基于科学的创新失败挽救:扩展适应视角

The Failure Rescue of Science-based Innovation:from the Perspective of Exaptation

基于科学的创新具有失败率极高的特点,对其失败(项目)进行挽救可减少创新资源浪费,提升相关产业创新绩效,具有可观的经济价值和社会意义。采用多案例方法,从扩展适应视角研究发现,基于科学的创新失败挽救过程由新功能意义建构、基于扩展适应的商业化实现及持续扩展适应3个阶段构成;在基于科学的创新领域,扩展适应是一种重要的失败挽救机制;机缘巧合触发基于扩展适应的挽救机会形成,已存在扩展适应的创新生态系统是挽救创新失败的实现条件,多次、持续的扩展适应可不断挖掘和释放失败项目的创新价值。结论可丰富基于科学的创新和创新失败挽救相关理论研究,为创新管理实践、政策制定等提供理论参考。

Science-based innovation has become the key for China to break the technology blockade from aboard,accomplish the catching-up and achieve the leapfrogging development.science-based innovation is characterized by the huge uncertain-ty and failure rate.The failure rescue of science-based innovation can reduce the waste of innovation resources,and im-prove the innovation performance in science-based industries,which has considerable economic value and social signifi-cance.Based on the long-term observation and follow-up studies,it has been found that the failure of science-based inno-vation is mainly related to the failure of a specific product or innovation project,and it is not equivalent to the failure of the scientific discovery of this product or innovation project.In reality,there are a large number of innovation projects that ini-tially failed,and they are reborn because the new transformation directions and application fields for the scientific discover-y have been refound.In these cases,the exaptation is an important theoretical perspective that needs to attract great atten-tions in failure rescue of science-based innovation.The main feature of exaptation is the discovery of certain unexpected functions,which has important enlightening sig-nificance and guiding value for the failure rescue of science-based innovation.Before science-based innovation is launched,the rational decision-makers have already conducted the greatest possible analysis of factors related to the success of the in-novation,such as the characteristics of scientific discoveries,the market demand,the competitive technologies,and the supporting environments etc.They strive to find a convergence point between the uniqueness of science-based technology and the scarcity of the market.If science-based innovation still fails after such rational analysis,a new application direction ought to be found in a new application field to obtain the failure rescue opportunities by the functional transformation,un-expected and accidental element involvements,and so on.Therefore,exaptation is the highly valued guiding ideology in the failure rescue of science-based innovation.A multi-case study is conducted to explore the process mechanism about how to rescue the failures of science-based in-novation from the perspective of exaptation.The four cases of Dapoxetine,Minoxidil,Sildenafil and Thalidomide have been selected as the samples.In data collection,the extensive secondary data have been gathered from heterogeneous sources,including the official websites,industry websites,academic research literatures,and public audio and video inter-views with relevant scientists and enterprise executives.The proceduralised grounded theory has been applied in data pro-cessing,and the step-by-step coding has been carried out following the process of open coding,axial coding and selective coding.The analysis framework based on the existing theories,such as science-based innovation and innovation ecosys-tem,provides guidance for the labeling,conceptualization and categorization of data in the coding process.The research findings reveal that the exaptation reflects an important failure rescue mechanism of science-based inno-vation.The failure rescue process of science-based innovation is composed of three stages.(1)In the first stage of the sense-making of the new function,the innovators establish a link between the potential function of scientific discovery and the needs in a new application area,forming a product conception based on the potential function and defining a new prod-uct to meet the market demands in that application area.The serendipity triggers the formation of the failure rescue op-portunities based on exaptation,which is the way humans perceive the unknown world.(2)In the second stage of the commercialization based on the exaptation,the existing innovation ecosystem for the exaptation is an important condition for the failure rescue of science-based innovation.In the process of the failure rescue of science-based innovation,the basic architecture of the innovation ecosystem must be set up before the former scientific discovery is transferred into the new application areas.The existing innovation ecosystem can support the potential function definition,commercialization of the exaptation by providing the necessary sources and capabilities for the innovations.(3)In the last stage of continuous exap-tation,the multiple exaptation can release the innovation value of the failed projects constantly.With the successful sense-making of the potential value of the failed project and the successful commercialization in new application areas,the inno-vation ecosystem around exaptation has also been developed.The interactions between the innovators are more frequent,and the flows and impacts of information,resources and talents from heterogeneous sources are further reinforced,which increase the occurrence possibilities of a new round of serendipity,promoting continuous exaptation based on more poten-tial functions.Moreover,this study finds that exaptation reflects the failure rescue mechanism both in science-based inno-vation and the technology-based innovation.In these two kinds of innovations,there are differences in the conditions of in-novation ecosystem and the key activities in the failure rescue process.