![CHAPTER IV
INTRODUCTION OF GASOLINE-DRIVEN DIRIGIBLES
We have now traced the art of balloon guidance and propulsion
from its earliest inception to the close of the nineteenth century. It
was a period of extravagant hope and chimerical scheming, but
withal a period fruitful in devices of fundamental value. The best
experiments paid no dividends, but they prepared the way for really
useful vessels. The methods of manipulation and control had been
sufficiently developed to answer immediate needs. The air ship was
at least dirigible, if not practical. It kept its shape, obeyed its rudder,
rose and fell according to the operator’s will. It was, however, a fair-
weather machine, beautiful in appearance, but helpless in any
considerable wind. Speed was now the desideratum, and the
attainment of this involved new difficulties. The storm-proof balloon
was still a dream.
Naturally one inquires what velocity makes a dirigible air ship
really practical, assuming all other requirements satisfied. The
minimum allowable speed depends largely upon the locality and
season. On Long Island an assured velocity of forty to fifty miles an
hour would seem desirable; for there the winds are swift and the
water near. In Washington, or Berlin, thirty miles an hour is enough,
though each additional mile per hour must be regarded as a
considerable gain on a small margin of progress in facing a stiff
breeze. Colonel Renard has estimated, from a study of the wind
records near Paris, that a dirigible is practically useful in that locality
if it can maintain a speed of twenty-eight miles an hour for ten or
twelve hours; since in that case it can maneuver 81 days in 100.
Renard’s own graceful ship attained a speed of but half that much.
In order, therefore, to give his vessel the desired usefulness its
speed must be doubled. This would require an eightfold[11] increase](https://image.slidesharecdn.com/25194-250505215058-dbee6392/85/Innovation-and-the-Creative-Process-Lars-Fuglsang-57-320.jpg)
![Inside, the central stalls were 31 feet wide, 165 feet long, and 44½
feet high,[12] the whole enclosure having accommodation for seven
dirigibles all inflated and ready for instant service. When completed,
in the spring of 1903, it was at once used to harbor three new air
ships. These were the No. 7, designed for racing contests; the No. 9,
called the Runabout, a minim air ship used for calls and short
pleasure trips; and the No. 10, called the Omnibus, intended for
several persons, with ample supplies for a considerable journey.
The No. 7, which excelled its predecessors in length and bulk, was
intended greatly to outstrip the best of them in velocity. The first air
ship had attained fourteen miles per hour, the No. 6, nearly twenty
miles an hour in winning the Deutsch prize, and over twenty miles
per hour on subsequent occasions, though provided with a motor
rated at only 12 horse power. The new vessel which had little greater
resistance than No. 6, was to carry four times the internal pressure,
or about 12 centimeters of water, and to be propelled by an engine
of 60 horse power. The inventor expected therefore to attain a speed
of between forty and fifty miles per hour. A very lofty expectation for
that day, and one still unrealized for many years.
The racing air ship, or No. 7, was of cigar form, supporting a long
car beneath, and generally resembling the No. 6, but slightly more
tapering. Her length was six times her major diameter, and her
volume 45,000 cubic feet. The envelope was made of two layers of
the strongest French silk, four times varnished, and was built
exceptionally thick at the stern, where the differential outward
pressure is greatest in flight. The propulsion was effected by a 60
horse-power water-cooled four-cylinder Clément engine actuating
two screw propellers 16½ feet in diameter, one in front the other at
the rear of the car. The poise and maneuvering were to be controlled
in the usual way, by means of the rudder and shifting weight. The
inventor seemed not to realize that the bow of his vessel was too
sharp to cleave the air with minimum resistance, though his
predecessor, Jullien, in 1850, had discovered experimentally that a
torpedo form is better for speed than the symmetrical spindle form](https://image.slidesharecdn.com/25194-250505215058-dbee6392/85/Innovation-and-the-Creative-Process-Lars-Fuglsang-66-320.jpg)
Innovation and the Creative Process Lars Fuglsang
- 1. Innovation and the Creative Process Lars Fuglsang download https://ebookgate.com/product/innovation-and-the-creative- process-lars-fuglsang/ Get Instant Ebook Downloads – Browse at https://ebookgate.com
- 2. Get Your Digital Files Instantly: PDF, ePub, MOBI and More Quick Digital Downloads: PDF, ePub, MOBI and Other Formats Transformational Innovation in the Creative and Cultural Industries 1st Edition Alison Rieple https://ebookgate.com/product/transformational-innovation-in-the- creative-and-cultural-industries-1st-edition-alison-rieple/ Innovation in the Cultural and Creative Industries 1st Edition Estelle Pellegrin-Boucher https://ebookgate.com/product/innovation-in-the-cultural-and- creative-industries-1st-edition-estelle-pellegrin-boucher/ Methodology Technology and Innovation in Translation Process Research 1st Edition Fabio Alves https://ebookgate.com/product/methodology-technology-and- innovation-in-translation-process-research-1st-edition-fabio- alves/ The Creative Process in Music from Mozart to Kurtag 1st Edition Edition William Kinderman https://ebookgate.com/product/the-creative-process-in-music-from- mozart-to-kurtag-1st-edition-edition-william-kinderman/
- 3. Play and the artist s creative process the work of Philip Guston and Eduardo Paolozzi 1st Edition Elly Thomas https://ebookgate.com/product/play-and-the-artist-s-creative- process-the-work-of-philip-guston-and-eduardo-paolozzi-1st- edition-elly-thomas/ Joyce s Creative Process and the Construction of Characters in Ulysses Becoming the Blooms 1st Edition Luca Crispi https://ebookgate.com/product/joyce-s-creative-process-and-the- construction-of-characters-in-ulysses-becoming-the-blooms-1st- edition-luca-crispi/ Prophet of innovation Joseph Schumpeter and creative destruction 1st Harvard University Press ed Edition Schumpeter https://ebookgate.com/product/prophet-of-innovation-joseph- schumpeter-and-creative-destruction-1st-harvard-university-press- ed-edition-schumpeter/ Creative Problem Solving for Managers Developing Skills for Decision Making and Innovation 2nd Edition Tony Proctor https://ebookgate.com/product/creative-problem-solving-for- managers-developing-skills-for-decision-making-and- innovation-2nd-edition-tony-proctor/ The Web Designer s Roadmap Your Creative Process for Web Design Success 1st Edition Giovanni Difeterici https://ebookgate.com/product/the-web-designer-s-roadmap-your- creative-process-for-web-design-success-1st-edition-giovanni- difeterici/
- 5. Innovation and the Creative Process
- 6. NEW HORIZONS IN THE ECONOMICS OF INNOVATION Founding Editor: Christopher Freeman, Emeritus Professor of Science Policy, SPRU – Science and Technology Policy Research, University of Sussex, UK Technical innovation is vital to the competitive performance of firms and of nations and for the sustained growth of the world economy. The economics of innovation is an area that has expanded dramatically in recent years and this major series, edited by one of the most distinguished scholars in the field, contributes to the debate and advances in research in this most important area. The main emphasis is on the development and application of new ideas. The series provides a forum for original research in technology, innovation systems and management, industrial organization, technological collaboration, knowledge and innovation, research and development, evolutionary theory and industrial strategy. International in its approach, the series includes some of the best theoretical and empirical work from both well- established researchers and the new generation of scholars. Titles in the series include: Technological Systems and Intersectoral Innovation Flows Riccardo Leoncini and Sandro Montresor Inside the Virtual Product How Organisations Create Knowledge Through Software Luciana D’Adderio Embracing the Knowledge Economy The Dynamic Transformation of the Finnish Innovation System Edited by Gerd Schienstock The Dynamics of Innovation in Eastern Europe Lessons from Estonia Per Högselius Technology and the Decline in Demand for Unskilled Labour A Theoretical Analysis of the US and European Labour Markets Mark Sanders Innovation and Institutions A Multidisciplinary Review of the Study of Innovation Systems Edited by Steven Casper and Frans van Waarden Innovation Strategies in Interdependent States Essays on Smaller Nations, Regions and Cities in a Globalized World John de la Mothe Internationalizing the Internet The Co-evolution of Influence and Technology Byung-Keun Kim Asia’s Innovation Systems in Transition Edited by Bengt-Åke Lundvall, Patarapong Intarakumnerd and Jan Vang-Lauridsen National Innovation, Indicators and Policy Edited by Louise Earl and Fred Gault Innovation and the Creative Process Towards Innovation with Care Edited by Lars Fuglsang
- 7. Innovation and the Creative Process Towards Innovation with Care Edited by Lars Fuglsang Department of Communication, Business and Information Technologies (CBIT), Roskilde University, Denmark NEW HORIZONS IN THE ECONOMICS OF INNOVATION Edward Elgar Cheltenham, UK • Northampton, MA, USA
- 8. © Lars Fuglsang 2008 All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical or photocopying, recording, or otherwise without the prior permission of the publisher. Published by Edward Elgar Publishing Limited Glensanda House Montpellier Parade Cheltenham Glos GL50 1UA UK Edward Elgar Publishing, Inc. William Pratt House 9 Dewey Court Northampton Massachusetts 01060 USA A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library Library of Congress Cataloging in Publication Data Innovation and the creative process : towards innovation with care / edited by Lars Fuglsang. p. cm.— (New horizons in economics of innovation series) Includes bibliographical references and index. 1. Technological innovations—Management. 2. Creative ability in business. I. Fuglsang, Lars. HD45.I53719 2008 658.3’14—dc22 2007029864 ISBN 978 1 84720 387 8 Printed and bound in Great Britain by MPG Books Ltd, Bodmin, Cornwall
- 9. Contents List of figures vii List of tables viii List of boxes ix List of contributors x Foreword xiv Jon Sundbo INTRODUCTION 1. Innovation with care: what it means 3 Lars Fuglsang PART 1: INVOLVEMENT 2. Innovation and involvement in services 25 Jon Sundbo 3. Customer Relationship Management (CRM) as innovation: taking care of the right customers 48 Jan Mattsson 4. Innovation with care in health care: translation as an alternative metaphor of innovation and change 57 John Damm Scheuer PART 2: IMPORTANCE 5. The public library between social engineering and innovation with care 87 Lars Fuglsang 6. Getting waste to become taste: from the planning of innovation to innovation planning 112 Gestur Hovgaard 7. Public innovation with care: a quantitative approach 131 Lars Fuglsang, Jeppe Højland and John Storm Pedersen v
- 10. 8. Meta-innovations on strategic arenas: innovative management in public organizations 142 Jørn Kjølseth Møller PART 3: POSITIONING 9. The interaction between public science and industry, and the role of the Øresund Science Region’s platform organization 169 Povl A. Hansen and Göran Serin 10. The role of a network organization and Internet-based technologies in clusters: the case of Medicon Valley 193 Ada Scupola and Charles Steinfield 11. The “Mad Max Puzzle”: positioning and the lone inventor 212 Jerome Davis and Lee N. Davis PART 4: SENSEMAKING 12. Sense caring in innovation 237 Peter Hagedorn-Rasmussen 13. Making innovation durable 254 Connie Svabo 14. Intrapreneurship: differences in innovations is a matter of perspective and understanding 275 Hanne Westh Nicolajsen 15. Mindful innovation 295 Poul Bitsch Olsen Index 311 vi Contents
- 11. Figures 8.1. System of innovation on the domain for educational services in Denmark (kindergartens and services for care of children) 154 8.2. Diversity and capability to innovate 159 8.3. Organizational cultures 161 9.1. The Øresund Science Region 180 11.1. Initial positioning: Mad Max and Big Widget Inc. 215 11.2. Mad Max and Big Widget Inc. The impact of expectations 217 11.3. Time line one: two-step sequencing 219 11.4. Time line two: multiple step sequencing 219 13.1. Communication (a) 270 13.2. Communication (b) 270 14.1. The innovation process of ProjectWeb 281 14.2. Screen dump from ProjectWeb (IT department) 282 14.3. Innovation-in-use? 283 vii
- 12. Tables 4.1. Quantitative and qualitative approach to quality development 71 7.1. Innovation in public institutions 134 7.2. The proxy of innovation with care 135 7.3. Innovation and fulfillment of external demands 136 7.4. Innovation and strategic involvement 137 8.1. Institutional pressures on educational organizations 145 8.2. Examples of strategic arenas in educational organizations (kindergartens) 149 8.3. Characteristic of networks as a potential and as action (intention) 162 10.1. Characteristics of Medicon Valley (adapted from the MVA home page, www.mva.org) 202 11.1. Chronology: Kearns v. Ford re: the intermittent windshield wiper 226 14.1. ProjectWeb content and sense-making conditions across projects 289 viii
- 13. Boxes 8.1. Types of innovations and innovation strategies in the public sector 151 8.2. Five roles in the management of innovation 158 12.1. The products offered – and a taste of the unfolding innovation 244 12.2. The e-realtors’ four IT platforms 246 15.1. Definition of mindfulness 300 ix
- 14. Contributors Jerome Davis is currently Canadian Research Chair (Oil and Natural Gas Policy) at Dalhousie University, Halifax, Nova Scotia. He has published widely in the fields of oil and natural gas policy, and in diverse fields such as equity markets as institutions, the institutional consequences of incom- plete contracts, project management and analysis, public sector restructur- ing, and the role of prizes as incentives to innovation. Lee N. Davis is Associate Professor at the Department of Industrial Economics and Strategy, and Research Associate at the Centre on Law, Economics and Financial Institutions, both at the Copenhagen Business School. She has conducted research on economic incentives to research and development over the past two decades, with a special focus on the role of intellectual property rights, and published widely in the field. Other research interests include firm appropriability choices, innovation strategy, and aca- demic patenting in the life sciences. Lars Fuglsang (PhD) is Associate Professor in Social Sciences at the Department of Communication, Business and Information Technologies (CBIT) at Roskilde University. He has written books and articles in the field of innovation studies, public innovation, service development, and science and technology studies. His research explores how organizational frame- works are created to deal with the impact of innovation and technology on business and society. Peter Hagedorn-Rasmussen (PhD) is Associate Professor of Social Sciences at the Department of Communication, Business and Information Technologies (CBIT) at Roskilde University. He has written books and articles in the field of organizational change, management and work life studies. His main research interest is the study of organizations as living compromises, with particular focus on the relationship between manage- ment and work life. Povl A. Hansen is Dr fil. in Economy History from Lund University, Sweden, and Associate Professor in Economic Geography at the Department of Communication, Business and Information Technologies (CBIT) at Roskilde x
- 15. University. He has published in the fields of technology, innovation and regional development. His research is in the field of industrial analysis espec- ially focusing on the relationships among innovation processes, industrial structures and transfer of knowledge. He has published many books, reports and articles on technology, business conditions and regional development. Jeppe Højland is a doctoral student of Social Sciences at the Department of Communication, Business and Information Technologies (CBIT) at Roskilde University. His PhD dissertation is about new kinds of reward practices in knowledge-intensive firms. He has written an article about the impact on leaders and employees of the Danish public sector reform. His main research interest is innovation within the area of human resource management. Gestur Hovgaard (PhD) is Assistant Professor of Social Sciences at Roskilde University. He has written in the field of innovation and social innovation, and his main fields of interest are within local and regional development. Food chains and food biotechnology are also examined in his research. Jan Mattsson is Professor in business administration at the Department of Communication, Business and Information Technologies (CBIT) at Roskilde University. He has held several professorships and visiting pro- fessorships in New Zealand, Australia and Scandinavia. He has authored several books and more than 50 peer-reviewed international publications in journals such as The International Journal of Research in Marketing and Journal of Economic Psychology. He serves on many editorial boards of international journals in marketing and services. He takes part in several international research projects focusing on customer-firm interactions. Jørn Kjølseth Møller (Master of Political Science) is a doctoral student of Social Sciences at the Department of Communication, Business and Information Technologies (CBIT) at Roskilde University. He has written books and articles in the field of strategic management and change, service development and psychology in organizations. His main research interest is in strategic management and change of educational organizations in the public sector. Hanne Westh Nicolajsen (PhD) is Assistant Professor at the Center for Information and Communication Technologies (CICT) at the Technical University of Denmark. She has published in the field of the use of infor- mation and communication technologies in organizations. Her research Contributors xi
- 16. examines how information and communication technologies are used in organizations and are shaped by organizational and entrepreneurial factors. Poul Bitsch Olsen (PhD) is Associate Professor of Organization Theory at the Department of Communication, Business and Information Technologies (CBIT) at Roskilde University. He has written books and articles on collective knowing and organizing. In particular, his research examines leadership and project work. His research also explores how col- lective practicing is the basis for business innovation, team-sports, value production and academic competence. John Storm Pedersen (PhD) is Associate Professor of Social Sciences at the Department of Society and Globalisation at Roskilde University. He has written books and articles in the field of public administration and man- agement, structural reforms in the public sector and public innovation. His main research interest at present is the impact of the structural reforms in the public sector in Denmark and how public institutions deliver services to the citizens. Pedersen is former CEO of the Mayor’s Office in the munici- pality of Aalborg. John Damm Scheuer (PhD) is Assistant Professor at the Department of Communication, Business and Information Technologies (CBIT) at Roskilde University. His main research interest and focus is the study of the encounter of innovative ideas and local practice in private as well as public organizations. The encounter is studied as implementation, diffusion or translation processes. But also new and innovative ways of theorizing about “the encounter” and local organizing processes are explored. Ada Scupola (PhD) is Associate Professor at the Department of Communication, Business and Information Technologies (CBIT), Roskilde University. She has published articles and books in the area of information technology innovation, especially in the field of adoption, diffusion and use of information technologies such as e-commerce and e-services in SMEs and industrial clusters. Her research focuses primarily on how organiza- tional and industrial factors shape the development, adoption, implemen- tation, use, and effects of such technologies. Göran Serin (Dr) earned his degree in Economic History and is Associate Professor in Business Administration at the Department of Communication, Business and Information Technologies (CBIT), Roskilde University. He has extensive research experience within the fields of technology, innovation and regional development. He has a particular interest in industrial analysis and xii Contributors
- 17. industrial restructuring and regional development, on which he has pub- lished many articles and books. In recent years, his research has especially focused on analysing regional integration in cross-border regions. Charles Steinfield (PhD) is Professor and Chair of the Department of Telecommunication, Information Studies and Media at Michigan State University. He has published books and articles in the area of organizations and use of information and communication technologies. His research examines how individual and organizational factors shape the development, adoption, use and effects of such technologies. Jon Sundbo is Professor in Business Administration at the Department of Communication, Business and Information Technologies (CBIT), Roskilde University. He is director of the Center for Service Studies and coordinator of the Department’s research area in innovation and change processes in services and manufacturing. He has published extensively in the fields of innovation, service management and the development of the service sector, tourism and organization. He has published articles in several journals on innovation, entrepreneurship, service and management and has authored several books, among these The Theory of Innovation and The Strategic Management of Innovation. Connie Svabo (Master in Business Administration) is PhD Fellow at the Department of Communication, Business and Information Technologies (CBIT) at Roskilde University. She has written articles and edited books about practice-based learning. She has several years of professional expe- rience in consultancy work and commercial writing. Her main research interests are organization, materiality and esthetic forms of knowing. Contributors xiii
- 18. Foreword This book presents new thoughts and research on innovation. Innovation with care emphasizes both the care for people and the care for doing inno- vation in a proper way. Most innovative attempts fail and create economic loss and individual disappointment. Another book in the overwhelming stream of books on innovation? Can it contribute with new knowledge? We believe it can by taking a primarily sociological approach to innovation. Not that the economic aspects are forgotten, but the sociological aspects are emphasized complimentary to the economic ones. This is not very common in innovation literature. The individual – the entrepreneur – has been emphasized, but rarely the social processes with different actors and roles and innovation as an interactive process. In the increasing contemporary theoretical and practical interest for innovation, the social aspects of the innovation process has often been for- gotten. Emphasis has primarily been on economic processes and policy. However, innovation is a process that is carried out by people in interaction with people. It may be that the result of the process is part of the market economy, but the process itself is a social process where the economic results are not at all sure. Recently the social processes have come more into focus. Innovation projects, creativity and user-involvement have become objects in the front research. This book is one contribution to this movement. The book is a presentation of more than 15 years of research in the Innovation Research Group at Roskilde University in Denmark. In this group we have had a preference for the out-of-mainstream approaches to innovation: Innovation in services and the experience economy, innovation as non-sophisticated, quick practical ideas, continuous incremental inno- vation, user/customers’and employees’role in the innovation process, inno- vation as an organizational sensemaking process and so on. This has been amusing and informative for us and we believe it can provide new knowl- edge for researchers, students and others interested in innovation as both an economic and a social phenomenon. We think that the future for the phenomenon of innovation – and thus for innovation research and practical innovation work in firms and societies – is to return to the original point of departure: A general change of behav- ior and economic structures – social and economic change. We believe that xiv
- 19. innovation in the future will be a much more comprehensive phenomenon than just R&D, entrepreneurship as establishment of new high-tech firms or narrow industrial policy. Social entrepreneurship as solving social prob- lems, innovation as a value creating organizational development factor and as a collective social activity in- or outside the formal economy will prob- ably be future highlights within innovation research. This will develop inno- vation theory and make it more exciting, but also more diffuse since it will concern social change in general. The latter will challenge the theory devel- opment, but there is no way around this if we want to explain economic development, which in the future will concern phenomena such as lifestyle, experience, corporate identity, solution of social problems and so on. Jon Sundbo Professor of Innovation and Business Administration Co-ordinator of the Innovation Research Group Roskilde University, Denmark Foreword xv
- 21. Introduction
- 23. 1. Innovation with care: what it means Lars Fuglsang The purpose of this book is to find new ways to understand and analyse the phenomenon of innovation within the frameworks of “strategic reflex- ivity” (Sundbo and Fuglsang, 2002; Fuglsang and Sundbo, 2005) as well as “open innovation” (Chesbrough, 2003). The book presents new insights into mechanisms that are important for benefiting from innovation across sectors, organizations and people. It deals with tensions and paradoxes in innovative activities between, for example, variety and selection, crea- tivity and innovation, or between business innovation and social innova- tion – rather than seeing innovation from one particular point of view. “Innovation with care” means that innovation is seen as something that takes place among many actors having different perspectives, ideas and cul- tures that have to be carefully woven together in order to achieve the benefits of innovation. We understand innovation as an interactive process that involves many people and often also changing people across sectors. Innovation is there- fore a common activity, which is not restricted to special groups of persons such as “the creative class”or “symbol analysts”or people working in R&D labs. Innovation is a process that increasingly engages ideas and opinions from many different people. These are opinions and ideas that have to be expressed but also selected and aggregated. Innovation requires diversity and collectivity at the same time, and the balance between the two is a crucial aspect of innovative activities today. This balance is affected both by the market and by other social and organizational forces. We examine how social and organizational forces are important to that balance and these tensions. In doing so, the book tries to distinguish between different organizational and societal mechanisms of diversity and collectivity, especially four. These are: involvement, importance, position- ing and sensemaking. These all operate on different levels (micro and macro) that can be understood and analysed from a sociological and eco- nomic perspective (see later). Involvement is a mechanism of diversity mostly at the organizational level, where people can deliberately involve others in an exchange of experi- ences and considerations of workable ideas. Involvement presumes that 3
- 24. those who are involved are relatively independent and can speak freely about their opinions. Importance is a mechanism of collectivity. It presumes that certain init- iatives are seen as better than others and therefore are exposed and diffused more widely, so that people can adopt them or learn from them. The notion of importance also implies that we are here not only speaking of the market mechanism, but also of mechanisms that involve an element of voice (not just choice). Hence, importance is a social mechanism of aggregation, selec- tion and diffusion. Positioning is a mechanism of diversity at the societal level. It requires that people have the freedom to pursue their economic and social interests and can express their opinions about ideas they perceive to be socially effective or desirable. According to this mechanism, people can position themselves as actors in innovation and economic development. Finally, sensemaking is a mechanism of collectivity at the micro-level, where people try to make sense of their experiences and thereby to discover, not so much what is perceived as important and wise in the larger context, but what is appropriate and meaningful in a specific context. The different chapters of the book deal in different ways with these crosscutting aspects of innovation. Some have a stronger focus on the macro-level and some on the micro-level. Some tend to stress diversity and others collectivity. Therefore, the chapters have been grouped in different sections entitled involvement, importance, positioning and sensemaking. Nevertheless, what binds together all of the chapters is the attempt to see innovation from a broader perspective and at the systemic level where the tensions between actors, and between diversity and collectivity, can be studied. BACKGROUND Innovation with care is generally an approach to innovation that starts from the following premises: 1. that innovation and the way in which innovation takes place is import- ant to economic growth and social development; 2. that the concept of innovation has to be better understood in terms of how it can be applied in practice, especially through case-studies; and 3. that innovation in practice requires a reflexive approach that takes into account both economic and social elements, as well as tensions across sectors, organizations and people. 4 Introduction
- 25. Innovation with care grows out of research undertaken at Roskilde University over recent decades. This research has focused upon how inno- vation is changing from a technological and industrial mode to a reflexive mode involving many types of institutions, sectors, companies and social groups (Fuglsang and Sundbo, 2005; Sundbo and Fuglsang, 2001). This calls for a new conceptualization of innovation as well as social develop- ment, which can take into account the heterogeneity of relationships that evolve around innovative activities. Today, the innovative resources are much more widely distributed throughout society than just a few decades ago (Chesbrough, 2003). Innova- tion is no longer based in companies’ R&D departments, or in the state’s large-scale projects. Innovation can be understood as an interactive process that involves many and changing actors over time, and which serves mul- tiple concerns and conglomerates of different users. This also makes it more challenging for people to integrate different ideas and opinions about inno- vation, to balance goals and means, and to create frameworks of mutual communication, collaboration and understanding. It becomes critical to analyse how this heterogeneity among sectors, organizations and people can be managed in different ways, and in different social and strategic arenas. This historical approach to innovation can also be seen as being opposed to a more homogeneous approach to innovation where innovation is seen as something which is planned and managed in a more straightforward and detailed way. The heterogeneity of innovation today means that innov- ative activities cannot be easily controlled through detailed planning, but that opportunities for innovation have to be continuously evaluated, inter- preted and interfered with. Innovative organizations become interpretative systems (Daft and Weick, 1984; Fuglsang and Sundbo, 2005). They try to create some sense of direction and integrate people into changes by making interpretations about the changing opportunities of the organization, and how skills and opportunity can be adjusted to each other. The main question, which should be explored, is therefore how a proper environment for innovation can be constructed that takes into account these complex mechanisms of diversity and collectivity. Furthermore, an approach that uses various types of case studies in combination with other research techniques may turn out to be an important way in which such mechanisms can be better understood. It requires a more problem- and action-oriented approach to the study of innovation. The purpose of the book is to demonstrate that this approach is a fruit- ful approach to innovation. Along these lines, innovation is, in our view, more about interpretation than planning, more about heterogeneity and tension than homogeneity and control, more about opinion than choice, Innovation with care 5
- 26. and more about wisdom than science. The book will illustrate the value of innovation with care through a number of interesting cases. CREATIVITY AND INNOVATION In most definitions of innovation, innovation consists of two aspects: creativity and innovation (Amabile et al., 1996), invention and diffusion (Rogers, 1995), exploration and exploitation (March, 1991), or variation and selection (Nelson and Winter, 1977). This means that innovation is seen as consisting of two integrated processes. New appropriate ideas or inventions have to be explored in a creative way. In addition to this, there is another parallel process going on where these ideas are aggregated, selected, diffused, implemented and exploited. The interaction between these two sides of innovation is critical. For example, Teresa Amabile, who has studied creativity, defines inno- vation in the following way. “We define innovation as the successful imple- mentation of creative ideas within an organization. In this view, creativity by individuals and teams is a starting point for innovation; the first is neces- sary but not sufficient condition for the second” (Amabile et al., 1996: 1154–5). Mulgan and Albery who have studied public and social innovation have defined innovation in a similar vein: “We define innovation as ‘new ideas that work’. To be more precise: Successful innovation is the creation and implementation of new processes, products, services and methods of deliv- ery which result in significant improvements in outcomes efficiency, effectiveness or quality” (Mulgan and Albury, 2003: 3). And Sundbo (1998: 12) in a book about service innovation gives the fol- lowing definition: “I will use ‘innovation’ to describe the effort to develop an element that has already been invented, so that it has a practical- commercial use, and to gain the acceptance of this element.” Most of these definitions of innovation have their origins in Schumpeter’s original definition of innovation in his Theory of Economic Development. In that book, Schumpeter is, among other things, conceiving the function of the entrepreneur for economic development as someone who goes against the mainstream. In his definition of innovation, Schumpeter stresses both the ability of the entrepreneur to create entirely “new combinations” and to open up new markets and teach the consumers to use innovations (Schumpeter, 1934, 1969: 65–6). This double sidedness of innovation is at the core of this book as it is also the core of many descriptions of creativity. For example, in his book about creativity, Csikszentmihalyi makes a distinction between the domain of 6 Introduction
- 27. creativity and the field of creativity (Csikszentmihalyi, 1996). The domain is the specific area in which someone is creative, for example in science, art or politics. The field is the wider environment in which creativity is recog- nized and stimulated. It is often the field of innovation, rather than the domain, which explains, according to Csikszentmihalyi, why some organ- izations are more creative than others, for example why Florence was a par- ticular creative city in the Florentine renaissance. On the other hand, in this approach, we should not ignore the critical factors that are important to creativity or the social psychology of creativity. For example, in her work on the social psychology of creativity, Teresa M. Amabile has examined the proposition that intrinsic motivation is crucial to creativity (Amabile, 1996). Creativity is, as Schumpeter explained, an act that is often motivated by itself rather than by external requirements or extrinsic motivations. Creativity also requires that people are situated in a domain where they possess the necessary domain-relevant skills – rather than being put into a domain where they possess no such skills. To treat creativity with care means that people are not moved to a domain where they possess no domain relevant skills, and that intrinsic motivation is not entirely replaced by extrinsic motivation. This may increase the chances that creative results are appropriate and not bizarre or eccentric. In this way creativeness means the ability to create new innova- tive results that are meaningful and appropriate. Understood in this way, the right microenvironment for creativity increases the chances of creative ideas that are also appropriate to innovation. BUSINESS INNOVATION AND SOCIAL INNOVATION Innovation with care is also an approach to innovation which focuses upon the interdependencies that exist within social and economic development between business innovations on the one hand, and “social innovations”on the other – in addition to the interaction of creativity and innovation. In the perspective of social innovation, the relation between creativity and innovation, variation and selection, gains another meaning, as we shall briefly explore in the following. Social innovations are innovations based in social goals and social processes. Social innovation (Young Foundation, 2006) and business inno- vation, however, often overlap and intertwine. A mobile telephone is a social innovation and a business innovation at the same time: it serves a social goal for those who use it, and it generates economic value for those who produce it and for society. A new model of a mobile telephone is perhaps not necessarily a social innovation if it does not serve a particular (new) Innovation with care 7
- 28. social goal. To understand and analyse the social goal and value of an inno- vation can be an important driver of business innovation. Another aspect of social innovation besides the social goal and social value is the social process and diffusion of innovation. All processes of innovation, business innovations, social innovations or innovation with care, could, as indicated, be said to consist of two related processes: explor- ation and exploitation (March, 1991), variation and selection (Nelson and Winter, 1977), or invention and diffusion (Rogers, 1995). Ideas are devel- oped, and then some of these ideas are selected and scaled up as more important or wiser than others. The selection mechanism can be “the wisdom of the crowds” (Surowiecki, 2004), or it may be opinion-makers or society’s elite that attempt to “pick the winner”. Seen from the perspective of business innovation, the market mechanism is crucial to this tension and the transition between invention and diffusion. The “wisdom of the crowd” is here expressed by consumer choice implying that certain ideas are picked by the crowd as being more effective or in some sense better than others. Seen from the perspective of a social innovation and innovation with care, the market is not the only mechanisms of dif- fusion and scaling up. Here, other social mechanisms of aggregation, selec- tion and diffusion are important too (see Rogers, 1995), and these are sometimes more difficult to come to grips with from an analytical point of view. In some cases, as in public innovation, the market mechanisms may be entirely missing, and therefore the social mechanisms of aggregation, selec- tion and diffusion of innovation present an even more challenging task when analysing it at the theoretical level and constructing it at the practi- cal level. For example, the market mechanism cannot always be applied to the selection of adequate learning or teaching tools in schools. Here, inputs from many professionals and experts and even systemic reviews and demonstrations of these inputs may be needed as a basis for selection. In other cases, the social selection and diffusion of innovation is intertwined with some kind of market mechanism, where the behavior of the user and user choice in combination with user voice may be relevant. This is typical for public television for example. Innovation with care is therefore an approach to innovation that tries to pay more attention to social mechanisms of diffusion and scaling up than is usual, and to analyse the complex interactions that take place between market mechanisms and social mechanisms, understood as a mechanism of selection and diffusion. In some cases, business innovations and social innovations, as men- tioned, strongly overlap. In other cases social innovations are separate domains but still crucial to business innovation. The university is a social 8 Introduction
- 29. innovation in its own domain, which still plays a crucial role for economic and social development more broadly. Health is dependent on development of commercial drugs as well as a range of social innovations including the health system itself. The sewerage system is a social innovation that is crucial for health conditions. Wikipedia is a social innovation that may end up as a commercial innovation, but initially it started out as a social idea. Social innovations, such as a library or a laboratory, provide social struc- tures that inform the chances of discovery, creativity and innovation more broadly in society. In some cases, social innovations are therefore domain specific, in other cases they provide a different perspective on business innovation, as in the case of the mobile phone or the use of SMSs. The practical relevance of this approach is that there is a difficult balance to maintain within social and economic development between market mechanisms on the one hand, and social mechanisms of innovations on the other. Furthermore, it becomes important to investigate how social mechanisms can be constructed. More energy and resources could be devoted to the study of the social sides of innovations because they are crucial to innovations both to the chances of creative discoveries and to the robust and meaningful application and implementation of these dis- coveries in business and society. As such, social mechanisms of innovation also inspire economic development more broadly and can be pertinent to the implementation and the commercial exploitations of innovations. Innovation with care is in this way really a broad concept for the produc- tive tensions and balance between the commercial and the social sides of innovation. Innovation with care is also an approach to innovation which is different from social engineering. Innovation with care represents, as we define it, an incremental way to improve society and its institutions, and is based in the social values and independent opinions of many citizens in the context of, for example, a nation, that have to give their support to it. It corresponds more or less to Karl Popper’s idea of “piecemeal”social change as opposed to utopian social engineering, hence it is a critical-reflective and incremen- tal approach to innovation (see Popper, 1962). Innovation with care is a complex and a time-consuming process where much can go wrong, because of the many unintended consequences and risks associated with innovation. Therefore, we need a careful approach to innovation where many perspectives and ideas are woven together in a careful way. Another important issue here is that innovation can be motivated in many ways as Schumpeter already pointed out in his Theory of Economic Development. Profit is one motive, but the creation of a small kingdom or the wish to solve concrete problems could be other reasons for people to Innovation with care 9
- 30. engage in innovation. Many important innovations cannot, initially, be, in a meaningful way, understood directly as commercial innovations, driven by profits, since their “business model” sometimes is very unclear. Google and Wikipedia are two prominent examples. Other examples are those development projects that take place in the name of cultural policies. For example, when politicians, volunteers, business leaders and social entrepre- neurs go together to develop their municipality, the direct commercial spin- offs are usually very difficult to calculate and understand. This kind of innovation is better described as a social innovation of its own purpose and in its own right that may be complementary to business innovations in the municipality, for example the well functioning of the labour market and the chances of creativity and meaningful innovation. Social innovations such as schools, universities, libraries, and so on can be driven by public or private organizations. Voluntary organizations or enthusiasts as well as business organizations can also drive social inno- vations, and sometimes we tend to forget the significance of these initiatives. For example, in the case of the so-called information society, the field of social innovations is often much more important to discovering needs and socially effective solutions to them than is normally understood. Social or public entrepreneurs and social institutions can play a crucial role for devel- oping network technologies to people that eventually become real resources to them. These kinds of innovations can inspire business innovations and can lead to the development of highly meaningful commercial innovations. But the field of social innovations is very poorly understood today in com- parison with many other high-profile commercial innovations. There is a hidden economy of social and volunteer innovation at risk here, which needs to be explored in order to identify good examples of socially effective ideas that others might be able to learn from. A main difficulty within the field of social innovation and innovation with care is, however, that the impact of this approach is difficult to define and measure. For example, what is the impact of the university? What is the impact of the library and the school? It can be explained in broad terms, but it is much more difficult to measure and analyse than commer- cial innovations. Indeed, in some cases, certain success criteria can be created, such as the impact of the health system or a particular medical treatment on life expectancy. Still, even in this case, the complex interaction of treatment, sanitary conditions and nursing are very difficult to explain. And in many other cases, the measurement of impact is a very difficult issue. Furthermore, the impact of social innovation and innovation with care on business innovation is an extremely complicated issue in itself. For example, what is the impact of the public library on business innovation? Does it in one way or another improve the quality of the work force? 10 Introduction
- 31. But these difficulties of measuring the impact of social innovation should not mean that we neglect to throw more light on these issues and their cri- tical impact on society. SCHUMPETER I, II AND III Our approach to innovation is partly inspired by the tensions in Joseph Schumpeter’s work between his early work, so-called Schumpeter I, and the late work, so-called Schumpeter II (see Phillips, 1971 for a discussion). One might say that our approach is an attempt to formulate a Schumpeter III approach that reconsiders the wider context of innovation. In the early work, Schumpeter stressed the role of the entrepreneur (Schumpeter, 1934, 1969). The entrepreneur is described as a special type of person with a special motivation, which is not necessarily driven by profits. The entrepreneur is a dynamic person outside the mainstream, and has a function for changing economic structures. In his later work, by contrast, Schumpeter thought that the social function of the entrepreneur had disap- peared (Schumpeter, 1947). He thought that innovation had become a routine-activity in the labs of the modern business corporation. Schumpeter claimed that the entrepreneur was no longer a very relevant type since inno- ation had become more integrated into society. The particular distinction between the entrepreneur and routine-based innovation in Schumpeter’s work is important here. But what also matters is that Schumpeter’s work tells us that different forms or modes of inno- vation exist, such as the entrepreneurial form in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries and the routine-based form in the mid-twentieth century. Furthermore, there may be different motives and rationales behind the various approaches to innovation as well. What we are missing in Schumpeter’s work is, perhaps, a recognition that these two forms of innovation may exist at the same time and in some ways are interdependent. Schumpeter, by contrast, seems to think that one his- torical period (that of heroic entrepreneurs) is being entirely replaced by another (that of the large corporations). Clearly, from what we know today, this is wrong. There is still a function for entrepreneurs, and today new forms of entrepreneurship are being promoted, such as social entrepre- neurship and public entrepreneurship. They have, however, to be under- stood at the systemic level rather than at the level of the individual. The distinction between Schumpeter II and Schumpeter III is of the same character as the distinction between Schumpeter I and Schumpeter II. These three approaches represent different frameworks of innovations, where innovations proceed in different ways, are motivated by different factors, Innovation with care 11
- 32. aggregated, selected and diffused in different ways, and often crystallize into different kinds of institutions with different underlying rationales. What we argue, along with Chesbrough (2003), is that innovation today is no longer only based in the routines of R&D inside large corporations. But we also argue that this leads to the formation of new mechanisms of creativity and diffusion of innovation that can be understood at the systemic level. In the field of science studies, Nowotny and others have been discussing so-called mode II science, where external requirements come to play a growing role (Nowotny et al., 2001). They use the metaphor of “agora” to describe how a public arena of science is formed where the quality and the relevance of science is being discussed by scientists as well as by citizens and politicians. In the same way we argue that a new mode of innovation is emerging, the Schumpeter III approach, where new mech- anisms of creativity and diffusion of innovation are becoming important, and where market mechanisms and social mechanisms are blended in new ways. For example, we argue that new strategic arenas of innovation are being formed to which many types of actors are linked, such as universities, companies, government institutions and user groups. Furthermore, emp- loyees and consumers are interlinked in new ways at the systemic rather than only the individual level. One important expression of Schumpeter III that we want to stress in this book is innovation in services. Service providers are very dependent on their front personnel and their ideas, because the services are often co- produced by the consumer and co-consumed by the provider, and the con- crete work that goes into this is often difficult to describe in very precise terms. Some innovations in services are indeed business innovations, but many innovations may be better explained as social innovations in the sense that they are more related to the problem-oriented work of the front per- sonnel than directly to a commercial strategy. It is based in the interpre- tation and understanding of a situated problem. This problem-orientation can also often be interlinked with the life-story, intrinsic motivation and professional pride of the service-worker. Of course, the clever service provider will try to involve the service worker as much as possible in the business development, because he wants “ideas that work” (Mulgan and Young) drawn from the experience of the service worker. This becomes even more crucial today under the new ‘Schumpeter III paradigm.’ The employee and the consumer therefore become more and more involved at the systemic level in innovation activ- ities, rather than they are interacting and developing services only in indi- vidual face-to-face-relationships. Both in the private and in the public sector, the “journey to the interface” becomes an important theme (Parker and Heapy, 2006), that is the journey 12 Introduction
- 33. to the interface between the front personnel and the consumer. Experiences in the front have to be explored and collected in a more systematic way. In this journey, the interpretation and understanding of the needs of the consumer and the social goals involved in consumer behavior in a broader sense becomes crucial. In the “journey to the interface” the knowledge and experi- ence of the front-personnel is therefore also critical. At the same time, the front-personnel are seen as people who should not act on their own, but on behalf of the system (see Parker and Heapy, 2006). In this way, the issue becomes one of how people can learn from each other and how the good ideas can to be scaled up and diffused across and between people in organizations. This systemic orientation towards external ideas and their combination with internal experiences is an important aspect of the Schumpeter III model. The diffusion of the Internet and WEB2 and the many new services that are offered on the Internet provide plenty of examples of innovation with care where the innovative resources are highly distributed and where some innovative ideas are being systematically collected and scaled up, or picked by the crowd or through other mechanisms of selection. For one thing, these services are often developed as social innovations in a community of prac- tice and then eventually they develop into business innovations. Facebook is an example of this (see Ellison et al., 2006). It was initially a network tech- nology inspired by earlier ways to introduce students to each other using photographs in a physical “facebook”. Then it was developed by a student at Harvard University into a worldwide e-based service for students. It will probably evolve into a commercial innovation in time to come. Schumpeter III is a mode of innovation where the interpretation, explor- ation and exploitation of external ideas as well as their combination with internal experiences and ideas become increasingly important (Chesbrough, 2003), and where the diffusion and scaling up of ideas that are thought to be better take new forms in the market as well as society and in organiz- ations, as we shall explore in this book. DIVERSITY AND COLLECTIVITY, VARIETY AND SELECTION Innovation requires diversity and collectivity, variety and selection, cre- ativity and innovation at the same time. The balance between the two sides of the coins is a crucial aspect of innovation – and crucial to this book. This balance we understand as affected both by the market and by other social and organizational forces. The book tries to distinguish between different analytical perspectives that can be helpful for studying these balances or tensions. As a way to Innovation with care 13
- 34. organize the chapters of the book we can discern four broad analytical perspectives. These are as previously mentioned: involvement, importance, positioning and sensemaking. These should be understood as different broad perspectives on diversity and collectivity on different levels. What follows is a brief description of these analytical perspectives that organize the chapters of the book after which the single chapters will be presented. Involvement Involvement means that innovators can seek to involve many opinions and ideas during innovation. Often, for innovation to take place, it is important that employees and users are involved in the exploration of inventions and new “ideas that work.” How this involvement can take place is a compli- cated issue and a fruitful ground for new research as well as case-studies. Involvement is a mechanism of diversity or variety, but it also requires that management carefully selects some of the ideas while others are dis- missed. Hence, involvement requires a careful approach to both variation and selection, or, as it is explained in Sundbo’s chapter, to reflexivity and strategy-making at the same time. Most obviously, employees can be involved in innovation activities. But consumers can also sometimes be involved. For one thing, they can be involved through the employees having many years of experience with con- sumers. The employees’ discovery of consumer needs can sometimes be crucial for improving goods and services. This is true especially in services and public services. In some cases, the exploration of consumer needs may be more difficult than in others. For example, in the public sector, a principle of universal- ism is often important, and employees for good reasons have to think in terms of rules and public law rather than individual needs. To listen more carefully to individual citizens or to make use of employees’ experiences with them may almost constitute a paradigm shift in the public sector. Furthermore, while in many settings involvement of employees and con- sumers may work in the individual case, in the changing context of inno- vation, the involvement of employees and consumers must, as mentioned, increasingly take place in a systemic way. People must learn to act on behalf of the company system rather than on behalf of themselves. This also requires a careful balancing of strategy and reflexivity. Importance Importance stresses the principle that some ideas may tend to become more widely diffused than others. Importance therefore refers to a mechanism of 14 Introduction
- 35. collectivity and selection. It presumes that certain initiatives are perceived as better or more appropriate than others and therefore are recognized by more people, and that people are willing to adopt them or learn from them. The notion of importance also implies that we are not only speaking of the market mechanism, but also of a mechanism that involves an element of voice. The market mechanism cannot always be used to scale up and diffuse important ideas. Thus, in many institutional settings, and in the context of many services, people cannot, in practice, make use of the market mechanism, because they are dependent on the services that are provided where they live and work, such as schools, kindergartens, res- taurants, local cultural offers and so on. To find ways other than the market mechanism to promote experiences, make visible the good ideas and scale up the better initiatives so that others can learn from them is a major challenge for many social and public services. Positioning Positioning means that companies and institutions can position themselves as actors in economic change and innovation. They are not role-takers in a passive way, but they can actively position and reposition themselves in relation to each other. Nevertheless, in the context of increasing complex- ity, it may sometimes be quite challenging to acknowledge and recognize each other’s competences and qualities. Positioning is a mechanism of diversity or variety at the societal level. It requires that people have the autonomy to pursue economic and social interests and can express their opinions about ideas they perceive to be rele- vant – and can communicate what their own contribution to innovation and development may be. Positioning can be thought of as something that takes place both among individual persons and among institutions. For example, classical entrepre- neurship is an embodiment of positioning, where individual persons position themself in relation to other people. But also institutions, such as universi- ties, schools and libraries, have a need to position themselves in order to demonstrate their value to others. Hence, the university is not the same as an R&D lab in a private firm and the public library is not the same as Google (two examples from this book). They each have to position themselves in order to make clear what their individual gift is. How can they do this? Sensemaking Sensemaking means (following Weick, 1995) that there must be room for continuous sensemaking in connection with innovation processes in order Innovation with care 15
- 36. for people to discover and exploit new experiences and ideas and make them intelligible among each other. Managers and employees must create a “mindful environment”where they collectively can make sense of people’s changing perceptions and ideas of social and economic opportunities. Sensemaking is a mechanism of collectivity or selection at the micro- level, where people together try to make sense of changes and thereby to discover, not so much what is perceived as important and wise in the larger context, but what is appropriate and meaningful in a specific situated context. A metaphor for sensemaking, which is used in this book in several chap- ters, is that of “translation.” Translation means that new ideas, goods and services are translated or transformed by people to fit the local context before they can be used. This is critical in the emerging context of open innovation and strategic reflexivity. External ideas have to be adapted to the local context before they can be used, and sometimes, when it is difficult to “translate” them, they must be dropped. Perhaps this is also an approach to innovation that has a particularly strong hold on Scandinavian societies. Here the adoption of ideas, inven- tions and technologies from the outside world, and the attempt to translate them into something locally valuable, has been a critical aspect of eco- nomic development and the development of the welfare states. THE CHAPTERS OF THE BOOK All of the chapters in the book deal with certain tensions or paradoxes in innovation, as described above, which relate to involvement, importance, positioning, or sensemaking. Innovation with care is thus an approach that seeks to analyse and understand how people in empirical cases are dealing carefully with these tensions and paradoxes. In the first section of the book about “involvement,”we investigate tensions between engaging people’s opinions and ideas on the one hand, and the overall strategy of a company or an organization on the other. Jon Sundbo examines tensions in organizations between the involvement of employees in innovation, and care for the overall strategy process of a company or an organization. Sundbo pays attention particularly to inno- vation in services, and his chapter includes a review of the literature on service innovation with respect to the involvement of employees. Sundbo’s chapter also draws on a multiple case approach to service firms. Sundbo concludes that service innovations are based on care for the strategic reflexive processes as well as the actors and roles involved in service production. This care does 16 Introduction
- 37. not only mean the nursing of the people and encouraging intrapreneurship, but also restrictions and a strict decision process concerning new ideas and innovation projects. Jan Mattsson examines tensions in an organization between different facets of care that are important to working with Customer Relationship Management (CRM). Taking care is the physical handling of the CRM innovation process and running the subsequent CRM system. Caring for customers and employees is a psychological sensitivity to how customers and employees react when faced with change and re-organization. Careful operation means that safeguards are in place and care is taken when design- ing the system to ascertain the increased value can be offered to customers in exchange for the extra effort of data input and co-ordination. John Damm Scheuer explores tensions that emerge in an organization when a general idea travels into the organization and is translated into something useful by the people inside that organization. In a case study of innovation in health care (the case of the “clinical pathway”), he argues that the innovation process may be better understood if theorized as a transla- tion rather than an implementation or rationally planned process. Scheuer also argues that the concept of “innovation with care” may be defined as local translators’ translation of innovative ideas in a way that tests the pros and cons of an idea in relation to local knowledge and takes appropriate steps to integrate those elements of the idea. The second section of the book is about “importance.” It examines how certain ideas are scaled up and selected and in some sense become more important than others, in a careful balancing of variation and selection, or exploration and exploitation. Lars Fuglsang explores some of the tensions between variation and selection in the context of public innovation. Through a case study of the Danish public library, he tries to build an analytical framework for analyz- ing innovation with care in the public sector. He shows how the mode of innovation is partly changing from “institutional innovation” to “open innovation.” This leads to a quest for mechanisms of variation and selec- tion, rather than, for example, mechanisms of homogenization among public institutions. Fuglsang argues that new social and strategic arenas are created in the library case, which enables variation and selection, and the diffusion of important new ideas. Gestur Hovgaard examines tensions that exist between exploration and exploitation, as well as stability and change, in the construction of an inno- vative new company, which is the Danish food-ingredient company Danmark Protein (DP). Today it is incorporated within the dairy giant Arla Innovation. Hovgaard shows how exploration and exploitation are activities that vary, due to different modes of innovation. This is a similar argument to Innovation with care 17
- 38. the one made by Fuglsang in his chapter. Finding a proper balance between exploration and exploitation is a key to the success of a company. This requires an “interpretative tradition,” mutual networking and a common understanding. This is consistent with both Sundbo and Fuglsang in this volume. Lars Fuglsang, Jeppe Højland and John Storm Pedersen applies a quan- titative analysis to investigate tensions between variation and selection again in the public sector. They present a survey, which has been sent to leaders in Danish public institutions about innovation activities. The chapter seeks to define a proxy for innovation with care in order to quan- tify its impact on various output measures. The survey shows that inno- vation does take place in the public sector, and that variation rather than copying is the rule. This is consistent with Møller’s findings (see below). The chapter also documents that innovation with care is an effective way of dealing with external requirements. Jørn Kjølseth Møller examines tensions between path-dependency and diversity in the public sector with a special view to a “Management Greenhouse”created by employers and employees’organizations in Danish municipalities. He argues that diversity in the public sector is a more common phenomenon than normally understood in, for example, neo- institutional theories. He shows how the potential for innovative manage- ment in public organizations is determined by the institutional context, where the public institutions are functioning. Similarly to Hansen and Serin (see below) and Fuglsang (the arena approach) he argues that these issues are incorporated into strategic arenas, where specific types of inter- ests are expressed, specific issues negotiated and specific rules of the game established. The Management Greenhouse is an example of this. In the third section of the book, three chapters discuss how actors can position themselves in various ways in the broader, macro-economic context of innovation – and what tools are available for that. Povl A. Hansen and Göran Serin investigate tensions between universi- ties and firms and different notions of public and private research. By way of a case study of Øresund Science Region they argue that a “platform organ- ization” can be seen as a solution to these tensions when universities and firms have different perspectives on the purpose and structure of research. According to Hansen and Serin, a platform organization can promote a caring approach among the different institutions to each other’s approaches. Hansen and Serin use the so-called triple helix model of government- university-industry interaction to explain the role of the platform organiza- tion as a framework for interaction and positioning. Ada Scupola and Charles Steinfield explore the tensions that exist between firms’ globalization and localization perspectives, and how these 18 Introduction
- 39. differing perspectives can be “taken care of”. Through a case study of Medicon Valley, a leading biotechnology cluster in Denmark, they show how Internet-based technologies and a number of additional critical activi- ties can contribute to and support the development of localized economies such as industrial clusters, while also contributing to the globalization of the economy by connecting companies and clusters of companies across different regions of the world. Jerome Davies and Lee N. Davies examine tensions between an individ- ual inventor (the “Mad Max”) and the commercial context in which that inventor has to position himself. The chapter refers to a case study of inven- tor Robert Kearns and his lawsuit against the American and European automobile industry. Davies and Davies argue that many inventions may not have any commercial potential to begin with, irrespective of what the “mad” inventor may have thought. Although inventors are “ripped off,” this may be more a reflection of their lack of positioning skills than of any major wrong-doing on the part of their financial partners. Those inventors who have been “ripped off,” as was the case with Kearns, might have avoided this fate by observing the signals of their opposite number more “carefully.” In the final section of the book about “sensemaking,” four chapters examine tensions and paradoxes at the micro-level that are critical to benefiting from innovation. Peter Hagedorn-Rasmussen analyses tensions between strategy and sensemaking by way of a case-study of a e-realtor company under creation. “Care” describes, according to Hagedorn-Rasmussen, an approach that bridge the relationship between the seemingly uneasy pairs of strategy and sensemaking. Care implies a very broad range of meanings including assiduousness, thoughtfulness, sensitivity, consideration but also anxiety, trouble and concern. It might be argued that this lack of conceptual accu- racy makes it an odd concept in (micro)sociological studies. On the other hand, the connotations we attribute to the concept of care may be highly accurate and descriptive for the processes of innovation as well as entre- preneurship, where the balance between strategy/strategizing and sense- making is important. Connie Svabo explores tensions between innovation and durability in an innovation project in the fashion industry. She argues that an innovation, paradoxically, is an artifact, which is continuously engineered and main- tained in a stable form. She presents a case study (or story) of an innova- tive project, “Sidecar” in a small-scale fashion industry, which was both a success and a failure. In line with the approach presented by Scheuer, Svabo focuses on actor-network theory and translation. The chapter tells a story of the struggles of translating innovative ideas into material forms, and Innovation with care 19
- 40. shows that the work of innovation consists of continuous attempts to create material order. Hanne Westh Nicolajsen examines tension between a new networked communication technology, called ProjectWeb, and three organizational settings in which it is implemented. Her study demonstrates the critical role of the individual entrepreneurs (or “intrapreneur”) as an integrating force of technology, innovation and organizational change. According to her study, entrepreneurs are not only needed in the initial phase of idea gener- ation, but also in the phase of implementation. Hanne Westh Nicolajsen argues that it is extremely important to make sure that at least one central person have the right qualifications and interests in order to benefit from technological changes and innovations in an organization. Finally, Poul Bitsch Olsen, inspired by the approach of Karl Weick, analyses a tension in innovation projects between old and new experiences. His example comes from sports: the continuous innovation that goes between a handball league coach and his team. Olsen shows how the experi- ence of interruptions and change processes must be continuously made intelligible and selected at the micro level. He argues that “mindfulness” or “mindful innovation” is a concept that can be used to understand how cre- ative action and new experiences are carefully selected and used in this way. Mindfulness in innovation means that experience is noticed and made intel- ligible, and new knowledge is the outcome of this. REFERENCES Amabile, T.M. (1996), Creativity in Context: Update to The Social Psychology of Creativity, Boulder, CO: Westview Press. Amabile, T.M., R. Conti, H. Coon, J. Lazenby and M. Herron (1996), “Assessing the work environment for creativity,” Academy of Management Journal, 39 (5), 1154–84. Chesbrough, H.W. (2003), Open Innovation: The New Imperative for Creating and Profiting from Technology, Boston, MA: Harvard Business School Press. Csikszentmihalyi, M. (1996), Creativity: Flow and the Psychology of Discovery and Invention, New York: HarperCollins. Daft, R.L. and K.E. Weick (1984), “Toward a model of organizations as interpre- tation systems,” Academy of Management Review, 9 (2), 284–95. Ellison, N., Ch. Steinfield and C. Lampe (2006), “Spatially bounded online social networks and social capital: the role of facebook”, paper read at The Annual Conference of the International Communication Association (ICA), 19-23 June, at Dresden, Germany. Fuglsang, L. and J. Sundbo (2005), “The organizational innovation system: three modes,” Journal of Change Management, 5 (3), 329–44. March, J.G. (1991), “Exploration and exploitation in organizational learning,” Organization Science, 2 (1), 71–87. 20 Introduction
- 41. Mulgan, G. and D. Albury (2003), Innovation in the Public Sector, London: Strategy Unit, Cabinet Office. Nelson, R.R. and S.G. Winter (1977), “In search of useful theory of innovation,” Research Policy, 6 (1), 36–76. Nowotny, H., P. Scott and M. Gibbons (2001), Re-thinking Science: Knowledge and the Public in an Age of Uncertainty, Cambridge: Polity Press. Parker, S. and J. Heapy (2006), The Journey to the Interface, London: Demos. Phillips, A. (1971), Technology and Market Structure: A Study of the Aircraft Industry, Lexington, MA: Lexington Books. Popper, K.R. Sir (1962), The Open Society and its Enemies, London: Routledge & Kegan Paul. Rogers, E. (1995), Diffusion of Innovations, New York: Free Press. Schumpeter, J.A. (1934, 1969), The Theory of Economic Development, Oxford: Oxford University Press. Schumpeter, J.A. (1947), Capitalism, Socialism, and Democracy, London: Allen & Unwin. Sundbo, J. (1998), The Organisation of Innovation in Services, Frederiksberg: Roskilde University Press. Sundbo, J. and L. Fuglsang (eds) (2002), Innovation as Strategic Reflexivity, London: Routledge. Surowiecki, J. (2004), The Wisdom of Crowds: Why the Many are Smarter than the Few and how Collective Wisdom Shapes Business, Economics, Societies, and Nations, London: Little Brown. Weick, K.E. (1995), Sensemaking in Organizations, Foundations for Organizational Science, Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage. Young Foundation (2006), Social Silicon Valleys: A Manifesto for Social Innovation, What it is, Why it Matters and How it can be Accelerated, London: Young Foundation. Innovation with care 21
- 45. 2. Innovation and involvement in services Jon Sundbo INTRODUCTION This chapter will discuss innovation in services and employees’ and man- agers’involvement in the innovation process, which means that the top man- agement takes care of employees and managers. Service is a production which requires the involvement of employees and managers in the innova- tion process because it is what could be called a “broad” organizational process. By this I mean that it is a process that involves the total organization and not only a small group of researchers. Involvement in service innova- tions is not an advantage, it is a must. Care, which means awareness of the employees’ wellbeing and behavior and attempts to improve these, is, there- fore, a prerequisite for service production. “Service” is a broad category (see Illeris, 1996, for a definition) which is generally defined as the solving of problems that cannot be solved by the customer himself by use of a tool, a commodity. Services includes physical services such as cleaning, transport, operating hotels, knowledge services (for example education, consultancy, banks, real estate agency and per- sonal services), health care services (for example hospitals), social services (for example social security and advice), psychotherapy and hairdressing to name but a few. In the chapter I will, on the basis of earlier empirical studies, discuss theo- retically how the innovation process in services can be conceived. First I will discuss the nature of innovation in services and present an overview of the literature on innovation in services. Then a model of the innovation process is introduced and it is discussed how care is a part of the process. Finally, I will provide three empirical examples to give a deeper understanding of how innovation with care is carried out. 25
- 46. INNOVATION IN SERVICES What are innovations in services? I will start by discussing the nature of service innovation. There is a general overview of the literature on innova- tion in services which summarizes the research results and the general inter- pretation of what innovation in services is (Miles, 2004; Aa and Elfring, 2002; Gallouj, 2002; Sundbo, 1997, 1998; Boden and Miles, 2000; Coombs, 1999). The character of service innovations is discussed in this literature. A core element in the discussion has been whether innovation in services is different from that in manufacturing. The basis for this discussion are the many case studies that have been carried out about services firms (for example Miozzo and Soete, 2001; Sundbo, 1996, 1998; Boden and Miles, 2000; Howells, 2004; Vermeulen, 2001; Metcalfe and Miles, 2000; Andersen et al., 2000; Sundbo et al., 2001; Fuglsang, 2002; Gallouj, 2002; Brentani, 1993; Finch et al., 1994). These case studies have been carried out in a variety of service industries (for example consultancy (van Poucke, 2004; Sundbo, 1998), engineering consultancy (Mattsson, 1994; Larsen, 2001; SIC, 1999), computer services (Jönsson, 1995), cleaning and other opera- tional services (Djellal, 2002; Sundbo, 1999a) and tourism (Hjalager, 2002; Mattsson et al., 2005; Sundbo et al., 2007)). Surveys also play an important role. The well-known CIS-surveys (Community Innovation Survey) carried out by Eurostat (Innovation in Europe, 2004; Evangelista and Sirelli, 1998; den Hertog et al., 2006; Drejer, 2004) have, since the early 1990s, included services. Other European surveys have also been carried out (INNO- Studies, 2004; Hipp and Grupp, 2005; Djellal and Gallouj, 2001; in Denmark SIC, 1999; Erhvervsministeriet, 2000). It has been demonstrated that innovations in services are more complex and integrated. Namely, they are often product, process, organizational and market innovation in one and they are often small improvements (Voss et al., 1992; Boden and Miles, 2000). Innovations in services are rarely radical or large-scale (see Sundbo, 1998; Gallouj, 2002), but are mostly small improvements of products and procedures. Services are the delivery of a complex process in which the service is marketed contemporaneously with its production. Service innovations may be of different kinds. They may be product innovations (a new service product), process innovations (new procedures for produc- ing the service), delivery innovations (new ways of delivering the service including peripheral service (see Normann, 1991)) and quality assurance (see Edvardsson et al., 2000); market innovations (new behavior on the market or new strategic alliances), or organizational innovations (new organizational forms, for example new structures or a new organizational culture. 26 Involvement
- 47. A service is fundamentally a behavioral act, and innovation in services a renewal of human behavior. This behavior often implies the use of tech- nology, but the act is essential, which is why care is so important. This is also the reason why it is a service and not a need that can be satisfied by the customer buying a commodity. The service must be produced and deliv- ered by a person at the moment of consumption. There are innovations in service technology; for example knowledge services (such as accountancy, consultancy, education) use IT and many services (for example insurance, banking) cannot be carried out without the use of IT to administer the service. All in all, innovations in services are both behavioral and tech- nological, however, they are more behavioral than in manufacturing. Empirical investigations have shown that 16 percent of the innovations are technological and 30 percent depending on technology, and 54 percent of innovations are non-technological (Sundbo, 1998). Service innovations have increasingly become technological, particularly in knowledge services where the service can be delivered as a self service via IT-networks (the Internet, mobile telephones and so on). Thus, when we talk about service innovations, we may be talking of both technological and behavioral inno- vations and often a mixture of both. Service innovations are often integrated, which means that they are product, process, organizational, delivery and market renewals at the same time. Even though they are integrated, they are often only small steps in renewing the services. Examples of typical service innovations could be a new insurance policy with different conditions and premiums; a cleaning contract not defined by the procedures but by the result (whether the cus- tomer is satisfied that things are clean), a new way of measuring employee satisfaction presented by a management consultancy, a hotel introducing free fruit in the reception. One may even discuss whether such small changes are innovations (see Sundbo and Gallouj, 2000). However, they develop the service firms and create economic growth. An attempt to create a distinction between innovation and the daily changes that everything goes through has been to argue that for something to be an innovation the change must be reproduced (Sundbo, 1997; Gallouj, 2002). The new service for a customer must be repeated for other customers, the new procedure or organization for producing and delivering the service must be widespread in the firm and so on. Service innovations have also, in one tradition, been conceptualized as service development and seen as new solutions developed on the basis of the observation of service quality problems (Edvardsson et al., 2000). Service innovation is described as service design and the tradition is ori- ented towards practical solutions (for example Gummesson, 1991). Thus, service innovations in this tradition are seen as a result of a kind of service Innovation and involvement in services 27
- 48. engineering where new services are constructed, often with the aim of improving the service quality. THE ORGANIZATION OF INNOVATION Innovations in services are mostly behavioral. Thus, they are different from the mainstream product innovations in manufacturing, which are techno- logical. However, there are similarities. Some service innovations are tech- nological and some innovations in manufacturing are behavioral. But what about the innovation process – the way in which the work with innovation is organized? Is that different from what we know from the mainstream lit- erature, which is based on manufacturing? The nature of the innovation process in services will be discussed in this section. Innovations in services are not laboratory or science based (Sundbo, 1997; Gallouj, 2002) as they typically are in manufacturing. Often inno- vations are ad hoc, based on ideas from employees or managers. They may be part of a more systematic process, however the innovations are not top-down dictates, but must be developed along the way when ideas occur. Even when the organization attempts to have a very systematic innovation process, the concrete innovations must be developed by employees in the organization. This situation in particular requires that many employees and managers are not only involved in the innovation process, but also that they feel involved. Innovation in services is extremely dependent on the employ- ees’ and managers’ commitment to innovation and care. This also applies to the top manager, who should be open to the active involvement of the employees. Customers also play a central role in service firms’ innovation processes. The philosophy of service production is – according to the service man- agement and marketing theory (van Looy et al., 1998; Grönroos, 2000) – based on the customer as a co-producer. All this means that innovation in services is a process which greatly involves different actors. It is not left to experts as is often the case in manufacturing where scientists make most of the effort. Innovation has been described as a dual process that is both top-down and bottom-up (Sundbo, 1996). The employees and middle managers get ideas about new service products or new ways of producing and delivering the services and fight for realizing their ideas. Such processes appear natur- ally in all organizations. Often they die because the top management do not react to the ideas or even reject them and signal negative sanctions towards employees who use their time to get ideas and argue for them. This is not an optimal situation for the top management since innovations do not 28 Involvement
- 49. Other documents randomly have different content
- 50. minutes, made various evolutions in the air with the greatest ease, and returned to her point of departure. The following account of this voyage is given by Renard: “As soon as we had reached the top of the wooded plateaus which surround the valley of Chalais, we started the screw, and had the satisfaction of seeing the balloon immediately obey it and readily follow every turn of the rudder. We felt that we were absolutely masters of our own movements, and that we could traverse the atmosphere in any direction as easily as a steam launch could make its evolutions on a calm lake. After having accomplished our purpose, we turned our head toward the point of departure and we soon saw it approaching it. The walls of the park of Chalais were passed anew, and our landing appeared at our feet, about 1,000 feet below the car. The screw was then slowed down, and a pull at the safety-valve started the descent, during which, by means of the propeller and rudder, the balloon was maintained directly over the point where our assistants awaited us. Everything occurred according to our plan, and the car was soon resting quietly on the lawn.” Six other similar voyages were made within the two years following, and we have as a result, that in five out of the seven trials, the balloon returned to its point of departure. Its failure to return in the other two trials was due, in the one case, to the breaking down of the motor; in the other, to the resistance of a strong wind which made it necessary to land at a distance from the starting point. The last of these remarkable voyages was performed in presence of the Minister of War, on September 23, 1885. The balloon started from Calais and sailed against the wind directly to Paris, passed over the fortifications, described a graceful curve and returned to its place of departure, recording an average speed of 14.5 miles an hour. The torpedo form of hull, chosen by Renard and Krebs, has two important advantages; one is projectile stability, the other is
- 51. economy of propulsive power. Owing to the blunt bow and long tapering stern, the center of mass is well forward, while the center of side wind pressure is more to the rear. As a consequence, if the vessel should encounter a quartering wind-gust, or have her nose slightly turned from the course, she would promptly right herself like a dart or an arrow. If on the contrary, the hull were a symmetrical spindle, the vessel would move forward in unstable equilibrium, and, once slightly diverted from her course, would tend to deviate further, like an arrow with unloaded head. The second advantage mentioned is also worth attention, viz.: that at ordinary transportation speeds a longish spindle has less resistance with a blunt bow than with a very sharp one. Renard and Krebs did not account for this fact; but the present writer, by determining separately the skin friction and the impactual resistance of the air, proved that in sharpening the bow beyond a certain best form, its friction increases faster than its head resistance diminishes, the most suitable shape being that of a torpedo whose nose has a radius of curvature of about two diameters, and its stern a radius of about twelve diameters. While the successors of Giffard in France were thus engaged in developing dirigibles driven by muscular or electric power, a few German experimenters were applying gas and benzine engines to such vessels, with better promise of ultimate practical success and usefulness. The first of these was Hänlein, who in 1872 advanced the meritorious project of driving a well shaped balloon by means of a gas engine taking its fuel from inside the balloon, and making good the loss by pumping air into the ballonet. This balloon was of far better design for swiftness and kinetic stability than the contemporary one of Dupuy de Lome. Its hull was a well pointed cylinder 164 feet long, 30 feet in diameter and of 85,000 cubic feet capacity, made air-tight by a thick coating of rubber inside, and a thin one outside. The car was rigidly suspended near the envelope and carried a 6 horse-power Lenoir gas engine actuating a large screw. Notwithstanding that the buoyancy was small, owing to the use of coal gas, this air ship attained a speed of 15 feet per second.
- 52. By employing hydrogen, a much larger engine could have been carried, entailing a much swifter speed. During its trial the balloon was kept near the earth’s surface, held loosely by ropes in the hands of soldiers. The air ship was remarkably successful for that early date, and had the potency of greater achievement than its contemporaries in France; but owing to lack of funds its capabilities were not fully developed. If it had been inflated with hydrogen, and propelled by use of gas and petrol, so that the loss of weight would compensate for the loss of buoyancy, it might have anticipated the speed and endurance of the best air ships built toward the close of the nineteenth century, or later.
- 53. PLATE II. HAENLEIN’S GAS-DRIVEN DIRIGIBLE. WÖLFERT’S BENZINE-DRIVEN DIRIGIBLE.
- 54. SANTOS-DUMONT’S DIRIGIBLE, NO. 16. Photo E. Levick, N. Y. In 1879, Baumgarten and Wölfert in Germany built a dirigible equipped with a Daimler benzine motor, but otherwise not possessing any special merit. An ascension was made at Leipsic in 1880, but owing to improper load distribution the vessel reared on end and crashed to earth. After further experiments, an ascension was made on the Templehofer field, near Berlin, in 1897, but this ended disastrously; for the benzine vapor ignited; the fire spread to the balloon, and the vessel fell flaming to the earth, killing Wölfert and his assistant. Baumgarten had died some years before. In 1897, an aluminum air ship invented by an Austrian engineer, named Schwartz, was launched on the Templehofer field. Its hull was of cylindrical form with conical ends, made of sheets 0.008 thick, and stiffened with an internal frame of aluminum tubes. Being leaky and inadequately driven, it voyaged but four miles, drifting with the wind, then fell to earth with considerable shock. The pilot, a soldier of the Balloon Corps, escaped by jumping, before the vessel struck ground, but the frail unbending hull was soon demolished by the buffeting of the winds as it lay stranded on the unyielding earth. This was the second air ship built after the plans of poor Schwartz,
- 55. the first having collapsed on inflation. He had, however, the credit of being the first to drive a rigid air ship with a petrol motor, and thus to inaugurate a system of aërial navigation capable of immense development, in the hands of sufficient capital and constructive skill. Thus the rigid type, conceived and crudely tried by Marey Monge and Dupuis Delcourt in the early part of the century, began to approach practical realization toward the end of the century. The process of inflating with hydrogen such a rigid hull is interesting. Schwartz’s plan, carried out by Captain Von Sigsfeld, was to place the hydrogen in one or more sacs inside the hull, thus expelling the air and filling the space, then withdrawing the sacs and leaving the hydrogen within. A better plan is to have a single sac inflated with air just filling the hull like the lining of an egg, then to force the gas between the lining and metal wall of the hull, thus expelling the air from the sac, which when completely collapsed can be removed. Practically the same result can be obtained by use of a thin fabric covering one half the inner wall, like the lining of an egg. Further provision can easily be made for manipulating the ballonet in such a case.
- 57. CHAPTER IV INTRODUCTION OF GASOLINE-DRIVEN DIRIGIBLES We have now traced the art of balloon guidance and propulsion from its earliest inception to the close of the nineteenth century. It was a period of extravagant hope and chimerical scheming, but withal a period fruitful in devices of fundamental value. The best experiments paid no dividends, but they prepared the way for really useful vessels. The methods of manipulation and control had been sufficiently developed to answer immediate needs. The air ship was at least dirigible, if not practical. It kept its shape, obeyed its rudder, rose and fell according to the operator’s will. It was, however, a fair- weather machine, beautiful in appearance, but helpless in any considerable wind. Speed was now the desideratum, and the attainment of this involved new difficulties. The storm-proof balloon was still a dream. Naturally one inquires what velocity makes a dirigible air ship really practical, assuming all other requirements satisfied. The minimum allowable speed depends largely upon the locality and season. On Long Island an assured velocity of forty to fifty miles an hour would seem desirable; for there the winds are swift and the water near. In Washington, or Berlin, thirty miles an hour is enough, though each additional mile per hour must be regarded as a considerable gain on a small margin of progress in facing a stiff breeze. Colonel Renard has estimated, from a study of the wind records near Paris, that a dirigible is practically useful in that locality if it can maintain a speed of twenty-eight miles an hour for ten or twelve hours; since in that case it can maneuver 81 days in 100. Renard’s own graceful ship attained a speed of but half that much. In order, therefore, to give his vessel the desired usefulness its speed must be doubled. This would require an eightfold[11] increase
- 58. of motive power without increase of weight. Evidently then the cardinal requisite was a light durable motor of extraordinary output. Such motors fortunately were now coming into the market, owing to the development of gasoline engines for automobile racing. The year 1898 witnessed the commencement of two famous systems of navigation by the lighter than air, one in France, the other in Germany, destined quickly to revolutionize the art, and to establish it on a practical basis. The leading exponents of these two systems were Señor Don Alberto Santos-Dumont, a rich young Brazilian living in Paris, and Count Ferdinand von Zeppelin, Germany’s stanch old admiral of the air. Both achieved success by applying the gasoline engine to the propulsion of elongated balloons, but by very different methods. Santos-Dumont, apparently ignoring, or fearing to adopt, the excellent hull and car designed and used by Renard, began where Tissandier left off, with a symmetrical hull and low-hung car, thus producing a safe aërial pendulum, if not a racing machine; then by degrees he gradually felt his way to something more efficient. Zeppelin began with a long cylindrical hull pointed at the ends, rigidly framed like that of Schwartz, and supporting its car and propellers well aloft near the line of resistance. His was a bold and effective design but difficult to execute. Santos-Dumont scored the first success, and startled the world by his spectacular flights; but ere long he was surpassed by other builders of non-rigid balloons. Zeppelin won his success slowly and by heroic perseverance in the face of enormous obstacles, finally emerging as the most successful and illustrious figure in the history of aëronautics. The achievements of these two pioneers and colleagues make the first decade of the twentieth century memorable in the annals of aërial navigation. Santos-Dumont, who spent his early years on his father’s large coffee plantation in Brazil, had, during boyhood, dreamed of navigating the air, and in 1897, at the age of twenty-four, made in France his first ascension in a spherical balloon. While living at Paris during that year he gave much time to motorcycling, automobiling and operating spherical balloons, of which he possessed two
- 59. constructed after his own ideas; one, the smallest in the world, designed for solitary voyages, the other large enough for more than one person, intended for social excursions. Thus by way of amusement, and probably by impulse rather than deliberate purpose, he was equipping himself to become both the designer and the pilot of his future dirigibles. Having acquired experience and skill in operating both balloons and engines, the young enthusiast set about realizing his boyhood dream of navigating the air independently of the course of the wind. His first dirigible was designed to carry his weight of 110 pounds and a 3½ horse-power petroleum engine taken from his tricycle, and reduced in weight to 66 pounds. The hull was a cylinder of varnished Japanese silk, 82½ feet long including its pointed ends, 11½ feet in diameter and 6,354 cubic feet in gas capacity. A ballonet, or air pocket, occupied the lower middle of the envelope. The basket for the little pilot, engine, and two-blade propeller was suspended far below the hull, to which its cords were attached by means of small wooden rods inserted into hems along each side of the envelope, for a great part of its length. The poise of the vessel was controlled by shifting weights fore and aft, while the turning right and left was effected by means of a silk rudder stretched over a steel frame. On the whole it was a crude and primitive affair, but of considerable interest as the first dirigible of a young man destined to give a strong impulse to the development of motor balloons of the non- rigid type. After some preliminary tests, the little air ship and pilot soared away from the Zoölogical Garden in Paris, on September 20, 1898, rising in the face of a gentle wind, to the wonder and delight of a large crowd of witnesses, some of them professional aëronauts and very skeptical as to the outcome of this venturesome experiment. The ship maneuvered round and round overhead of the applauding throng, steering readily in all directions. Then the green navigator ascended a quarter of a mile and merrily continued his evolutions in the direction of the Longchamps race course. But when he wished to descend he observed the envelope contracting in volume, and was
- 60. appalled to find that he could not pump air into the ballonet fast enough to keep the hull distended. It became swaybacked, and “all at once began to fold in the middle like a pocket-knife; the tension cords became unequal and the balloon envelope was on the point of being torn by them.” As he was falling swiftly toward the grassy turf at Bagatelle, he called to some boys who were flying kites, to grasp his guide-rope and run against the wind. They understood and ran so swiftly with the canted balloon that it played kite, and descended with a moderated fall, landing the frightened aëronaut safely on the turf. Except for the doubling of his long balloon, Santos-Dumont’s first voyage was satisfactory, and he returned to Paris elated. He had found it easy to steer in all directions. He could change his level hundreds of feet without discharge of gas or ballast, by merely canting his balloon, and allowing it to run obliquely up or down grade. He had stemmed the wind and gone whither he pleased, at such speed as to make his clothes flutter. And best of all he had found no danger in using a gasoline motor near an inflammable gas bag. The mere buckling of the long bag was a trifle, to be remedied by using an air pump adequate to maintain the flabby thing well inflated. He felt, therefore, that he had the conquest of the air well in hand, and that he was drifting into air ship construction as a life work. Small wonder that he continued his conquests till he had built, in less than one decade, fourteen motor balloons. Santos-Dumont No. 2 was closely patterned after its predecessor, but was a little larger and carried a rotary fan worked by the motor, to keep the balloon plump by filling the air pocket, or ballonet. On May 11, 1899, an ascension was made from the old starting place, but in rainy weather. As the vessel rose its hull contracted faster than air could be pumped into the ballonet, the long bag doubled worse than before, and dropped into the trees with its chagrined but fearless rider. The No. 3, which followed, was a short, thick vessel, 66 feet long by 25 feet in diameter, having in outward appearance the features of
- 61. Dupuy de Lome’s very stable and very slow dirigible. It was apparently a safety ship for a scared young man who had not yet learned fully to appreciate Renard’s elegant design. It served for a few pleasant trips, while the inventor was screwing up courage to build another cylindrical vessel, and gradually realizing the advantage of an elongated car such as Renard had employed in La France. Not only was the hull short and thick, but it was further secured from buckling by a horizontal stiffening pole placed between it and the basket, and from which the latter was hung. After some voyages in No. 3, which the captain found very tractable, and probably capable of fifteen miles per hour, he was ready to begin a new vessel. The No. 4 was a compromise between the better features of No. 3 and its predecessors. The elongated hull and ballonet were resumed, and the stiffening pole was elaborated into a longish car resembling Renard’s, but of triangular cross section. On this long trussed frame were placed the motor, propeller, rudder and the rider in his basket. A seven horse-power engine turning, at one hundred revolutions per minute, a screw propeller having two blades, each 13 feet across, gave a thrust of 66 pounds. Frequent trials of the ship during the summer of 1900, in presence of the Exposition crowds, brought the inventor into extraordinary prominence, and secured for him the “Encouragement Prize” of the Paris Aëro Club, consisting of the yearly interest on one hundred thousand francs, this being one of M. Deutsch’s numerous foundations for the promotion of aëronautics. In the spring of 1900, M. Deutsch de la Meurthe had established another prize which Santos-Dumont now greatly coveted, and hoped ere long to win. This was a cash sum of one hundred thousand francs to be awarded by the Scientific Commission of the Aëro Club of France to the first dirigible that, between May 1 and October 1, 1900, 1901, 1902, 1903, 1904, should voyage from Saint Cloud to and around the Eiffel tower, and return within half an hour. The distance to the tower and back, not counting the turn, was nearly seven miles, and the estimated speed required to fulfill the
- 62. conditions for winning the prize, even in calm weather, was 15½ miles per hour. As Santos-Dumont thought his No. 4 scarcely swift enough to win the Deutsch prize, he enlarged it by inserting an additional length of sixteen feet at its middle, supplied it with a stronger car, and applied a larger engine, naming the new vessel so formed, his No. 5. Its hull was 109 feet long, 17 feet in largest diameter and cubed nearly 20,000 feet. A four cylinder air-cooled petroleum motor driving a screw propeller having two blades, each 13 feet across, gave a thrust of 120 pounds, at 140 revolutions per minute, and produced such draft as to give the inventor pneumonia. Among other novelties water ballast was used, and piano wires replaced the old-time suspension cords. The No. 5 proved so powerful and swift that on July 13, 1901, Santos-Dumont attempted to win the Deutsch prize. Starting from the Aëro Club grounds at Saint-Cloud in presence of official witnesses, at half past six in the morning, when the air is usually stillest, he turned the Eiffel Tower in the tenth minute, thus gaining twenty minutes for the home stretch. But on his return he encountered an unexpected head wind, and after a terrific struggle reached the timekeepers at Saint-Cloud in the fortieth minute. To add to the romance of this voyage, the genii of the upper elements stopped his motor, shortly after his return, and the bold sailor in his shining ship landed in a stately chestnut tree very near the house of the Princess Isabel, daughter of Dom Pedro. She very thoughtfully arranged a breakfast for him and sent it up in a basket, where he was at work disengaging the balloon, at the same time inviting him to call and relate to her the story of his voyage. A few days later she sent him a medal of St. Benedict “that protects against accidents.” He wore the medal, and on his very next trial escaped without a scratch from an appalling accident which might have terminated fatally. He continued to wear the gift of that gracious princess, on a thin gold chain circling his wrist, and many a
- 63. time thereafter endured unscathed the most dreadful accidents, as if he possessed a charmed life. On August 8, 1901, the dauntless aëronaut again sailed for the coveted prize, at the same still morning hour, sacred to duels and aërial contests. In nine minutes he turned the tower and headed bravely for home. But soon a leaky valve let the balloon shrink and the wires sag into the whirring propeller, which therefore had to be stopped. Santos-Dumont now had the choice of drifting back against the tower and destroying his vessel high in air, or of descending at once, by allowing the balloon to sink without discharge of ballast. He chose the latter course, hoping to land on the Seine embankment; but instead his balloon struck the top of the Trocadero hotel, exploded and fell in fluttering shreds into the courtyard. Some firemen who had been watching the flight from a distance, came with a rope and found the long car leaning like a ladder against the wall of the court, the balloon shreds hanging from it in graceful folds, and Captain Santos-Dumont perched aloft in his wicker basket wearily waiting for St. Benedict’s further aid. As usual, he was rescued intact. On the evening of his fall on the roof of the hotel Santos-Dumont issued specifications for his famous No. 6, which surpassed all its predecessors in safety and speed. It had the shape of an elongated ellipsoid with pointed ends, measured 110 feet in length, 20 feet in major diameter, 22,239 cubic feet in volume, and had an absolute ascensional force of 1,518 pounds. It was driven by a twelve horse- power four-cylinder water-cooled engine which gave the propeller a thrust of 145 pounds. To insure against buckling of the gas bag, an air pump connected with the motor, kept the ballonet under constant pressure, regulated by an escape valve through which the excess of air passed outward. To secure the envelope against rupture, due to the expansion of the hydrogen at unusual elevations, a stronger valve was used to let the gas escape from the envelope into the atmosphere. Thus the air escape valve kept the pressure constant in the partially distended ballonet, and consequently also in the surrounding gas envelope itself; while the stronger gas valve in the
- 64. envelope opened only in an emergency, when the gas pressure had fully collapsed the internal air pocket and was threatening to explode the envelope. With all its improvements this new vessel was finished and inflated by August 4, being a work of twenty-two days, and after some preliminary trials was ready to try for the Deutsch prize. The day of triumph followed quickly. On October 19, 1901, at 2.45 P. M., Santos-Dumont again headed for the Eiffel Tower in presence of the official witnesses. In spite of a wind of six meters per second striking him sidewise, he held his course straight for the goal, and turned it in the ninth minute, as in his preceding attempt. On the return he had to struggle against a quartering wind and the caprice of his motor, which sometimes threatened to stop, and again spurted so actively as to turn the ship upward at a steep angle. The mighty throng below, in the Auteuil race track and the Bois de Boulogne, sent up immense applause, then suddenly held its breath in alarm, as the vessel pitched violently. But the hardy little rider was self- possessed and at home on his vaulting Pegasus. Alert to every prank he held his course straight for the timekeepers and passed over their heads at exactly twenty-nine and one-half minutes after starting. His unmercenary disposal of the two rich awards which he had won seemed no less commendable than the dauntless industry which achieved such rapid success. The Deutsch prize amounting in all to one hundred and twenty-five thousand francs he divided into two unequal parts. The greater sum of seventy-five thousand francs he gave to the prefect of police of Paris, to be used for the deserving poor; the remainder he distributed among his employés. The Encouragement Prize of four thousand francs a year, mentioned before, he also declined to retain, but instead he founded with the money a new prize at the disposal of the Aëro Club. As a second reward for his triumphal voyage around the Eiffel Tower, he received from the Brazilian government one hundred and twenty-five thousand francs and a beautiful gold medal bearing appropriate and very complimentary inscriptions.
- 65. Now that the stimulus and excitement of striving for the Deutsch prize was over, the ardent inventor was free to develop and test his air ships in a deliberate and scientific manner. He therefore set about building specialized types of motor balloons, and practicing with them over all kinds of territory, smooth and rough. Within the next six years he constructed eight more air ships making altogether fourteen, besides his various free balloons, to say nothing of the aëroplanes and hydroplanes which he found time to develop. But before indulging in these new luxuries he would have more experience with his No. 6. When the cold weather set in, following his victorious flight about the Eiffel Tower, Santos-Dumont went with his No. 6 to Monaco, to practice air cruising over the Mediterranean. The Prince of Monaco had erected for him an “aërodrome,” or balloon shed, facing the sea and very near shore. On pleasant days the daring pilot would cruise up and down the bay, not far from shore, trailing his guide-rope over the waves with the greatest ease, and to the applause of thousands of spectators. But on February 14, 1902, he set forth on a pleasure cruise over the bay with insufficient gas pressure, and thus came to grief. The bag grew flabby; the hydrogen poured to its higher end; the vessel reared up so steeply that the propeller had to be stopped to avoid its cutting the envelope. Rather than drift at the mercy of the wind, the pilot opened the valve and sank slowly to the water where he was rescued by a boat. On the following day the parts of his No. 6 were fished out of the sea and sent back to Paris. His few days’ practice had taught him the delights of guide-roping over the waters, and his accident induced him in future to sew unvarnished silk partitions across his balloons, to prevent the hydrogen passing too suddenly from one end to the other. Returning to Paris he built for himself an “aërodrome,” provided with great sliding doors like the one at Monaco, and equipped with a hydrogen plant, constructive appliances, and everything needed for the rapid rebuilding or repair of air ships. It stood in a vacant lot surrounded by a high stone wall and was made of posts covered with red and white canvas, so that it looked like a great striped tent.
- 66. Inside, the central stalls were 31 feet wide, 165 feet long, and 44½ feet high,[12] the whole enclosure having accommodation for seven dirigibles all inflated and ready for instant service. When completed, in the spring of 1903, it was at once used to harbor three new air ships. These were the No. 7, designed for racing contests; the No. 9, called the Runabout, a minim air ship used for calls and short pleasure trips; and the No. 10, called the Omnibus, intended for several persons, with ample supplies for a considerable journey. The No. 7, which excelled its predecessors in length and bulk, was intended greatly to outstrip the best of them in velocity. The first air ship had attained fourteen miles per hour, the No. 6, nearly twenty miles an hour in winning the Deutsch prize, and over twenty miles per hour on subsequent occasions, though provided with a motor rated at only 12 horse power. The new vessel which had little greater resistance than No. 6, was to carry four times the internal pressure, or about 12 centimeters of water, and to be propelled by an engine of 60 horse power. The inventor expected therefore to attain a speed of between forty and fifty miles per hour. A very lofty expectation for that day, and one still unrealized for many years. The racing air ship, or No. 7, was of cigar form, supporting a long car beneath, and generally resembling the No. 6, but slightly more tapering. Her length was six times her major diameter, and her volume 45,000 cubic feet. The envelope was made of two layers of the strongest French silk, four times varnished, and was built exceptionally thick at the stern, where the differential outward pressure is greatest in flight. The propulsion was effected by a 60 horse-power water-cooled four-cylinder Clément engine actuating two screw propellers 16½ feet in diameter, one in front the other at the rear of the car. The poise and maneuvering were to be controlled in the usual way, by means of the rudder and shifting weight. The inventor seemed not to realize that the bow of his vessel was too sharp to cleave the air with minimum resistance, though his predecessor, Jullien, in 1850, had discovered experimentally that a torpedo form is better for speed than the symmetrical spindle form
- 67. used by Santos-Dumont in his racing vessel. He did, however, in time, learn that the torpedo form of hull is better for stability of forward motion, and hence adopted that form in his little Runabout. The No. 9 was a thick torpedo-shaped air ship originally cubing only 7,770 feet, though later enlarged to 9,218 feet. It was so thick as to appear nearly egg-shaped. In order to make it respond promptly to the rudder Santos-Dumont drove it through the air blunt end foremost, but with apparent regrets, thinking that it would cleave the air more easily than sharp end foremost. In this he was mistaken; for the writer has shown that a body of such shape encounters much more resistance—roughly one hundred per cent more—when driven sharp end foremost than when driven blunt end forward. This fact furnishes one reason why most whales and swift fishes have blunt bows and long tapering sterns. However this be, the practical man felt his way to success, whether right or wrong in his theory of resistance. When actuated by a three horse-power Clément motor, weighing 26½ pounds, the little air ship carried its jaunty pilot twelve to fifteen miles an hour on many a merry trip about Paris and its environs. The No. 10, or Omnibus, was a well shaped vessel of nearly eighty thousand cubic feet capacity, and amply provided with steering devices. Its hull tapered slightly from front to rear, terminating in projectile-shaped ends, and had a length of nearly six times its major diameter. Underneath was suspended a long car provided with aëroplane surfaces, in addition to the usual rudder, for controlling its movements. Its arrow-like appearance was suggestive of some of the greatest German balloons of the decade. Indeed, the Omnibus, if well powered, might have proved a very swift vessel, in addition to a powerful carrier. But she was designed merely for easy going passenger service, for the purpose of popularizing aëronautics and stimulating its growth. Santos-Dumont now had three typical air ships, a spacious and well equipped “aërodrome,” and ample facilities for advancing the
- 68. science of motor balloons on a moderate scale. He could not, however, maintain the ascendency in this branch of science in France; for he encountered the rivalry of great wealth employing highly trained engineering and constructive talent. He could, however, still promote the art as a pioneer and a popularizer. This he continued to do. With his little Runabout he would one day guide- rope along the boulevard, another day take up a little boy, another day send up a beautiful young lady to navigate the air alone for a short distance, another day voyage over the military parade grounds and with his revolver fire a salute of twenty-one shots to the President of France, and give exhibitions to arouse the interest of the War Department. But he could not keep pace with the new giants in aëronautics, and he did not attempt it. Nor did he ever build a vessel of sufficient power, speed and durability to be purchased by the French nation. That honor went to his opulent contemporaries who had not failed to take cognizance of his contributions to the aërial art.
- 70. Welcome to Our Bookstore - The Ultimate Destination for Book Lovers Are you passionate about books and eager to explore new worlds of knowledge? At our website, we offer a vast collection of books that cater to every interest and age group. From classic literature to specialized publications, self-help books, and children’s stories, we have it all! Each book is a gateway to new adventures, helping you expand your knowledge and nourish your soul Experience Convenient and Enjoyable Book Shopping Our website is more than just an online bookstore—it’s a bridge connecting readers to the timeless values of culture and wisdom. With a sleek and user-friendly interface and a smart search system, you can find your favorite books quickly and easily. Enjoy special promotions, fast home delivery, and a seamless shopping experience that saves you time and enhances your love for reading. Let us accompany you on the journey of exploring knowledge and personal growth! ebookgate.com