Dark innovation

Ryan MacNeil

Chapter 42 in Elgar Encyclopedia of Innovation Management, 2025, pp 162-165 from Edward Elgar Publishing

Abstract: Dark innovation refers to any phenomenon that is hidden, obscured, or ‘written off’ by collectively held beliefs about innovation. The term was first used as a metaphor—alluding to the dark matter problem in physics—to point out that a great deal of innovation activity cannot be observed or measured using current methods. It has since been used to show how common biases about innovation—like the pro-innovation bias and the neoliberal bias—keep people ‘in the dark’ about a wide variety of other innovation forms, processes, and consequences. However, dark innovation is not a finite category that can be fully mapped or explored. Instead, it is a call to deconstruct assumptions about ‘what counts’ in innovation research, policy, and practice. Innovation tools and techniques were built with only certain forms of innovation in mind. Everything else is dark innovation.

Keywords: Dark innovation; Research methods; Gap spotting; Problematization; Valuation (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2025
ISBN: 9781035306442
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