Innovation Intermediaries
Encyclopedia
Innovation Intermediaries is a concept in innovation
studies to help understand the role of firms, agencies and individuals that facilitate innovation by providing the bridging, brokering, knowledge transfer necessary to bring together the range of different organisations and knowledge needed to create successful innovation. Innovation intermediaries have always played a key role in innovation, for example the agricultural middlemen in 16th, 17th and 18th century Britain who not only bought and sold wool, but facilitated the transfer of knowledge of new techniques. With the recent fashion for 'Open Innovation
' involving complex networks of firms and users, organisations such as consultants, conference organisers, trade organisations, government innovation agencies etc are now recognised as playing a central role in facilitating and coordinating innovation.
Innovation intermediaries are variously described as 'bridgers', ' change agents', 'brokers'. They are important as the developers of a new invention or technique are seldom connected to their potential users, or to the firms and organisations that have complementary expertise, knowledge and resources. The same applies to potential users of innovations, so that intermediaries are needed to bring organisations and knowledge together to build supply networks and markets.
Open innovation intermediaries
Innovation
Innovation is the creation of better or more effective products, processes, technologies, or ideas that are accepted by markets, governments, and society...
studies to help understand the role of firms, agencies and individuals that facilitate innovation by providing the bridging, brokering, knowledge transfer necessary to bring together the range of different organisations and knowledge needed to create successful innovation. Innovation intermediaries have always played a key role in innovation, for example the agricultural middlemen in 16th, 17th and 18th century Britain who not only bought and sold wool, but facilitated the transfer of knowledge of new techniques. With the recent fashion for 'Open Innovation
Open Innovation
Although the idea and discussion about some consequences date back at least to the 60s, open innovation is a term promoted by Henry Chesbrough, a professor and executive director at the Center for Open Innovation at the University of California, Berkeley, in his book Open Innovation: The new...
' involving complex networks of firms and users, organisations such as consultants, conference organisers, trade organisations, government innovation agencies etc are now recognised as playing a central role in facilitating and coordinating innovation.
Innovation intermediaries are variously described as 'bridgers', ' change agents', 'brokers'. They are important as the developers of a new invention or technique are seldom connected to their potential users, or to the firms and organisations that have complementary expertise, knowledge and resources. The same applies to potential users of innovations, so that intermediaries are needed to bring organisations and knowledge together to build supply networks and markets.
See also
- Innovation managementInnovation managementInnovation management is the discipline of managing processes in innovation. It can be used to develop both product and organizational innovation. Without proper processes, it is not possible for R&D to be efficient; innovation management includes a set of tools that allow managers and engineers to...
- Open innovationOpen InnovationAlthough the idea and discussion about some consequences date back at least to the 60s, open innovation is a term promoted by Henry Chesbrough, a professor and executive director at the Center for Open Innovation at the University of California, Berkeley, in his book Open Innovation: The new...
Open innovation intermediaries
- DisintermediationDisintermediationIn economics, disintermediation is the removal of intermediaries in a supply chain: "cutting out the middleman". Instead of going through traditional distribution channels, which had some type of intermediate , companies may now deal with every customer directly, for example via the Internet...