Shortcuts to Innovation: The Use of Analogies in Knowledge Production

Abstract

Old ideas serve as critical inputs into new ideas, but how do knowledge workers innovate in domains where there are no existing ideas yet to build on? In this paper, I explore how analogical reasoning—and technologies that automate it—can serve as “shortcuts” that allow innovators to import knowledge from an adjacent domain, bypassing the need to build knowledge from the ground up. Yet, at the same time, because analogies require the availability of adjacent domains as templates, they may narrow the line of inquiry towards areas of research with neighboring domains, even if those areas are less fruitful. Using the setting of biology, I document a quantity‐quality tradeoff: I find that while the arrival of an analogy-based technology increased the quantity of innovation, it also led to workers herding around solving similar, less impactful problems.