Special issue of Mind and Society on “Cultural and Cognitive Dimensions of Innovation

In the Volume 12, Issue 1, June 2013 of Mind and Society: Special issue on “Cultural and Cognitive Dimensions of Innovation" edited and introduced by Petra Ahrweiler and Riccardo Viale.

From the introduction:

“…The best historical example of the two stages of the identification of the problem/opportunity and the generation of a solution is that of Joseph Biro, the inventor of the ballpoint pen. As a journalist, he considered the fountain pens of the early twentieth century inadequate for his work. As he watched some children in Buenos Aires playing with marbles on the wet tarmac, he noticed that these left a trail on the ground as they rolled. Reasoning by analogy, he had the idea of a sphere that could guide the ink inside a pen. He patented the idea, which was developed and led to the creation of the ballpoint pen. Individual and social cognitive psychology is able to study the various stages of an innovative process. Creativity and problem solving are not the only possible subjects of cognitive analysis, so is the more socio-economic dimension, like the reasons that make a new product an innovation, because they manage to satisfy latent needs; the cognitive mechanisms of comprehension, acceptance and choice of a new product; the propensity to innovate, seen in the light of the representation of the risk and the decision-making activity of the innovating agent, etc.”

Table of Contents:

Marian Adolf, Jason L. Mast, Nico Stehr: The foundations of innovation in modern societies: the displacement of concepts and knowledgeability

Jason L. Mast: Cultural theory and its spaces for invention and innovation

Miles MacLeod, Nancy J. Nersessian: The creative industry of integrative systems biology

Lorenzo Magnani: Scientific innovation as eco-epistemic warfare: the creative role of on-line manipulative abduction

Andrea Lavazza, Riccardo Manzotti: An externalist approach to creativity: discovery versus recombination

Petra Ahrweiler, Mark T. Keane: Innovation networks

Anne Beaulieu, Matt Ratto, Andrea Scharnhorst: Learning in a landscape: simulation-building as reflexive intervention

Scott Dexter, Aaron Kozbelt: Free and open source software (FOSS) as a model domain for answering big questions about creativity

Emanuele Bardone, Ilya Shmorgun: Ecologies of creativity: smartphones as a case in point

Alkim Almila Akdag Salah, Albert Ali Salah: Flow of innovation in deviantArt: following artists on an online social network site

Nona Schulte-Römer: Fair framings: arts and culture festivals as sites for technical innovation

Christian Barrère: Heritage as a basis for creativity in creative industries: the case of taste industries