Grass Roots Innovation UNESCO Tim Turpin

7/27/2019 Grass Roots Innovation UNESCO Tim Turpin

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Grass Roots InnovationManagement

Basic Concepts, Definitions and Implications

Prepared and presented by Professor Tim Turpin, Centre forIndustry and Innovation Studies


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Outline of the Lecture

1. Basic concepts and definitions

2. Some examples of innovation in which todiscuss these concepts and illustratehow they can help with managing grass-roots innovation.

3. Ownership (?) of knowledge and what

this might mean .4. S&T Policy5. Project tasks


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But First

The context in which we are concernedwith innovation studies:

what are we concerned with and why? There are policy implications and very

practical implications for producers . Some of the work with which we are engaged

illustrates the implications of innovationstudies.


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Centre for Industry and Innovation Studies

(CInIS)Innovation Policy:

Enhancing Skills RecognitionSystems in ASEAN

ASEAN-AustraliaDevelopmentCooperation Program

SKILLS DEVELOPMENT AND MOBILITY WITHIN ASEAN

(Enhancing Skills Recognition Systems in ASEAN )OECD Study into WorkforceSkills and Innovation


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Centre for Industry and Innovation Studies

(CInIS)

Technology Innovation:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/wherestheid/620778806/http://www.flickr.com/photos/madrarua/719630321/http://www.flickr.com/photos/53674854@N00/138790022/


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Search

Strategic

selection Implementation

Innovation strategy

Innovativeorganization

Pro-active linkages

Learning

A typical modal of the innovationprocess

How does this model differ for grass-roots innovation?


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Innovation

A business definition: the introduction of

any new or significantly improved good orservice and/or implementation of any newor significantly improved operationaland/or organisational/managerial process.

So we can have: Product innovation: and/or Process innovation:


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Innovation

Also, there may be: Incremental innovation: which proceeds with small but

progressive changes; or,

Radical innovation: which introduces a totally newproduct or process.

The technology involved may be complex andsophisticated such as in development of thedigital camera, or it may be simple and easilyreproduced, such as a mouse trap.


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What are some of the core features

of grass roots innovation? Knowledge (local and beyond)

Knowing and understanding of problems

Creativity (ideas, play, experimentation) Understanding how creativity and knowledge can be applied

Resources needed for converting ideas and knowledge into application and

problem solving

Application (using, transferring, distributing) Making use of the innovation by self as well as by others.


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I d e a

s

InformationK n o w l e d g e

Innovation Application/Production


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Think about the ideas, information, learning, the problem andthe searching for solutions, the knowledge and the skills thatunderpin this innovation.

Lets consider some practical examplesof grass-roots innovation .


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Some questions from the film

clip What types of knowledge were used here?

What is being transferred: what to where? Can you identify the grass-roots

community? Who might be the potential producers?


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Some Concepts and Definitions

Knowledge: types of knowledge Information: forms of dissemination

Innovation: products and process Knowledge transfer Knowledge communities

Innovation Grass-roots innovation


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People are inherently creative, as they seeknew ways to solve problems and put ideasinto practice. The intensity of effort to thisregard is usually mediated by potential foruse.

A key issue for grass-roots innovation is forsociety more broadly to benefit from grass-

roots innovation. Unfortunately this is usually driven from a top-

down process. Grass-roots innovations seeks to achieve

benefits from the bottom-up.

A General Message


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But

In all cases, for innovation management

some thought needs to be given tomarkets as drivers of innovation.

Sometimes there may be market failureand in these cases there is the need to

think about the role of government andpossible interventions to overcome themarket failure.


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Lets consider a few examples

Table clothes made from pineapple fibre

Sun hats for travelling tourists

Agricultural production in off-shore

locations


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Information and knowledge

Knowledge and information have curious

properties: They can be sold and enter other domains butthey also remain within the domain of the

producer they do not have zero-sumqualities.Knowledge can be defined in a simple wayas a capacity for social action.

Knowledge empowers its possessors with thecapacity for intellectual or physical action.


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Information

Information on the other hand is presented

through structured and formatted data itremans passive until used by those withthe knowledge ti interpret and process it.

The transfer of knowledge takes place

through learning. The transfer of information takes place throughduplication


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Information

Information is knowledge reduced to messages

that can be transmitted and serve to reconstituteknowledge at a later time or place and by adifferent individual or group of individuals.

But not all knowledge can be codified asinformation. Think of a recipe and consider some knowledge that

might not be included in the information.


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Tacit and Codified Knowledge

Tacit knowledge is associated with skills or

know how and ideas; it is embedded inhuman action.

Codified knowledge is explicit, it can bespelled out and is embedded in designs,specifications, technologies and literature.


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9 Knowledge and ideas embedded in machines,

blueprints, instructions, patents and so on. It can bemoved like physical products to new locations and deployed. It can also be adapted and incrementally

developed. But that is part of a process of innovationand also requires tacit knowledge. The more complexthe technology the deeper the skill base required tooperate, service and maximise use of the technology.The status of codified knowledge in a country can bemeasured with indicators such as machinery imports,licensing agreements etc.

Codified knowledge


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The concept of tacit

knowledge:9 Technology has many tacit elements that

require a new user to build skills, knowledge andinstitutional routines. This includes experienceknow-how as well as know-how gained through

formal training. Mastery of these tacit elementsof knowledge is needed everywhere but isparticularly important for developing countries

where enterprises lack the initial base of technical skills on which to graft new technology.


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Individual and collective

knowledge Systems of intellectual property rights (patent,

copyright, design law etc) have provided forindividuals, firms or organisations to beendowed with the legal right to own and exploit

explicit knowledge.

More recently the concept of communityownership has (somewhat problematically)attempted to provide for community ownership of


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Knowledge Communities

An important part of the process of generation,

accumulation, and distribution of economicknowledge is achieved through communitiesacting as a nucleus of competence through the

daily practices of the community (Amin andCohendet, 2004).

Knowledge is reinforced, legitimised, reproducedand transmitted through community action.


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Production processes ?

Lets talk aboutprocesses.


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Handling processes

All of these have the potential tobenefit from innovation


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Innovation Drivers

Firm based innovation strategies

To sell a product or service

Grass-roots innovation strategies To improve a product or a process

In both cases they require some sort of

incentive.


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The Innovation Imperative: some

important questions Is innovation undertaken to solve a

problem (for example to remove coal froma deeper open cut location) or, is itintended to generate profits from the sale

of new products or processes?

Is it core business or is it a productivespin-off, leading to new or differentbusiness?


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Intellectual Property Rights

The core legal framework protects intellectualproperty rights in three main ways:

Patents and trade secret laws serve to protect theowner from unlicensed use of technical information;

Copyright laws protect rights of creative expression; Trademark and design laws protect the use of

symbols signs and shapes in which products orservices are packaged.


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Copying and Adaptation

SMEs in East Java now produce good quality leather-ware. Atone time, they simply copied Western designs. Their employeeswould watch the carousels at the airport, waiting for examples of the latest designs from the most fashionable designers. They

made exact imitations, copying the brand name too. After warnings from the Indonesian government, they changed their

brands so that these merely resembled fashionable brands. They

have now begun to adapt the designs as well, and with change indesign, they have also begun to use their own brand names..

For development, copying is a creative, innovative and useful process


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9 National S&T policy is about knowledgeand how to capture the benefits of knowledge - local and global - for nationalbenefit.

9 S&T policy is not just concerned withhigh-tech it is concerned with deepeningthe knowledge base in all sectors old and

new.

What is S&T Policy?


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Who are the users?

And who are the potential producers?

Lets have a look at two examples.


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A project Task (1)

1. Consider the innovation described in the

two clips. Describe the nature of theproblem and the process that led to theinnovative outcome.

2. Who were the various interest groups

that might have been involved. Who arethe potential users? Who might be somepotential producers?


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A project Task (2)

3. What sorts of knowledge and information

were required to create the innovations.4. Does the market stimulate a demand for

such innovations?5. If there is a market failure how mightpolicy intervention replace the market inthis sort of case?


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A project Task (3)

6. You are a government official responsible forinnovation in this area. What informationwould you need to design a policy that wouldencourage these sorts of innovations?

7. What might be some of the key features of aninnovation management strategy that seeks to

raise knowledge, provide access to informationand promote commercialisation/ application of these sorts of new processes or products?

Grass Roots Innovation UNESCO Tim Turpin

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