Chance Discovery as a First Step to Economic Innovation
Soili Keskinen, Reijo Sitala, Vesa Pekka Taatila, Jyrki Suomala · eScholarship (California Digital Library) · 2006
Chance Discovery as a First Step to Economic Innovation Jyrki Suomala ([email protected]) University of California, Santa Barbara Department of Psychology, CA 93106-9660, USA and Laurea University of Applied Sciences, Vanha maantie 9, 02650 Espoo, FINLAND Vesa Taatila ([email protected]) Laurea University of Applied Sciences, Nummentie 6 08100 Lohja, FINLAND Reijo Siltala ([email protected]) University of Turku, Department of Teacher Education in Rauma, Seminaarinkatu 1 26100 Rauma, FINLAND Soili Keskinen ([email protected]) University of Turku, Department of Teacher Education in Rauma, Seminaarinkatu 1 26100 Rauma, FINLAND Abstract This cognitive-historical study describes three cases in which business innovators created original ideas for innovation. The paper compares business creativity and Thagard’s model of creativity in science and technology. By virtue of this comparison, we outline a new approach that provides an account of the importance of chance discovery and autonoetic representation in economic innovation. During chance discovery, an innovator builds an autonoetic mental representation of a possible future situation. The study emphasizes that a creative process in a business is dependent not only on unexpected findings or puzzling phenomena, but also on expectations regarding the future. The study regards the concepts of chance discovery and autonoetic representation more as complementary to, rather than competing with, Thagard’s model of creativity. Introduction How does a scientist create a novel study problem? How do engineers create a plan for a novel artifact? How does an individual create an innovative business model? These questions all relate to human creative cognitive processes in science, technology and business. The possibility to create a novelty is one of the most essential cognitive skills of the human mind. Whereas the creativity genre for most cases in cognitive-historical studies (Nersessian, 1995; Dasgupta, 2003) and the philosophy of science (Thagard & Croft, 1999; Thagard, 2003, 2005) has been science and technology, this study describes creativity in the economic business context. The study describes three seminal creative episodes (SCEs) in which business innovators created original ideas for economic innovation. Creativity is a process whereby an individual exceeds a conventional habit. According to Mayer (1995), a creative process brings into existence something genuinely new that is valued enough to be added to the culture. A conventional habit includes typical practical and theoretical actions and goals in a domain. Professional experts in a particular domain, including scientific experts, have learned essential skills and knowledge of this domain. Science and technology represent creative domains, as most of the work scientists and engineers carry out is a conventional habit. Thus, experts do what coheres with existing knowledge and beliefs in their domain; their work involves filling in the details on matters that are basically already understood or applying standard techniques to new specific cases (Alvarez, 1998). However, occasionally there are puzzling situations that offer an opportunity for ampliative thinking and a really major discovery or invention. How does an individual change conventional habits for a novel route? Traditional philosophers of science prefer a logical explanation, in which novelty in science is inductively or deductively derived from previous conventional knowledge (Popper, 1959; Hempel, 1965). Then the ideal of reasoning is based on argument and logic. Sociologists prefer social explanation, in which an individual’s social interests are used to explain scientific change (Downes, 1993; Latour & Woolgar, 1986). The problem with logical and sociological approaches is that they neglect the role of an individual’s capability to use many different source of information in the creative process. Thagard (1999, 2003, 2005; Thagard & Croft, 1999) describes the change from conventional habit to new discovery as a combination of puzzling phenomena, questioning and searching. Whereas creativity in science and technology was supposed to arise purely from a cognitive process, Thagard (2002) argues that emotions play a large role in creativity in science and technology.