WHAT IS CUMULATIVE INNOVATION? (WITH EXAMPLES) - CULTURE VOCABULARY - 2025

The cumulative innovation is the process of refinement, improvement and exploitation of existing ideas resulting in the creation of new innovations. This type of innovation is characterized by being predictable, reliable, low risk and having an evolutionary nature.

It basically consists of the implementation of small improvements in the time of processes, products or pre-existing organizational activities. These innovations generally respond to market demands.

Incremental innovations, as it is also known, differ from radical innovation. The latter is revolutionary in nature, breaks paradigms, far exceeds the advantages of old technology, and is high-risk.

Conditions for cumulative innovation

There are three necessary conditions for cumulative innovations to occur. The first one is outreach.

This implies making ideas or knowledge available to others without necessarily guaranteeing access to it. This is done through various mechanisms such as patents, publications, community forums or others.

The second condition is access. This ensures that knowledge is used cumulatively. By managing the reuse and recombination of access, the first generations of innovators control the use of their ideas by later generations.

This control is exercised through legal, regulatory or technical mechanisms. The last condition is the reward. Innovators need some kind of motivation to reveal their ideas and facilitate access to others.

These rewards can be intrinsic, remunerative or reciprocal with respect to other innovators. The slowing down of the distribution of rewards between different generations makes it difficult to accumulate knowledge.

Examples of cumulative innovation

Many times a cumulative innovation is born out of a radical one. Such is the case of the Apple iPhone. This represented a breakthrough over smartphones. Its improvements were substantial: larger touchscreen, introduction of the app store, various ease of use and an overall improved experience.

Another example of this kind of innovation is Google's free Gmail email service. With its constant improvements, it has managed to position itself at the top of preferences. At first it didn't stand out for having a lot of features, but it was relatively fast and easy to use.

Today this service is much more functional and has many simple and intuitive additional functions.

Likewise, the continuous innovations of Nike's footwear line can illustrate this point. They recently announced the first product with a lace-up adaptation platform and promise to launch a shoe that will automatically adjust based on the athlete's movement.

Patents and cumulative innovation

There are two ways to protect innovations: secrecy and patents. The latter offer the advantage of guaranteeing innovators that their inventions will not be exploited for some time. However, they also require disclosure.

Patents concern researchers because property rights over research results can hinder the progress of science, the free flow of new knowledge, and the dissemination of research results.

These, in some cases, can hinder, or at least delay, cumulative innovation.

References

1. Murray, F. and O'Mahony, S. (2007). Exploring the Foundations of Cumulative Innovation: Implications for Organization Science. In Organization Science, Vol. 18, No. 6, Nov-Dec, pp. 1006-1021.
2. Cooke, P. and Schwartz, D. (2008). Creative Regions: Technology, Culture and Knowledge Entrepreneurship. London: Routledge.
3. Evers, N., Cunningham, J. and Hoholm T. (2014). Technology Entrepreneurship: Bringing Innovation to the Marketplace. New York: Palgrave Macmillan.
4. Narayanan, VK and Colarelli O'Connor, G. (2010). Encyclopedia of Technology and Innovation Management. New Jersey: John Wiley & Sons.
5. Kishore, S. (2013). The power of incremental innovation. Recovered from wired.com
6. Long, C. (2000). Patents and Cumulative Innovation. In Washington University Journal of Law & Policy, Vol. 2, No. 6, pp. 229-246.
7. Erkal, N. (2003). The Decision to Patent, Cumulative Innovation, and Optimal Policy. University of Melbourne. Recovered from fbe.unimelb.edu.au.