Controversial Innovations Research Articles

Market shaping through controversial innovation

In this paper, we examine market-shaping literature that investigates how markets evolve over time. We focus on how controversial innovations gain acceptance as the result of the intentional strategies put into place by companies. We’ve carried a qualitative research based on secondary data collected from several online sources. Our study describes how a new packaging, can, had been introduced to the highly conservative market of wine in France. Our findings shed light on the opportunity for practitioners to implement controversial innovation in conservative markets and introduce a set of strategies to achieve such purpose.

The development of complex and controversial innovations. Genetically modified mosquitoes for malaria eradication

When there is significant uncertainty in an innovation project, research literature suggests that strictly sequencing actions and stages may not be an appropriate mode of project management. We use a longitudinal process approach and qualitative system dynamics modelling to study the development of genetically modified (GM) mosquitoes for malaria eradication in an African country. Our data were collected in real time, from early scientific research to deployment of the first prototype mosquitoes in the field. The 'gene drive' technology for modifying the mosquitoes is highly complex and controversial due to risks associated with its characteristics as a living, self-replicating technology. We show that in this case the innovation journey is linear and highly structured, but also embedded within a wider system of adoption that displays emergent behaviour. Although the need to control risks associated with the technology imposes a linearity to the NPD process, there are possibilities for deviation from a more structured sequence of stages. This arises from the effects of feedback loops in the wider system of evidence creation and learning at the population and governance levels, which cumulatively impact on acceptance of the innovation. The NPD and adoption processes are therefore closely intertwined, meaning that the endpoint for R&D and beginning of 'mainstream' adoption and diffusion are unclear. A key challenge for those responsible for NPD and its regulation is to plan for the adoption of the technology while simultaneously conducting its scientific and technical development.

Sociotechnical controversies as warning signs for niche governance

In agriculture, not all sociotechnical niches seek to plant the seeds of further regime transition: Some niches are designed to last as stable subnetworks harboring alternative agri-food systems. However, such niches often interact with sociotechnical regimes, leading to controversies, conflicts, and threats to niches sustainability. This situation calls for proactive governance of niche-regime interactions. We studied the innovation process in the “Corsican clementine” niche, using semi-structured interviews and participant observation. We wondered how local actors have been dealing with three controversial innovations: a clementine variety, a biological pest control method, and a pruning technique. Cross-analysis of the three innovations shows that (i) the niche’s innovation pathway can be diverted by regime-driven innovations; (ii) to protect their niche, local actors set collective rules, both formal and informal; and (iii) controversies over technical innovations make niche-regime tensions more visible, leading local actors to make collective decisions for governing the innovation pathway. This study is the first to highlight the key role of sociotechnical controversies in niche governance.

Courting Controversy: What Determines the Funding of Contentious Innovation?

We examine the pattern of Venture Capital (VC) investments into controversial innovations: start-ups that violate unwritten rules, traditions and existing norms. We ground our theoretical approach in the idea that ceteris paribus, start-ups that pursue controversial, contentious or objectionable business models can create legitimacy costs for their VC investors. From this, we formulate a set of predictions regarding how the legitimacy costs associated with such business models affect the matching process between VCs and start-ups. VCs who are closer to the core of the VC co-investment network derive significant benefits from their position and have more to lose from threats to their legitimacy; therefore, we predict that they are less likely to invest in potentially controversial start-ups. But because these VCs must balance any legitimacy issues against the financial risks and rewards of investing in a successful idea, we expect that their avoidance of controversial start-ups is attenuated when making decisions about large investments, when the potential financial rewards loom especially large. To test those predictions, we utilize existing data on VC investments combined with data obtained using a novel method of crowdsourcing the data collection. We find that investments in start-ups that have been rated as being potentially objectionable by independent raters recruited through Amazon Mechanical Turk (AMT) are in fact more likely to come from VCs who are more peripheral in the investment network, and that the effect is moderated by investment size. These results shed light on how social structure and market dynamics affect the direction of innovation within an important empirical context, as well as on the social evaluation of innovation in general.

Uplifting Spiritual Cultivation for Lay People: Bhikṣuṇī Master Daehaeng (1927–2012) of the Hanmaum Seonwon (One Mind Sŏn Center) in South Korea

This paper examines Bhikṣuṇī Daehaeng, who in 1972 established the One Mind Zen Center, one of the most successful urban mega-centres in South Korea. The Centre is located in Anyang, near Seoul, and has 15 domestic and 9 overseas branches. The Centre’s success can be attributed to the charismatic leadership of Daehaeng, who awakened herself through many years of ascetic practices rather than through teachers or going through formal Buddhist training. Her emphasis on spiritual cultivation in daily life, interconnectedness, a belief in one’s Buddha-like nature and her supernatural power explain the Centre’s huge success as an urban Buddhist mission. Based on the efforts of her lay followers, Daehaeng produced many publications, many of which have been translated into English and other languages. This paper will analyse her success and controversial innovations by focusing on her teachings and the operation of the One Mind Center.

The York buildings dragons: Desaguliers, Arbuthnot and attitudes towards the scientific community.

The growing public awareness of natural philosophy and technology in the eighteenth century brought with it unintended consequences, including an enlarged space for satiric treatments of scientific issues, which have not always been recognized for what they are. A pamphlet entitled The York Buildings Dragons appeared in December 1725, with a second, augmented, edition in January 1726. It has generally been attributed to John Theophilus Desaguliers FRS (1683-1744), the Huguenot engineer, Newtonian expositor and leading Freemason. This article throws fresh light on the pamphlet: to provide more extensive background to the work, to describe its aims and methods, to define its mode as entirely satiric, to analyse its contents in greater detail, to show that Desaguliers cannot possibly have been the author and to suggest as a more plausible candidate the mathematician, physician and satiric author John Arbuthnot FRS (1667-1735). Historians of science and technology need to take care in assessing the pamphlet literature surrounding controversial innovations.

The Paradox of Controversial Innovation: Insights From the Rise of Impressionism

This article considers the strategies developed by a coalition of innovators and supporters to contribute to the consecration of a controversial innovation that transgresses the established codes. It does so through the analysis of Impressionism (1874–1900) that provoked a dramatic shift from classical to modern art. The case study suggests that such consecration can be achieved while claiming the distinctiveness of the controversial innovation, instead of toning it down. The findings reveal the importance of distributed strategies developed by loosely coordinated coalition members. More specifically, they point to simultaneous, and potentially contradictory, strategies: strategies aimed to enforce the distinctiveness of this controversial innovation, and strategies aimed to extend support for it, insisting that contradictory tensions between those strategies can prove useful in achieving consecration. Overall, the article contributes to research on the consecration of controversial innovations, as well as to the literature on framing and brokerage.

“Contagious Air[s]”: Wordsworth's Poetics and Politics of Immunity

This article explores how Wordsworth routinely borrows ideas and concepts from Romantic-period medicine in order to define both his politics and his poetic theory. In particular, Wordsworth advocates a kind of immunity designed to curb the diffusion of radical affects and to craft the proper biopolitical subject. Importantly, according to Wordsworth, political and affective excess can be prevented through the act of reading poetry. The success of Wordsworth's poetics depends upon an implicit inoculation of “powerful feelings” into the reader's body that prevents the kinds of “jacobinal infatuations” that he fears in later works. The poet promotes a form of biopolitical immunity in his prose and poetry that reflects Romantic-era medical practice, especially the controversial innovations of vaccination. Finally, this essay tracks how Wordsworth's use of the term “immunity” – always pluralized into “immunities” – shows how the term's meaning was slowing changing from a strictly legal or political attribution to a biopolitical one during the early nineteenth century. At stake in this shift in meaning is the way in which literature, and especially Romantic literature, aided the total absorption of the body into politics that is characteristic of modern biopolitics.

Psychological drivers in the adoption of morally controversial innovations: the moderating role of ethical self‐identity

The present article conceptualizes morally controversial innovations as a category of innovations that raise ethical issues due to their potentially undesirable long‐term consequences on society or the natural environment. Then, it analyzes the case of biofuel crops by applying an extended version of the theory of planned behavior, which includes moral norm (i.e. the personal convictions of what is wrong or right for society) and ethical self‐identity (i.e. the extent to which one perceives himself/herself as an ethical person). The obtained results show that attitude and subjective norms are positively related to farmers' intention to grow biofuel crops. Yet the intention of those farmers with a higher ethical self‐identity is also influenced by perceived behavioral control and moral norm. In particular, moral norm negatively affects their intention to grow biofuel crops, thus restraining the adoption of this innovation. Implications for theory, as well as for policymakers interested in promoting the diffusion of morally controversial innovations, are discussed.

How controversial innovation succeeds in the periphery? A network perspective of BASF Argentina

This article builds elements of a theory of peripheral innovation in transnational corporations. Although subsidiaries at the geographical periphery of the global economy and at the organizational periphery of their headquarters often contribute a negligible amount to the corporate global revenues, this article provides evidence on the role of these peripheries in knowledge creation and in enforcing controversial innovations. Based on an embedded and mixed-method case study of the Argentinean subsidiary of the chemical corporation BASF that uses qualitative interviews and a social network survey of knowledge sharing among employees, this article develops three sets of propositions about contextual and network opportunities for creating and enforcing innovations in the periphery of transnational corporations.

Forty Years of 'Testing, Testing': The Past and Future Role of Policy Experimentation in Healthcare Reform

When Congress undertook reform of the United States healthcare system in 2009, it faced a daunting task that had eluded policymakers for decades: how to come up with a politically feasible way to rein in healthcare costs while improving quality. Healthcare reform is not challenging due to lack of ideas, but because so far, no one has been able to identify and implement politically viable ideas that actually work. To solve this problem, Congress turned to an old tool: the pilot project. The federal government has used policy experimentation, in the form of pilot and demonstration projects, to test innovative health policies for more than forty years. This is the first article in the legal literature to analyze the use of systematic policy experimentation by the federal government to reform the healthcare system. Are pilot projects a useful policymaking tool in the context of healthcare reform? Although healthcare pilot projects are not the panacea suggested by some of their strongest proponents, they may play an important role in the health policymaking process by generating valuable information for future reforms and creating a pathway toward widespread implementation for less controversial policy innovations.

How medical specialists appraise three controversial health innovations: scientific, clinical and social arguments

Medical specialists play a pivotal role in health innovation evaluation and policy making. Their influence derives not only from their expertise, but also from their social status and the power of their professional organisations. Little is known, however, about how medical specialists determine what makes a health innovation desirable and why. Our qualitative study investigated the views of 28 medical specialists and experts from Quebec and Ontario (Canada) on three controversial innovations: electroconvulsive therapy, prostate-specific antigen screening and prenatal screening for Down's syndrome. Our findings indicate that the scientific, clinical and social arguments of medical specialists combine to create a relatively consistent narrative for each innovation. Our comparative analysis suggests that these narratives bring about a 'soft' resolution to controversies, which relies on a more or less tacit understanding of the social desirability of innovations and which sets the stage for their routinisation. Such an unpacking of medical specialists' arguments both for and against new technologies is needed because such arguments may easily be considered authoritative and because there are few forums for debating the social desirability of innovations not generally deemed to be highly controversial.

Sources of Scientific Innovation: A Meta-Analytic Approach (Commentary on Simonton, 2009).

Innovations in science can be divided into at least four major types: radical revolutions (such as Copernican and Darwinian theory), technical revolutions (led by scientists such as Newton, Lavoisier, and Einstein), controversial innovations (for example, Semmelweis's theory of puerperal fever), and conservative innovations (eugenics and various vitalistic doctrines). Biographical predictors of support for scientific innovations are distinctly different depending on the type of innovation, as are the predictors of who initially engineers such innovations. A meta-analytic approach assessing each new scientific theory according to its salient features (including epistemological, ideological, and technical attributes) is required to make sense out of the varied predisposing factors associated with the origins of these innovations. These predisposing factors are not neatly classifiable in terms of Simonton's (2009, this issue) hierarchical model of domain-specific dispositions, although this model is applicable under some conditions. Instead, the principal sources of scientific achievement are largely a product of person-by-situation interaction effects that are dictated by the nature of the particular innovation.

No incentives, no innovation

While the NHS has expressed a commitment to innovation with a succession of dedicated 'arms length bodies,' there are numerous high-profile cases in which advances on the ground have not received as much support as they might. In his recent Next Stage Review report, Lord Darzi has emphasised a commitment to clinical decision-making at all levels of the NHS but whether this will involve embracing best practice from the bottom up remains to be seen. For this article I spoke to two surgeons, whose sometimes controversial innovations were admired by many, about the obstacles they faced.

Paradoxos em finanças: teoria moderna versus finanças comportamentais

Este artigo aborda as finanças comportamentais, uma das inovações mais importantes e controversas em finanças, que confrontam o paradigma tradicionalmente aceito, baseado na moderna teoria financeira. Inicialmente realiza-se uma síntese de potenciais problemas de tomada de decisão, exemplificando-se alguns aspectos não racionais que constituem importantes paradoxos em finanças. Após uma discussão da teoria de prospecto, replicam-se numa amostra brasileira os experimentos seminais de Kahneman e Tversky. São discutidas diversas situações que violam premissas da teoria da utilidade esperada, base da teoria moderna de finanças. Os resultados empíricos mostram que se mantêm as evidências de diversos vieses de percepção em decisões, independentemente de aspectos relacionados com a evolução do mercado e com a cultura ou nacionalidade dos indivíduos. O distanciamento entre a teoria moderna de finanças e a prática em decisões financeiras sugere a abordagem das finanças comportamentais como uma alternativa

Disruptive technologies, stakeholders and the innovation value‐added chain: a framework for evaluating radical technology development

Contemporary frameworks for evaluating technological innovations contend that innovative success is dependent upon the ability of firms to acquire and assimilate new knowledge without disrupting value chain members such as suppliers, customers and complementary innovators. These frameworks, however, provide little advice on how to deal with radical, controversial innovations that may also introduce new undesirable environmental, health, and social side affects. In addition to technological, commercial and organisational uncertainties, the developers of such technology typically must resolve social uncertainties, a particularly difficult activity because of the added complexities and often conflicting and/or difficult‐to‐reconcile concerns from secondary stakeholders. Attempts must be made to address the potential unintended and unforeseen consequences of the technology, as well as its potential benefits, if it is to be successfully applied. Using Monsanto's development of agricultural biotechnology as an illustration, we suggest an evaluation framework that incorporates stakeholder theory, innovation management concepts and Popper's evolutionary learning methodology of science and its extension to social issues.

New schools for a new century: the redesign of urban education

In this book, distinguished scholars discuss recent controversial innovations - charter schools, contracting arrangements, and choice - designed to liberate educators from burdensome bureaucratic controls and raise the level of opportunity for children. The authors focus on the problems in cities, where far too many children have been denied access to quality institutions. Various essays explore the lessons to be learned from Catholic schools, site-based management, and private entrepreneurs, as well as specific developments in three cities - New York, Milwaukee, and Chicago. The contributors, though realistic about the political and institutional obstacles that stand in the way of meaningful change, foresee the demise of the size fits all approach to schooling. They envision a system of schools that is dynamic, diverse, performance-based, and accountable - one that is supportive of professionals, responsive to creativity, intolerant of failure, and committed to high educational standards for children.

Organizational viscosity and the diffusion of controversial innovations

This paper draws on the biological work of Boorman and Levitt's Genetics of Altruism to develop a model of diffusion in organizations specifically when the innovation being diffused is controversial. By “controversial”, I mean an innovation whose value (and subsequent adoption) is socially determined and not rationally determined ‐ that is, there is no exogenous superior or inferior quality to the innovation that determines its eventual adoption. The purpose of this paper is to model the conditions under which the innovation may come to dominate the organization. The results parallel those of Boorman and Levitt's: (1) In a large undifferentiated organization, no controversial innovation can survive unless it begins with a large proportion of believers in the innovation. (2) However, there are structural conditions under which even a very small minority of innovators can take over a large organization. Contrary to intuition and some of the literature on innovation, these conditions that lead to unexpected innovative adoptions are enhanced by the organization's viscosity, that is, the lack of free movement and exchange of ideas and people throughout the organization.

Combining Deliberation and Fair Representation in Community Health Decisions

Among the many controversial innovations of Oregon's basic health services reform, perhaps the most favorably received was the state's effort to involve citizens in the prioritization process. Through hearings, community meetings, and opinion survey, the legislature and the Health Services Commission (HSC) sought to elicit directly from Oregonians the public values on which the ranking of health treatments would in part depend. Observers hailed the effort as an open, moral debate,l an experiment with health-care-by-democracy,2 and classic exercise of American democracy.3 Despite these glowing notices, defects in design undercut Oregon's participatory process, and it fell short of achieving all the benefits for which its initiators hoped. This paper offers a sympathetic critique of Oregon's pioneering experiment in order to help improve future programs that similarly try to involve citizens in making vital decisions. An orientation to the future is especially appropriate because the Oregon participatory planning process could be the first of many comparable efforts in bioethics and health policy. The Oregon Basic Health Care Act requires the HSC to update its priority listing of health services every two years, and the statutory mandate of hearings and community meetings appears to apply to future HSC reports, not just the initial list approved by the legislature in 1991.4 Oregon Health Decisions (OHD), the group that organized community meetings for the HSC, is the prototype for a nationwide Community Health Decisions (CHD) movement, which seeks to bring cross-section of the citizenry together with health care professionals, state and local officials, consumer