Place a Catalyst in Inventors' Social Networks

MARCO TORTORIELLO AND TWO COAUTHORS SINGLED OUT THE FEATURES OF INDIVIDUALS ABLE TO DOUBLE THE NUMBER OF PATENTS REGISTERED BY THEIR COLLEAGUES

A new study explores the roles supporting the innovation process inside an organization by investigating the social structures that lead individuals to facilitate and promote the innovativeness of their colleagues. These individuals, called “catalysts” of innovation, contribute to the innovative outputs of other researchers thanks to their network position and the type of knowledge they can access through their network.
 
Marco Tortoriello (Department of Management and Technology) Bill McEvily (University of Toronto) and David Krackhardt (Carnegie Mellon University) have published Being a Catalyst of Innovation: The Role of Knowledge Diversity and Network Closure in Organization Science (Vol. 26, Issue 2, doi: 10.1287/orsc.2014.0942).
 
It is now common knowledge that individuals’ ability to generate innovations is often the result of collaborative efforts. Researchers have tried to better understand the roles played by different actors involved in the innovation process inside an organization. So far, however, most of the attention has been devoted to innovators, while little is known about the other roles that instead support innovation in the organizational context. The lone inventor is more a myth than a reality in organizations, since innovation is primarily a collective endeavor. Therefore it becomes important to understand the network of relationships that exists around innovators, and in particular, how specific individuals in this network are able to contribute to the innovative outputs of their colleagues. The authors studied 276 researchers in the R&D division of a large multinational high-tech company and analyzed the impact of having innovation catalysts in one’s network on the average number of patents generated by an inventor. Findings reveal that having at least one innovation catalyst in an inventor’s network doubled the inventor’s scientific productivity measured in terms of patents.
 
But what makes an individual a catalyst? Catalysts are able to stimulate and enhance the development of new ideas in their colleagues by providing them with knowledge that is relevant. Furthermore, they are recognized as key contributors to the innovation generating process by the very same colleagues they help. This means that the position that catalysts occupy in the innovator’s network, together with the type of knowledge they can access, is a crucial factor enabling the individual capacity to act as a catalyst. Researchers not willing to share their knowledge with colleagues or unaware that this knowledge might be needed by others cannot act as catalysts. And this knowledge-sharing activities can happen only if there are overlapping ties to common third parties, which means that the individual is in a closed network. Then, if the researcher’s position in the network is such that she/he is able to access knowledge that is diverse from the one already possessed by the innovator, then the catalyst role becomes possible and can play a crucial role for the innovation process.
 
Overall, this study, by bridging attention to the almost invisible but crucial role played by catalysts, helps us to better understand the role of all those who contribute to the generation of new ideas. Therefore, this gives us important insights on the importance of nurturing the collective nature of innovation in organizations.

by Paola Zanella