Creative Rationality and Innovation E-Book

Joelle Forest

• Herausgeber: John Wiley & Sons
• Kategorie: Fachliteratur
• Sprache: Englisch

Seitenzahl: 225

Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2017

Beschreibung

This book urges us to be creative in our way of thinking about innovation. Adopting an artificial perspective, the author emphasizes creative rationality: a form of thought that encourages knowledge crossing and invites an adventurous transgression. The question of how such a form of thought might be developed is addressed through a detailed examination of the educational system. The book frees itself from many of the myths that surround innovation, including the predominance of what the author calls the linear and hierarchical model.

Leseprobe

Table of Contents

Cover

Title

Copyright

Foreword

Introduction

1 Innovation: What Exactly Are We Talking About?

1.1. Some key distinctions

1.2. Typology of innovations based on their purpose

1.3. Typology of innovations based on their scale

1.4. Reasons for innovation

2 Thinking about Innovation Differently

2.1. Innovation in society

2.2. Schumpeter’s models of innovation

2.3. From innovation as an outcome to the analysis of innovation as a process

2.4. Contours of the linear and hierarchical model of innovation

2.5. A fertile ground for the creation of the linear and hierarchical model of innovation

2.6. Impact of the model with respect to the definition of research and innovation policies

2.7. Limitation of the linear and hierarchical model

2.8. The design process at the core of the innovation process

2.9. The design process, what are we speaking about exactly?

2.10. Validity of the model

3 Artificialism

3.1. Artificial world as a set of artifacts

3.2. Contribution of the Simonian theory to the understanding of the design process

3.3. Simonian empiricism

3.4. Key propositions of Artificialism

3.5. Interest in thinking about innovation from the artificial perspective

4 Innovating by Implementing Creative Rationality

4.1. Creative rationality: what exactly are we talking about?

4.2. The reality of creative rationality

5 Creative Rationality and the Education System

5.1. Teaching innovation: a political project

5.2. A harmful confusion between innovation and entrepreneurship

5.3. School environment and creative rationality

5.4. Rehabilitating creativity rationality in the training of engineers

5.5. Towards the pedagogy of adventure

Conclusion

Bibliography

Index

End User License Agreement

List of Illustrations

1 Innovation: What Exactly Are We Talking About?

Figure 1.1. Papin’s digester (source: http://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Denis_Papin)

Figure 1.2. Super-cocotte SEB, 1953 (source: http://www.seb.fr/marque/historique.html)

Figure 1.3. Evolution of composites (source EADS. 2011)

2 Thinking about Innovation Differently

Figure 2.1. Black box model

Figure 2.2. The linear and hierarchical model of innovation (adapted from Kline and Rosenberg in [FOR 14])

Figure 2.3. Share of innovative companies receiving aids to innovate (source: STI Scoreboard, OECD 2015)

Figure 2.4. Evolution of the breakdown of State aid in favor of innovation by family of objectives (source: [PIS 16, p. 60])

Figure 2.5. EU member slates’ innovation perfonrtance (source: European Innovation Scoreboard 2016)

Figure 2.6. Innovation beyond R&D (source: OECD 2010)

Figure 2.7. Number of patented innovations reported in the total number of rewarded innovations over the period 1977–2004 < 10% (source: [FON13])

Figure 2.8. The chain-linked model (adapted from [KLI 86])

Figure 2.9. Conical model of the design process

Figure 2.10. Companies that invest in design are more profitable (source: Swedish Industrial Design Foundation). For a color version of the figure, see www.iste.co.uk/forest/innovation.zip

Figure 2.11. Whaf is design? (scarce: Tether (2005) in [COM 09. p. 14])

Figure 2.12. Evolution of the place of design in companies (source: [MEL 10]). Fora color version of the figure, see www.iste.co.uk/forest/innovation.zip

3 Artificialism

Figure 3.1. Artificial dynamics (source: [FOR 07])

Figure 3.2. Apple Ipod unit sales worldwide, 2001–2008 (thousands)

Figure 3.3. Design thinking according to T. Brown (source: [BRO 08, p. 88–89])

4 Innovating by Implementing Creative Rationality.

Figure 4.1. Bisociation according to A. Koestler (source A. Koestler, 1964: 36)

Figure 4.2. The meaning of innovation (source: https://twitter.com/bertrandpiccard). For a color version of the figure, see www.iste.co.uk/forest/innovation.zip

Figure 4.3. The relation between the number of ideas and the number of possible combinations (source: [CHR 13, p. 43])

Figure 4.4. Optimal cognitive distance (according to [NOO 01])

Figure 4.5. Maximum expertise

Figure 4.6. Multivariate approach of creativity

5 Creative Rationality and the Education System

Figure 5.1. What are the main areas of reform to make Europe a leader in innovation (source: [ERN 13])

Figure 5.2. A family riding a scooter (source: http://www.innovation-creative.com/index_7.html#tata)

Figure 5.3. A telephone booth disconnected from the network, located at the INSA’s Humanities Center in Lyon (source: picture taken by the author)

Figure 5.4. A sidewalk that relegates pedestrians to the edges (source: picture taken by the author)

Figure 5.5. The creation of a side path

Figure 5.6. a) Printing museum in Lyon b) Institut Lumière in Lyon

Figure 5.7. a) Urban evasion, the aquarium telephone booth, Lyon, 2007 (source: www.benedettobufalino.com). b) Urban foosball table, Lyon, 2014 (source: www.benedettobufalino.com)

Figure 5.8. Sketch of the regional outfit of Miss Rhône-Alpes (source: L. Guillot creation)

Figure 5.9. Ambiance mood board (work created by M. Mamadou Dagra, G. Gentile, A. Margaillan, and C. Mendez Antúnez, Lyon INSA, February 2017). For a color version of the figure, see www.iste.co.uk/forest/innovation.zip

Figure 5.10. Sketch of the dress “The Gift of the Rhone” (work by M. Mamadou Dagra, G. Gentile, A. Margaillan and C. Mendez Antunez, Lyon INSA, February 2017)

Guide

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Smart Innovation Set

coordinated byDimitri Uzunidis

Volume 14

Creative Rationality and Innovation

Joëlle Forest

First published 2017 in Great Britain and the United States by ISTE Ltd and John Wiley & Sons, Inc.

Apart from any fair dealing for the purposes of research or private study, or criticism or review, as permitted under the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988, this publication may only be reproduced, stored or transmitted, in any form or by any means, with the prior permission in writing of the publishers, or in the case of reprographic reproduction in accordance with the terms and licenses issued by the CLA. Enquiries concerning reproduction outside these terms should be sent to the publishers at the undermentioned address:

ISTE Ltd

27-37 St George’s Road

London SW19 4EU

UK

www.iste.co.uk

John Wiley & Sons, Inc.

111 River Street

Hoboken, NJ 07030

USA

www.wiley.com

© ISTE Ltd 2017

The rights of Joëlle Forest to be identified as the authors of this work have been asserted by her in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.

Library of Congress Control Number: 2017953282

British Library Cataloguing-in-Publication Data

A CIP record for this book is available from the British Library

ISBN 978-1-78630-146-8

Foreword

This book is a fascinating reflection on the concept of innovation. Initially, it gives a very vivid account of what differentiates innovation from Research and Development by addressing both economic and historical aspects. The contribution of the history of innovation models, initiated by Schumpeter's models of innovation and subsequently studied in depth and revisited by various authors, is highly useful for engaging in reflection on richer and more robust models. This makes it possible to introduce the concept of creative rationality, an indispensable factor at the very core of the emergence of innovation.

Although innovation is the driving force of economic development and value creation, this concept, which is constantly bandied about as the solution for all our evils, sometimes conceals a lack of understanding of what it stands for by those who refer to it. Contrary to what our decision makers would have us believe, technological inventions, basic research and scientific discoveries arising thereof neither naturally lead to innovation nor to the hoped-for economic benefits. Innovation aims to develop a product or service that meets user needs and contributes to the dynamism of the economy. Basic research aims to understand the world around us. It must be borne in mind that these objectives are radically different from innovation objectives. As such they need not merge into one another, let alone be subjected to one another. Let us accept that basic research and innovation correspond to different objectives and obey their own dynamics. Although the innovation process does not come about directly from research endeavors, it often benefits from scientific advances.

How can we foster innovation, and ensure that we are really responding to market needs that are often, but not always, expressed1? A process that takes the end user into account and places him at the center of the design process makes perfect sense. Design is an organized process that leads to the making of a product suited to the end user's need. Design is the guiding principle of the innovation process by its ability to define the challenges that the innovative product must meet. This process is different from the R&D process as it implements a process driven by the end purpose of the object, but at the same time, creativity is not absent in this approach. It is in fact a key element that opens the scope of possibilities to finally retain only the most suitable one. In her book, Joëlle Forest compels us to reflect upon all these aspects and proposes a methodology to engage this reflection.

The notion of creative rationality thus comes up: far from opposing one another, creativity and rationalism enrich one other. The role of creativity lies in the opening up and exploration of all the possibilities, it must be followed by a rational stage that will make it possible to classify, select and develop the best solutions using experimentation: choosing whatever works best. Through a number of examples that convincingly illustrate the author's thinking, we will be able to break down the innovation process and consider how creative rationality unfolds during such a process. The analysis here is very rich, and it is based on a reflection that relies on references while coming out with an original approach.

This book also paves the way for advocacy for the introduction of innovation as a course in our education system. More generally speaking, Joëlle Forest argues in favor of education that must give full scope to creativity: a less normative and more open education. Innovation can be learned only with the desire to stray off the beaten track and to implement new processes and refrain from always using the old tried and tested methods. How can we not subscribe to such a vision and how can we not support an approach that opens up exciting perspectives for our youth?

Didier ROUXDirector, Research and Innovation of the Saint-Gobain GroupMember of the Academy of Science and the Academy of TechnologyProfessor at the Collège de France (Liliane Bettencourt Technological Innovation Chair 2016–2017)

1

A market need that is expressed corresponds to an obvious fact that meeting it will be a commercial success (e.g. a vaccine against AIDS). A non-expressed need corresponds to a need that the market does not necessarily perceive before the object comes into existence but which will become a commercial success in spite of everything (e.g. iPad).

Introduction

It’s June 2017. Severely weakened by an unprecedented economic crisis, the Martian government is struck with full force by the Terra epidemic, the origin of which is a bacteria from the Earth of the genus Bacillus introduced by the NASA Curiosity robot that had come to explore their planet. There is discontent among the population, and the Martian government is afraid that there may be a social revolt if it does not immediately come up with concrete solutions. How can they cope with such an unprecedented situation? The Martian government decides to send Professor MacGyver junior to carry out a benchmark study of extra-Martian practices and to go and see how earthlings solve their problems.

Shortly after landing on Earth, in France more specifically, MacGyver junior noticed that the French have a miracle solution; it is called innovation. In fact, everything happens as if life on Earth were governed by innovation.

Several clues made him reach this conclusion. The importance given to innovation in France can, at the outset, be assessed based on the popularity of the concept of innovation in France. To do this, on September 23, 2016, he conducted a search on a search engine that the French call Google to see how many times the term innovation comes up in the French language. The result of this exercise is highly enlightening: 407,000,000 hits. In comparison, the terms growth and unemployment, which seem to refer to highly sensitive issues for the French government and the French people, only appear 53,200,000 and 2,860,000 times, respectively. He specifies that though it is obvious that not all of these results are pertinent, the frequency of their occurrence is nevertheless illustrative of the interest the French seem to attach to the issue of innovation.

MacGyver emphasizes that the importance given to innovation in France is closely linked to the virtues that people associate with it. Today innovation is clearly earmarked as:

– A vital necessity for companies to adapt to the requirements of their markets and to anticipate these requirements. He was privy to a narration of the story of a company called Nokia, which was the leader of the mobile telephony sector. As the said company had not thought of betting on touchscreen technology, it was overtaken by new entrants. Adapting to market requirements appears to be all the more necessary when we consider the market share of the turnovers made with newly marketed products. As an example, the turnover made with products marketed for less than two years on the small electrical household appliances market in France rose from 17% to 58% between 1997 and 2007.

– The means to revive the economy and get back to the path leading to prosperity. As highlighted by the Nobel laureate for economics, E. Phelphs, in 2006, speaking about the unprecedented economic development that took place from 1820 to 1870 in Great Britain, the Americas and subsequently in France and Germany [PHE 13], this development cannot be attributed solely to the increase in capital stock, productivity or even to the expansion of trade. This unprecedented economic development was due to innovation, and it is precisely because innovation has been going through a crisis since the 1960s that we are witness to the decline of Western countries.

– A way of meeting the major challenges of the contemporary world, as we can read in the introduction of the reference text presenting the ambitions of the European initiative “the union of innovation”:

“At a time marked by restriction in public expenditure, significant demographic changes and strengthening of global competition, the competitiveness of Europe, our ability to create millions of new jobs to replace those destroyed by the crisis and, more generally, our future living standards depend on our ability to encourage innovation in products, services, business and social processes and models. This is the reason why innovation was placed at the very core of the Europe 2020 strategy. Innovation is also the best means we have at our disposal to solve the main problems faced by our society, which become increasingly pronounced by the day, be it climate change, shortage of energy or the increasing scarcity of resources, health issues or the aging of the population” [COM 10, p. 2].

– Or even a means to give back a positive dynamic to societies lacking in progress and afraid that they will no longer be able to advance.

This way of looking at innovation is not neutral because it leads to concrete actions. In France, this representation of innovation gave rise to the creation of dedicated ministerial institutions, such as the bureau for innovation, and technology policies at the Direction générale de la compétitivité, de l’industrie et des services (DGCIS – Directorate General for competitiveness, industry and services); the creation of innovation ecosystems such as the pôles de compétitivité (competitiveness clusters) with the stated objective of stimulating the dissemination of knowledge at the root of innovation: “The bringing together of industrial, scientific and training stakeholders from the same territory (…) constitutes in itself a source of innovation” [CIA 07]; and this representation of innovation also led to the definition of priorities in 2009 within the framework of the National Research and Innovation Strategy; the formulation of dedicated plans such as Une nouvelle donne pour l’innovation (A game changer for innovation) in 2013; the production of a number of reports such as the Morand–Manceau report in 2009 [MOR 09], the Godet–Durance–Mousli report in 2010 [GOD 10], the Birraux, Le Déaut report in 2010 [BIR 10], the Beylat–Tambourin report in 2013 [BEY 13], or the Pisani-Ferry report [PIS 16]; and finally the creation of tax incentives such as the Research tax Credit (CIR – Crédit d’impôt recherche) which today amounts to around €6.5 billion.

The importance of innovation in society is at last perceptible in view of the number of scientific articles, reviews and books devoted to this topic, and the existence of communities of dedicated researchers such as the Innovation Research Network.

Armed with these observations, Professor MacGyver junior returns home and submits his report to the Martian government. His conclusion is just one sentence long: if we wish to get out of the crisis and defeat the Terra epidemic, we must innovate! The world is not immobile but constantly changing. We must therefore draft an innovation policy which will allow us to not only face contemporary challenges but also to invent our future. Highly enthused, the government hastens to pass on the conclusions of Professor MacGyver junior: let us innovate, everyone innovate! Yes but how do we go about it?

The reader would have understood that we have used the parable of Professor MacGyver junior as a revelatory tactic, in the photographic sense of the term, to depict the situation in which we find ourselves in France.

Over the last 15 years, financial assistance given to innovation by public authorities, estimated today at ten billion euros, has in fact doubled. This assistance is intended to serve a national ambition whose aim is to transform our old “economy of imitation” into an “economy of innovation” [AGH 04]. Despite this, we must mention that the increased number of mechanisms (we have apparently gone from around 30 assistance mechanisms in the 2000’s to 62 today) [PIS 16] is not producing the expected results:

“A number of initiatives, quite often pertinent ones, have been taken to foster the development of innovation (…). This has resulted in a barely comprehensible accumulation and diversity of mechanisms and structures, both at the national and the regional or local level, the overall, economic, industrial and social effectiveness of which remains to be demonstrated (in terms of job creation)” [BEY 13, p. 1].

What is worse is that the speed at which these mechanisms are being renewed could even favor “bounty hunters” [PIS 16, p. 33].

The question that arises is: what should be done to go beyond the stage of demanding innovation1 and garner an effective capability to innovate?

According to Pisani-Ferry, a response to this issue would entail decreasing the number of mechanisms because it is “difficult to believe that the State has the wherewithal to supervise a set of 62 mechanisms in a consistent manner and guarantee proper coordination with those initiated by local authorities” [PIS 16, p. 31].

In this book, we will defend the thesis according to which innovation has to be thought about differently. From this viewpoint, the report of the national commission for evaluation of innovation policies Quinze ans de politiques d’innovation en France (Fifteen years of innovation policies in France), steered by J. Pisani-Ferry, is edifying. He shows that, in 2014, 70.2% of the allocated resources were related to the growth of private R & D capabilities. As we will see, this conception of public policy is founded on the innovation model inherited from J. Schumpeter. However, we will show that if we consider innovation from its central process, namely the design process itself, we will feel compelled to consider other possible means of action. By adopting an artificialistic perspective, this book lays emphasis on creative rationality. It considers the implications of this point of view for teaching. And while we are at it, this book will dispel a number of myths surrounding innovation.

1

X. de la Porte, a French journalist and essayist even refers to the demand to innovate: “

The demand to innovate contains the idea that the way to get out of the crisis is to march ahead, march towards novelty, produce. (A linear concept of civilizations which was already inherent to the notion of progress.)

” [DEL 14].

1Innovation: What Exactly Are We Talking About?

Contrary to what we tend to think, innovation is neither a fashionable preoccupation nor an embodiment of capitalism. The history of techniques makes us understand that innovation is an integral part of humanity [JAC 11]. The philosopher M. Puech confirms this viewpoint. According to him, technique has been by man’s side right from the origin of humankind, it has been at the core of humanization, whereas science has only been by our side since relatively recently. This joint evolution of homo sapiens with technique even makes him allude to the term homo sapiens technologicus [PUE 06]. However, the issue of what precisely the concept of innovation covers arises. We will demonstrate that it is the ability of innovation to create value that allows us to distinguish it from invention. This value creation can be seen in innovations which take on various forms and have an impact which is also varied in nature.

1.1. Some key distinctions

1.1.1. Distinguishing innovation from discovery and invention

The third edition of the Oslo Manual [OEC 05] defines innovation as the implementation of a product (a good or a service) or a new or distinctly enhanced process, a new marketing method or a new organizational method in corporate practices, the organization of the workplace or external relations.

From this point of view, innovation is defined according to the novelty criterion and the Oslo Manual specifies that it could refer to a novelty for the company, a novelty for the market or a novelty for the whole world if the concerned firm is the first to launch it in all the markets and in all business sectors.

As the novelty criterion also applies to the concepts of discovery and invention, we feel that it is important to demarcate innovation from discovery and invention.

Discovery is the act of finding something that is hidden. Such as the discovery of the double helix structure of DNA by J. Watson and F. Crick in 1953 for which they were awarded the Nobel Prize for medicine in 1962. Also, the discovery of the giant magnetoresistance principle by the physicists A. Fert and P. Gruenberg in 1988 for which they received the Nobel Prize for physics in 2007. Thus, and as pointed out by the philosopher of science M. Serres1, only things which were already in existence but remained unknown, things which had not yet been seen, can be discovered. For example, the development of a technique to manufacture microscope lenses of a quality and power unknown until then elsewhere in the scientific world at that time is what led to A. van Leeuwenhoek’s announcement of his discovery of the human sperm at the Royal Society of London in 1678. More recently, the HARPS spectrograph installed on a telescope of the ESO (European Southern Observatory) in Chile and measurements carried out between 2000 and 2014 on ESO’s telescopes made it possible to discover that Proxima Centauri, the nearest star to the Sun, had a planet2. Published, in August 2016, in Nature, these research works show that this exoplanet, baptized Proxima b, is rocky and has a mass that is comparable to Earth’s mass.

Discoveries can materialize through inventions. There are numerous examples of “discovery followed by invention” pairs. By way of example, we can cite electromagnetism and electricity networks, thermodynamics and spark-ignition engines. Contrary to discovery, invention and innovation are artificial. They make a hitherto unseen reality happen. Considered as such, discovery comes within the scope of research, whereas invention and innovation come within the scope of engineering. Discovery belongs to the past, whereas invention and innovation belong to the future.

1.1.2. What is the distinction between invention and innovation founded upon?

With invention, we move away from the realm of natural and formal sciences and draw closer to the technical domain so much so that invention is often mistaken for innovation.

In fact, in both cases, we end up with an outcome that seems like something new and the structure of their creation process is identical (each one has a cost associated with it, implying allocation of specific means, each one needs time to emerge, proceeding by trial and error, going back and forth, etc.). However, it is necessary to distinguish invention and innovation, because not every invention systematically translates into an innovation3.