{"title":"Simultaneous Discovery–Invention in Corporate R&D: Lessons from the CRISPR Case","authors":"Quentin Plantec, Pascal Le Masson, Benoît Weil","doi":"10.1111/emre.12653","DOIUrl":null,"url":null,"abstract":"Some companies invest in fundamental research, but many struggle when developing novel in‐house scientific knowledge and integrating it into their new inventions. While the literature advocates revised approaches to better understand this phenomenon, we investigate the processes that lead to Simultaneous Discovery–Invention (SDI). By adopting an abductive process, we propose a model that highlights the mechanisms of SDI. Notably, we reveal that teams must preserve independence in creative exploration during scientific knowledge creation and invention generation while maintaining intensive original knowledge exchange among them. We also demonstrate that anomaly detection and peer validation mechanisms are mandatory for SDI. We evaluate our model with a case study in the food industry: the discovery that CRISPR–Cas9 is an adaptative defense immune system of bacteria and the associated innovations in this industry. Finally, we discuss the insights provided by our model and the implications of our case study.","PeriodicalId":47372,"journal":{"name":"European Management Review","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":3.4000,"publicationDate":"2024-05-05","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":"0","resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":null,"PeriodicalName":"European Management Review","FirstCategoryId":"91","ListUrlMain":"https://doi.org/10.1111/emre.12653","RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"管理学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":null,"EPubDate":"","PubModel":"","JCR":"Q2","JCRName":"MANAGEMENT","Score":null,"Total":0}
引用次数: 0
Abstract
Some companies invest in fundamental research, but many struggle when developing novel in‐house scientific knowledge and integrating it into their new inventions. While the literature advocates revised approaches to better understand this phenomenon, we investigate the processes that lead to Simultaneous Discovery–Invention (SDI). By adopting an abductive process, we propose a model that highlights the mechanisms of SDI. Notably, we reveal that teams must preserve independence in creative exploration during scientific knowledge creation and invention generation while maintaining intensive original knowledge exchange among them. We also demonstrate that anomaly detection and peer validation mechanisms are mandatory for SDI. We evaluate our model with a case study in the food industry: the discovery that CRISPR–Cas9 is an adaptative defense immune system of bacteria and the associated innovations in this industry. Finally, we discuss the insights provided by our model and the implications of our case study.
期刊介绍:
The European Management Review is an international journal dedicated to advancing the understanding of management in private and public sector organizations through empirical investigation and theoretical analysis. The European Management Review provides an international forum for dialogue between researchers, thereby improving the understanding of the nature of management in different settings and promoting the transfer of research results to management practice. Although one of the European Management Review"s aims is to foster the general advancement of management scholarship among European scholars and/or those academics interested in European management issues.