The Ontology of Innovation: Human Agency in the Pursuit of Novelty

Jerry Courvisanos

History of Economics Review, 2007, vol. 45, issue 1, 41-59

Abstract: This paper develops an analysis of innovation based on Allen Oakley’s (2002) primary themes of ontological priority, agency-structure and critical realism. I develop a history of thought and contemporaneous endogenous view of innovation in an environment of uncertainty, potential novelty and policy priority. Drawing on the literature of Austrian, institutional, Schumpeterian, Penrosean and other schools, I explore a continuum of agency-structure relationships that enhance innovation. These relationships cover environments that are based on agency and contingency, through to those that balance contingency with containment (structure), and situations that are heavily contained. The literature on innovation is investigated vis-à-vis the degree to which different environments encourage creative, original marketable opportunities for the common good. Innovation policy-making is then investigated through the traverse process of irreversibility, and within a retroductionist planning process. Overall, I seek to advance the cause of realism through innovations generated in different environments.

Date: 2007
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DOI: 10.1080/18386318.2007.11681236

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