Will the Innovation Drivers be Shaped by the Metaverses? A Theoretical Essay Based on a Systematic Mapping Study

The combination of metaverses and other recent technologies has sparked innovations in different industries. Driven by this motivation, our work aimed to articulate a theoretical essay covering the potential for innovation in the metaverses and its impacts on sociotechnical relations. Initially, a systematic mapping study was carried out, which allowed us to provide an analytical view of how the metaverse has been discussed in the light of innovation research. Then, we designed a framework (called MetaInnovation) grounded on the innovation drivers as elements of these sets of physical (domain) and metaverse (image) realities that are linked by the technologies that mediate these two worlds (realities). To the best of our knowledge, this is the first work which (i) conducts a systematic mapping study about the intersection between innovation and metaverse and (ii) offers an approach to address these specific sociotechnical constructs regarding metaverse innovation.