Robert D. Austin

Accidental Innovation: Supporting Valuable Unpredictability in the Creative Process

Historical accounts of human achievement suggest that accidents can play an important role in innovation. In this paper, we seek to contribute to an understanding of how digital systems might support valuable unpredictability in innovation processes by examining how innovators who obtain value from accidents integrate unpredictability into their work. We describe an inductive, grounded theory project, based on 20 case studies, that looks into the conditions under which people who make things keep their work open to accident, the degree to which they rely on accidents in their work, and how they incorporate accidents into their deliberate processes and arranged surroundings. By comparing makers working in varied conditions, we identify specific factors (e.g., technologies, characteristics of technologies) that appear to support accidental innovation. We show that makers in certain specified conditions not only remain open to accident but also intentionally design their processes and surroundings to invite and exploit valuable accidents. Based on these findings, we offer advice for the design of digital systems to support innovation processes that can access valuable unpredictability.

Research Commentary---Weighing the Benefits and Costs of Flexibility in Making Software: Toward a Contingency Theory of the Determinants of Development Process Design

In recent years, flexibility has emerged as a divisive issue in discussions about the appropriate design of processes for making software. Partisans in both research and practice argue for and against plan-based (allegedly inflexible) and agile (allegedly too flexible) approaches. The stakes in this debate are high; questions raised about plan-based approaches undermine longstanding claims that those approaches, when realized, represent maturity of practice. In this commentary, we call for research programs that will move beyond partisan disagreement to a more nuanced discussion, one that takes into account both benefits and costs of flexibility. Key to such programs will be the development of a robust contingency framework for deciding when (in what conditions) plan-based and agile methods should be used. We develop a basic contingency framework in this paper, one that models the benefit/cost economics described in narratives about the transition from craft to industrial production of physical products. We use this framework to demonstrate the power of even a simple model to help us accomplish three objectives: (1) to refocus discussions about the appropriate design of software development processes, concentrating on when to use particular approaches and how they might be usefully combined; (2) to suggest and guide a trajectory of research that can support and enrich this discussion; and (3) to suggest a technology-based explanation for the emergence of agile development at this point in history. Although we are not the first to argue in favor of a contingency perspective, we show that there remain many opportunities for information systems (IS) research to have a major impact on practice in this area.

Creative, convergent, and social: Prospects for mobile computing

This paper highlights the over-arching themes salient in the rapidly converging mobile computing industry. Increasingly, the developers of mobile devices and services are looking toward exploratory, non-determinist or, user-driven development methodologies in an effort to cultivate products that consumers will consistently pay for. These include Design Thinking, Living Labs, and other forms of ethnography that embrace serendipity, playfulness, error, and other human responses that have previously rested outside the orthodoxy of technology design. Secondly, the mobile device is likely the worlds foremost social computer. Mobile vendors seeking to foster the production, propagation, and consumption of content on mobile devices are increasingly viewing the challenge as a complex social phenomenon, not a merely a well-defined technology problem. Research illustrating these themes is presented.

Beyond requirements: software making as art

Quality is meeting requirements - or is it? The authors challenge this familiar metaphor for requirements and introduce a new one based on their experience in an industry that seems far from software development or is it?.

Bridging the gap between stewards and creators

This publication contains reprint articles for which IEEE does not hold copyright. Full text is not available on IEEE Xplore for these articles.

Not just a pretty face: economic drivers behind the arts‐in‐business movement

Purpose – Interest in the uses and effects of art and methods of art making in businesses of all kinds is on the rise. In this paper, we show that the “arts‐in‐business movement” is no mere fad, that it is, in fact, driven by fundamental economic forces, two tectonic shifts moving the business world. Financial crises and other like disruptions not withstanding, these shifts will increasingly influence how companies, especially those based in developed economies, compete. Consequently, business success in a not‐too‐distant future will, for many companies, require a new understanding of art and art making, a sophisticated appreciation of, and a feel for, aesthetic principles.Design/methodology/approach – We develop an economics and business strategy based model using historical facts and empirical patterns to illustrate how two tectonic shifts now gathering force and momentum will change the way businesses, especially those based in developed economies, compete. The first shift, toward differentiation based...

Kiva as a Test of Our "Societal Creativity" Innovations Case Discussion: Kiva.org

els. Their use of technology to connect Westerners who have money with people in the developing world who need small loans to start businesses achieves both economic and social benefits. It creates a form of valuable exchange that could not easily have occurred before widespread use of the Internet. Unlike many other platforms of exchange, Kiva adds to the world’s overall wellbeing in a way that conveys major benefits to a group that often misses out on the biggest advantages of economic interaction: those who (as economists might put it) lack significant initial wealth endowments. Getting this special kind of value creation going required that Matt Flannery, his wife Jessica, and other early members of the team at Kiva surmount major challenges. As impressive and interesting as their story is, though, Kiva’s significance as a test of our own societal capabilities might be even more important. Kiva’s founders were tested in the sense that entrepreneurs usually are. They had to get things to work that never had before, to build technology, systems, and relationships that would enable beneficial interactions. But what emerges most clearly from this story is that it also presents a test of our societal institutions, organizations, individual and group inclinations, and much more. If Kiva represents a new form of exchange that creates value, if all parties involved in it wish to participate in that exchange, if this activity harms no one in any obvious way, and yet the inertia of existing ways of doing things fails to permit that, then who has really failed a test? Framed this way, the social welfare stakes seem very high. As we move more deeply into the 21 century, the measure of our institutions may be how effectively they can adapt to new forms of value creation, especially technology-enabled forms that produce social returns in addition to strictly financial ones. This test may prove important commercially and competitively, as developed economies come to rely more on innovation to create economic value. One Robert D. Austin

How aesthetics and economy become conversant in creative firms

Research on creative organizations often highlights a concern that economic influences on creative work might crowd out aesthetic influences. How this concern can be managed, however, is not well understood. Using a case study of an economic/aesthetic conflict within a design firm, we develop theory to describe how the economic and aesthetic can be constructively combined. We propose the concept of conversation as a way of theorizing a constructed sociality via which creative firms manage this conflict; we also propose the concept of ensemble as a way of theorizing a conversationally nurtured but fragile form of intensified sociality that most successfully combines conflicting influences when it can be achieved. Together, these theoretical conceptualizations contribute new insights and help organize a fragmented landscape of ideas about work in creative firms.