Measuring Exaptation and Its Impact on Innovation, Search, and Problem Solving

Pierpaolo Andriani (), Ayfer Ali () and Mariano Mastrogiorgio ()
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Pierpaolo Andriani: Kedge Business School, 13288 Marseille, France
Ayfer Ali: Department of Business Administration, Universidad Carlos III de Madrid, 28903 Madrid, Spain
Mariano Mastrogiorgio: School of Business Administration, IE University, 28006 Madrid, Spain

Organization Science, 2017, vol. 28, issue 2, 320-338

Abstract: Exaptation, the emergence of latent functionality in existing artifacts, is an underexplored mechanism of novelty generation in innovation. In this paper, we measure the frequency of exaptation in the pharmaceutical industry. We find that about 42% of new functions derived from existing drugs have an exaptive nature. We think that this constitutes the first measure of exaptation in any industry. We also link exaptation with radical innovation and find that most radical innovations in our sample are exaptive. Also, nearly all radical innovations occur in market areas very distant from the drug’s original market. We propose that exaptive innovation constitutes a different search mechanism and problem-solving approach from deliberate innovation and discuss the role of context and serendipity in innovation.

Keywords: exaptation; innovation; radical innovation; pharmaceutical industry; search; problem solving (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2017
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (25)

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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:inm:ororsc:v:28:y:2017:i:2:p:320-338

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