Innovation is dead, long live Exnovation? A systematic and bibliometric review for a theoretical conceptualisation of exnovation

Innovation has often been heralded as important in societal progress. Current innovation practices approach creation as an endless endeavour without much consideration of the end result of those innovations. However, in a world in which natural materials are ever depleting due to extractivism modes of operations that support those same innovations, it becomes increasingly important to reflect upon – and implement – new ways through which innovation comes to an end. In some fields, including Energy Studies and Transition Studies, this process has been labelled “exnovation”. Yet, literature on the subject remains scarce, and its development limited in other fields, notably in organisation and management studies. Part of the reason for this lack of research on exnovation could be explained by a lack of thorough synthesis presenting the concept. In this study, we used bibliometric network analyses to conduct a systematic review. We have critically explored the definition of exnovation across different fields, and identified the fields in which exnovation was (or has not) featured much development. We found two major clusters of fields that leverage the concept of exnovation: transition/energy/sustainability studies, on the one hand; medicine, on the other. There is however not much interconnectivity between these clusters. Moreover, we show that these two clusters do not use the term “exnovation” in the same way. The first cluster has mentioned approaches to exnovation from a global, policy perspective. The second cluster, from a practitioner perspective. This research article then builds on these systematic findings to propose a perspective that reconciles these two views. We propose that, far from being opposite to innovation, exnovation is a complement to it. As much as innovation is the ability to implement an idea; exnovation is the ability to dis-implement it. We further discuss that both are influenced by external factors that regulate them, either from a higher scale (global) policy-side or from a lower scale (local) practice side. We conclude through the concept of “Novation” a process that integrates both in-novation and ex-novation as the input and output of the same continuum.