assumption is that innovation in these spaces is related to absorptive capacity (Cohen and Levinthal 1990) – an ability of the organization to identify the value of new information, to assimilate it and apply it for commercial purposes. This capacity depends on knowledge and skills already acquired by the firm’s actors in their past exploration and exploitation of technologies and markets. In fact, there is a form of path dependency (Antonelli 1997; Belussi and Sedita 2009) guiding new explorations of new ideas to extend existing knowledge bases, in order to develop innovation. These pathways allow for faster progress in the learning process to innovate.
A second “centrifugal” perspective is that of widening the space for innovation by opening up organizational boundaries. Organizational boundaries tend to lock individuals and groups into cognitions that are too similar, and this is reinforced by social reproduction mechanisms (Bourdieu and Passeron 1970), which can induce, at a more macro level, paradigms that lock the organization into a dominant logic that can restrict its capacity to innovate (Prahalad and Bettis 1995; Kor and Mesko 2013). This lack of openness would explain the inability of certain large firms (such as Kodak, Ericsson and Motorola) to innovate when they had all the knowledge and human capital necessary to do so. Consequently, this perspective underscores the importance of de-embedding relationships and interactions for the contribution of new ideas and knowledge, particularly through the strength of weak ties (Granovetter 1985). The hypothesis here is that innovation depends on a combined capacity to identify, capture and integrate knowledge or resources for innovation into the established organization (Teece et al. 1997). In contrast to the absorptive capacity approach, it is less the stock than the flow which guides innovation paths.
However, too much openness can be counterproductive for two reasons. On one hand, firms run the risk of rapid imitation by competitors, hence the importance of forms of protection for their intellectual property. On the other hand, a multiplication of interaction spaces can end up generating too much noise, too much information that is difficult to combine, leading to misunderstanding and dispersion in the end. In fact, openness does not need to be complete for an organization. It is more a question of creating porosity through specific connections from internal space to external space, by leveraging technologies in the form of licensing or spin-offs, and also from external space to internal space by including new technologies from other networks (Chesbrough 2012).
However, these two perspectives are not incompatible. A balanced approach allows us to understand that innovation needs both centripetal and centrifugal movements to advance more quickly and efficiently. In the beginning, innovation may need some form of protection, even though this incubation does not take place in a vacuum. The metaphor of the baby as a fetus can be enlightening here. The fragility of the fetus presupposes its protection in the womb. Although isolated and nourished in the amniotic fluid, the baby remains in contact with the world. After birth, interaction and openness become more fundamental. Innovation needs porosity and connectivity in a balanced way at different times and in different contexts. Moreover, business incubators have two functions of protection and intermediation, as Amezcua et al. (2013) have pointed out. Beyond the spaces dedicated to innovation, this duality is inherent to any organization, which like a living organism, contracts and expands, explores and exploits, opens and closes, specializes and diversifies, etc. Thinking of innovation as any complex phenomenon implies not opposing opposites but thinking of them in a complementary relationship (Morin 2005).
Thus, rather than two opposing movements, they are two complementary movements: (1) a protective delimitation movement to concentrate resources, develop expertise and make sense (Weick et al. 2005) in a given space to allow innovation to emerge and (2) a reticular enlargement movement to develop resources, nourish expertise and make sense (Gioia and Chittipeddi 1991) to allow innovation to unfold. These movements can be understood as forms of coupling (Weick 1976) inherent in organizations and systems. Sometimes, an organization decouples itself from its environment in order to constitute and preserve a form of integrity. Sometimes, it couples with its environment to develop and assert a form of legitimacy (Pache and Santos 2013). This complementarity argues for a conception of change and innovation as permanent organizational processes (Tsoukas and Chia 2002), a continuous process of perpetual organizational emergence.
2.2.2. Developing links within and outside the spaces
The classic players in innovation are the designated specialists: R&D engineers, designers, product developers, actors of change in production processes, etc. By broadening the perimeter or space for innovation, the innovation players are also multiplied. Thus, anyone involved in the design of new products and processes becomes an innovator (Dyer et al. 2009), as well as anyone who transforms them into opportunities (Shane and Venkataraman 2000) in organized forms (Gartner 2017). In recent years, we have observed a democratization of these two roles that were previously specialized and reserved for a minority (Audretsch 2007). This democratization goes hand in hand with the idea that innovation is a permanent process of an organization’s evolution, which is circumscribed in time and delimited within certain organizational boundaries. It seems to accelerate with the possibility of everyone participating and contributing systematically to innovation in the firm, thanks to the potential of information and communication technologies, opening up a networked society (Castells 2000).
Taking this democratization of innovation one step further, every employee is now a potential innovator: they are encouraged to propose ideas and formalize them in a system that allows them to be selected and developed with the support of the company. Thus, companies have set up innovation systems that allow all employees to participate in the innovation effort. A variety of systems to support the genesis of novelty under various names have therefore emerged: organizational creativity, participative innovation, etc. These approaches make it possible to increase the level of knowledge (Cohen and Levinthal 1990). Through new combinations, this improves the absorption capacity of the company, by seeking new ideas and knowledge in close connection with established knowledge. These approaches are useful because they increase the internal knowledge base and allow it to be renewed by adding new knowledge, circulated by internal, rather than external actors (Laviolette et al. 2016). They are also interesting because they allow the actors of the firm to free themselves from the organizational routines of innovation creation, particularly in the delimited spaces of R&D, where innovation is legitimate, to experiment and test in the margins of the organization, other forms of innovation, making it possible to multiply the dynamic capacity of the firm 10-fold. These devices promote and support already existing forms of innovation operating in interstices, which have sometimes been difficult to recognize or have even been rejected by the dominant currents in the firm. The emblematic examples of the post-it or Nespresso, or even microcomputing explain that innovation, especially radical innovation, often takes place in the margins because it breaks away from the dominant models (Christensen et al. 2015).
The identification of these emerging ideas and the recognition of their bearers are the first steps for their development within the organization. However, the company should not stop there. Once the “good ideas” have been selected, the support and development of these ideas involves obtaining resources and, above all, putting them in contact with other knowledgeable players, in order to turn the idea into an opportunity for the company internally or externally. It is at this level that incubation facilities can play a crucial role as dedicated spaces for transforming ideas into opportunities, whether they be products for a new market or processes to improve the organization itself. We find here, the importance of this phase, or centrifugal movement, to protect the development of the innovation idea through selected resources and links. However, even though the development of new knowledge is often protected, innovation spaces do not operate in a vacuum. They are connected to knowledge and information networks on technologies, markets and society as a whole. At the scale of a city, Simon (2009) demonstrates the importance of innovation communities operating in different social groups with different roles and activities. For a company located in this city that wants to benefit from this new knowledge, it is important to establish varied relationships with the actors in the different areas of innovation where the standards are not the same.
Thus. if intra-organizational links are important for the company, it is crucial to develop inter-organizational links