations (MSF, 2011) which presented a series of self-
assessed case studies of new humanitarian-specific treatment protocols for cholera,
meningitis, sleeping sickness, malaria and AIDS. The focus is on MSF’s contribution to a variety
of innovation processes, and sheds important light on how these processes, if successful, upset
existing relationships between institutions, between practitioners, and between researchers
thereby producing tension and shifting alliances. This is described vividly as a political process
with numerous twists and turns in the innovation process, arguments for and against change,
and the need for firm and focused advocacy to move innovations from the experimental phase
into therapeutic use (MSF, 2011). In particular, they highlight the role of MSF as forcing
innovation to happen.

26
Other sector reviews have taken a rather different stance, looking not at successes but at what
still needs to be done: the potential of innovation to improve practices. For example, the HIF
has commissioned a review of the gaps in emergency water and sanitation that would be the
focus of targeted innovation management processes (Bastable, 2013). The Shelter Centre has
convened similar processes in emergency shelter (Shelter Centre, 2014).

There have also been stand-alone case studies of specific innovation processes. Most have
been developed by the institutions already mentioned here: ALNAP have produced seven case
studies by way of follow-up to the original report (ALNAP, 2014), there are a number of HIF
project reports (HIF, 2014), and several OxHIP reviews (OxHIP, 2014).

4.5: Emerging trends in humanitarian innovation.

This section draws on the available literature to highlight some emerging trends. It is worth
noting that an in-depth coverage of these issues is not possible given the aforementioned
limits of the literature.

4.5.1: Steady evolution of innovation practices.

Overall, innovation practices do appear to be slowly evolving in the sector: the growing use of
design-led approaches in public, social and development innovation is now diffusing into the
humanitarian sector (HIF, 2013; OxHIP, 2012). At the current time, this seems to take user-led
as far as front-line workers, with few concrete examples of aid recipients being involved in
innovation processes (OxHIP, 2012). There are however, more examples of innovations that
seek to re-orient the aid relationship with the recipient playing a more central role, such as
cash. The success or failure of such efforts fundamentally depends of the ability of aid agencies
to move from being top-down deliverers to open-source curators and facilitators (ALNAP,
2012).

4.5.2: Technology viewed as prime enabler.

There is an equal amount of excitement and cynicism about the role of technology (ALNAP,
2009; UNOCHA, 2013): as an innovation in its own right, and as a supporting factor in
innovation management processes. Some prominent international organisations with an
interest in humanitarian innovation have not moved very far beyond the deployment of
mobile technologies in responses. The challenge here is that this may lead to simply bringing
mobile technologies into existing processes, rather than seeking to significantly change these
processes. Separately, there has been a lot of interest in big data approaches, on the role of
UAVs, 3D printing, and other cutting-edge technologies (UNOCHA, 2013). These vary
considerably in terms of their potential for deployment in operations.

4.5.3: Tension between top-down and emergent innovation.

There is an emerging tension between top-down planned interventions and bottom-up
emergent innovations: it can be argued that many of the most top-down efforts are analogous
to innovations in large companies and focus on incremental developments of established ideas.
The corollary also seems to hold true: some of the emergent, user-led innovations such as cash
have proved radical precisely because they emerge in through direct consideration and
inclusion of end-users and their needs (ALNAP, 2009; MSF, 2011).

27
4.5.4: Tension between open and closed approaches.
There is also a tension between open and closed innovation processes. Many agencies now
have dedicated innovation departments, and focus on strengthening innovation in their own
field or sector of expertise – UNHCR in shelter, WFP in food, and so on. The sectoral global
clusters are seen as having a potential role to play in facilitating open innovation across the
key sectors, but this raises questions about innovations that cut across sectors and silos
(HERR, 2011). In parallel, there has been an emergence of a more collective approach to
innovation, especially in new technological approaches. The Digital Humanitarian Network is a
central player in this space as a network of networks (Digital Humanitarian Network, 2014).

4.5.5: Growing interest in role of private sector.

There is a growth in private sector interest in humanitarian innovation, albeit limited to high-
profile natural disasters (HERR, 2011). Increasing numbers of aid agencies are seeking to
partner with the private sector across the innovation process, whether in terms of helping to
recognise opportunities or challenges, or at a later stage in terms of developing and
implementing new innovations.

28
5. Bringing innovation management to humanitarian aid: key
challenges from the literature

Given the above exploration of key themes in the innovation management literature, we can
point to a number of lessons that can be draw out which might have relevance to
humanitarian innovation ecosystems. First of all there are some core generic trends which are
reshaping the innovation landscape and which may offer new opportunities for different
approaches in the HI case – for example the massive opening up of innovation to multiple
players and the increasing potential for engaging users at both front end and in diffusion of
innovation.

At the same time the challenge remains of how to operate in a highly uncertain and complex
environment and to enable not just incremental improvements in efficiency but also radical
solutions to crisis situations.

5.1: The core capacity challenge.

One of the core strands in the mainstream innovation management literature deals with the
accumulation of innovation management capability (variously expressed under labels like
absorptive capacity). This literature suggests that there is considerable scope for identifying
and training the relevant skills in individuals and groups to enable innovation to take place,
and there has been extensive growth in courses to meet this need. This skills base extends
across the innovation spectrum and covers both entrepreneurial start-ups and innovation
operations within established businesses (Tidd and Bessant 2013). There is also considerable
experience around building this through targeted inputs of education/training supported by
rich library of relevant tools and techniques, case examples, etc.

Within the humanitarian sector it appears that these concepts are neither systematically
understood nor applied in dealing with questions of innovation management, except in a post
hoc fashion in analysing case studies. There is this potential scope for exploring the
development and implementation of skills and capability building in this space. However,
given the global and distributed nature of the sector this capacity building needs to extend
beyond simply providing a library of tools and provide instead a clear understanding of the
process of innovation and how an effective ecosystem can be organised and managed.

There may also be a case for exploring the role of intermediaries in the system – agents who
act as gatekeepers or translators across the knowledge network – and how they can be
identified and supported. For example, translating technical ideas from the worlds of big data
into workable solutions which build on user insights and needs requires a degree of
intermediation and brokerage. This connection between problem owners and problem solvers
may well extend beyond the theme of brokerage common to much of the open innovation
discussion and implies a more developed capability to translate between the two worlds.

5.2: The ambidexterity challenge.

Humanitarian innovation takes place in an environment of high uncertainty, a complex system
of interacting elements. Whilst there may be some recognisable patterns similar to things
seen in the past each crisis is, to some extent, unique. So the kind of innovations needed to

29
respond to the crisis will emerge from that particular crucible, depending on actors working in
that space. This is essentially the kind of environment in which entrepreneurs operate and
much of their approach of probe and learn, experimentation, fast failure and learning, pivoting,
etc., is characteristic of the kinds of improvisation which case studies of HI reveal takes place.

At the same time there is the more planned approach to innovation which sees the regularity
in the patterns and develops improved ways of dealing with them. Improving versions of
existing solutions are relatively commonplace, such as incremental innovation around
logistics and distribution techniques, or refined product concepts based on learning from
previous situations. But, there is a limited amount of R&D supporting this – knowing that the
next humanitarian crisis will require solutions to logistics, food distribution, water and
sanitation, etc. means that innovations can be developed for that market ahead of when they
are actually needed. So the system, represented by the major humanitarian agencies, although
innovative, is largely top-down and operates in a planned fashion which resembles the
behaviour of large corporations in mature markets.

These involve two very different kinds of approach to innovation and table 1 sets them up as
extreme archetypes in terms of their implications for managing innovation in humanitarian
contexts.

Type 1 Incremental innovation Type 2 Radical innovation

Operates within mental framework based No clear rules – these emerge over time
on clear and accepted set of rules of the High tolerance for ambiguity
game

Strategies path dependent Path independent, emergent, probe and

learn

Clear selection environment Fuzzy, emergent selection environment

Selection and resource allocation linked to Risk taking, multiple parallel bets,
clear trajectories and criteria for fit tolerance of (fast) failure

Operating routines refined and stable Operating patterns emergent and fuzzy

Strong ties and knowledge flows along Weak ties and peripheral vision important
clear channels

Table 1: Archetypes for innovation management. Source: adapted from (Phillips, Noke et al. 2006)

These two innovation strands can be seen working in parallel in some of the reported cases of
humanitarian crises, and both are necessary. The entrepreneurial operation is likely to lead to
radical innovation but has the problems of scaling and systematising whist the planned
approach runs the risk of being locked into old trajectories and unable to change or adapt.
The challenge of ambidexterity which is widely discussed in the mainstream innovation
literature appears to operate in the HI space as well. Existing incumbents (the aid agencies)

30
are well prepared for incremental innovation in the steady state, utilising a rich resource base
and operating networks based on strong established ties. In our model (see figure 2) they are
very much associated with the left hand side and able to operate well in that context.

But the right hand side of the model requires different approaches that are much more
entrepreneurial and explorative. New signals about new innovative solutions which are better
suited to the specific context are available but it requires a different model for working with
them. Established incumbents face several problems in working in this space – their
perceptual frameworks process the information in terms of prior models and experience.
Novel solutions may be rejected because of not invented here and other immune system
responses, resource allocation mechanisms may not be flexible enough to cope with
experimental ideas, risk aversion may well be embedded in structures for decision-making
and operations. This tendency, typical of large corporations, is possibly exaggerated in aid
agencies where there is a sense of social responsibility to the donors and to the perceived
welfare of the recipients; caution becomes endemic.

Recasting the HI problem as one of ambidexterity means we can look at the extensive
literature on how to deal with this innovator’s dilemma – riding both the horses of
experimental entrepreneurialism and steady state managed innovation. It’s not a case of
either/or but rather HI needs both approaches and a managed balance between them, plus
enabling structures and skills to support parallel innovation management routines.

5.3: The entrepreneurship challenge.

The few case studies of radical innovation in HI suggest the process is a classic
entrepreneurial search and pivot around emerging possibilities in the crisis space. Innovation
is the result of co-evolution and users are a key part of the process. Mapping these cases on to
the lean start-up kind of roadmap for innovation suggests that radical innovation development
in HI is similar to a start-up business. Extensive interaction, probe and learn, planned
experimentation and fast learning from failure, launching a minimum viable product as an
attempt to deal with a crisis but also learning from that and refining and pivoting. The jugaad
mind-set of improvisation is also relevant here, making do via a bricolage process rather than
importing resources from an external context.

This places emphasis on the need to support humanitarian innovation entrepreneurs. This
might be via training and skills development (so they can match their passion and
commitment to social change with relevant tools and techniques to manage the innovation
process), via venture capital/resources to enable small-scale experimentation, via licence to
experiment for those entrepreneurs working within large agencies (a kind of corporate
entrepreneurship group), via fast track decision-making to support this, etc. There is an
extensive literature around supporting entrepreneurs, both in start-up mode and in corporate
venturing settings on which development of such support might draw (Akrich, Callon et al.
2002; Burns 2011; Baron 2014).

5.4: The user challenge.

The literature stresses the importance of users in innovation, both as key sources of ideas and
as enabling configuration of solutions which are compatible with their context. This second

31
point is of particular relevance to the diffusion question; innovations won’t succeed unless
they spread and one of the big barriers to spread is compatibility in Roger’s terms. Diffusion
theory also stresses that when innovations arise from within the context of application and
are carried by people like us (homophily) they are more likely to be accepted than when they
originate outside and are carried by external agents. The change management literature
(which is essentially concerned with the adoption of process innovations inside organisations
and social systems) stresses the importance of user involvement, not simply selling and telling
but actively soliciting ideas and inputs to configure the planned process change to suit its
context.

So in the HI context, and borne out by the published case studies, is a strong line around the
need for user engagement. Entrepreneurs as change agents and catalysts working with users
can facilitate co-creation of viable and scalable solutions. This places emphasis on the tools
and techniques for such user engagement and particularly the relevance of participative
design approaches which embed this methodology.

5.5: The open innovation challenge.

Although innovation has long been recognised as a multi-player game there have been
dramatic shifts in the landscape since the turn of the twentieth century. In particular the
explosion of knowledge production and its global distribution has forced a rethink which
shifts emphasis from knowledge production to knowledge flows. This open innovation
concept has major implications for the way the innovation process operates, pushing it more
towards a networked/ecosystem basis and requiring new modes and routes to connectivity.
There are considerable opportunities in this space for humanitarian innovation, opening up
the challenges to a wide range of players and enabling knowledge flows into and out from the
sector. The issue of how best to enable this experimentation with different brokers, bridges
and knowledge catalysts (especially via the Web-enabled space) becomes a key priority.

5.6: The incentives and structures challenge.

As we saw in section 3 the challenge in public and social innovation lies in the need to balance
risk, reward and reliability – and this creates challenges for the structures and incentives put
in place to enable innovation. There is considerable scope for learning from this experience
and from some of the experimental models like Mindlab in Denmark which attempt to rethink
the ways in which innovation could be organised, supported and rewarded.

5.7: The ecosystem challenge.

As we have seen innovation is a multi-player game and increasingly is being managed on a
system level. Examples like Dell and Toyota highlight the organising and convening power of
key actors and in the area of complex product systems there is a growing recognition of the
value of systems integration capability.

Research on innovation systems suggests that it is more than simply mapping the key actors in
a regional or national system; innovation ecosystems are constructed social systems and seem
to work best when there is clear governance and tangible roles. This argues for further
exploration of the roles which could be played by major aid agencies, NGOs, and so on, and the
potential for keystone actors who can help to make the ecosystem more productive.

32
6. Emerging conclusions

Overall, and consistent with the rationale for this study, there is growing interest in
humanitarian innovation not just as the outcomes of successful processes, but as a system that
needs to be strengthened if innovation investments are to be of maximum benefit. This is
based on an understanding that the classical linear model simply does not work in most
humanitarian settings. A more sustained attempt to bring an ecosystem approach to
humanitarian innovation could have the following benefits:

• It can aid the understanding of specific innovation pathways of particular ideas

and approaches through the system, in order to get a more precise and nuanced
understanding of what enables or inhibits take-up in different contexts;
• It can help understand how different technical knowledge domains operate in
terms of innovation sub-systems;
• It can help understand the role of different actors currently in the system – from
investors; brokers; capacity builders; individual entrepreneurs; mainstream
deliverers – and the gaps that may need to be filled, for example, where are the
keystone actors?; and,
• It can help explore the role for systemic innovation in the humanitarian sector, in
terms of game-changing or paradigmatic innovations, and the barriers to these.

Realising these potential benefits means confronting the broader systemic issues that have
long plagued the sector: the fact that the sector is a quasi-market which is shaped more by
supply than by demand; the entrenched positions taken up by leading players, and the knock-
on issues of dysfunctional competition and fragmentation in aid efforts; the clear limits placed
on innovations such as cash that seem to carry potential to transform the sector.

These broader problems raises the key conundrum: the history, composition and dynamics of
the humanitarian sector make it an ideal candidate for a more ecosystem approach to
innovation, but those self-same dynamics may limit the ultimate success of such an approach.

33
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