This page is part of the CRIC web archive

Organisations, Innovation and Complexity: New Perspectives on the Knowledge Economy

9^th-10^th September 2004
University of Manchester, Manchester,
England, UK.

A Fundamental Principle to Rescue Innovation

Dr. Sudhir Varadarajan

Sudhir.varadarajan@uk-tcs.com

Tata Consultancy Services Ltd, UK.

Abstract

This paper argues that a more inclusive concept of innovation is required to engage a
wide cross section of people and institutions (business, government, education, nonprofits, family and others) for competitiveness, sustainable development and resilience of the knowledge economy. Through a synthesis of literature on innovation and sciences of complexity, and experiences from a series of action research projects, this paper proposes that innovation fundamentally involves integration of ‘differences that make a difference’ over space and time. This principle can be used to model the unique differences and interdependencies pertaining to different spheres of human
activity. Such models can be further investigated using techniques and computational tools of sciences of complexity to accelerate development of a coherent transdisciplinary theory of innovation that is accessible to wider sections of the society. The paper illustrates the potential of this approach through a model of innovation in services. It is argued that an inter-disciplinary approach founded on sciences of complexity and action research is essential to rescue innovation from misuse by practitioners and further fragmentation due to disciplinary boundaries and make it accessible to a wide spectrum of people and institutions in society.

Back to paper abstracts

Top

CRIC is now proud to be part of the Manchester Institute of Innovation Research (MIoIR)
Centre for Research on Innovation and Competition (CRIC), The University of Manchester,
Harold Hankins Building, Booth Street West, Manchester M13 9QH, England
Phone +44 (0)161 275 7365 Fax: +44 (0) 161 275 7361
Site maintained by: Ishty Hussain