Networks: open, closed or complex. Connecting philosophy, design and innovation, part 3

This is the third and final paper of a series bringing a philosophical investigation to matters of design and innovation. With the others examining: first, the urges to reconsider innovation from a creative, specifically design, direction (‘Beyond Success’); and second, the type of dynamic innovation that may be thus reconsidered (‘Ecstatic Innovation’); this paper will investigate a way of constructing this type of design-driven innovation. It will begin by looking at the networks that can be created to deliver a dynamic, continually innovative innovation and will start by considering two concepts of network: the open and the closed. While there seems to be an easy distinction to be made between open and closed, and its mapping onto similarly convenient ideas of good and bad, I hope to show that this is not the case. The complexity of networked forms of organisation demand that we bring to them a complexity of thought that comes from philosophy. Nevertheless, such an account will also need to engage with discourses from other disciplinary areas: notably organisational theory, innovation management and design. The outcome is of importance to thinking the organisational structures in which innovation is managed.

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