Reflection on “Innovation as a social problem”

by Sarah Kaplan

Sarah Kaplan started the seminar with the exciting topic of the rise and fall of
empires, an interesting example comparing empires to tech giants and large
corporations. The fact that creativity and innovation can lead to the
emergence of great powers, and this issue can be their Achilles' heel in the
future. This double-edged blade will finally cut the hand of its owner.

She pointed out that innovation is essential not only in the technology sector
but also in the design of management structures. Sometimes big companies
focus all their attention on product development based on technology and
neglect the development of innovation in management departments [signs of
functional stupidity]. She gave examples of this: IBM, Nokia, Kodak, etc. The
examples clearly showed the undue focus of large companies on products
that ultimately caused them to fail in the market. Then she displayed this
process using an Innovation S-curve(Figure 1); due to weak focus on
innovation lifecycles as a series of S-curves, firms fail at the discontinuity,
allowing new entrants to rise.

Figure 1 - Innovation S-Curves

In the following, she addressed two main questions in this regard:

- Does cognition matter?

- During a discontinuity, does cognition have a systematic effect on strategic

action that is distinct from alternative explanations, especially interests?
- If so, how?

- How do these processes relate to incentives and interests?


To answer these questions, she referred us to the article she wrote in this field
entitled “Framing Contests: Strategy Making Under Uncertainty. “ She
developed a model of framing contests (Figure 2) to elucidate how cognitive
frames influence organizational strategy-making.

Figure 2 - Framing Contests

This framing perspective indicates that frames are not only instrumental tools
for the established justification of actions taken through power but are a
planned part of the political process that produces decisions. Uncertainty
opens up the possibility for new actors to gain power, and contesting frames
is a way of changing the power structures in the organization(Kaplan et al.
2008). We can see the roots of functional stupidity in these procedures by
discussing political processes and uncertainty in decision-making.