Emergence of incremental technological innovation through the application, by experts, of the inventive intellectual corpus[Émergence d’innovation technologique incrémentale par application, à des experts, de l’analyse du patrimoine intellectuel inventif]

This paper examines the reversibility of the idea-knowledge link, that is to say the passage from knowledge to inventive idea, considering the process rather than its results. The question is dedicated to the epistemic connection between the structural analysis of knowledge contained in the inventive intellectual corpus and the ideation seen as the generation of inventive knowledge. Our methodology is based on an experimental approach and consists in building a theoretical representative model and in validating it through experimentation. The input data of the model represent a cognitive stimulus and the output data of the model consist of a prospective vision. Experimentation allows the instantiation of the model thanks to individuals recruited as knowledge actors. Results include experimental validation of the Knowledge-Based Innovation approach. Our contribution consists in showing that ideation, stimulated by the critical analysis of the structure of knowledge lying in the knowledge actor's inventive intellectual corpus, can be seen as an epistemic mutation, where source, process, results, corpus and knowledge actor can be assimilated as a unique entity.