Health care and construction industries in light of new global interaction patterns and local dependencies

Authors: Håkan Håkansson; Per Ingvar Olsen

This paper is about innovation in two industries where there at the same time are very strong local and global networks. The health care and the construction industries are both featured by the existence of these two types of networks and, as a consequence, a special interface between them. One interesting effect of this interface is that it creates specific innovation challenges and patterns. Global innovations have the problem that they tend to create complex ambiguities and controversies in diverse but tightly interacted, productive local networks. Local innovations may fit perfectly into the local network where it emerged, but typically do not have the resources behind them required to expand into other local networks, due to the frictions their introduction typically cause in those other production networks. As a consequence, local innovations in order to expand must typically be adopted and supported by some global network. In this work in progress paper we try to describe and discuss the differences and the antecedents of these differences between the local and the global networks in the two industries. We also give a couple of examples of innovation processes fighting with these problems

Journal: n.a. (n.a. – n.a.)

Web Address: n.a.

Publish Year: 2012

Conference: Rome, Italy (2012)

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