Séminaire MOSAIC: Devaluation of ideas as an impulse of creativity

Alice Melchior, HafenCity University Hamburg

Abstract:

 This contribution to valuation studies investigates the dynamic value-negotiation process and its interplay of upvaluation and devaluation of an idea in the pharmaceutical innovation process in Germany. In contrast to innovation research this contribution does not focus on the implementation of a new pharmaceutical product at the market, but on the fuzzy-front end and the inherent value-negotiation process within non-linear innovation processes. Thereby this research contributes to previous valuation studies by focusing at research-inherent tensions in a knowledge-intensive innovation process. Using qualitative interviews, conducted with participants of the pharmaceutical R&D field and a two-week observation in a clinical research laboratory near Berlin, a neglected interplay of devaluation and upvaluation of knowledge within the innovation process could be identified.

Based on the empirical data it became apparent that there are a variety of ambivalences and research-inherent value dissonances within the pharmaceutical R&D which bases on different disciplinary, theoretical and methodological values. This ambivalence of values fosters a dynamic value-negotiation process with multiple process-intern and phase-intern tensions. By looking more closely at these tensions an interplay of devaluation and upvaluation of the idea within the pharmaceutical innovation process could be identified. Hereby devaluation is understood as a non-satisfying fulfillment of value requirements, while upvaluation is defined as adapting the core idea to a new value requirement. Within this interplay between devaluation and upvaluation, devaluation mostly occurs at the phase transitions as a value judgement, whereas upvaluation occurs mostly as a phase-intern process, which is triggered by its preceding devaluation. Hence devaluation can be understood as an impulse for upvaluation processes and creativity within the pharmaceutical innovation process.

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Ce contenu a été mis à jour le 2018-09-17 à 14 h 34 min.