Is necessity “really” the mother of invention?
Complexity and the Likelihood of Investing in Innovation
by Narayan RAMASUBBU
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Date: Time: Venue: |
6 September 2007 (Thursday)
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Narayan RAMASUBBU |
We look forward to seeing you at this research seminar. |
Abstract
The starting point for this research work is the maxim that necessity is the mother of invention. In the innovation literature, we can find studies that support the necessity-invention link, as well as those that question it. Rather than asking whether this maxim is always true or false, we ask what conditions discriminate between decisions that are consistent with or depart from the necessity-invention link. Prior research examining the organizational sources of the decision to innovate has focused on cumulative learning, skills deficit, communication filters, and resource dependence affecting the likelihood of investing in innovation. We extend this research by examining the effect of complexity – product complexity and change complexity – on the decision to invest in innovation. We argue that increase in interdependencies, by increasing product complexity, reduces the likelihood of investing in innovation. Similarly, innovations that demand coordination across multiple product development teams increases change complexity and reduce the likelihood of investing in the innovation. We combine large-sample empirical analysis with detailed qualitative data drawn from interviews to explicate the conditions under which necessity drives invention. We find that even within a single firm, there is considerable variance in the strength of the necessity-invention link in decisions about innovation. The qualitative study revealed the importance of organization structures, competitive pressures, and incentives for resource allocation processes. These factors usually mute the strength of the necessity-invention link. We also discuss the implications for research on resource allocation.
Biography
Narayan Ramasubbu is an Assistant Professor at the Singapore Management University. He received his Ph.D degree in Business Administration from the Ross School of Business at the University of Michigan. Prior to that Narayan was a senior developer and product management consultant at SAP AG and CGI Inc. His research interests are in software engineering economics, globally distributed product development, software product design, standardization, and customization, and business value of IT.