Organisations, Innovation and Complexity:
New Perspectives on the Knowledge Economy
University of Manchester
9-10th September 2004
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A Fundamental Principle to Rescue Innovation
Dr. Sudhir Varadarajan
Sudhir.varadarajan@uk-tcs.com
Tata Consultancy Services Ltd, UK.
Abstract
This paper argues that a more inclusive concept
of innovation is required to engage a wide cross section of people
and institutions (business, government, education, nonprofits,
family and others) for competitiveness, sustainable development
and resilience of the knowledge economy. Through a synthesis of
literature on innovation and sciences of complexity, and experiences
from a series of action research projects, this paper proposes
that innovation fundamentally involves integration of ‘differences
that make a difference’ over space and time. This principle
can be used to model the unique differences and interdependencies
pertaining to different spheres of human activity. Such models
can be further investigated using techniques and computational
tools of sciences of complexity to accelerate development of a
coherent transdisciplinary theory of innovation that is accessible
to wider sections of the society. The paper illustrates the potential
of this approach through a model of innovation in services. It
is argued that an inter-disciplinary approach founded on sciences
of complexity and action research is essential to rescue innovation
from misuse by practitioners and further fragmentation due to
disciplinary boundaries and make it accessible to a wide spectrum
of people and institutions in society.
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