Research on Distributed Innovation Processes Professor Bruce Tether

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(My publications in this area)

The concept of 'systems of innovation' has been prominent in innovation studies since the early 1990s, with many studies on national, regional and sectoral systems of innovation. These 'systems' involve interactions between many firms and organizations for the development of new technologies; the systems also influence the pattern of technological development.

At CRIC we talk of 'distributed innovation processes' rather than systems of innovation, but there is considerable overlap between the two perspectives. My own work (as well as that or others, such as Stan Metcalfe) focuses on the idea of innovation systems (or distributed innovation processes) as being centred on problems, or sequences of problems. This idea was developed through work on the problem of inadequate runway capacity at several of Europe's most congested airports. Stan and I examined the development of runway capacity at airports such as London Heathrow and Frankfurt. We investigated the means by which new capacity was found and operationalised, and the sources of the new technologies which provided partial solutions to the capacity problem. Within this, we highlight the importance of 'soft' forms of innovation, such as procedural changes. We show these processes of innovation are based on a close and evolving understanding of how the airport works - as a system - which is itself centred on a problem - that of inadequate runway capacity.

A Capacity Enhancing Innovation Procedure at Frankfurt Airport

This research was partially funded by the European Union through the Targeted Social and Economic Research (TSER) project led by Franco Malerba (of CESPRI, Bocconi University, Milan) on 'Sectoral Systems in Europe - Innovation, Competitiveness and Growth (ESSY)'.

Publications

Papers I have written in relation to systems of innovation and distributed innovation processes include:

R. W. Coombs, M. Harvey and B. S. Tether (2003) ‘Analysing Distributed Processes of Provision and Innovation’, Industrial and Corporate Change, 12.5, 1051-1081 (an earlier version of this paper is available as CRIC Discussion Paper No. 35).

B. S. Tether and J. S. Metcalfe (2003) ‘Horndal at Heathrow?: Capacity Expansion through Co-operation and System Evolution’, Industrial and Corporate Change, 12.3, 437-476 (an earlier version of this paper is available as CRIC Discussion Paper No. 46).

B. S. Tether (2002), ‘Who Co-operates for Innovation, and Why? Research Policy, 31.6, 947 – 967 (21 pages). [N.B. According to Research Policy’s web-site, this paper was the journal’s third most frequently requested paper in 2002 (April – December), with 642 downloading requests] (An earlier version of this paper is available as CRIC Discussion Paper No. 35).

B. Andersen, J. S. Metcalfe and B. S. Tether (2000), 'Innovation Systems as Instituted Economic Processes', in J.S. Metcalfe and I. Miles (eds.), Innovation Systems in the Service Economy, Kluwer Academic Publishers, Norwell, MA, USA.

Email: Bruce.Tether[a]mbs.ac.uk