The Contrary Forces of Innovation

This case study is an example of a relatively radical innovation process. The analytic framework outlined in the previous chapter positions knowledge — or perhaps the lack of knowledge — as the central problem of innovation processes. The overall innovation process is characterised by a number of uncertainties that, due to their complex and interacting nature, nobody can predict. When referring to the ‘nobody-knows problems’ in this chapter, I am not arguing for the ignorance of the practitioners who I have studied. On the contrary, the actors in this case study — as in many cases of industrial innovation — are extremely knowledgeable in their fields. Their lack of knowledge pertains to the connection and translation of knowledge and technology between settings. In other words, it is through the act of crossing boundaries and connecting previously unconnected elements that we can say that ‘nobody knows’ what it takes to succeed. However, by constructing and amplifying the distinction between mobilisation and exploration in a bipolar model, we can explain some of the micro-dynamics of innovation processes from an angle that has not yet been sufficiently described in the literature. First, during (sub-)processes of mobilisation, actor-networks are recruited and committed to things with which they are initially unfamiliar: an idea, a prospect or a prototype of something that may or may not become feasible and useable.