Technology Brokering and Innovation

Technology brokering means a strategy for exploiting the networked nature of the innovation process and building new communities around innovative recombinations. The brokering originates from the work of Edison and is lately made famous by Andrew Hargadon and Robert Sutton (1997) in Administrative Science Quarterly (December 1997) and by Andrew Hargadon (2003) in his book.  (Please, check my book recommendations).

To narrow my PhD scope, I have lately focused on technology brokering and related models that decribe the processes to search for new ideas and to store them for further use.

The technology brokering process model (please, click the image to enlarge it) is originally based on Hargadon&Sutton's observations how a product design company (originally Ideo ) develops innovative products based on ideas acquired from other industries. This focus on product development can be seen as a limiting factor in the model of Hargadon and Sutton. When reviewing this model in my doctoral seminar, my supervisor, professor Pertti Järvinen raised an interesting question: "What does brokering mean in scientific work?".

In my ongoing PhD research the open topics are:

• What motivates people to act as a broker? (Step 2: Acquisition)
• Should personal interest expressions be integrated in idea gathering from other industries (in Step 1: Access)? (A HR and empowerment viewpoint ;-)
• Could creative problem solving CPS tools be integrated in the brokering process (for example in Step 3: Storage) to support continuous and systematic idea gathering? (See my related post)
• Which question sets facilitating reflection, informal learning (Marsick & Watkins, 1990) and perspective making/taking (Boland and Tenkasi, 1995) should be integrated to support the brokering process?
• Which technologies supporting brokering are the most appropriate? (I started prototyping in mobile java J2ME, but now I am curious to integrate blog technologies.)

Happy to hear your opinions about the topic :-)

Comments

[Andrew Hargadon]

I have run into the same questions about whether the processes underlying technology brokering can work outside product development. Namely, how general is the recombinant nature of innovation (the ability to put old ideass together in new and valuable ways) and the ability of people to innovate in this way by moving ideas from where they are known to where they are not? Put in these terms, technology brokering seems alive and well in many places where the presumptions of ex nihilo invention and discovery are strong.

Indeed, my reading of cognitive psychologists is that those studying analogical reasoning believe the analogy is the only way we think (we make sense of new experiences by relating them to old ones.

Science is filled with examples of brokering. Coumadin, a successful blood thinner, was adapted from Warfarin, a successful rat poison, which was itself borrowed from a mold in sweet clover that was killing cows in Wisconson. Viagra was a originally developed to treat angina (and now is being explored for cardio-pulmonary indications in children. Indeed, the history of pharma is a history of moving compounds across "disease-worlds." Only recently has technology given us the hubris to think we can invent new therapeutic molecules.

The real challlenge is social, not theoretical. Science likes politics because it can shake loose enormous research grants. But those grants seem to go to the large and established school and are spent in large and established labs on large and established research fields. How much is being spent on understanding the next sweet clover mold? And more importantly, how much is being spent to ensure that our understanding of the next sweet clover mold is connected to other fields across "science." ---ABH

[Mikko Ahonen]

And the discussion continues...

Please, look at the thread:

http://www.andrewhargadon.com/blog/?p=9

Have a Great Day

Mikko

[Martin Cahill]

Great site, Mikko. I hope to listen in and contribute where I can.

Martin Cahill
http://disappearingworld.wordpress.com/

[Carlos Perez-Brito]

Hi Mikko.
Interesting blog. I came across the technology brokening concept and definition while reading the Andrew Hargadon (2003)like a month ago. I called my attention because I am actually writing an article for a conference in Germany next year about innovation from developoing countries, and a case study of reforming public institutions with ICT and integrated data and information systems.

Your work and PH.D are very interesting to me, and I would me more than happy to read anything you have to share as part of your dissertation.

Please keep in touch and thanks for sharing information

Carlos
Guatemala
Central America

[Mikko Ahonen]

Hi Carlos

I try to contact you during Spring with my colleagues Marko (Mäkipää) and Maria (Antikainen).

As you might guess, I have been busy...elsewhere ;-)

Cheers

Mikko