Rethinking Technological Innovation: Where to Settle Between Material Space and Value Space?

When an existing market space is challenged by creative disruptions (Schumpeter, 1942), organizations need to strategically re-position themselves in both material and value space. Material space encompasses an innovation’s physical attribute, practice, or design, whereas value space represents how the innovation is judged, evaluated, or imbued with meanings. Navigating these two spaces simultaneously can be difficult. This symposium seeks to understand how firms manage conflicts across material space and value space during technological innovation. We include four papers to examine how 1) firms bring values to technological innovation through technology positioning in material space, and how 2) institutional structures that establish orders for material space affect valuation of technological innovation during commercialization. These four papers employ a variety of methods – ranging from archival, qualitative, and quantitative – to study these issues. Authors of this symposium are experts on the proposed theme and have extensively published on innovation, value, and meaning creation. We believe this symposium will advance the field by proposing a holistic approach to examine technological innovation. Back to the Future: Technology Re-emergence through the Lens of Music Synthesizers Presenter: Andrew Nelson; U. of Oregon Presenter: Callen Anthony; New York U. Presenter: Mary Tripsas; Boston College Product Differentiation Along the Technology Lifecycle Presenter: Stine Grodal; Boston U. Presenter: Fernando Suarez; Northeastern U. Ambiguity, Typicality, Misclassification, and Valuation: Deep Learning for Tech Innovation Position Presenter: Balazs Kovacs; Yale School of Management Presenter: Gael Le Mens; U. Pompeu Fabra Presenter: Michael Hannan; Professor at Stanford U. Graduate School of Business The Entrepreneurial Commercialization of Academic Science: Evidence from “Twin” Discoveries Presenter: Matt Marx; Boston U. Questrom School of Business Presenter: David Hsu; The Wharton School, U. of Pennsylvania