Barlow (2017) – Technology and Innovation Management: The nuts and
bolts
Fundamentally innovation is both an outcome and a process. It involves the act of turning an idea or
invention into something that can be sold to customers or somehow made practical use of.
Lewis Duncan: the ability to convert ideas into invoices.
Reasons why innovation processes in healthcare might be different from other sectors:
- Healthcare is a system, and it is very complex.
- Healthcare is always evolving because of constant change in its underlying science and the
development of new technologies, and because policymakers like to tinker with its funding and
institutional arrangements.
- Healthcare is heavily regulated – ‘taking a risk’ by trying out something new does not necessarily
go down well with the healthcare managers, politicians, or patients.
- Healthcare is usually highly politicised.
Technology: any tool or technique: any product or process, any physical equipment or method of doing
or making by which human capability is extended.
- Hard technology: tangible artifacts (computers/phones)
- Soft technology: the knowledge about how those artifacts work
o Definition: systems of thought, practice, and action that facilitate the achievement of
explicit aims.
Mitcham (1994) technology has four dimensions: knowledge, activity, objects and volition.
Types of knowledge:
- Explicit knowledge: can be readily articulated, codified, and accessed
- Tacit knowledge: the opposite of explicit knowledge; it cannot be adequately articulated by
verbal means
- Codified knowledge: tacit knowledge concerted to explicit knowledge in a usable form
- Embodied knowledge: routines, habits, tasks, and information we understand without
conscious thought
- Situated knowledge: knowledge affected by the history, language, and values of the person
knowing it
We affect the way technology is used and evolves, and thus the factors that enable or inhibit
technological innovation.
Researchers therefore suggest that technology forms part of a ‘socio-technical system’ – a system where
people, organizations, institutions, and technologies interact – and its role is subject to processes of
‘social construction’, where understandings of the world and shared assumptions about reality are
jointly constructed by individuals.
Technology has some deterministic qualities, in the sense that once it has started it may not be easy to
reverse a particular technology trajectory.
The term ‘innovation’ has different meanings:
, - Outcome – we often implicitly use it in relation to physical objects or products
- Processes – why which the outcomes are developed
Innovation definitions:
- UK Department of Trade and Industry: The action or process of innovating. A new method, idea,
product. The successful exploitation of new ideas.
- Christensen 2004: Anything that creates new resources, processes or values, or improves a
company’s existing resources, processes or values.
Dimensions of innovation:
- Creative
o The ‘invention’
- Commercial/practical
o The exploitation of the invention
Only when both these dimensions are effectively managed does on have an innovation. It is therefore
important not to confuse innovation and invention – they are related, but not the same.
New ideas: a new (or improved) product, process, or service, or a whole new business (model)
Exploitation: the idea must be implementable and potentially value generating
Successful: the innovation is adopted by the target audience
Innovations can be:
- Pushed by developers of a new technology/service previously no demand
- Pulled by some kind of expressed demand
- Incremental
- Radical
Here, we classify innovations in three ways, according to their:
- Scope (degree of novelty)
- Form or application (whether they are product/process/service)
- Innovativeness (how much change there is in their components, compared to the current norm)
Novelty is seen in relation to the perception of adopters, whether they are individuals, companies or
other kinds of organization. An innovative product or process may already be in existence elsewhere.
But its novelty may be in relation to a particular industry sector or a technology ecosystem such as
national healthcare service.
Cooper (2001) classified innovations according to the degree to which they are new to a market or new
to a company operating in the market.
,Freel and de Jong (2009) categorise innovations according to the novelty of innovation outcomes and
the extent to which innovation activities mean an organization or company has to acquire new
capabilities – expertise, equipment or knowledge.
The three principal forms of innovation:
1. Products
o Tangible physical objects that are acquired and then used by consumers
2. Services
o Intangible things, where the consumer benefits from the service, but does not actually
acquire an object
3. Processes
o The equipment, methods, systems used by producers of products or services
Abernathy and James Utterback (1975) developed a model in which the early stages are marked by an
emphasis on product innovation and uncertainty after some time a ‘dominant design’ becomes
established, which matches the market’s needs and aspirations but may not be the best design in
technical terms emphasis shifts from the product or product variety towards process innovation,
improving manufacturing processes to deliver volume and consistent quality at the right price finally,
a mature phase emerges, characterised by incremental innovation in both product and process.
, Modular innovation changes only the core design concepts of a technology.
Architectural innovation changes a product’s architecture but leaves the components and their core
design concepts unchanged.
Continuous innovation improves but preserves the current way of doing things.
Discontinuous innovation leads to some kind of disruption to the status quo (radical).
bolts
Fundamentally innovation is both an outcome and a process. It involves the act of turning an idea or
invention into something that can be sold to customers or somehow made practical use of.
Lewis Duncan: the ability to convert ideas into invoices.
Reasons why innovation processes in healthcare might be different from other sectors:
- Healthcare is a system, and it is very complex.
- Healthcare is always evolving because of constant change in its underlying science and the
development of new technologies, and because policymakers like to tinker with its funding and
institutional arrangements.
- Healthcare is heavily regulated – ‘taking a risk’ by trying out something new does not necessarily
go down well with the healthcare managers, politicians, or patients.
- Healthcare is usually highly politicised.
Technology: any tool or technique: any product or process, any physical equipment or method of doing
or making by which human capability is extended.
- Hard technology: tangible artifacts (computers/phones)
- Soft technology: the knowledge about how those artifacts work
o Definition: systems of thought, practice, and action that facilitate the achievement of
explicit aims.
Mitcham (1994) technology has four dimensions: knowledge, activity, objects and volition.
Types of knowledge:
- Explicit knowledge: can be readily articulated, codified, and accessed
- Tacit knowledge: the opposite of explicit knowledge; it cannot be adequately articulated by
verbal means
- Codified knowledge: tacit knowledge concerted to explicit knowledge in a usable form
- Embodied knowledge: routines, habits, tasks, and information we understand without
conscious thought
- Situated knowledge: knowledge affected by the history, language, and values of the person
knowing it
We affect the way technology is used and evolves, and thus the factors that enable or inhibit
technological innovation.
Researchers therefore suggest that technology forms part of a ‘socio-technical system’ – a system where
people, organizations, institutions, and technologies interact – and its role is subject to processes of
‘social construction’, where understandings of the world and shared assumptions about reality are
jointly constructed by individuals.
Technology has some deterministic qualities, in the sense that once it has started it may not be easy to
reverse a particular technology trajectory.
The term ‘innovation’ has different meanings:
, - Outcome – we often implicitly use it in relation to physical objects or products
- Processes – why which the outcomes are developed
Innovation definitions:
- UK Department of Trade and Industry: The action or process of innovating. A new method, idea,
product. The successful exploitation of new ideas.
- Christensen 2004: Anything that creates new resources, processes or values, or improves a
company’s existing resources, processes or values.
Dimensions of innovation:
- Creative
o The ‘invention’
- Commercial/practical
o The exploitation of the invention
Only when both these dimensions are effectively managed does on have an innovation. It is therefore
important not to confuse innovation and invention – they are related, but not the same.
New ideas: a new (or improved) product, process, or service, or a whole new business (model)
Exploitation: the idea must be implementable and potentially value generating
Successful: the innovation is adopted by the target audience
Innovations can be:
- Pushed by developers of a new technology/service previously no demand
- Pulled by some kind of expressed demand
- Incremental
- Radical
Here, we classify innovations in three ways, according to their:
- Scope (degree of novelty)
- Form or application (whether they are product/process/service)
- Innovativeness (how much change there is in their components, compared to the current norm)
Novelty is seen in relation to the perception of adopters, whether they are individuals, companies or
other kinds of organization. An innovative product or process may already be in existence elsewhere.
But its novelty may be in relation to a particular industry sector or a technology ecosystem such as
national healthcare service.
Cooper (2001) classified innovations according to the degree to which they are new to a market or new
to a company operating in the market.
,Freel and de Jong (2009) categorise innovations according to the novelty of innovation outcomes and
the extent to which innovation activities mean an organization or company has to acquire new
capabilities – expertise, equipment or knowledge.
The three principal forms of innovation:
1. Products
o Tangible physical objects that are acquired and then used by consumers
2. Services
o Intangible things, where the consumer benefits from the service, but does not actually
acquire an object
3. Processes
o The equipment, methods, systems used by producers of products or services
Abernathy and James Utterback (1975) developed a model in which the early stages are marked by an
emphasis on product innovation and uncertainty after some time a ‘dominant design’ becomes
established, which matches the market’s needs and aspirations but may not be the best design in
technical terms emphasis shifts from the product or product variety towards process innovation,
improving manufacturing processes to deliver volume and consistent quality at the right price finally,
a mature phase emerges, characterised by incremental innovation in both product and process.
, Modular innovation changes only the core design concepts of a technology.
Architectural innovation changes a product’s architecture but leaves the components and their core
design concepts unchanged.
Continuous innovation improves but preserves the current way of doing things.
Discontinuous innovation leads to some kind of disruption to the status quo (radical).
