Is Assimilation

User Innovation
Entrepreneurial Strategies and IP issues
Dr. Stefan Haefliger, December 20, 2011Course modules
✓ Innovation models: organizing for innovation
1Invention and flexibility✓
✓ Knowledge management in firms and across firms
✓ Augmented product innovation 2
✓ Community access
Entrepreneurial strategies 3
Incentives and IP issues
2Stefan Haefliger | Strategic Management & Innovation | shaefliger@ethz.chCourse agenda: Sept - Dec 2011
Dates Agenda Presenter Location Reading assignment
Sept 20, 2011 Introduction to User Innovation SH HG D 16.2 von Hippel, 2005, chapters 1&2
Sept 27, 2011 Innovation Models SH HG D 16.2 von Hippel and von Krogh, 2003
Oct 4, 2011 Invention & Flexibility SH HG D 16.2 Faulkner and Runde, 2009
Oct 11, 2011 Augmented Product Innovation Fotini Pachidou HG D 16.2 von Krogh, et al., 2000
Oct 18, 2011 Knowledge Management SH HG D 16.2
Oct 25, 2011 Guest lecture by Prof. Marion Poetz, CBS Marion Poetz HG D 16.2
Nov 1, 2011 Student presentations SH HG D 16.2
Nov 8 & 15 no lecture
Nov 22, 2011 Community Access SH HG D 16.2 von Krogh, 1998; Kozinets, 2002
Nov 29, 2011 Student presentations Students HG D 16.2
Dec 6, 2011 Guest lecture by F. Gregaard, Saxo Bank F. Gregaard HG D 16.2
Dec 13, 2011 Student presentations Students HG D 16.2
Dec 20, 2011 Entrepreneurial Strategies & IP issues Students / SH HG D 16.2 Baldwin et al., 06; Sarasvathi, 01
Stefan Haefliger | Strategic Management & Innovation | shaefliger@ethz.ch 3Contents
Introduction to research on entrepreneurship
Recap: the structurational model
Development and exploitation of entrepreneurial opportunities
Users as entrepreneurs: the case of rodeo kayaking
The theory of causation
The theory of effectuation
Course evaluation
4Stefan Haefliger | Strategic Management & Innovation | shaefliger@ethz.chThe study of entrepreneurship
Entrepreneurship is: the pursuit of opportunities beyond the resources currently 
controlled (Stevenson and Jarillo, 1990) OR how and by whom opportunities are
discovered, evaluated, and exploited (Shane and Venkatraman, 2000).
Research on the opportunities, the entrepreneurs, and the modes of exploiting the 
opportunities
Discovery and Exploitation
Opportunity Entrepreneur
Contingencies and options
5Stefan Haefliger | Strategic Management & Innovation | shaefliger@ethz.chEntrepreneurial opportunities
Definition 1: Entrepreneurial opportunities exist as economic 
gaps and require the discovery of new means-ends relationships.
New resource-combinations can lead to prices above production
costs.
Definition 2: A set of individually perceived social and economic 
facts. An idiosyncratic perspective creates the opportunity
through social interaction.
6Stefan Haefliger | Strategic Management & Innovation | shaefliger@ethz.chRecap: Technology in organizations
The structurational model
Structuration theory (A. Giddens)
Duality of technology
Interpretive flexibility of technology
 Design mode
 Use mode
Components of the model
 Individual actor
 Organization structure
 Technology (artifact)
7Stefan Haefliger | Strategic Management & Innovation | shaefliger@ethz.chDuality of technology
Technology as the product of human action that also assumes 
structural properties
Technology is physically constructed by actors in a social context 
AND
Technology is socially constructed by the actors through the 
meanings they attach to it in emphasis and use (Orlikowski,
1992)
Thus: neither objective force nor socially constructed product 
alone
8Stefan Haefliger | Strategic Management & Innovation | shaefliger@ethz.chInterpretive flexibility
Design and use often separated, creating a limited perception of 
technology
 User innovators who become entrepreneurs can combine both
Interpretive flexibility is not infinite: constrained by
 material characteristics (energy, format etc.)
 institutional context (legitimation, signification etc.)
 levels of knowledge and power of the agent
9Stefan Haefliger | Strategic Management & Innovation | shaefliger@ethz.chDiscovery and development of entrepreneurial
opportunities
Information corridors and prior knowledge
 Background and education
 User needs
Cognitive properties
 Ability to visualize means-ends relationships
 Risk perception differs across individuals
 Co-evolution of opportunity and individual
perception, interpretation, action,
consequence, and reflection
10Stefan Haefliger | Strategic Management & Innovation | shaefliger@ethz.ch