Innovation serendipity

Some of the most significant inventions, which seem to have happened by chance or serendipity, on closer examination often prove to have been the results of many years of endeavour and the accumulation of large amounts of data. In other words without the researcher having a goal and a chance to experiment, little would have happened. Why some people can work for years, accumulate vast amounts of knowledge, and still not be creative is another matter. Even the creative individual will under use this talent if the climate and stimulus for it to flourish are wrong for that particular person. Never underestimate the importance of the individual in the process of creation and innovation. 

This does not mean that the chemist has to rely entirely on serendipity in designing new pesticide families. Major innovations are increasingly the result of planned research. Knowledge of specific enzymes and their reactive groups, of metabolic pathways and of bioactive substances of natural origin may form the basis of various hypotheses in pesticide research. 

To the Innovator, flexibility means an openness to information exchange. They are very flexible and will listen to almost anything. This is probably why serendipity occurs. An innovator thinks, "Hum, I don t know. Let s try it."... 

Figure 3-9 includes some of the other factors that are not lead markets factors, but either support the lead market factors or they are the result of the lead market role of a market. For instance, supporting and related industries that are internationally competitive can support the export advantage and therefore the lead nuir-ket role of a country in an industry. Factor endowments such as physical resourc es and availability of capital can influence the lead market factors such as the factor price advantage. The availability of financial resources, sources of technical and market knowledge, can support the lead market factors, but they are mainly considered a result of the early adoption of an innovation by a market. In section 33 in particular I address the question of how national technical superiority is related to the lead market role of countries. Finally, chance is a determinant of many processes in the economy. As mentioned above (2.4), in models of technical choice under externalities historical accidents are considered mainly responsible for the outcome. Chance controls a basic invention based on serendipity (inven-tions-by-chance) and oil price shocks, war and political shifts. It can be expected that chance may play a role in the lead market processes as well. The lead market system is therefore not a deterministic theory. However, this thesis is predominantly about nation-specific attributes or national success factors that support the lead market function of a country as well. In this chapter I will describe these nation-specific lead factors. 

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