Managing Innovation Potential: Revisiting Plato and Reading John Dewey as a Philosopher of Innovation Management

Abstract

In this article I will interpret John Dewey’s account of reflective thinking as if he were a philosopher of innovation management. From his pragmatist starting point, the problems involved in knowledgeprocesses relevant to innovation are analysed and re-conceptualised. By revisiting Plato and using the Deweyan analysis it identifies some categories of general applicability for understanding, designing and managing radical innovation processes. These categories are useful for conceptualising and talking about innovation, when knowledge is taken seriously, and when managing innovation is also understood as managing the production of new knowledge, that is of making the unjustified justified, and the unknown known.