Exnovation

Exnovation means the process of terminating a practice, or the use of a technology or product, within an organization, community, or society. Put simply, it can be described as the opposite of innovation. Exnovation has also been described as the "flipside of innovation", ^[1] or the "lesser-known sibling of innovation". ^[2]

In commerce and management, exnovation can occur when products and processes that have been tested and confirmed to be best-in-class are standardized to ensure that they are not innovated further. ^{[3] [4] [5] [6]} Companies that have followed exnovation as a strategy to improve organizational performance include General Electric, Ford Motor Company and American Airlines. ^[7]

One of the earliest usages of the term came in 1981, when John Kimberly referred to "removal of innovation from an organisation". ^[8] In 1996 A. Sandeep provided a modern definition of exnovation as the philosophy of not innovating – in other words, ensuring that best-in-class entities are not innovated further. Since then "exnovation" has become a notable parlance in various practices, from management to medicine. ^{[9] [10] [11] [12] [13] [14]}

In recent years, the concept has been increasingly taken up in sustainability and transition research to designate and investigate the deliberate phase-out of unsustainable technologies, products, and practices, particularly in relation to energy transitions and a coal phase-out. ^{[15] [16] [17]}

Exnovation and innovation are interrelated: "On the one hand, exnovating products and practices creates spaces for new products and practices. On the other hand, the promise of a new product or practice helps eliminating old products and practices." ^[2]

See also

• Collaborative innovation network  –a social construct used to describe innovative teams
• Design strategy
• Diffusion of innovations  –a theory that seeks to explain how, why, and at what rate new ideas and technology spread through cultures
• Frugal innovation  –process of reducing the complexity and cost of a good and its production
• Ideas bank  –shared resource, usually a website, where people post, exchange, discuss, and polish new ideas
• Open innovation  –a paradigm that assumes that organizations can and should use external ideas as well as internal ideas
• Pro-innovation bias  –the belief that an innovation should be adopted by whole society without the need of its alteration
• Technology forecasting  –the prediction of future characteristics of useful technological machines, procedures or techniques
• Technology scouting  –a method of technology forecasting
• Nuclear power phase-out
• Coal phase-out
• Phase-out of incandescent light bulbs
• Phase-out of fossil fuel vehicles

References

1. David, Martin; Gross, Matthias (2019). "Futurizing politics and the sustainability of real-world experiments: what role for innovation and exnovation in the German energy transition?". Sustainability Science. 14 (4): 991–1000. doi: 10.1007/s11625-019-00681-0 . ISSN   1862-4057.
2. Ziegler, Rafael (2023). "Exnovation". Encyclopedia of Social Innovation. ISBN   978-1-80037-334-1.
3. "Exnovation!" (PDF). Archived from the original (PDF) on 2021-07-25. Retrieved 2022-01-28.
4. "Should You "Exnovate" your Product Portfolio? - Tech-Clarity". Tech-Clarity. 2009-08-11. Retrieved 2017-02-08.
5. "The Exnovation Conundrum". LDI. 2015-02-11. Archived from the original on 2017-08-14. Retrieved 2017-02-08.
6. "The Mother of all Innovations Exnovation". 4psbusinessandmarketing.com. Archived from the original on 2015-07-16. Retrieved 2017-02-08.
7. "Exnovation! -". Businessandeconomy.org. Retrieved 2017-02-08.
8. Kimberly, J.R. (1981) 'Managerial Innovation'. In Nystorm, P.C. and Starbuck, W.H. (eds) Handbook of Organizational Design. Amsterdam: Elsevier, pp. 84–104.
9. Rodriguez, H (2016). "The exnovation of chronic care management processes by physician organizations". Milbank Quarterly. 94 (3): 626–53. doi:10.1111/1468-0009.12213. PMC   5020147 . PMID   27620686.
10. Williams, I (2011). "Organizational readiness for innovation in health care: some lessons from the recent literature". Health Serv Manage Res. 24 (4): 213–8. doi:10.1258/hsmr.2011.011014. PMID   22040949. S2CID   5701683.
11. "Exnovation" (PDF). Safetyandquality.gov.au. Archived from the original (PDF) on 2019-04-06. Retrieved 2023-05-06.
12. Frank, Richard G.; Glied, Sherry A. (2008-04-01). Better But Not Well: Mental Health Policy in the United States since 1950. JHU Press. ISBN   9780801889103.
13. "The mother of all innovations - Exnovation". a--sandeep.blogspot.in. Retrieved 2017-02-08.
14. "What is 'Exnovation' and Where Does it Fit in the Innovation Life Cycle? | Innovation Management". www.innovationmanagement.se. 22 July 2009. Retrieved 2017-02-08.
15. Davidson, Debra J. (2019). "Exnovating for a renewable energy transition" . Nature Energy. 4 (4): 254–256. doi:10.1038/s41560-019-0369-3. ISSN   2058-7546. S2CID   256722280.
16. David, Martin (2017). "Moving beyond the heuristic of creative destruction: Targeting exnovation with policy mixes for energy transitions" . Energy Research & Social Science. 33: 138–146. doi:10.1016/j.erss.2017.09.023. ISSN   2214-6296.
17. Heyen, Dirk Arne; Hermwille, Lukas; Wehnert, Timon (2017). "Out of the Comfort Zone! Governing the Exnovation of Unsustainable Technologies and Practices" . GAIA - Ecological Perspectives for Science and Society. 26 (4): 326–331. doi:10.14512/gaia.26.4.9.